Arts Union Science

“Some men just want the fight.”

On Episode 5 of the Arts Union Science Interdisciplinary Volume, we take a gander at what total war looked like 100 years ago through comparison of the documentary They Shall Not Grow Old and the action-spectacle 1917. Join your corresponding author (Tyler D. R. Vance) and this week’s first author (Alistair Blinn) as they put their collective (but not balanced) knowledge about World War I to the test against the likes of Peter Jackson and Sam Mendes. Along the way, they’ll question/vindicate the lack of war readiness in the modern era, marvel over the technical advances that allowed both movies to be made, and accidentally give free advertisement for TCL televisions. If you’d like to leave a review of our episode, feel free to email us at [email protected]. You can tell us if you accept our findings, accept them with revisions, or outright reject them.

“You’re in the pictures, now!”

P.S. The novel I couldn’t remember in the podcast is called “The War That Ended Peace” by Margaret MacMillan.

“Who would do that . . . to a friend?”

The Interdisciplinary Volume of the Arts Union Science podcast is alive and well with our fourth episode, which spins around the central axis of the film I, Tonya. Join your corresponding author (Tyler D. R. Vance) and this week’s primary author/sibling extraordinaire (Emily L. Vance) as they attempt to relive the multiple versions of the Tony Harding story as seen by the myriad of strange characters that surrounded it. Along the way, the intrepid Vance duo will also discuss the aesthetic pressure inherent to female-centric sports, the tenuous connections the film has to Bo Burnham’s new special Inside, and whether or not Shawn Eckhardt is related to Aaron Eckhart . . . spoiler, he is not.

If you’d like to review our findings, send us an email via [email protected]. You can tell us if you accept our findings, accept them with revisions, or outright reject them.

“She really did this.”

“Must the duck be here?”

On episode 3 of the Arts Union Science’s Interdisciplinary Volume, our authors take a look at the newest-to-date film from the idiosyncratic Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos: The Favourite. Join your corresponding author (Tyler D. R. Vance) and this week’s primary author (Aidan Paskinov) as the two discuss this strange period piece dramedy about three women’s fight for power, love, and vaguely defined morality. Along the way, our authors will also pose strikingly before conversations concerning fish-eyed lenses, the majesty of Olivia Coleman, and the unrelenting horniness of Victorian era dramas.

If you’d like to review our episode, feel free to email us at [email protected].

“*Snort*”

"I need . . . friends."

Don't we all, Barry. Don't we all.

The Snyder Cut of Justice League has been greatly anticipated by a large proportion of the Internet. This week, Arts Union Science gets in on the action. Join your increasingly blockbustered out corresponding author (Tyler D. R. Vance) and our resident DCEU correspondent and true Snyder Academic (Ishan M. Vadera), as they wade into the fray and discuss this reincarnation of the 2017 Joss-tice League. Along the way, they'll touch on Snyder's past films, take stock of the state and future of the DCEU, and wonder openly how the director of A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is able to sleep at night knowing that his film caused Sean Connery to retire from acting. Stay tuned for an after credits scene!

If you'd like to review our submission, feel free to email us at [email protected]. You can tell us if you accept our findings, accept them with revisions, or out-right reject them.

"I take it back. I wanna die."  

"I know I’m human. And if you were all these things, then you’d just attack me right now, so some of you are still human."

This week on the Arts Union Science podcast, we begin our Interdisciplinary Volume by bringing in a first author that is only interested in talking science and talking John Carpenter . . . and he's all out of science. Join the intrepid duo of Corresponding Author (Tyler D. R. Vance) and First Author (Phil Linden) as they explore the myriad of ways that aliens can try to take over the world, as seen through the lens of everyone's favourite independent horror director. While comparing (and contrasting) John Carpenter's "The Thing" and "They Live", they will also reminisce about their former movie club, weigh in on paranoia as a theme in horror movies, and sing the praises of Ennio Morricone.

If you'd like to review our findings, feel free to email us at [email protected]. You can tell us if you accept our findings, accept them with revisions, or out-right reject them.

"Figures it'd be something like this."

The Arts Union Science podcast has a two-for-one announcement. Next week will be the start of Volume 3: The Interdisciplinary Volume, where we bring in First Authors that are not trained in science but are still tremendously qualified to squawk about movies for way too long. This Volume kicks off with a Double Feature of John Carpenter films: The Thing and They Live. Both are about aliens doing dirty deeds on this little globe we call home, yet they go about it in very different ways and in very different settings.

Episode 1 of Volume 3 will release on May 17th, 2021. We'll see you then!

"Let them fight!"

Those rumbling sounds you're hearing? Yeah, those are coming from our enormous last episode of our Special Issue on applying protein solubilization strategies to bad movie-watching experiences. In this last episode, we look at how the films of a cinematic icon, i.e. Godzilla, can produce very different movie-watching experiences depending on the expression system that made them (AKA when and where they were made). Join our corresponding author (Tyler D. R. Vance) and this week's first author (Keegan Turner-Wood) as they go through a brief but comprehensive summary of their feelings on Godzilla (2014), Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), Shin Godzilla (2016), Godzilla (1954) and Destroy All Monsters (1968).

"REEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARouuuuuuuuu"!

P.S. Feel free to email us at [email protected] if you want Arts Union Science to cover an episode of Blue's Clues . . . or, you know, if any smarter thoughts come to mind.   

In an ironic twist of fate, this week's episode talking about protein aggregation and the tentative ways that it connects to movie watching has - itself - aggregated out of solution into an unlistenable pile of puke. We'll regroup and get the episode to you next week!

In the meantime, why don't you head on over to the Screening In Kingston podcast, where our corresponding author (Tyler D. R. Vance) can be heard as a guest host for their fun Awards/Games Show Episode. 

Listen to the episode on Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/episode/5A4AEIdWpMWw5W7fu0ystK?si=-tLdazYlSVi9mH-RMEVjYg) 

or on Screening In Kingston's own website (https://www.screeninginkingston.com/Podcast.php).

"Cat dead. Details later."

In the second episode of our Special Issue on protein solubilization, our authors take on "The Re-Animator", a cult classic from the mid 1980s based off of an H. P. Lovecraft short story. While not an inheritably insoluble movie-watching experience, our dear corresponding author's lack of familiarity with the sub-genre of B movies calls for a preemptive strike in the form of a chaperone protein, AKA our first author Jonathan Côté. Together, the two will find out what combination of neuroscience and chemistry is necessary to bring the dead back to life, while also taking note of the shlocky, the shocking, and the shudder-inducing.

"You're not even a second-rate scientist."

"Water, Earth, Fire, Air . . ."

The first episode of our second Special Issue has arrived to thunderous applause (we presume). Today, Sean Phippen returns to tackle a terrifying foe from the early 2010s . . . M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender. This insoluble movie watching experience calls for desperate measures, and so the first Protein Solubilizing technique we'll explore is unfolding through chaeotropic agents. 

How will this work? Are we really planning to ingest Guanidine? Only one way to find out!