Last weekend movies (6th week 2012)

This was a weird weekend, there were some very good movies and some real bad ones...

1. Cidade de Deus, *****
   Life at the "City of God," one of Rio de Janeiro's favelas, from the eyes of a kid who grew up to be a photographer. This is a violent but awesome film depicting life in the outskirts of Rio during the 60, 70, and 80s. It's based on real events. It is so good that it's one of the few films that I have seen twice in my life.
   
   
2. The warrior's way, *****
   The best swordsman assassin from Japan deserts from his clan and seeks refuge in the wild west where he makes new friends, new enemies and old enemies find him. A mash-up of lone wolf and cub, seven samurais, magnificent seven and many more this film just made my day! This is how a action fantasy story is visually told.
   
   
3. Charade, ****
   A woman's husband is found death and a quarter million dollar is missing (it's the 60's so that's a lot of money). Audrey Hepburn's character finds herself in the middle of a mystery leftover by WWII. A very cute romantic comedy within a mystery film. Lovely takes of Paris. This is a must see.
   
   
4. How do you know, ***
   A girl softballer, portrayed by lovely Reesse Witherspon, is being cut from the USA team and finds herself interested in both a professional baseball player playboy and a corporate guy in the mist of a SEC investigation while dealing with her life after being a pro-athlete.
   
   
5. The backup plan, **
   A lonely but accomplished woman chooses artificial insemination to fulfill her motherly dreams but, on that same day, meets a guy in what seems to be love at first sight. A nice romantic comedy, good for girlfriend time.
   
   
6. From Prada to Nada, **
   Have you read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin? Well, think about it but with two rich-come-poor latinas in LA. It's a weird romantic comedy that jumps a lot in the story.
   
   
7. Chick magnet, 
   No, it is not a mistake that there are no stars at the right of the title. Two complete and one partial assholes find themselves with a shirt that is a chick magnet but in the case of true love. The review on the cover sounded nice but it was a waste of time.

Really, what is happening with television series? ...

1. Last Man Standing, (no episode?)
   
   
   
2. Castle, (no episode?)
   
   
   
3. Hawaii Five O, (no episode?)
   
   
   
4. Big Bang Theory S05-E15, ****
   
   Leonard chooses to forfeit his friend status as per Sheldon's room-mate's agreement. Chaos ensues in Sheldon's life. It's good to go back to non-drinking Penny and the comedy style from the second season .
   
   
5. Psych, (not yet back?)
   
   
   
   
6. Once upon a time S01-E07-10,
   
   Emma starts finding and solving the problems of fairy tale characters trapped in Storybrooke, Maine. It has a comatose prince charming, so it qualifies as a soap opera according to my standards.  

At last, Lyx and I manage to watch an Audrey Hepburn film! I hope we can see the rest of them in the coming weekends.

I cannot believe that the "Last weekend movies" series of short reviews is having around a hundred visits in the last three weeks. I never expected that. Thank you for visiting!

LWP: A list of papers (On vacation)

I am taking my vacation seriously and just reading titles and abstracts. These caught my eye, I hope I will read them whenever I'm back:

Transverse and lateral shifts of the center of gravity of a refracted nonparaxial Bessel beam by E. Norblad, Physical Review A 85, 013847 (2012).

Reflectivity and transmissivity of a cavity coupled to two-level systems: Coherence properties and the influence of phase decay by B. Julsgaard and K. Mølmer, Physical Review A 85, 013844 (2012).


Cavity cooling of a trapped atom using electromagnetically induced transparency by M. Bienert and G. Morigi, New Journal of Physics 14, 023002 (2012).


An optical-lattice-based quantum simulator for relativistic field theories and topological insulators by L. Mazza, A. Bermudez, N. Goldman, M. Rizzi, M. A. Martin-Delgado and M. Lewenstein, New Journal of Physics 14, 015007 (2012).

That's it...

Ponte en los zapatos del otro...

It seems that Mexico is going back to the one that my parents knew, a country where "desaparecidos" are a common occurrence. The difference is that back in my parent's time the kidnapper was the government only, now the role is taken by both government and criminals.

It is a good thing that at least now there's freedom of speech and press and people ready to go to the streets and media to talk about it:

"Ponte en los zapatos del otro" (Get in each other's shoes) is a campaign by "Movimiento por la Paz" (Movement for Peace) to bring into our minds the fact that forced disappearances—a commonplace occurrence during the strong days of the party dictatorship—are coming back to our times—it seems they never stopped—but they are now committed by both government and criminal organizations.

I do not commune with the slight feeling that the open war on drug cartels should stop that the video seems to give due to the last phrase of Sicila's part but I believe that peace, due process and reign of law should be guaranteed in Mexico. 

Last minute pontification: I used to hear a lot: "tenemos el pais que merecemos" (we have the country that we deserve) but we should aim to  "construir el pais que queremos" (build the country we want). Sometimes, I am ashamed I left, then, I remember why I left. Corruption should be battled at all levels, starting at the self. It is amazingly embarrassing that such things as a state official carrying 25 millions MXP in cash pass by almost no pres coverage, no legal consequences to the state government  and no civil reaction to such things (note from Spain's El Pais, here). 

Last weekend movies (5th week 2012)

Compared to last weekend, this one was a bad movie weekend. I also grew a little bit bored of doing nothing and decided to get some work done. Nevertheless, I'm trying to keep with my vacation goal: to watch and read as much media as possible...

1. Moneyball, ****
   Based on the story of Billy Beane, one of the first baseball managers to put together a team based on computer analyzed statistics who is still trying to win a championship. I never know how to classify biographic films, I guess this is a drama. It has a good pace and flows. I actually enjoyed it.
   
   
2. Immortals, ***
   King Hyperion marches against the Greek gods and it's up to Theseus to stop him before he frees the Titans. I really liked this film, the visual design is impressive—say, e.g., the young golden gods and the golden but dirtied demi-god Theseus—and the landscape composition is impressive. The retold of Theseus and the Minotaur is amazing!
   
   
3. Colombiana, ***
   A drug lord's family is murdered and only his little girl survives. She grows up to be a perfect assassin looking for revenge. The film was scripted by my favorite femme-fatale enthusiast Luc Besson—Mathilda, Nikita, Leeloo—. It's a good action film with a lot of parkour.
   
   
4. Johnny English Reborn, ***
   Johnny English left the British secret service in disgrace but happenstances bring him back and gets a chance to clean his name. Mr. Atkinson comedy is good, specially his faces. It's a no brainer, I just sat down and laughed for half the movie.
   
   
5. 11-11-11, **
   A writer losses his family and stats realizing that bad things happen to his family on November 11th, but the worst is yet to happen. In the beginning I started to get bored with this horror film, but then came the ending and I really loved it. I have always loved non-hollywood endings.
   
   
6. Killer Elite, **
   A retired assassin is blackmailed and brought back to kill a team of ex-SAS soldiers involved in the assassination of a Sheikh's family in Oman. A passable action film, not so much action, not so much of a story, one of the stars is just out of respect to Al Pacino.
   
   
7. Salvation Boulevard, **
   A not-so-sure born-again-christian is witness to an accidental shooting committed by his mega-church preacher who decides to keep everything under the table. It's a great farcical film on the subject of false and self-justified "faith."  

Really, what is happening with television series? ...

1. Last Man Standing, (no episode?)
   
   
   
2. Castle S04-E13, ****
   A dog judge and trainer gets killed and it is up to Castle and Beckett to find out the reason why.
   
   
3. Hawaii Five O S02-E14, ****
   The mystery of the past is unfolding as a robbery entangles with the past.
   
   
4. Big Bang Theory S05-E14, ****
   
   It's back to the beginning with Leonard dating penny and everybody else being their old selves from the first season.
   
   
5. Psych, (not yet back?)
   
   
   
   
6. Wilfred S01-E01,  ***
   
   An US remake of the Oz series, a suicidal man finds a "friend" in the bastardy dog of his hot neighbor.
   
   
7. Once upon a time S01-E01-07,
   
   The land of fairy tales suffered a horrible fate, the Evil Queen curse them to a place of horrors: our world. Now, it is upon Snow White's daughter and grandson to fix things in Storybrooke, Maine, and end the curse.

It seems like we are getting a curse too, because Lyx and I haven't found time to sit down and watch those old  films with Audrey Hepburn. I really hope we can do something about it next weekend. 

LWP: Quantum memory with a single two-level atom in a half cavity

by Y. Wang, J. Minar, G. Hetet, and V. Scarani.
Physical Review A 85, 013823 (2012)

Wang and collaborators show that it is possible to store a single-photon pulse in a two-level atom within a half cavity setup where the decay rate between the atom and the light is controlled by motion of the one mirror in the half cavity.

A dipole-field interaction leading to optical Bloch equations from Heisenberg picture is used; the effects of the half-cavity are encoded in a term accounting for decay  into the half-cavity (pulse) mode, decay and noise introduced by the environment are also taken into account. Assumptions include: Markov approximation (long half-life times compared to light's round-trip between atom and mirror), small mirror motion (of the order of a wavelength) leading to neglect amplitude changes in time scales smaller or equal to a round-trip time—but this cannot be assumed in the phases due to the importance of interferences in the sysme— 

The probability of the two-level system absorbing a single-photon wave packet is found and a suitable decay function is given that maximizes such probability. Storage is achieved by placing the atom at a node of the half-cavity system. Then, the emission efficiency is calculated and a decay rate is defined which controls the temporal shape of the outgoing single-photon pulse. The authors present simulations for a sampling of time-bin single-photon pulses and their respective control decay-rate leading to high fidelity storage and possible implementations of their protocol.

The article is didactic in its presentation and the topic is quite interesting. I was not familiar with half-cavity schemes and this manuscript presents a nice survey of references in the topic. I hope experiments using their protocol follow soon.