Dark Matter, Rap, and Murder

Apparently one of the many things with Alfred P. Sloan's name (and some of his money) on it is the annual Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. The prize of $20,000 goes to a filmmaker whose film either focusses on science or technology, or has a scientist or mathematician as a main character. This year's winning film is "Dark Matter," a film by Chen Shi-Zheng based on the University of Iowa murders in 1991. Science? Murder? The general lore behind this sad story is that graduate Gang Lu was rather displeased that he was not awarded some prestigous prize for his dissertation work. In the movie setting, apparently they are all cosmologists instead of mere physicists. The fantastic aspect of this seemingly minor change is that one of the characters does the infamous "Dark Matter Rap" written by Ohio State's very own David Weinberg (lyrics here, and! mp3 here). Unfortunately, the rapper is one of the ones who is murdered ... but I still can't wait to see the film. And with Meryl Streep as one of the "stars," how much better can it get??