It’s political primary season and you know what that means, right? Right, it’s time to rent movies and think about something else.

But you wouldn’t be here if you could watch just any movies, you’d be a Huffington Post reader or Glenn Beck listener or whatever it is those people do that gets so much more attention than actual quality writing, like this site. You have more sense than that so you like movies with scientists; and especially scientists who could be hottie supermodels, mostly because they don’t know anything about science.

In compiling a list like this, I am torn and maybe you will be also. Great science movies and attractive women don’t always go together. Number of hot women in Pi for example? Well, okay, Lauren Fox, but she wasn’t a scientist.

Lauren Fox. Photo by Gino Domenico

You get my point. We have to make a choice in a lot of cases; great women or great science. Sometimes we get both but that’s rare. Actually, female scientists, great or not, in movies apparently aren’t all that common. Eva Flicker of the University of Vienna wrote in Between Brains and Breasts—Women Scientists in Fiction Film: On the Marginalization and Sexualization of Scientific Competence that only 18% of movies containing scientists had the female kind. That means there must have been almost no female scientists in the early days of film because it is easy to find modern films with female scientists - a lot more than the 25% of the science work force in the real world. Scientists are in and female scientists even more so. If you’re going to have a female scientist you might as well make her a hot one.

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Dorian was the artist. GG was the model.

Let’s be honest. Science by itself is mostly useless. It takes someone with a plan to make science into technology and then it takes people to embrace the technology. Being embraced by the right people often overcomes superior product development. Betamax was better in every way than VHS but the porn industry, and therefore porn customers, liked VHS. Exit Betamax.

Likewise, while I totally heart science, I recognize that the practical application of it is much more important than the research. Silicon was discovered by Jöns Jacob Berzelius in 1824, for example, but it wasn’t until some of its atoms got polymerized and made into silicone breast implants that anyone in science cared much about it. Oh yeah, and I guess that computer nonsense has something to do with silicon too.

Scientists respect anyone who can take science and make cool things out of it but, at the top of the application pyramid, are old school movie industry special effects guys.

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People who have known me for a long time know that when I am not dazzling the world with scientific brilliance, I am a Formula One race car driver who also solves mysteries on TV. What the rest of you may not know is that I was also the star of a major motion picture.

It was a different take on the James Bond story - I played an American spy who pretends to be a scientist and the movie was about what would happen if all those spurned women from my adventures got together for revenge. They kept the title simple and to-the-point: Cash Must Die. Sadly, this movie lost its financing during production ( Chopper Chicks In Zombie Town III went over budget and they diverted the money, those bastards ) and the script is tied up in legal so this movie poster is all that remains.

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Sometimes it’s believed that business, or science ( or the business of science), takes a lot of education. I am here to tell you, my friends, the only education you need can be found in one easy location, it only takes 94 minutes of your time, and I am giving this secret to you for free: it’s the Weird Science DVD.

Sure, on the exterior it may look like just another 1980s John Hughes rite-of-passage comedy, but that’s the beauty of a parable. It makes you think one thing while it head-fakes you with important business lessons.

Whenever I walk into a company I immediately look around and try to figure out which member of the cast each person is. I know, I know, and before I get emails telling me not to pigeon-hole people, I will go ahead and state,”we’re individuals … and unique … all 12 billion of us,” though I don’t believe a word of it.

What we are is an archetype with some subtle variations. Pepperoni pizza is different than canadian bacon pizza but it’s still pizza with meat thrown on it. Knowing this, and the sage wisdom John Hughes delivers in this movie, will take you pretty far in the corporate world.

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Michael Witig and his wife were out barbecuing when they saw something streaking through the sky. They turned on their camera and filmed it as fire and smoke billowed behind the mystery object.

Not to worry, said the FAA. It was a just a jet that was leaving a contrail behind it and the sun was at just the right angle to reflect off the jet and create the illusion of smoke and fire.

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