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Things to Do: Film Festivals

The number of Film Festivals grew this week, or perhaps I am just getting better at finding them. So for at least this week, I am breaking them out of the Wednesday post and giving them a night of their own.

The 53rd BFI London Film Festival runs from October 14th to the 29th, and includes presentation of the Southerland Trophy. I’m cheering on Cold Souls for that prize, but Metropia looks interesting as well. Other films of note include the Fantastic Mr. Fox, the non-stop MICMACS, the star-studded and based on a real military organization The Men Who Stare at Goats, and the long-delayed and heavily re-edited The Road.

Also in the UK, the Festival of Fantastic Films takes place in Manchester from the 16th to the 18th, covering Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror films of all kinds. Timed to take advantage of the larger British Film Association festival (as is next weeks Sci-Fi London Oktoberfest), it does a good job of including works you won’t be seeing on the bigger venue.

In the US, the 45th Chicago Film Festival continues to run until the 22nd (it started on the 8th of October). While there are a few SF/F films tucked away in this event, like The Rapture of Fe and Astro Boy, the movie I feel compelled to mention is The Castle; read the review to discover why.

October 15th to the 25th brings the Hawaii International Film Festival, which will feature their very own day-long Lost celebration. Movies of interest include Air Doll, the French sequel District 13 Ultimatum, anime Evangelion 2.0, You Can Not Advance, and the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus by Terry Gilliam. There is also the live-action Gokusen The Movie, the animated FIRST SQUAD: THE MOMENT OF TRUTH and the silly-sounding Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl which may be the perfect Halloween movie this year.

From the 17th to the 25th is the TIFF, or Tokyo International Film Festival, one of the major fests each year. The usual large number of prizes will be handed out, which have categories non-native to Western Fests. Films of note include Go Find A Psychic, Yona Yona Penguin, and the Avatar Special Presentation. There is also Kung Fu Cyborg : Metallic Attraction, a comedic love story, and Chengdu, I Love You, a story of time-traveling rock-n-roll and romance (OK, it’s got a BIT of kung-fu in it).

And then there is the Rome Cinemafest, for yet another touch of the world, including some TwiLight references.

This news is interesting; at the 20th Stockholm International Film Festival this November they will be screening a movie on ice. They haven’t decided which movie they will be projecting onto the 11 ton slab of ice yet, but I recommend that you bundle up if you plan to attend.

A Fest I missed last week was Indie Memphis, but visit the Memphis Flyer site to see what they will be serving up in this weekends encore presentation. Likewise I missed mentioning the Takoma Film Festival (possibly because it ended the same day as the first Fest post), but if you are VERY quick you still have a chance to see at least a few of them, including Otis v. Monster.

Things to Watch

I like the way my Wednesday posting, Things to Do, has taken on a life of its own and started to build itself as I watch (and type furiously trying to keep up). So I am going to add a Sunday segment as well (you are reading the first instance now) called Things to Watch. As before, I don’t know what format or structure this will end up having, so we will just start, and see what develops.

There are some good DVDs being released this week, and as always some not so good. Whether you choose to buy them, rent them from a brick-and-mortar/mailing service/supermarket kiosk, or stream them from services like Amazon or Netflix is your choice. Just like the Things to Do postings, I am doing this to organize my awareness of the available programming in hopes I don’t miss the better ones. For the moment, I am not going to focus on the ephemeral sources, like the TV show home page that streams the current episode for one week, or the equivalent HULU, FanCast, or CrunchyRoll offerings. Perhaps that will end up being another day of the week entry; for this one, I just want to look at things that will continue to be around once they have been made available for purchase, at least for the foreseeable future.

Of this weeks DVD output, the one that looks most interesting to me is The Hunger: The Complete Second Season, hosted by David Bowie, who starred in the original movie (Terence Stamp hosted the first season). Directed by Tony and Ridley Scott, written by such authors as Brian Lumley and Robert Bloch, and starring too many famous actors for me to list, this one is a must-have for the Halloween season. If you use the season 2 link in the next few days, you can enter to win a copy from eFilmCritic; the contest ends November first, but the DVD’s might only play properly if you live in Australia.

Legend of the Seeker is another episodic TV series released to DVD this week, with Season One. This should set you up to be ready for the new season, beginning on November 7th. The Futurama Complete Collection also becomes available this week, for those who missed the earlier versions. If you missed them, for shame; but also, they are $14 to $20 per season at this point. While I love the Bender Head as the container, I don’t really feel that it increased their value from $56 to $80 for the 4 seasons to the $199.95 they are looking for with this version. If there is an additional 50 hours of programming or some other reason the new price is valid, please let me know.

On the Anime front, the TOKYO MAJIN Complete Series Box Set becomes available this week; while Gantz-like in its violence, it doesn’t quite deliver on the fan-service level. Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit concludes the season with volume 6, and the full season is also out this week. A new project to US shores, Kiba – The Complete Collection delivers the entire series at once. Uzumaki (Residents become obsessed with spiral shapes) is also new this week, but with only the first few episodes available.

The movie that stands out this week is Lovecraft: Fear Of The Unknown, which is more of a documentary than anything else. The best fiction bet may be Zombie Self Defense Force from Japan if you are a zombie fan. From the US comes Land of the Lost; I tend to wonder who was advising folks to make this movie. For a Halloween release, the William Castle Film Collection has some classics.

Halloween Building

I have done a number of Halloween posts already this year, but as one of the major religious holidays I figured I should do another entry. I loved the Sci-Fi Wired sequence of 14 Great Cthulhu Toys that make devouring souls fun, 19 Amazing Star Wars Pumpkins, and 20 Great Pet Costumes, all of which put my appreciation of the site back on top where it belongs. But they are displaying Other Peoples Work; don’t you want to build your own? Two of the best sites I know for that are the Instructables Halloween Costume Collection and the Make Halloween Site. The later will help you with your haunted house and special effects technology more than your costume, but it all means your are building a unique holiday event. Make is also running a Micro-Controller Halloween Contest, so make sure to document and enter your remote-controlled exploding pumpkin as soon as possible. D-Vice came up with the concept and basic technology to build the Gaping Hole Costume for a Real Life application of the Death Becomes Her special effect, but I have yet to see a believable working version of it. For the little ones and their parents I can recommend Homemade Halloween Costumes from the Funtimes Guide web site. That should be enough for now; we still have a week or three to the holiday itself, so there is still time to get creative.

Nimoy Interviews, Chuck Up, Science Art

Did you know Leonard Nimoy got his start in science fiction as the third zombie in Zombies of the Stratosphere? You can learn about that, his new roll in Fringe, tidbits about Trek XI and XII, and more at his interview on Subspace Communique. If you want a bit more, try the LA Times: Nimoy on William Bell article. The word from EW’s Michael Ausiello is that NBC may have decided to move up its scheduled launch of Chuck from March to possibly as early as the end of this month. If they do that, it increases the odds of their buying more than the 13 episodes they originally signed up for. Good news indeed! In Dublin, Ireland is a place that seems to be a science museum crossed with an art gallery. Called the Science Gallery, they just opened up a new exhibit entitled What If…?. In this exhibit they explore possible developments in technology, and each entry has its own Twitter hashtag they ask you use when leaving comments. Here are highlights from their Science Gallery Youtube Channel of their last exhibit, Bubbles: Don’t Burst Them.

Bombing the Moon: LCROSS

Four months after the launch, tomorrow LCROSS will smash into the moon. Specifically, it will crash into a Dark Crater at the moon’s south pole, in an effort to find water on the moon. Locating a local source of water is critical for extended manned missions and habitation there. Details about the chances to see these events yourself can be found here, including a link to NASA TV Online, where you can watch the event live beginning at 3:15AM PDT, 6:15AM EDT.