Today has been declared the very first Carl Sagan Day, and I can not think of anyone from the last 40 years who should be honored more.
Yesterday was the first time you could watch all 6 episodes of Girl Number 9, and you still have a few weeks to enjoy it before it evaporates from the Web and goes into static storage only mode.
I had to include the video of Terry Gilliam Introducing The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus at the AFI Film Fest in LA, and I can’t wait to get to see the movie myself (the trailers are wonderful). And then of course there is the Fantastic Mr Fox, also making the festival rounds.
A detail I missed this week was the the release of Ki Gai on DVD. This series is a live action story line of classic manga-anime proportions, involving giant birds, aliens, daemons, dragons, and so much more! There was also the 10th Planet Con Event happening tomorrow at the The Broadway Theatre, in Barking, Essex, with a bunch of Doctor Who/Torchwood actors ready to contribute, including Nick Briggs.
We lost Don Ivan Punchatz recently. You may have never heard his name… but every one of you have seen his Star Wars Poster, or the cover he created for the game Doom, and a few of you know his Spectrum layout.
George Barris chopped a 1960s vehicle into the most famous Batmobile ever for the Adam West TV series, and now he has created a Smart BatCar for the new century. Go George!
The First Irish Discworld Convention takes place the first full weekend of November, the 6th through the 8th. Yes, Terry Pratchett is the guest of honor (health permitting), and all sorts of fun things are planned; see the con blog for more details. This one looks unlike any other con for the weekend, and would be my first choice if I had just figured out that pesky teleporting thing. Except maybe for the PMX2009 event, listed below.
Chevron 7.3 in Northampton, UK, is a Stargate mediacon, with the guests leaning heavily to the new series Stargate Universe. Also in Europe, J-PopCon is an Anime Con that takes place in Valby, Denmark, close to Center of Copenhagen. It is the biggest Anime event in that country, and has been running since at least 2000. To round out the international listings, Vertigo is a one-day Anime con taking place on Sunday in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.
For events in the US, Astronomicon takes place November 6th through the 8th in Rochester, NY. Mike Resnick is the Author GoH, and one of the events is the Grand Great Lakes Steampunk Cotillion, Symposium and Tea Social, along with all the usual fun stuff you expect at a readercon.
Anime Cons around the US include Aki-Con in Everett, Washington, Anime NebrasKon in Omaha, NekoCon 12 in Hampton, Virginia, and Zenkaikon 2009 in King of Prussia, PA. They all have screenings, events, panels, and cosplay, but the Kabuki Mask Painting Workshop caught my attention, especially listed after the Cosplay Swimsuit Competition and Dating Auction.
Some anime is included in the Pacific Media Expo 2009, but the event also includes live-action movies, the hottest bands, the latest fashion, and the newest pop culture trends from Japan and the Pacific Rim, making this a truly unique happening. I would probably have to clone myself this weekend to attend this one and the Irish Diskworld convention.
Gamer Cons this weekend include Carnage 12 in Fairlee, VT, Millennium 12 in Round Rock, Tx, and UberCon XII in Edison, NJ. And no, I don’t know why that last one went with Roman numerals when the Arabic numbers were a good enough Twelve for every one else.
Finally in Charlotte, NC there is the one-day Charlotte Comic-Con on Saturday the 7th.
There are a few Film Fests previously mentioned here that are continuing this week, but the new festival I feel compelled to make sure folks are aware of is the Sheffield Doc/Fest in the UK. And yes, I do know that talking about a documentary film festival seems strange on a Sci-Fi blog, but there is a good reason to include it, and other Fests like it: pieces of it are helping us build and imagine the future, which is what SF is all about. The fact that the slogan of this particular DocFest is The Truth Is Out There just makes it a bit more obvious than most.
One such piece is The Execution of Gary Glitter?, a story set in a parallel time line where the death penalty has been reintroduced in the UK following overwhelming public pressure. This Docudrama uses a pop music figure and a journey across the Einstein-Rosen Bridge to explore some very serious questions.
Another such film is Arena: Eno, in which you get to know aspects of musical genius Brian Eno, and learn about his own part in getting together with influential minds in the fields of science, art, systems analysis, cybernetics, and more, and how he is helping to shape the future through his intelligence and influence.
If you noticed the link between musical skills and the growth of the future, it wasn’t a fluke. Other documentaries that evolve through both of those factors include How The Beatles Rocked The Kremlin and Soundtrack for a Revolution.
Other films are Dealing With Time (Le temps presse), where the 10% increase in our average daily speed per project over the last decade is examined in detail, RiP! A Remix Manifesto which explores the legal battlefield where existing copyright and freedom of speech go head to head, and Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam which looks at the serious clash between cultures that can occur when someone writes a fictional story of What If that the rest of their peer group wishes were true so much that they start living that life.
Some serious food for thought at this event.
A new TV series kicks off tomorrow night: V. By new, I obviously mean a re-imaging of an old TV series, which seems to be happening a lot these days. Firefly’s Morena Baccarin gets to be the leader of the evil aliens for this one, which had to be a fun role for her.
It looks like the best movie released this weekend will be The Men Who Stare at Goats. This one has been making the Film Festival rounds, and the response has been very positive.
Also hitting the big screen Friday is The Fourth Kind, a thriller about alien abduction. And while it is more Thriller than Sci-Fi, I do have to mention The Box, which has a strange enough premise that it just might qualify for this site.