Some folks will be seeing it at Midnight tonight, part one of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I can’t say I am terribly surprised their version of Misty Mountains didn’t sound anything like Lead Zeplin’s take on it.
The Geminid Meteor Shower is under way once more, with peak viewing over the next 2 nights, the 13th and 14th. You can get some great viewing tips here or at the first link. What makes the Geminids stand out is their frequency; with up to 100 meteors per hour, they are one of the best displays going. Add to that a New Moon, and if you have clear skies and can get away from the light pollution it should be quite a show. Meteor showers are named for the constellation they appear to be coming from, so set out your lawn chair facing to the constellation Gemini for the best viewing.
Sony Pictures posted this trailer for After Earth, a new science fiction film starring Will and Jaden Smith. I love both of those actors, and the trailer looks interesting, although they may have to stretch the timeline for the premiss a bit to get that state of affairs by 2066. I do have two things that concern me about it though. First, it is being filmed on the new Sony F65 4K digital camera. The concern with that is the camera is brand new, with only 400 made in the entire world so far, and this movie is going to be their training class for the technology. The results could go either way, but my own experience is new technology generally comes with a learning curve, so I would expect the second or third film after this one will be the one where it really is used to good effect. My other concern is that M. Night Shyamalan is involved, and I have never managed to stay awake more than a third of the way through any movie of his I have ever tried to see. Perhaps this one will hold my attention a bit better than the others.
Just in case somebody managed to miss the news, The Hobbit hits the big screen this weekend! I don’t need to mention this is based on an amazing book of the same name written by J.R.R. Tolkien, nor that it is the prequil to Lord Of The Rings, both as a book and series of movies. In fact, I didn’t need to even do this blog entry at all, everybody already knows all of this… but just in case somebody missed it, now you know. See you in the theater!
If you are in the mood for twisted comedy, Ted has to be top of your list this week. If its action/adventure, The Bourne Legacy is a great choice (yes, it is genre, genetically engineering humans is still science fiction, although barely). If you enjoy quirky foreign sci-fi/horror/comedy, Doomsday Book is a Korean film about the end of the world, and includes a zombie apocalypse and a Robot Buddhist among the three tales that make up the film. No, it is not based on the award winning book of the same name written by Connie Willis, but it has won a number of awards itself, including the top prize at the Fantasia International Film Festival. If cheesy B movies with no understanding of basic science in their science fiction premiss is your favorite, then Collision Earth is the movie for you. Apparently the company that made Collision was too embarrassed to put up a web page for it, as well they should be. If you are looking for sexy spy spoofs then The Girl From B.I.K.I.N.I. may be for you, but be warned the rating on that one is somewhere between a hard R and soft porn.
TV this week seems to consist of Futurama: Volume 7, which is fine by me since it is a favorite show of mine. The other western animation choice is the feature film Ice Age: Continental Drift, the fourth in the Ice Age franchise.
A while back I posted the Level E OP song by Chiaki Kuriyama in its original live action music video format, and this week you can finally pick up Level E: The Complete Series for your own. Earth is home to a lot of aliens, and one boys life is turned upside down by an alien prince with amnesia and a bad attitude. Also new this week, Letter Bee: Collection 1 takes place on a dark world where a single artificial sun lights a small portion of the planet, and there are monsters waiting in the darkness. The Letter Bees keep the scattered human settlements in communication with each other, at great personal risk.
In returning series, Bleach – Season 15 is coming out in an uncut box set. Also, the classic Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi is being re-released, so if you have not already seen it, now is your chance. It is a wonderful little tour through the multiverse, all while staying inside a shopping mall that seems to be located in Tokyo, Texas.
In 1945 Arthur C. Clarke lost a billion dollars by inventing geosynchronous communication satellites, because there was no technology capable of launching them into orbit until the late 1950s, and nothing that could reach geosynchronous orbit until the 1960s. Interestingly enough, in 1964, the same year the very first live TV news stories made it across the Atlantic on those satellites to become part of regular TV News programs, Clarke predicted how the new technology would change the world… and his description is spot on for the way we communicate today. Some people really do seem to be living in the future.