A very nice image capture sequence video presented by an Astrophysicist I trust on a news channel I don’t… thanks to Comcast Dot Net for the source video for this presentation, and The Hubblesite in the US and Space Telescope in Europe for the science behind it.
Terrestrial Human
Not a lot out this weekend, but there are a few that might be worth seeing. Vampires Suck is silly fun poked mostly at the Twilight franchise (OK, pretty much totally at the Twilight franchise). For the first time ever I can honestly say that the parody was better than the film it was making fun of, at least in terms of acting, cinematography, believability, scriptwriting, and a few other details. I suspect that has less to do with how good the parody is and more to do with how bad the original was, and I will be seeing the parody if someone pays me enough to make wasting my time that completely worthwhile (and only then).
While on a more serious topic, and with far superior actors, What If… still bears a noticeable resemblance to the other film in one respect; it is a modified remake of another movie. This time around, the original I associate this with is one of the true classics of film making: the Frank Capra/Jimmy Stewart legend It’s A Wonderful Life, itself a modern day retelling of the Scrooge story. From what I can tell from the write up and the trailer, other remakes like Mr. Destiny or What Women Want may be better representations of this film, but I am always willing to check out a new Paratime story, and so few of them make it to the big screen.
I never thought I would be saying this, but they actually made a sequel to Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, called The Lost Skeleton Returns Again. The key points of this release in the IMDB Writeup seem to be that the returning actors are wearing the same clothes, and the director promised not to make another sequel. With luck it will be as funny as the first one.
I have been looking forward to the release of The Good, The Bad, The Weird since it hit a limited theater run earlier this year. This is a cowboy train robbery movie that takes place in the Chinese Wild West (Manchuria to you and me), with multiple groups including Korean Outlaws, Chinese Bandits, and the Japanese Army all going after the treasure. If it is a fraction as good as the trailer it should be a hoot, and funny besides.
Another one I have been anticipating is the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Season 2 complete collection. There is some debate on whether it comes out this week (one site puts it as far back as September 14th), and no indication as yet whether it includes the feature film, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. But I really do like the storyline, and season one had what may be my favorite song used in an Anime (at least in the top ten), God Bless.
There are a few darker releases this week; Casshern Sins continues the classic tale already presented with both a live action feature film and an animated TV series, about the cyborg who murdered the moon but may offer redemption and salvation to the robotic populace. Shigofumi: Letters from the Departed tells the animated tale of Kanaka (a talking walking staff) and Fumika (I’m not dead yet) as the Shigofumi Mail Carriers delivering messages of hate and love from the dead to the living. This rather strange and macabre series is Subbed, not Dubbed. I have always thought that which is better changes from one series or film to the next, and is a function of the fidelity of the translation and the quality of both sets of the voice actors.
Yes, the Scott Pilgrim Avatar Creator can be used by you to create an Avatar and share it with the world. I was a bit disappointed they only let you enter two characters for the age (I was going for 105, but it only gave me 10). And I might have gotten a LITTLE distracted when I realized I could also play the web page as a game while building the Avatar. I think the one I built lives here.
For those of us not in one of the 5 cities it opens in today (and it is worse then that; only a single theater per city!), here is the Japanese trailer for the Goro Miyazaki version of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Tales of Earthsea. The other killer movie out today, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, is in every theater in North America, so at least we only have to wait to see one of them.
As it often does at this time of year, it will be raining rocks tonight and tomorrow morning, during the peak of the Perseid meteor shower. It should be good viewing everywhere without a lot of cloud cover, since it will be a moonless night. This is the main event, but not the complete show; while the peak is tonight as we hit the densest part of the cluster, from beginning to end takes a week or two to go through. You can see some good pictures already from this years presentation over at the National Geographic site, and Space Dot Com is reporting a quite bright fireball over Alabama the other night. The peak from the US East Coast is 3PM this afternoon to 3AM tomorrow morning, while the UK should be local midnight to dawn tonight. If you are looking for a list of other meteor showers to catch this year, Stardate has a short list of the good ones, and as always Heavens Above can be configured to inform you about anything interesting to watch in the sky at your location. Happy viewing!