No, not postcards to your favorite actors, but actual electronic post cards you can send into space. These cards are delivered to the ISS, or International Space Station, and more specifically to the members of Expedition 26 who currently live there. Or if that’s too retro for you (I built my first electronic postcard page with a Perl Script batch file that tied an image selector, a text entry GUI, and an email server command string bundle around 1995 or so), you can always opt to Tweet the Astronauts your holiday greetings instead. Contrariwise, if both methods of communicating seem too newfangled and hi-tech for your comfort zone, you can find out when they will be visible in your neighborhood and smile and wave at them while they go passing by. Just understand that while you will have no problem seeing them if the cloud cover is favorable, they will probably only notice you if a camera with a sufficient lens assembly is pointed in exactly the right direction, and that only after they have taken and then examined the image in detail.
The title may sound like an Anime program, but it isn’t. The team that brought you Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes have a new project in the works which may be just as interesting. The new series, called Eternal Law, is the story of two angels who are assigned to be lawyers to help a community and learn a bit more about humans. This departs from reality on so many levels (to start, have you met any lawyers? Did they seem very angelic to you?) it has to be total fantasy, but has the potential to create some amazing stories, especially in the hands of two writers of such quality. Of course, it also has the potential to fall flat on its face; I look forward to finding out which way it goes.
I was recently invited by Fancy Fembot to join the fine collection of folks aggregated over at the Sci-Fi Party Line News Network. Of course I said yes (I am not as brain dead as I look), and you should stop by there and check out all the fine articles, podcasts, and vlogs. Unless your already reading this from there, in which case Hello! How are you? Thanks, Cat, I appreciate being invited to play in your sandbox.
It does sound like the name of a band, doesn’t it? Word is that Doctor Who alumni Sylvester McCoy is going to play a part for the upcoming prequel The Hobbit. No, he will not be playing Gandalf, as that part is completely owned by Ian McKellen, but it is possible he could play the part of another wizard, possibly even an important one. Meanwhile an engineering team at Bristol University are trying to build a working Sonic Screwdriver and having some success. It actually will do things like unscrew the screws and unlock the locks, and I think my collection needs one. However, I know I need to avoid the EX-TER-MI-CAKE accurate Dalek replication made out of cherry chocolate and weighing in at 20 kilos.
Music is evolving right along with everything else as we rush faster and faster towards the singularity. These days, you can use your cell phone or tablet to enjoy any kind of media they support, but with the correct apps you can so much more; you can create the music yourself, limited only by your imagination and skill set. Using the same devices and the proper social media software, you can be in touch with other like-minded friends and creators from all over the world around the clock, to brainstorm, write, and jam, until you get a grasp of exactly what you want to bring to life. Finally, again with the smarter versions of the same devices, you can actually play the music and display the video together, in real time, from anywhere on the planet, for everyone to experience. Here are a few examples, starting with the Korean Pop Star Yoari and her iPhone playing band covering a Beyonce song, and then the MoPho Ocarina Band (with instrument details) looking into the concepts behind using smartphones with social media interfaces as musical instruments. As a music addict from long ago, I find this topic one of the more exciting aspects of living in today’s modern world of the future, and will be returning to it again.
The winner this week is pretty hard to determine, and may depend for you on the ages of the friends or family you are going to see it with. On the one hand we have The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third story in the C. S. Lewis series of books. I think the films have been a fairly faithful rendering of the original works, even if targeted at a younger audience than I would have expected. I will definitely be in the 3D theater for this one, although after looking at the trailer I believe it will work just as well on a 2D screen. The other film is a much more adult re-imagining of an absolute classic of fantasy literature: The Tempest. Original story by Shakespeare, assembled for the screen and directed by by Julie Taymor of Across The Universe fame, and winner of five major film festival awards, the trailer on this one knocked my socks off. Looks like it will be a two movie weekend for me.
Chronicles Of Narnia 3 Trailer 2
The winner for this week has to be Inception, one of the most recursive movies of all time. It was amazing on the big screen, convoluted and beautiful and breathtaking in ways never before seen, and with tension ratcheted so high I kept expecting to see random audience members run screaming out of the theater as their nerves snapped. Word has it the extras on this DVD are many and very well done, but I could care less. I just want to watch it once a week for about two months until I have pulled the last bit of meaning out of it, and then come back every few months to savor it again.
A rather silly looking film that has been getting good buzz and a few awards on the film festival circuit is also being released: Missy and the Maxinator. This family friendly flic is about a boy who gains some superpowers, and about his evil teachers plot to take over the world. On a much more serious note, Dark Metropolis tells the story of the genetically engineered slaves who revolted and took over the world; 500 years in the future they hunt human beings in retaliation.
This weeks TV entry is a bit different: Trek Stars Go West is a series of classic 50s and 60s TV Westerns with appearances by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan and Deforest Kelley. It is a unique idea, and I have to mention it in the interests of completion here, but even though Roddenberry billed Star Trek as Wagon Train in the Stars while trying to sell it to the networks, I can not imagine any hard core Trek fan actually wanting to watch any of these. If they had compiled their Twilight Zone and Man From Uncle kind of appearances, sure, but cowboy shows that depicted killing Native Americans, Hispanics, and pretty much anybody that didn’t own land and/or live in the local town as a good thing, not so much.
The top American animation pick this week is Shrek Forever After, the fourth and final episode in this wonderful franchise. This series has done more strange things to classic fairy tale characters than anyone since Walt Disney himself, and brought full tilt wacky humor to the screen while doing it. You can also get it in a two-pack with a direct to DVD piece called Donkey’s Christmas, or in a series box sets with the other movies called “The Whole Story”.
For Anime, Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor & Other Fantastic Films by Koji Yamamura is the one to have on your must-have list. The 2007 title story won seven Grand Prize awards at animation festivals worldwide, but it is just the tip of the iceberg. For example, the story Mt. Head was nominated for an Oscar in 2003, won 6 Grand Prize awards at various film festivals, and another double dozen lesser prizes. There are over a dozen animations here, totaling just over two hours of runtime, every one of them an experimental masterpiece showcasing Koji’s unique approach to art, life, and animation. The video at the end of this post is the shortest one of his I could find to embed, but it packs a lot of heart into a tiny slice of time.
The other new release this week is the box set of The Third: Girl With Blue Eye, in which Bogie (an AI wearing a tank for a body) and his lovely human Honoka freelance their way across a post-apocalyptic desert planet over run by giant insects. There are also a few re-releases, with Cowboy Bebop: The Movie Special Edition having a number of extra features, which are not usually enough to make me re-buy something I already own, but this time there are Music Videos involved. Also, both Gad Guard – The Complete Series [S.A.V.E. Edition] and Ikki Tousen – The Complete Series [Viridian Collection] are coming out in more cost effective versions.