In the US, The Official Xena Convention (the 15th year) takes place this weekend over in LA, and while the guest lineup may not be as varied as the SFX Weekender, it does include many major players in the Xena world, including Lucy Lawless, Renee O’Connor, Hudson Leick, and Gina Torres. If you were ever a Xena fan, you don’t want to miss this one.
And there is a chance some of you might be able to find your way to BasauriCon in Basauri, Spain, which starts February 5th. It is primarily a Battlestar MediaCon, with Edward James Olmos & Mary McDonnell as the main guests.
In Canada, G-Anime takes place at the Palais des congrès in Ottawa. Besides all the usual Anime Con events, this gathering include a Competitive Cosplay Dance Workshop; be sure to bring your costume for any outfit-specific queries you might have.
Wondering where the Film Festival entries have gone? There was too much to work with in the limited time I have to do the topic justice, even when all I was mentioning were the genre films hitting each festival. I am not abandoning the field, because so many of the better Sci-Fi and Fantasy films make the festival rounds while looking for a distributor, and for those that don’t find one there is sometimes no other way to see them. But I do need to rethink my approach to the topic, to deliver useful information about the films without trying to mention every festival in the world that one plays at. Until I decide on a structure that makes sense to me, I will use Tuesdays to mention other venues to appreciate SF.
Today happens to be Groundhogs Day, and I find it appropriate that Ned Ryerson (Stephen Tobolowsky) will be at the real one; it was a truly wonderful movie that pretty much every science fiction TV show did a spin-off of. You should watch your favorite episode, or perhaps even an entire series – Tru Calling would be my first choice, and Daybreak also comes to mind – built on the premise to celebrate!
If your a fan of Eureka, the episode would be I Do Over, while for Xena enthusiasts it’s Been There, Done That, and for X-Files folks it’s Monday. Almost all other Sci-Fi TV shows have an equivalent episode, and I feel confident you know the titles to your own favorites.
Trek of course had a plethora of them, including Time Squared, Cause and Effect, and Future’s End. For me though the one special Groundhogs Day TV episode has to be Stargate SG1’s Window of Opportunity from their 4th season. It was fun watching Anderson force his character to reveal it’s innate native intelligence (Kicking and screaming all the way, since O’Neil took pride in his good-old-boy appearance, but had to escape the time trap he was stuck in solely through his and Teal’cs efforts). But much more fun than that was what they did with the rest of their time. In all of these programs we watch the protagonists try one thing after another to solve the crises they find themselves neck deep in. But only in this episode of this show did we see the same kind of playful experimentation that was such a big part of the original Groundhog Day movie. After all, if you are trapped in time, you have all the time in the world to solve the problem; you might as well smell the roses as you pass by.
I have been waiting for the sequel and it is finally out: Banlieue 13 – Ultimatum follows up on the original Luc Besson film District 13. Besides being a thrilling story involving corrupt government officials trying to nuke part of their capitol to get rid of the gangs and violence, the original film had the first example I had ever seen of parkour, or free running, now an internationally recognized sport. This allowed them to shoot many of the action scenes without wires or special effects, and still have them turn out amazing.
One of the best movies of 2009 (certainly in the top 5) is coming out on Tuesday: Cold Souls. This one isn’t an action/adventure tale with Sci-Fi special effects wallpaper like so many others, but the core premise of the story is science fiction, and the rest of the film explores the consequences spinning off from that premise. Because it was in such limited release in the theaters a lot of folks didn’t get the chance to see this on the big screen. Do not miss it now; the acting is amazing, and the story itself is wonderfully presented.
The other movie worth noting is Zombieland, yet another comedy about the living dead; at this rate, they could become almost as numerous as TV shows about Vampire Cops/Detectives.
the only new Anime I found coming out this week is Skull Man: Complete Collection, which looks like it would make a good double feature with Red Garden (if you have 12 hours to watch a double feature). I just wanted to mention last weeks Sands of Destruction again, because they have a great tag line: Destroying the world solves everything.
SFX has posted some truly amusing pictures in their Sci-Fi Bad Hair Day article. They could make the navigation through the images a bit more obvious, but they picked some classic ‘doos.
