Wall-E got several nominations, including Best Animated, where its main competition is Kung Fu Panda. Hell Boy II only got one category (Makeup), and Iron Man and Wanted only a few each. Dark Knight did noticeably better, but the two runaways are Benjamin Buttons and Slumdog Millionaire. I will be watching this years Acadamy Awards with interest, as always.
This is a tool we should all have in our arsenal: Portable Apps, the ability to take any open source program and use it anywhere the mood strikes us. Just because using any program wasn’t enough, using that same program in any operating system is even more important. For the final tweak, you should be able to use it from any local launch platform; the two most important being a Memory Stick and a LiveCD. This system does all of that, built in. Then it gives you a simple programing environment to add your own additional software, modify the basic environment (wallpaper, sounds, security protection, etc.), and otherwise make it your own. It comes pre-bundled with some very powerful software, like FileZilla, The Gimp, and NVU Portable. Then it gives you some more build-your-own tools, like Virtual Dub and WinMerge. My favorite bit, is it is dirt simple to add your own open-source programs to the arsenal; see the Development Guide for specifics.
It looks like there will be Science Fiction at Sundance this year, not one but three films. The news is a little late, since the festival itself started on the 15th, and the story was posted nine hours ago; but the films themselves look very worth checking out. Moon is told from the perspective of the single human (and his robot, voiced by Kevin Spacey) on the Lunar base. Cold Souls sounds to have something of the sensibility of Being John Malkovich meets Kiln People, with Paul Giamatti playing himself and loosing his soul to Russian smugglers, but not in the way you would expect. Finally, The Clone Returns Home rounds out this trio with a story about memory and family and all that comes with it. I am going to have to watch for these on IFC’s Video On Demand, since they probably won’t play to every theater in the country.
There are a lot of fun things you can build in the world of Steampunk, but everyone needs at least a set of Steampunk Goggles. Here are a few quality links and videos to get you started. The first one is from Instructables, a step-by-step sequence that will get you a quality pair cheap. They also have the Airship Goggles instruction set, and the Mad Scientist Goggles. Brass Goggles has an even cheaper instruction set for building your own Steampunk Goggles. Once you have built your goggles, you might also enjoy making your own Steampunk Cellphone, or even looking into the Make 2008 Steampunk Gift Guide, just for grins and giggles. If you are looking for more basic information, check out the Steampunk FAQ and go from there. And here are a few more videos for your entertainment pleasure…
BBC America will be airing the new mini-season of Torchwood only a few hours after it airs in the UK, according to Wired. Word is the five episodes will air on five consecutive nights sometime this summer. I was happy last year when they ran it a week after the episodes played only a week behind the British showings; this is even better! Apparently John Barrowman is also writing a Torchwood Comic that will be appearing in (surprise) Torchwood Magazine.
I have lost all entries with tonight’s computer crash, but here are a few of them I managed to recover. Starting with the Watchmen News, that Fox gave up trying to kill the Watchmen movie in return for a cut of the take. We already knew about the Live-Action version of Cowboy Bebop, but did you know what other live action versions of these stories are coming to town? Disney brought over a pablomized version of Mulan, but the Chinese Government has to step in on something that culturally important to them. They called themselves the China Film Group, and built it with Xinhua this time around. Then there is the Ninja Scroll live action remake, another major milestone. And just in case you haven’t gotten today’s dose of Silly yet, get ready for the live-action version of Marvin The Martian. Does anybody besides me find it scary that Fox and the Chinese Government have so many interests in common, the end result being they are only in it for the money and don’t care about the rest of us (like their citizens/customers)?