The 42nd crew of the ISS has an official poster that honors Douglas Adams Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. The folks at Space Dot Com have a great image they claim is the official Expedition 42 poster, I am linking to them because I couldn’t find a copy at NASA.
I have been looking forward to The Boxtrolls for a while now, and it is finally time to see them on the big screen. Based on Alan Snow’s children’s novel Here Be Monsters, it is one of a series. I am hoping that the film does well enough at the box office that they decide to go ahead and make the rest of them. If you are looking for something a bit grittier, The Equalizer is also coming out this week. It stars Denzel Washington, and is based on the 1980’s TV show of the same name.
This film won’t be out until February, but Seventh Son looks like a tasty adventure fantasy. It stars Jeff Bridges, Ben Barnes, and Julianne Moore, and is based on Joseph Delaney’s The Last Apprentice.
The film of interest this week is The Giver, about a boy growing up in utopia, who reaches a point in his life when he is chosen to be the one of his generation to learn about the real world. When he does, he realizes his community is fake, artificially insulated from reality, and it forces him to make some serious choices. Based on the book by Lois Lowry, this one explores the nature of discovering the world is not like the one your parents created to keep you safe as you grew up. I should also mention that the The Expendables 3 comes out this week as well; it may not be genre, but it is cult, and that counts for something.
If you are a Manga fan, you need to be aware that Viz has now launched Viz Select. These are some classic Manga’s that have been out of print for a while, and have now been re-released in a digital media format. Some of them started life as light novels, got turned into manga, and finally became Anime. Other stories went in a different order, such as The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, which started out as a novel, got turned into an Anime, followed by a live action movie, and then was developed as a Manga. However they got that way, there are some classic Manga titles in this collection, such as Future Diary, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Fate/stay night, Trinity Blood, D・N・ANGEL, and more. Enjoy!
Over on the PotterMore site, J.K. Rowling has returned to the world of Harry Potter for a new short story that reunites now-adult Harry with his old friends. You can read the full story here on PotterMore after registering, or over at Today Dot Com without the registration process. She is a wonderful writer, the Potter series is amazing, and I am hoping for lots more from this fun universe. Thanks to Open Culture and another double dozen sites for the heads up on this one.