This week the Disney film Into The Woods is going to corner the musical comedy fantasy market I suspect, and I will no doubt be in the theater to check it out on the big screen. Also, The Imitation Game finally goes into wide release. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley, this telling of the life of mathematical genius Alan Turing has been nominated for 5 Golden Globes, on top of the 23 awards it has already won.
Another tale of the future from South Africa, co-written, directed, and co-produced by Neill Blomkamp, the man who brought us District 9. Chappie is a robot with a brain based on learning heuristics and a neural net, meaning he starts out with only the instinct to learn, knowing nothing. Actors include Sigourney Weaver, Hugh Jackman, Ninja and Yo-Landi Vi$$er (those last two you probably know better under the name Die Antwoord), and the trailer tells me I need to see this film. In the US it will be on the big screen on March 6, 2015.
I have been waiting for this week! This Wednesday we get Interstellar in a limited number of theaters around the country (check here to see if there is one near you). In my part of the country it will be at the Lockheed Martin IMAX, National Air & Space Museum in 70MM, but on Friday it opens everywhere. Also beginning Friday, Big Hero 6, from the creators of Frozen and based on the comic book of the same name from Marvel. And if you are in the mood for a bit of reality, the docudrama The Theory of Everything, about the life and love of Steven Hawking.
This time the images are not computer generated creations, but actual photographs of space. This is an astrophotography contest held by Ciel et Espace Photos in France, and I hope they do it every year. This is their very first year, and the competition is called the Photo Nightscape Awards, or PNA for short. They had a Pro and Amature category, as well as Junior categories for several age ranges, and the images are spectacular. You can catch a glimpse in the video below, but you want to go to the Winners Page and see the full resolution versions for yourself. Many thanks to the folks at Universe Today for the heads up on this one.
3D printing is some amazing technology, usually done using some pre-processed plastic as your source material, but it doesn’t have to only use that media. Here is what one guy created using the basic principles but a different set of tools and sand as his source material. What source material would you select, and what would you create out of it?
This Sunday, 21Sep14, The Planetary Society will be doing a special live broadcast to welcome MAVEN to Mars: Planetary Radio Live: MAVEN Arrives at Mars. It starts at 6PM on the west coast, 9PM on the east, and I have no idea what time it will be on Mars. If you happen to be in California for the event, you can attend free if you RSVP, but I suspect most folks will be attending online. They will be tuning into NASA TV for the landing itself, here are the list of folks doing the show:
Moderator:
Mat Kaplan: host and producer, Planetary Radio for The Planetary Society
Guests:
Bruce Betts: Director of Science and Technology, The Planetary Society
Emily Lakdawalla: Senior Editor and Planetary Evangelist, The Planetary Society
Bill Nye the Science Guy: CEO, The Planetary Society
Richard Zurek Ph.D: Chief Scientist for the Mars Program Office and Project Scientist for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
It does seem just a little strange to me that a bunch of engineers would be calling a video presentation a radio show, they usually tend to be more accurate with their nomenclature than that. It should be pretty exciting, I for one will be enjoying the program, I hope you will be too.