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Things to Watch: DVDs

The most important release this week (in my opinion) is Life on Mars Season 2, the UK edition. This one wraps up Sam Tyler’s journey into the past.

Another one to be aware of is Recon 2023, which actually came out on DVD in the US back in August. What makes this one unique is the fact that it only became available in the country it came from this month… go figure!

From the creators of Spy Kids comes Shorts, a silly kids movie that should be fun. The premise is a wishing-stone falls from the sky, and as it gets passed around town things get stranger and stranger. With actors like William H. Macy and James Spader, I think it could work.

A surprising US release this week is Akihabara Deep; the last movie like this I was aware of was called Hackers, and was one of the very first Angelina Jolie movies ever made. I will enjoy watching this import, and doing my best to track down and acquire Bamboo Blade, which isn’t really related beyond coming from the same culture and attitude.

If you are into interesting/strange music, you need to be aware that the Best of Spike Jones DVD is also coming out this week. If you don’t know who that is, I recommend you take some time and learn; you won’t be disappointed.

Silly Saturday

This feels like a silly Saturday, so I figured a silly post to go with it. Today’s Silly Topic: The Theremin! This first Theremin was the property of the Hollywood Thereminist, Dr. Samuel Hoffman, and was the very instrument he played in a ton of Hollywood movies in the ’40s and ’50s, including The Day The Earth Stood Still. And what would the Earth look like if it had rings like Saturn?

This next guy wasn’t content to play a favorite tune on the Theremin… first he had to build his own instrument, out of parts from a Wii! Then to nail his geek title down he chose the Doctor Who Theme for his musical selection.

You can make your own Theremin from just about anything, and there are even kits with all the parts you need, as this MAKE demo shows…

Girl Number 9 starts Tonight

Gareth David-Lloyd was excellent as Ianto Jones in Torchwood and Doctor Who, and I am looking forward to seeing him as Watson in next year’s Sherlock Holmes. But he has another project that launches at 9PM GMT today called Girl Number 9. Gareth isn’t the only Torchwood alumni associated with the project, since it was written by James Moran, veteran writer of episodes of Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Spooks. It is a 6-part online thriller, and the good news is it is not region locked, so everyone should be able to watch it. The rest of the episodes will be along next week, the schedule is posted on the Girl Number 9 Facebook page. They will stay online until they have the DVD with all the extra features ready for sale (they are estimating about a month), and you can learn a bit more about it in the SFX Interview.

Lilith and the Science Symphony

There is a reason I follow science fiction authors on Twitter. One example is Lilith Saintcrow, or @lilithsaintcrow in Twit Speak. In a single screens worth of entries she referenced the Symphony of Science, which is echoed in Sagans Latest Music, an ethical discourse on the difference between Kindness, Morals, and Justice, a serious Netiquette site called One Geek To Another, a report on gender-based evolutionary size tactics and why they work, an a news story indicating that Bush used PsyOps on the American public as a way to distract us from what he was doing. 10 posts, 6 ways to tie your brain in a knot; you got to love the web, and the people like her that contribute to it!

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2009 Ig Nobel Prizes, favorite SG moment

Once more, the team from the Annals of Improbable Research have handed out another year’s Ig Nobel Prizes. From the Gas Mask Bra to Tequila Diamonds, this years winners share a trait in common with each other and all previous winners. First they make you laugh… and then they make you think (mostly about how gullible some grant organizations may be, but every so often about the real-world problem that inspired the research in the first place). Some of the winners are just plain silly, and some, like the financial and mathematical winners, are very scary, but the fact that real scientists do this kind of thing gives me hope for the world. And then there is why people explore other worlds… one of my favorite SG1 moments starring Adam Baldwin, this video embed was inspired by SciFi Fangirl’s posting last night.