“Ainori is a reality program where seven young men and women travel the world riding a pink bus. The program is reminiscent of a travelogue; as of October 2006, the show has followed the bus across 71 countries as participants explore both famous tourist attractions and more off-the-beaten-path places.
The show’s twist is that the participants are each young, single people whose goal is to find love with another participant and return to Japan as a couple. When a participant has decided they like someone else, they ask the driver for a ticket back to Japan. They then declare their love to the object of their affection, and ask that the two return to Japan together. After a night’s consideration, the person who received the love declaration can either answer with a kiss, after which both participants leave the bus for Japan. Otherwise, the jilted participant is left to return to Japan alone. ”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 15, 2006 in Science
This article isn’t all doom and gloom as the headline might suggest, in fact what’s neat is that it has several suggestions to solve the radiation issue:
“Space elevators are touted as a novel and cheap way to get cargo, and possibly people, into space one day. So far, they have barely left the drawing board, but ultimately robots could climb a cable stretching 100,000 kilometres from Earth’s surface into space.
But there is a hitch: humans might not survive thanks to the whopping dose of ionising radiation they would receive travelling through the core of the Van Allen radiation belts around Earth. These are two concentric rings of charged particles trapped by Earth’s magnetic fields. “They would die on the way through the radiation belts if they were unshielded,” says Anders Jorgensen, author of a new study on the subject and a technical staff member at Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, US.”
“The initial goal was to try and do three big stories in one DVD. So I wrote three scripts, featuring Sheridan, Lochley, Galen and Garibaldi. (I wanted to focus on the human characters initially so we’d have more time for prosthetics R&D for the next one.) The stories, as noted previously, were huge…all over the map, from Minbar, to Earth, Mars, the future, the distant past, as well as B5 itself obviously. We’re also going to be trying some new production technologies, again trying to stay ahead of the tech curve, the way B5 has always stayed ahead on these things.
And over the last few days, as we began to bring on crew and lay out the production, looking at just how complicated these mini-movies were going to be, the idea of making three of these monsters began to become a bit much for us to pull off on out first time out the gate, especially since I’m still kind of new as a director. So we decided to postpone one of the three to the next DVD, and lengthen the other two to make up the difference. GIven that the Garibaldi story was the most complicated visually and technically, also the most difficult from a CGi perspective, that’s the one that got pushed until, potentially, next time.”
“Fanboys is a comedy about friends, fans and delusions of grandeur. Fanboys takes place in the fall of 1998, a time when everything was pure and Star Wars ruled the world once again. We follow four life-long best friends who travel cross-country in an attempt to break into George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch. Their mission is to see Star Wars Episode I early when they discover one of the young men in their group is diagnosed with terminal cancer and will not live long enough to see the film in theaters the following May. This film expresses what it means to care about something so truly that you would do anything for it… what it means to be a fan. This is a film for the fans, made by the fans. ”
“Frank Miller, the famous graphic novelist turned director will be moving from his own work by taking Will Eisner’s classic “The Spirit” and adapting it for the big screen. “We’re working on the script right now,” commented Miller at the LA premiere of ‘300.’ “We’ve got a good strong story to work with, and we’re hoping to be in production either spring [2007] or [this] fall .”
Miller promises fans of the series that, “it’ll be very faithful to the books.” Miller also indicated in the interview with IGN that he has one actor (who he wouldn’t name) in mind for the role of the hero.”
From Malaysia diva-in-training Karen Kong has created a sappy yet wonderful Hello Kitty tribute song:
From the video description:
“This is the story about a girl falls in love online and naively ran away from home, bringing with her nothing but her precious Hello Kitty doll – only to find out the cruelty of the world when she’s all alone celebrating her birthday, finally … after travelling to many different places, she finally whispers to her doll ‘hello kitty, please help me, i was wrong and i miss my parents, i wanna go home now ‘.”
“Zack Snyder, who will direct an upcoming film version of Alan Moore’s seminal graphic novel Watchmen, told SCI FI Wire that Warner Brothers likes his take on the material, which goes back to the source for its inspiration, closely following the original 1985 setting and alternate-history American mileu in which Richard Nixon is still president. That faithfulness to the graphic novel, which has been famously considered unadaptable to film, ironically, provided the key to unlocking the script, Snyder said.”
This is one of my favorite classic science fiction movies, it’s not quite as cool as Metropolis but on the plus side H.G. Wells did the script and the soundtrack and special effects are very well done:
“Things to Come is a 1936 British science fiction film, produced by Alexander Korda and directed by William Cameron Menzies. The screenplay was written by H. G. Wells and is a loose adaptation of his own 1933 novel The Shape of Things to Come. The film stars Raymond Massey.
Plot: On the Christmas Eve of 1940, war begins as the city of Everytown is bombed. The war lasts 66 years, during which time civilization falls into anarchy. Eventually the warlord who calls himself The Boss emerges to establish brutish control over the chaos. But then a scientific group called Wings Over the World emerges and is able to quash the regime of The Boss using a peace gas. The scientists then set about building a shining white new scientific Utopia on the ruins of the old civilization. In the year 2036, the culmination of the new society’s scientific vision is the launching of the first Moon shot.”
“Engineers from the University of Cambridge and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have unveiled a radical design for a “silent aircraft”.
The team says any noise from the concept aircraft, known as the SAX-40, would be “imperceptible” beyond the boundaries of an airport. It would also burn far less fuel than conventional planes. The design is the result of three years’ work and includes both new and existing technologies.”
Part of me wonders if this is just a bad idea, it’s been ten years since Pulp Fiction and I’m not sure if Travolta could pull off a prequel. And I’m assuming of course that it would have to be a prequal as the Travolta character got killed off in Pulp Fiction. Of course if there is a person who could come up with a creative solution it would be Tarantino:
“One of the projects that I think most of us have given up on long ago was the sequel to Pulp Fiction focusing on the Vic and Vincent Vega, played by John Travolta and Michael Madsen. It turns out that Madsen himself hasn’t given up hope, and he tells me that QT has approached him with a story concept that could make a movie happen.
Last week I got on the phone with Madsen to talk about the 15th anniversary DVD of Reservoir Dogs (which is coming a year early) and the new Reservoir Dogs video game, and I took the chance to grill him on various upcoming projects. He brought up the Vega Bros movie, something I would never have even thought to ask about.”
“Monster A Go-Go has an unusual, perhaps even unique, production history. Director Bill Rebane ran out of money while making the film. Lewis, who needed a second film to show with his own feature, Moonshine Mountain, bought the film, added a few extra scenes and some dialogue, and then released it, creating an odd, disjointed film with little continuity. The film is infamous among those who have seen it for its incomprehensible “non-ending”.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 5, 2006 in Star Wars
It’s the famous lost scene with Biggs from the original Star Wars! But now that I’ve seen it I think it’s a good Lucas cut it from the film – it’s pretty lame stuff:
まっさらブルージーンズ (Romaji: Massara Blue Jeans; English: Brand New Blue Jeans) is an Indie-Single of the Hello! Project group °C-ute. The single was released on 2006-05-06 at the second to last date of the Morning Musume Concert Tour 2006 Haru ~Rainbow Seven~, where °C-ute opened the show. It is also on sale at Fanclub Events and at the Hello! Project store.
