“Jeliza-Rose is a young girl in a very unusual situation both of her parents are junkies and she is usually left to her own devices for entertainment. When her mother dies, her father takes her to a remote farm in the country, she escapes the vast loneliness of her new home by retreating into a world that exists only in her mind. Here, fireflies have names, bog-men awaken at dusk, and squirrels talk. And the heads of her four dolls Mystique, Baby Blonde, Glitter Gal, and Sateen Lips long since separated from their bodies, keep her company.”
“China may one day offer trips into space for tourists, a senior official said on Thursday, outlining the country’s plans to launch more rockets, explore the moon and even help farmers by using satellite transmissions.
Sun Laiyan, head of the China National Space Administration, also defended the cost of the space program, saying Beijing spent far less than the United States, it benefited ordinary people and was anyway a matter of national pride.”
“The show tracks a century of formal comics invention (in Newark, mostly early strips; at the Jewish Museum, different comic book incarnations) through what are meant to be mini-retrospectives. This means Elzie Crisler Segar’s “Thimble Theater,” which introduced Popeye (he was far, far darker than the spinach-addled television cartoon), and Milton Caniff’s superstylish “Terry and the Pirates.” It means Frank King’s languid “Gasoline Alley” and Chester Gould’s “Dick Tracy,” which set the standard for hard-boiled grit and packed a visceral punch that came from tightly organized colors and shapes (Mr. Spiegelman calls it “blueprint Expressionism”) until Mr. Gould went kind of gaga and launched Tracy into outer space to fight bad guys on the moon in a rocket-powered garbage can.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 12, 2006 in Star Trek
Wrath of Khan was perhaps Star Trek at it’s very best. This is a great interview with writer and director Nicholas Meyer who discusses the making of the film, Spock’s death, Khan’s chest, the movie’s connection to the Horatio Hornblower novels:
“It wasn’t even my idea to bring him back (Kahn), it was just one of the things we all agreed on that we liked. They showed me the episode. At the very beginning, when I first went in, I didn’t know anything about Star Trek. They showed me the Robert Wise movie, and they showed me four or five episodes from the original series; I sat and watched, and said: “Ah! Hornblower…in outer space”.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 11, 2006 in Television
A remake of a spinoff? Is there a law in Hollywood against doing something new? And I bet those bastards don’t even let poor Lindsay Wagner get a cameo role, thus forcing her to do more matress commercials:
“David Eick, executive producer of SCI FI Channel’s original series Battlestar Galactica, will reinvent another 1970s SF show: The Bionic Woman, which he will executive-produce with film writer Laeta Kalogridis for SCI FI’s parent TV network, NBC, Variety reported. The original spinoff of The Six Million Dollar Man starred Lindsay Wagner as tennis-pro-turned-superwoman Jamie Sommers; it aired for two seasons on ABC before shifting to NBC in 1977 for its final year.”
“In 2007, Lucas will begin work on a live-action “Star Wars” show set during the 18-year gap between Episodes III and IV. “We haven’t started yet; I start that next year,” the filmmaker said, adding that he’s determined to write an entire first season before shooting begins on the show that will star “background” characters from that time period.
None of the Skywalker story, none of that stuff is in there,” he explained, shooting down any depiction of a young Han Solo acquiring the Millennium Falcon or running with Lando Calrissian. “It’s completely different. The animated series has got all the characters in it. The one that comes after, the live-action one, is with people who were in ‘Star Wars,’ but they’re not the main characters.” Lucas said the plot will be steered by characters such as Tie-Fighter or Rebel pilots, most only briefly glimpsed in the six “Star Wars” films.”
“Paris-based skateboard company Mekanism invited Space Invader—the French graffiti artist known for his mosaics—once again to have his way with their decks. Expanding on the limited edition turquoise and red mosaic print that Invader came up with on their first collaboration (back in ’05), there’s only one per edition and they’re made with actual tiles.”
“Astronomers have discovered a new class of planets that take less than a day to whiz round their parent stars. Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope revealed the existence of the planets, which orbit closer to their stars than any previously known. Dr Kailash Sahu and colleagues report finding the planets in a faint, crowded star field in a region of the Milky Way known as the galactic bulge.
The team has published its findings in the scientific journal Nature. It uncovered the existence of 16 planets in the category of close orbiters, taking between 0.4 and 3.2 days to go around their respective stars. Many of the planets are the size of Jupiter, the largest planet in our Solar System. Two of the 16 have orbits of less than a day, creating a new category of “ultra-short” orbit exoplanets.”
I’m always down on the Sci Fi channel for nottaking chances, well this time I’m wrong! It seems they are doing something quite cool and joining up with the Sundance channel to have a contest for science fiction films:
SCI FI, Sundance Launch Exposure
“SCI FI Channel announced that it will join forces with Sundance Channel to launch Exposure, an eight-week short-film competition to find the best science fiction, horror or fantasy films to post on SCIFI.COM and SundanceChannel.com, with a grand prize of the chance to pitch a project to SCI FI Channel’s Pictures Group. Both sites are now accepting submissions from up-and-coming filmmakers of two-to-eight-minute movies in the genre.
The short films will be judged by a committee of SCI FI Channel and Sundance Channel experts, who will review the submissions and post the best ones online each week. Viewers will cast their votes on either Web site to determine a weekly winner, ultimately determining the eight finalists. The eight shorts will be featured in an on-air special, to be broadcast on SCI FI Channel (airdate to be announced) preceding the online voting to determine the grand prize winner. That winner will be awarded a trip to New York to pitch his or her project.”
Below: “The Wookiees, although primitive compared to us, are surprisingly capable editors. They’re pretty strong, and pick up wiki techniques pretty quickly.”
It seems an interview has come out which claims that Kubrick thought that Cruise and Kidman ruined ‘Eyes Wide Shut’, and I have to say that I agree! Cruise gave a a great performance in ‘Magnolia’ and Kidman was fantastic in ‘the Hours’, but they two together just didn’t work on screen: Cruise and Kidman ruined Eyes Wide Shut – Kubrick interview
“Director Stanley Kubrick thought his last movie Eyes Wide Shut was a “piece of s**t” that was ruined by interference from its stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, according to actor R Lee Ermey. Ermey starred in Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket and remained in contact with the legendary film-maker up until his death in 1999.
When the pair spoke shortly after Kubrick had completed work on Eyes Wide Shut, Ermey recalls the legendary director expressing his disappointment with the movie. He says: “Stanley called me about two weeks before he died, as a matter of fact. We had a long conversation about Eyes Wide Shut. He told me it was a piece of s**t and that he was disgusted with it and that the critics were going to have him for lunch.”
…however I’d have to note that Sydney Pollack gave a great performance:
