Sunday, August 25, 2013

25 August 2013


Birthdays
Blake Lively b. 1987 (Green Lantern)
Alexander Skarsgård b. 1976 (True Blood, Battleship)
Tim Burton b. 1958 (Beetlejuice, Alice in Wonderland, Planet of the Apes)
Tom Skerritt b. 1933 (Alien)
Sean Connery b. 1930 (Zardoz, Outland, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)
Michael Rennie b. 1909 died 10 June 1971 (The Day the Earth Stood Still)

Yet another all Hollywood list of birthdays today. For me, the biggest surprise is that Tom Skerritt is only three years younger than Sean Connery and just turned 80(!). By any reasonable yardstick, Ms. Lively's career is the shortest on the list and has the least to do with science fiction or fantasy but... she's purdy.

It also gives me a chance to repeat something I tweeted yesterday that is somewhat on topic.

"I don't remember the Internet pissing itself when Ryan Reynolds was announced as Green Lantern, because THAT would have been useful."

Many happy returns of the day for the living.
 

Prediction: In January 1999, a rocket takes off from Ohio on the way to Mars. The heat from the blast melts the snow and icicles all over town and the locals call it "rocket summer".

Predictor: Ray Bradbury in The Martian Chronicles, a collection of short stories published in 1950

Reality: Rockets produce a heat blast, but it is contained in a relatively small area and dissipates quickly as the rocket climbs. As we know from bitter experience, the heat blast of take-off was not enough to warm up the O-rings on the rocket carrying the space shuttle Challenger. At low temperatures, the rings were brittle instead of flexible and failed catastrophically.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Let's get another prediction about nuclear powered vehicles, because that can't possibly screw up.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
 

4 comments:

  1. Ohio? Who would launch spacecraft from Ohio?

    Someone else pointed out on twitter that the INternarfles ALSO freaked out when Heath Ledger was announced as the Joker. Go home, INternet, you're drunk. Again.

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    1. As other people have noted, the DC universe has not been able to get fans to care about any characters other than Batman and Superman when it comes to big budget movies. That might explain the large ho hum about Reynolds as Green Lantern and the gnashing of teeth about Ledger and Affleck.

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  2. Speaking as one of the people who thinks of the Greens (Arrow and Lantern) as the DC Universe while Batman and Superman are sui generis, those of us in the small GL following reacted to the announcement of Ryan Reynolds in an absolutely appropriate and correct wey:

    "Well, no need to see that in the cinema. Maybe on cable, if there's nothing else on the DVR. And no need to write about something so trivial."

    But we got a nice picture out of it, without discussion of Sean Connery's "gun" or The Keeper. So it's a gain on balance. (Though, iirc, Lively was a brunette for the GL film, not the usual Gossip-Girl-shows-her-roots shot.)

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    1. Lively is gorgeous and I was glad to find a picture that wasn't red carpet peek-a-boob. Once again, I am not one to disparage the concept or practice of world class cleavage, but so many of the pictures of her on the Interwebs lack subtlety.

      As for DC Universe, there's also Martian Manhunter and Flash and Wonder Woman, but they might as well be Elongated Lad and Booster Gold for all the respect they get.

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Traveler! Have you news... FROM THE FUTURE?