Birthdays
Rachel McAdams b. 1978 (About Time, The Time Travelers' Wife)
Leslie Bibb b. 1974 (Iron Man)
Leonard Roberts b. 1972 (Buffy, Smallville)
Bjorn Stein b. 1970 (director, Underworld: Awakening)
Frank Spotnitz b. 1960 (producer, The X Files)
Stephen Root b. 1951 (True Blood, Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Bill Lancaster b. 1947 died 4 January 1997 (writer, The Thing [1982])
Martin Scorsese b. 1942 (director, Hugo)
The biggest name here is Martin Scorsese, and the two young women at the top of the list are definitely attractive enough for the Pretty Girl = Picture Slot, but I went with a poster from the John Carpenter's version of The Thing, which counts as a remake of the 1951 movie, but is much truer to the source story, John W. Campbell Jr.'s 1938 novella Who Goes There? The differences between these two versions show how much the genre had progressed in thirty years, due in no small part to the improvements in special effects that made it possible to tell a story with so many alien/fantasy elements. (A Norwegian 2011 version is billed as a prequel to the 1982 film.)
Many happy returns to all the living on the list.
Television premieres
The Star Wars Holiday Special, aired in 1978
Somehow, this did not join Charlie Brown, the Grinch and It's a Wonderful Life as evergreen holiday classics.
Predictor: The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, published in 1950
Prediction: In February 2003, the Tenth City on Mars is built, filled with poets, novelists and beachcombers.
Reality: Yet another very short chapter, one that takes up less than a page. It's easy to see Bradbury writing reflections of himself in the writers and even the beachcomber. The best sci-fi writers or this era worked like men possessed, turning out amazing numbers of pages, but somewhere in the back of his mind it must have seemed somewhat soft and easy to him, compared to his father's work as a telephone lineman.
Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!
We are just four years away from really hot sex robots. You might want to consider starting your saving's account now.
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
I enjoy this movie even more than Alien, the scene where the men are tied up on the couch while the blood samples are tested, ay Caramba! I saw the 1951 version at a drive-in as a second or third feature of an all night sci fi fest in the early 60s. When I think about it, it could have been an original Star Trek episode with a lot of red shirts.
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