Kodi Smit-McPhee b. 1996 (Let Me In, The Road, Nightmares & Dreamscapes)
Aaron Taylor-Johnson b. 1990 (Avengers: Age of Ultron, Godzilla, Kick-Ass, The Illusionist)
Kat Dennings b. 1986 (Suburban Gothic, Thor)
Chris Evans b. 1981 (Captain America, Fantastic Four, Avengers)
Ethan Embry b. 1978 (Once Upon a Time, The Witches of Oz, Timeline, FreakyLinks, Evolver)
Lisa Vidal b. 1965 (Grimm, American Horror Story, The Event, Star Trek [2009])
Ally Sheedy b. 1962 (Kyle XY, Stephen King’s Dead Zone, Strange Frequency, Short Circuit, WarGames)
Tim Allen b. 1953 (Zoom, Galaxy Quest)
Richard Thomas b. 1951 (Nightmares & Dreamscapes, The Invaders [1995 TV], It, Battle Beyond the Stars)
Stellan Skarsgård b. 1951 (Thor, The Avengers, Pirates of the Caribbean, Exorcist: The Beginning, King Arthur [2004], Deep Blue Sea)
Belinda Bauer b. 1950 (Necromicon: Book of Dead, RoboCop 2, Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann, The Archer: Fugitive from the Empire)
Simon Callow b. 1949 (Outlander [TV], Doctor Who, Chemical Wedding)
Joe Roth b. 1948 (producer, Maleficent, Oz the Great and Powerful, Snow White and the Huntsman, Alice in Wonderland [2010], Tall Tale)
Whitley Strieber b. 1945 (author, Hunger, The Wolfen, War Day, Communion)
Malcolm MacDowell b. 1943 (Zombex, Vamps, The Philadephia Experiment [TV], Antiviral, The Book of Eli, Halloween I & II [21st Century], Suck, Heroes, Doomsday, Firestarter II; Rekindled, Island of the Dead, Star Trek: Generations, Lexx, 2103: The Deadly Wake, Tank Girl, Class of 1999, Moon 44, Cat People, Time After Time, A Clockwork Orange)
Ralph McQuarrie b. 1929 died 3 March 2012 (production designer, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, E.T., Coccoon, Star Trek)
Paul Lynde b. 1926 died 10 January 1982 (Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, The Munsters, Son of Flubber)
Rex Everhart b. 1920 died 13 March 2000 (Superman [1978], ‘Way Out)
Mary Wickes b. 1919 died 22 October 1995 (Tabitha, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters)
Larry Keating b. 1896 died 26 August 1963 (The Incredible Mr. Limpet, When Worlds Collide)
Basil Rathbone b. 1892 died 21 July 1967 (Queen of Blood, Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, The Magic Sword)
Last year, before I had done the level of research I do now, Kat Dennings was in the Picture Slot. She's purdy. But if it's iconic we are going for, Malcolm MacDowell in A Clockwork Orange is hard to beat. Also, this is as good a time as any to admit how much fun doing the research can be. Today, there were so many great memories found among these names. From youngest to oldest, here are the highlights.
1. I don't love Tim Allen, but I do love Galaxy Quest.
2. I love Simon Callow.
3. I love Malcolm MacDowell.
4. The artwork of Ralph McQuarrie is the front runner for the Picture Slot next year. Great stuff.
5. Paul Lynde! Scrolling through his credits, just seeing That Girl made me think of his delivery of the line "Body heat." It still makes me laugh. (I have no idea how many people remember this.)
6. Mary Wickes. With Bea Arthur and Eve Arden, the holy trinity of wise cracking dames in American film history. The Man Who Came to Dinner, The Music Man, Sister Act. I love Mary Wickes.
7. Basil Rathbone. No further comment required.
No disrespect to anyone else on the list. Rex Everhart and Larry Keating were great Oh That Guys, I've enjoyed work by Ally Sheedy, Richard Thomas and Stellan Skarsgård, but the seven listed were really nice trips down memory lane this morning.
Many happy returns to the living on the list and to the dead, thanks for all the memories.
Movies released
The Incredible Hulk released, 2008
Prediction: "By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people ... If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000."
Reality: A lot of Ehrlich's scorn is aimed at darker skinned foreigners, notably the countries of India and Egypt, but this quote lifts him from the ranks of crypto-racists to the category of dense pessimistic scumbags.
The U.K.s growth rate from 1970 to 2000 was next to nothing, climbing from about 56 million to about 59 million, a paltry yearly growth rate of 0.2%. To get to 70 million it would have had to be 0.8%, so he's off by a factor of four.
Paul Krugman has a post today from The New York Times about screw-ups he's made and what he's learned from them. This is one of many reasons that if I ever disagree with Mr. Krugman on some topic where I'm even close to as knowledgeable as he is, I will state my case as calmly as possible. Ehrlich relies on math, a field I understand pretty well, and he sucks at it again and again and I've NEVER seen him admit his mistakes. He is in that group I call The Undeserving Employed. This is the last we will see of him and a new regular predictor will be in his place next Friday. I don't think it's possible to find someone worse.
Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!
We return to 1893. Sadly, I can find no pictures of our prognosticator, so the post will be facial hair free.
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
yeah, I admit that Kurzweil's predictions may be NOMINALLY better than Ehrlich's but I feel the same way about the K. Partially because he was playing a tilted field, predicting a paltry ten years out (and still getting it mostly wrong!) but also, "Futurist" is such a bullshit career. "I'm a futurist" "That's cool! Do you build the future?" "No, I try to obtain media attention by predicting crazy or terrifying things about the future." "Oh. Well, we have those people already - they're called engineers and scientists. Thanks for coming in, though, and we won't keep your resume on file."
ReplyDeleteThe guy who wrote the kids book did much better, let alone your man-crush John Elfreth. I would have more affection for Kurzweil if he had predicted giant fruit.
I remember the mini-panic set off by Ehrlich's sensationalistic book when it was published. Went on for years, AND YET the sky never fell, Chicken Little.
I have TWO open weekly slots, so I know one of them has to go to Herman Kahn. He's going to give Ehrlich and Kurzweil a run for their money.
DeleteEhrlich claimed expertise at population studies. Let us recall that Lee de Forest claimed expertise at telecommunication and his predictions in that field were awfully damned good.
DeleteAnd John Elfreth Watkins was a museum curator.
DeleteKurzweil actually had some success in electronics and engineering, which makes his whiffs egregious also IMHZO.
Sadly, I can find no pictures of our prognosticator,
ReplyDeleteImagine a time when there are NO PICTURES of a person. Whoah; mind, she is blown.