30 July 2014

Birthdays
Joey King b. 1999 (Oz the Great and Powerful, The Dark Knight Rises, Battle Los Angeles, Jericho)
Yvonne Strahovski b. 1982 (I, Frankenstein)
Hilary Swank b. 1974 (The Core, Buffy)
Christopher Nolan b. 1970 (director, Interstellar, The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, The Dark Knight, The Prestige, Batman Begins)
Simon Baker b. 1969 (Land of the Dead, The Ring Two, Red Planet)
Terry Crews b. 1968 (Gamer, Terminator Salvation, Idiocracy, Click, The 6th Day)
Jason Watkins b. 1966 (Atlantis, Doctor Who, Psychoville, Being Human, The Golden Compass)
Vivica A. Fox b. 1964 (Sharknado 2: The Second One, Ella Enchanted, Tremors [TV], Batman & Robin, Independence Day)
Laurence Fishburne b. 1961 (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Man of Steel, The Signal, The Colony, Predators, The Matrix, Cherry 2000, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors)
Richard Linklater b. 1960 (director, A Scanner Darkly)
Richard Burgi b. 1958 (The Green Inferno, Reaper, Firefly, Mann & Machine, The Flash)
Philip Davis b. 1953 (Being Human, Merlin [2011 TV], Doctor Who, Alien³, Howling V: The Rebirth)
Jean Reno b. 1948 (Rollerball [2002], Godzilla [1998], Le Dernier Combat)
Carel Struycken b. 1948 (Charmed, The Addams Family, Men in Black, Star Trek: Voyager, Babylon 5, Journey to the Center of the Earth [TV], Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Witches of Eastwick, Ewoks: The Battle of Endor, The Prey, Bigfoot and Wildboy)
Arnold Schwarzenegger b. 1947 (Terminator, The 6th Day, End of Days, Batman & Robin, Last Action Hero, Total Recall, The Running Man, Red Sonja, Conan, Hercules in New York)
William Atherton b. 1947 (Defiance, Lost, Stargate SG-1, Headspace, Race to Space, The Crow: Salvation, Twilight Zone [1985], Ghostbusters)
Frances de la Tour b. 1944 (Into the Woods, Hugo, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Alice in Wonderland [2010], The Book of Eli, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)
John P. Ryan b. 1936 died 20 March 2007 (Class of 1999, Faerie Tale Theatre, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, It Lives Again, Futureworld, It’s Alive)
Richard Johnson b. 1927 (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Zombie, Space: 1999, The Haunting)
Victor Wong b. 1927 died 12 September 2001 (Poltergeist: The Legacy, Tremors, Beauty and the Beast, The Golden Child, Big Trouble in Little China)


Last year's Picture Slot was Ahhhnold, and this year I went with an actor I actually like. There are some fabulous babes and Oh That Guys who might get the nod next year, notably Carel Struycken, Lurch in the re-boot of The Addams Family and Victor Wong, either from Tremors or Big Trouble in Little China, two of my favorite non-blockbuster genre films of all time.

Many happy returns to all the living on the list and to the dead, thanks for all the memories.

 

Predictor: Herman Kahn in the 1972 book Things to Come, published by the Hudson Institute

Prediction: It will increasingly difficult for the West to maintain East Germany is merely a puppet of the Soviet Union.

Reality: Umm... no, not that difficult at all. East Germany was a puppet state until it collapsed.

Kahn was a conservative and a hard line Cold Warrior and he didn't see what was going to happen in our relations with Soviets and very nearly ignored the People's Republic of China. Other than predicting big growth in Japan, he is usually wrong or very vague, not unlike our Friday regular Edgar Cayce.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

We get another prediction from Lee de Forest, predicting the year 2000 from 1960. Except for seeing the communications world pretty well, de Forest isn't that much better than Kahn or Cayce, but at least he isn't wishy-washy.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!