Friday, August 14, 2015

14 August 2015

Birthdays
Garrett Ryan b. 1999 (Insidious, Teen Wolf, Oculis, Heroes)
Cassi Thomson b. 1993 (Left Behind, Grave Halloween)
Mila Kunis b. 1983 (Jupiter Ascending, Oz the Great and Powerful, Ted, The Book of Eli, Piranha)
Nick Holmes b. 1981 (Guardians of the Galaxy)
Zack Whedon b. 1979 (writer, Fringe, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog)
Christopher Gorham b. 1974 (Once Upon a Time, Jake 2.0, Odyssey 5, Buffy)
Raoul Bova b. 1971 (AvP: Alien vs Predator)
Michelle Lintel b. 1969 (Battle Planet, Black Scorpion)
Catherine Bell b. 1968 (The Good Witch, Threshold, The Triangle, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Alien Nation: Body and Soul)
Ben Bass b. 1968 (Dead Like Me, Jeremiah, Strange Frequency, The Lone Gunmen, The 6th Day, Stargate SG-1, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show, The Hunger, Bride of Chucky, Forever Knight)
Adrian Lester b. 1968 (Merlin [2009], Doomsday, Being Human, Afterlife, Day After Tomorrow, Jason and the Argonauts [2000 TV])
Halle Berry b. 1966 (Extant, X-Men, Cloud Atlas, Catwoman, They Came from Outer Space [TV])
Brannon Braga b. 1965 (writer, Salem, Terra Nova, FlashForward, Threshold, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Cristi Conaway b. 1964 (Timecop, The Advanced Guard, Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman, Batman Returns)
Andrew Kevin Walker b. 1964 (writer, The Wolfman, Sleepy Hollow [film], Perversions of Science)
Emmanuelle Beart b. 1963 (Date with an Angel)
David Aaron Baker b. 1963 (The Leftovers, Revolution, Beauty and the Beast [2014])
Marcia Gay Hardin b. 1959 (The Invisible, Space Cowboys, Flubber, Superman 50th Anniversary)
Tony Moran b. 1957 (American Poltergeist, Halloween)
Greg Bradford b. 1955 (Zapped!)
James Horner b. 1953 died 22 June 2015 (composer, Star Trek New Voyages, The Amazing Spider-Man, Shoestring Space Opera, Avatar, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Bicentennial Man, Mighty Joe Young, Deep Impact, Jumanji, Apollo 13, Casper, The Rocketeer, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Cocoon, Willow, *batteries not included, Aliens, Amazing Stories, Wizards of the Lost Kingdom, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Brainstorm, Krull, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Wolfen, The Hand, Battle Beyond the Stars, Humanoids from the Deep)
Carl Lumbly b. 1951 (Hope: The Last Paladin, Battlestar Galactica, Strange World, M.A.N.T.I.S., The X Files, SeaQuest 2032, Buckaroo Banzai, Lifepod, Caveman)
Jim Wynorski b. 1950 (director, so much cheap crap I’m a little ashamed I know who he is)
Lou Wagner b. 1948 (Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The UFO Incident, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Beneath of the Planet of the Apes, Pufnstuf, Hello Down There, Planet of the Apes, Lost in Space)
Susan Saint James b. 1946 (Love at First Bite)
Antonio Fargas b. 1946 (Heroes, Good vs Evil, Homeboys in Outer Space, Firestarter, Kolchak: The Night Stalker)
Wim Wenders b. 1945 (director, Until the End of the World, Wings of Desire)
Steve Martin b. 1945 (Little Shop of Horrors, The Man with Two Brains)
Robert Viharo b. 1942 (The Evil, Dark Shadows)
Alexei Panshin b. 1940 (winner of 1969 Nebula for Rite of Passage)
Candace Hilligoss b. 1935 (The Curse of the Living Corpse, Carnival of Souls)
Alice Ghostley b. 1924 died 21 September 2007 (Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Small Wonder, Bewitched, Captain Nice)
Angela Clarke b. 1909 died 16 December 2010 (The Outer Limits, House of Wax)
 Notes from the birthday list.
1. The Picture Slot. In previous years, the Picture Slot went to Halle Berry and Mila Kunis, both iconic, both fabulous. This year, I felt it was a contest between two artists I love turning 70 today, Steve Martin and Wim Wenders. Wings of Desire won.

2. Nepotism FTW. Zach Whedon was willing to start at the ground floor, but it did help that his brother Joss was running the show.

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

Movies released.
District 9 released, 2009

I still remember walking home from this movie, polishing the Big Ugly Stick. I really, really hated it.

Predictor: H.G. Wells in his 1901 book Anticipations

Prediction: The law that dominates the future is glaringly plain. A people must develop and consolidate its educated efficient classes or be beaten in war and give way upon all points where its interests conflict with the interests of more capable people. It must foster and accelerate that natural segregation, which has been discussed in the third and fourth chapters of these "Anticipations," or perish. The war of the coming time will really be won in schools and colleges and universities, wherever men write and read and talk together. The nation that produces in the near future the largest proportional development of educated and intelligent engineers and agriculturists, of doctors, schoolmasters, professional soldiers, and intellectually active people of all sorts; the nation that most resolutely picks over, educates, sterilizes, exports, or poisons its People of the Abyss; the nation that succeeds most subtly in checking gambling and the moral decay of women and homes that gambling inevitably entails; the nation that by wise interventions, death duties and the like, contrives to expropriate and extinguish incompetent rich families while leaving individual ambitions free; the nation, in a word, that turns the greatest proportion of its irresponsible adiposity into social muscle, will certainly be the nation that will be the most powerful in warfare as in peace, will certainly be the ascendant or dominant nation before the year 2000.

Reality: It's pretty much a given that any time Wells uses the phrase "People of the Abyss", I get an overwhelming desire to dig up his grave and punch him in his smug British nose. There has been an advantage in the 20th and 21st Centuries for the technologically superior, of course, but there have been a lot of wars won by the people who refused to give up. In the year 2000, after industrialized nations got over their propensity to fight wars directly against one another, the two dominant nations were the United States and China, not because of intellectual or moral superiority, but instead a willingness to produce wealth in different but definitely ruthless ways. 
 
Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

On the Saturday Soapbox, looking at the predictions of overpopulation.
  
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

2 comments:

  1. How did you feel about his subsequent films? Or did you skip the based on the antipathy toward District 9?

    ReplyDelete

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