9 October 2013

Birthdays
Brandon Routh b. 1979 (Superman Returns)
Pete Docter b. 1968 (writer, Up, Monsters Inc., Wall-E)
Guillermo Del Toro b. 1964 (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy, Pacific Rim)
Scott Bakula b. 1954 (Enterprise, Quantum Leap)
Tony Shaloub b. 1953 (Men in Black, Galaxy Quest)
Robert Wuhl b. 1951 (Batman)
Brian Blessed b. 1936 (Flash Gordon)

Nice to have a birthday list where everyone is still alive. All male today, so no chance for the Pretty Girl = Picture Slot rule to take effect. I went with Brian Blessed, the Loudest Man in Britain, who on his Twitter feed is interested in the protection of badgers and when particularly pleased with someone's efforts, gives out the shout "GORDON'S ALIVE?!?" I should also note the first time I noticed his work was in the cast of I, Claudius,  still one of my favorite TV shows ever.

Many happy returns of the day, lads!

Prediction: 1996: Convicted criminals are put in suspended animation and subjected to rehabilitation techniques

Predictor: Demolition Man, released 8 October 1993

Reality: Interesting that the movie would predict suspended animation so soon in the future from their perspective and that it would be used on criminals. On the original Star Trek series, Khan and the genetically enhanced supermen who had started wars in Asia were put in suspended animation and shot into space in 1996.

Further note: Demolition Man is now 20 years old. While I didn't enjoy The Expendables, I do respect Stallone for coming up with a way to create a Senior Tour for action movie heroes. Snipes' career has been on the downturn since his tax evasion troubles, but he will be in The Expendables 3. I wonder if they will actually expend someone this time around.

But the most notable thing about Demolition Man twenty years later is that from the cast, the only real A-list star is Sandra Bullock, who stars in another genre film that is currently the number one hit in the country, Gravity, in the kind of role that has to get an Oscar nomination. Demolition Man was released one year before Speed, the film that made Bullock the kind of movie star whose picture is on the poster. (She was third bill in Demolition Man.)

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

H.G. Wells gets his weekly prediction from 1933's The Shape of Things to Come, and most of his predictions for the rest of the 20th Century are pretty darned grim.


Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

14 September 2013

Birthdays
Mark Wells b. 1980 (Narnia, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow)
Brian Klugman b. 1975 (writer, Tron Legacy)
Christopher McCulloch [a.k.a. Jackson Publick] b. 1971 (Venture Brothers, The Tick)
Robert Ben Garant b. 1970 (writer, Night at the Museum)
Michael Bollner b. 1958 (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)
Sam Neill b. 1947 (Jurassic Park)
Rowena Morrill b. 1944 (graphic artist)
Nicol Williamson b. 1936 died 16 December 2011 (Spawn, Excalibur, Return to Oz)
Walter Koenig b. 1936 (Star Trek, Babylon 5)

A great selection of birthdays today. I love a good exact same day pair and Nicol Williamson and Walter Koenig is very good indeed. We also have Sam Neill, so very good in a quiet little Australian comedy The Dish, and Michael Bollner, whose one role in film was as Augustus Gloop. Rowena is a graphic artist whose fantasy covers kind of look like romance novel covers, Klugman and Ben Garant both write and act and to round of the list, young Mr. Wells.

If I was going for best known in the Picture Slot, that's a three way race between Koenig, Williamson and Neill, with Ensign Chekov having the slight advantage given the genre. If I wanted Pretty Girl, I would have put up one of Rowena's many great cheesecake illustrations, but instead I went Full Tilt Nerd and put up a picture from my favorite work of all the ones mentioned on the list.

Go Team Venture!

Many happy returns of the day to all the living. 

Introduction: This Saturday is the inaugural of a list of predictions from the 1893 Columbian Exhibition, a World's Fair held in Chicago commemorating the 400th anniversary of the voyages of Christopher Columbus. A long list of prominent Americans were sent questionnaires about what they foresaw about life in 1993. 

Predictor: The Reverend Thomas De Witt Talmage (1832-1902)

Predictions: Cancer and tuberculosis cured... longevity improved such that 150 years will be no unusual age to reach... peace between capital and labor based on The Golden Rule... prisons with ventilation, sunlight, bathrooms and libraries.

Reality: Talmage gets hits with the cure for TB and the improvement in prison conditions, but curing cancer and peace in labor relations are tougher nuts to crack. The longest confirmed lifespan is the French woman Jeanne Calment who died at 122.

There was a recent National Geographic cover that had a picture of a baby and the prediction that the child would live to be 120. I certainly won't be around to write the Reality comment on that, but I highly doubt it. Men's life expectancy in the U.S. is improving markedly, the average increasing by about two years every decade, and nearly caught up to women's life expectancy. The female rate of improvement is much slower, about a year or less improvement every decade. Unless cancer is cured, my guess would be the upper limit for the average is between 90 and 100.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

The Third Martian Expedition lands in April 2000. It's Bradbury, so I hardly have to add this but I will.

Things don't go well.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!