Kevin Durand b. 1974 (The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, Resident Evil: Retribution, I Am Number Four, Lost, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Andromeda, Dark Angel, Stargate SG-1)
Jason Bateman b. 1969 (Hancock, Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium)
Emily Watson b. 1967 (Equilibrium)
Kerri Green b. 1967 (The Goonies)
Mark Addy b. 1964 (Game of Thrones, Around the World in 80 Days, The Time Machine, Atlantis[TV])
Steven Soderbergh b. 1963 (director, Solaris, Contagion)
Lawrence Kasdan b. 1949 (writer, The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Return of the Jedi, Dreamcatcher)
Carl Weathers b. 1948 (Predator, The Six Million Dollar Man)
Marjoe Gortner b. 1944 (Food of the Gods, Starcrash)
Holland Taylor b. 1943 (Spy Kids, The Truman Show)
Faye Dunaway b. 1941 (The Handmaid’s Tale, Supergirl)
Tom Tryon b. 1926 died 4 September 1991 (I Married a Monster From Outer Space)
Guy Williams b. 1924 died 30 April 1989 (Lost in Space, Captain Sindbad, I Was a Teenage Werewolf)
Hugh Lofting b. 1886 died 26 September 1947 (author, Doctor Dolittle)
There were other choices, but the trailer for season four just came out and I finished the fifth book A Dance With Dragons a few weeks back, so who can blame me for being in a Game of Thrones mood. The British comic actor Mark Addy played Robert Baratheon, First of His Name, a bad king but a great drunk, philanderer and cuckold. (Should I have said "spoiler alert"?) For next year, I'm not sure who gets the Picture Slot, but Guy Williams has to be the early favorite.
I shouldn't give away my trade secrets, but when I see names on imdb.com, it's not enough that they were in some genre film or TV show but that are near the top of the bill. Tom Tryon, both an author and one heck of a handsome guy, gets on the list for one movie because he is one of the newlyweds in I Married a Monster From Outer Space. I'll be a sport this time and refrain from telling you if he was the I Married part or the Monster From Outer Space part.
You're welcome.
Prediction: In 2009, most text will be created using speech recognition technology.
Reality: Following a tip from Zombie Rotten McDonald in a comment thread, I hunted down a list of predictions for 2009 from Ray Kurzweil, my new regular Tuesday prediction guy for the next few months. I read a statement on his Wikipedia where he claimed that all his predictions save one came true, and the one he got wrong was made in jest.
I don't know how to break this to you, Mr. Kurzweil, but... I'm a tougher grader than you are. This isn't even true today and it sure wasn't the case in 2009. This counts as a big fat goose egg. You are 0 for 1.
If anyone tells you Ray Kurzweil is as good a futurist as he was a synthesizer maker, tell them the guy who writes This Day in Science Fiction calls bullshit on that claim and can back it up chapter and verse.
Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!
Our Wednesday regular T. Baron Russell gets pre-empted by a prediction from one of his contemporaries writing fiction courtesy of the collection Steampunk Prime.
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
All you have to do to shoot down Kurzweil is reference those clone voices that ask you what you want when you call customer service lines.
ReplyDeleteAlso, who knew it was Zorro who helped defeat the Wolfman?
I used to know a guy, friend of a friend, here in Milwaukee who got into the "Futurist" racket. Lots of speaking and consultancy fees, book deals, and not a single jot of culpability for getting every single thing wrong.
ReplyDeleteHe was remarkably full of shit.
I'm not emotionally cut out for work like that. I've got the twin nerd emotions too deeply engrained, loving to get stuff right and hating to get stuff wrong.
DeleteIf you're interested, here's his web site:
Deletehttp://www.davidzach.com/
I haven't really followed his work since I first met him. At the time, he seemed like he was completely full of it. At least he found a way to make a living.