Leo Howard b. 1997 (Conan the Barbarian [2011], G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra)
Matt Weinberg b. 1990 (FreakyLinks, X-Men)
Colton Haynes b. 1988 (San Andreas, Arrow, Teen Wolf)
Steven R. McQueen b. 1988 (The Vampire Diaries, Piranha 3D, Minutemen, Threshold)
Chris Sheffield b. 1988 (The Last Ship, The Maze Runner, Transformers: Dark of the Moon)
Michael Mando b. 1981 (Orphan Black, The Colony, Lost Girl)
Fran Kranz b. 1981 (Bloodsucking Bastards, The Cabin in the Woods, Dollhouse, The Village, Donnie Darko)
Ashley Scott n. 1977 (Jericho, Lost, Birds of Prey, Dark Angel, A.I. Artificial Intelligence)
Ken Jeong b. 1969 (Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Vampires Suck)
Robert Gant b. 1968 (The Tomorrow People)
Peter Buchman b. 1967 (writer, Eragon, Jurassic Park III)
David X. Cohen b. 1966 (writer/producer, Futurama)
Kenny Johnson b. 1963 (Smallville, The Huntress, Blade, Sliders, The Burning Zone)
Michael Jace b. 1962 (Planet of the Apes [2001], Strange Days, Deep Space Nine)
Lance E. Nichols b. 1955 (The Fantastic Four [2015], Left Behind, American Horror Story, The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia, Creature, Swamp Shark, Green Lantern, Benjamin Button, Charmed, Buffy, Firestarter 2: Rekindled, The Invisible Man, K-PAX, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Alien Nation [TV], Project X, Amazing Stories, Twilight Zone [1985])
Gil Birmingham b. 1953 (Twilight, NightMan, Buffy, House II)
Rosemary Dunsmore b. 1952 (Orphan Black, Red: Werewolf Hunter, Lost Girl, ReGenesis, Poltergeist: The Legacy, Last Exit to Earth, RoboCop [TV], Total Recall [1990], Beauty and the Beast [1989 TV], Twilight Zone [1988])
Cheech Marin b. 1946 (Lost, Planet Terror, Spy Kids, From Dusk Till Dawn, Ghostbusters II)
Harrison Ford b. 1942 (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Age of Adaline, Ender’s Game, Cowboys & Aliens, Blade Runner)
Robert Forster b. 1941 (Heroes, Dragon Wars: D-War, Alligator, The Black Hole)
Sir Patrick Stewart b. 1940 (X-Men, The Wolverine, Ted, Star Trek, Lifeforce, Dune, Excalibur)
David Westburg b. 1940 (The Amazing Captain Nemo, Once Upon a Brothers Grimm, Logan’s Run, Genesis II, Blacula)
Bob Crane b. 1929 died 29 June 1978 (Twilight Zone)
Rene Laloux b. 1929 died 14 March 2004 (director, Gandahar, Time Masters, Fantastic Planet)
Sidney Blackmer b. 1895 died 6 October 1973 (Rosemary’s Baby, The Outer Limits)
Notes from the birthday list.
1. The Picture Slot(s). July 13th is one of those fairly easy decisions. You can argue for someone other than Sir Patrick Stewart or Harrison Ford, but I'm not listening. This year, I put them both up. These guys not only represent the two pillars of modern on-screen sci-fi, Star Trek and Star Wars, but they also have other iconic genre roles and successful careers even if you don't count their genre stuff. Nobody else here comes close.
2. Spot the Canadians! Usually, the Supernatural/Smallville daily double tells us we've got Canadians, but today it's the Orphan Black/Lost Girl pairing. Michael Mando and Rosemary Dunsmore are our pals from north of the border.
3. The Guys at the Door. The oldest living guys on the list just turned 75, the aforementioned Sir Patrick Stewart and the hard working David Westburg. While that is way too young to be The Guys at the Door, that's how this randomness works sometimes.
4. Nepotism more of less. Steven R. McQueen is the grandson of Coolest Person Ever Steve McQueen, but he was born eight years after his grand-dad died, so I don't know if it should count as nepotism.
Many happy returns to all the living on the list, especially Sir Patrick Stewart and David Westburg, and to the dead, thanks for all the memories.
Prediction: The most visible educational development of the 1980s will be the widespread introduction of automated teaching devices that marry the medium of the videodisc to the microcomputer. Such systems will permit massive amounts of audio-visual information to be introduced to students at their own rate of learning.
Reality: Picking the laserdisc as the way of the future in 1982 is just as obvious as can be and dead fucking wrong at the same time. If I'm being generous, it's not unlike people thinking the pneumatic tube would be ubiquitous or our sensible friend George Sutherland thinking the internal combustion engine had too many drawbacks to ever be fixed.
But I'm not being generous. I love pneumatic tubes and George Sutherland's mistake are always forgiven, while laserdiscs in particular are complete junk in my book and I have bad memories of Philips deciding (briefly) they were going to enforce the patents they held on the CD-ROM. I'm glad the Internet swept that nonsense away, most especially Philips' blackmail threat.
Looking on day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!
How are you fixed for Commie predictions? Well, even if you are topped off, we get another one tomorrow from John Langdon-Davies, Commie!
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
The funny thing is that Philips did the exact opposite in the 70s. They had developed the Compact Cassette, which was a weak medium since the width of the strip limited the quality of the audio you could encode; but they didn't enforce their patents, resulting in the widespread adoption of the cassette.
ReplyDeleteWhich freaked the record companies out no end. (Record companies have a long history of trying to make their customers into criminals. Apparently so screwed up on drugs that they could figure out no other way to make money. Also, the drug budgets made it impossible for ANY of them to make money legally anyway). You may remember big stickers on records and posters in corporate record stores saying "Home taping is KILLING music!" Actually, what was killing music was short sighted management by MBA weasels who axed A&R departments ensuring that artists had to cater to the lowest common denominator and deliver hits at all costs, but that artistic development was ignored. Read the Shoes biography to see this at the worst.
Thank god for labels like I.R.S. who saw the value in developing artists like U2 and REM. My favorite story was when REM was being courted by the majors and were ready to take the Warner Bros deal, IRS told them that they would make one more counter offer to get Warner to bid even higher. Worked, too...
At a local used record shop in 1980s San Francisco, they had the bumper sticker on the wall "Home taping is killing the record industry... and it's about fucking time."
DeleteLOL. Love that....
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