1 August 2015

Birthdays
Alakina Mann b. 1990 (The Others)
Sasha Jackson b. 1988 (Dominion, Attack of the 50ft Cheerleader, The Witches of Oz)
Max Carver b. 1988 (The Leftovers, Teen Wolf, Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn)
Monserrat Lombard b. 1982 (The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, Hyperdrive)
Miracle Laurie b. 1981 (100,000 Zombie Heads, Dollhouse)
Jason Momoa b. 1979 (Aquaman, Game of Thrones, Conan the Barbarian [2011], Stargate: Atlantis)
Burton Perez b. 1977 (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra)
Annett Culp b. 1975 (BloodRayne: The Third Reich, Blubberella, Babylon 5: In the Beginning)
Kris Holden-Ried b. 1973 (The Listener, Lost Girl, Underworld: Awakening, Habitat)
Charles Malik Whitfield b. 1972 (Sleepy Hollow, Warehouse 13, Supernatural, Seven Days)
Jennifer Gareis b. 1970 (The 6th Day)
Cameron Rhodes b. 1967 (Power Rangers, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Xena)
Sam Mendes b. 1965 (producer, Penny Dreadful)
Melanie Shatner b. 1964 (Perversions of Science, TekWar, La Mansion de los Cthulhu, The Alien Within, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Star Trek)
John Carroll Lynch b. 1963 (Ted 2, American Horror Story, Paul, Carnivale, Star Trek: Voyager, From the Earth to the Moon)
Thomas Jay Ryan b. 1962 (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Teknolust)
Mark McCracken b. 1960 (Where the Wild Things Are, Matinee, Swamp Thing)
Adrian Dunbar b. 1958 (The Quatermass Experiment [2005 TV])
Taylor Negron b. 1957 died 10 January 2015 (Vamps, Wizards of Waverly Place, Good vs Evil, Faerie Tale Theatre)
Lewis Smith b. 1956 (Avalon: Beyond the Abyss, Beauty and the Beast, Badlands 2005, The Man Who Fell to Earth [TV], Buckaroo Banzai)
Annabel Jankel b. 1955 (director, Super Mario Bros., Max Headroom)
Suze Lanier-Bramlett b. 1947 (The Hills Have Eyes, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl)
David Calder b. 1946 (Utopia, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, The Mists of Avalon, Jason and the Argonauts [2000 TV], Star Cops, Superman)
Andrew G. Vajna b. 1944 (producer, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Judge Dredd, Jacob’s Ladder, Total Recall)
Giancarlo Giannini b. 1942 (Dracula [2002], Dune [2000 TV], Mimic)
Terry Kiser b. 1939 (The Huntress, Lois & Clark, Tammi and the T-Rex, Incredi-Girl, Mannequin: On the Move, Hard Time on Planet Earth, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman, Knight Rider, Automan, Manimal, Starflight: The Plane That Couldn’t Land, Looker, Gemini Man, The Invisible Man)
Ian Hogg b. 1937 (Doctor Who)
Dom DeLuise b. 1933 died 4 May 2009 (Stargate SG-1, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, 3rd Rock from the Sun, SeaQuest 2032, Spaceballs, Haunted Honeymoon, Amazing Stories, The Munsters)
Geoffrey Holder b. 1930 died 5 October 2014 (Ghost of a Chance, John Grin’s Christmas, Alice in Wonderland [1983], Doctor Dolittle [1967])
Michael Sinelnikoff b. 1928 (The Lost World, TekWar)
Paul Lambert b. 1922 died 27 April 1997 (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Automan, Planet of the Apes, The Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, Men Into Space)
Arthur Hill b. 1922 died 22 October 2006 (Tales of the Unexpected, Prototype, Tomorrow’s Child, Revenge of the Stepford Wives [TV], Futureworld, The Andromeda Strain, The Invaders, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea)
J. Lee Thompson b. 1914 died 30 August 2002 (director, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes)
Henry Jones b. 1912 died 17 May 1999 (Arachnophobia, Project U.F.O., The Six Million Dollar Man, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, The Girl with Something Extra, Project X, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, Bewitched, Twilight Zone)

Notes from the birthday list.
1. The Picture Slot. In previous years, I went with my fabulous babe/Whedonverse nerd instincts with Miracle Laurie and showed my Oh That Guy street cred with Henry Jones, who has 206 credits on imdb.com, but it seems like so many more. This year, it's Jason Momoa as Khal Drogo, definitely iconic.

2. Spot the Canadians. Kris Holden-Ried had a featured role on Lost Girl and yes, he is also Canadian. Arthur Hill was born in 1922, so he worked most of his career before the Canadian production boom.

3. Nepotism, obvs. Melanie Shatner. I've already written too much.

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

Movies released
Guardians of the Galaxy released, 2014
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor released, 2008
The Omega Man released 1971

I'm not sure if Marvel knew it had a hit with Guardians of the Galaxy. Releasing a movie in the beginning of August is very late for a summer blockbuster, the biggest of which often open in the spring, from early May to mid-June.

The Weekly Soapbox: Jetpacks
I started this blog because I'm old enough to think of the 21st Century as the future. If you look back forty or fifty years, the changes are really quite stunning, but the cliche complaints are "Hey, where's my flying car?" or "Hey, where's my jetpack?"

In 2011, Neil Gaiman wrote a silly little short story titled And Weep, Like Alexander about a fellow who was an uninventor, looking at the world and realizing some technology didn't make our lives any better, so he would go backwards in time and make sure some gadgets were not invented. The personal jetpack certainly deserves to be uninvented.

Let us stipulate that jetpacks look cool as hell.  There was a guy with the jetpack at Disneyland, there's James Bond, for pity's sake. Both of those very enticing examples give away the problem.

Jetpacks are for show. They are a special effect, not an actual practical mode of transportation. They are loud, they are expensive to buy, to fuel and to maintain, they have numerous safety issues that range in significance from hazardous to fatal. Even more than a flying car, it looks like the ultimate expression of freedom - personal flight - but where you could go is actually very limited, mainly because how how much fuel it burns. More than that, even if it could get you from Point A to Point B and those two places were more than a few hundred yards apart. where it lands it has to be stored, fueled and maintained.

Flying cars have almost all the same problems, but personal jetpacks are in fact much, much worse.
  

This month's splash illustration: BBC produced a seven-part series of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, based on the 2004 novel by Susanna Clarke. I liked both the book and the TV show very much and was sorry to see it get so little attention in the nerd circles I am in. A generally positive review in The New York Times stated that seven hours is not quite enough for a 1,000 page novel, which is certainly true, and because they left so much out the show didn't quite hold together, which I disagree with completely.

If you like long novels, pick up the book. If you like British period pieces, give the TV show a chance. It deserves more recognition than it got.

Never to be Forgotten: Roddy Piper 1954-2015 Canadian born Roddy Piper was a remarkable set of contradictions. He was always the bad guy in his wrestling career - they are known as "heels" - but every story about him was that he was a nice guy and the outpouring of love for him upon his death from a heart attack at 61 is nothing short of remarkable. His time in wrestling is well-known as The Steroid Era, but Piper didn't look the part. Barely six foot and built like a normal, in shape person, he was the foil for a lot of huge over-inflated opponents, most notably Hulk Hogan. He is remembered on this blog for his starring role in John Carpenter's very strange They Live, a low-budget sci-fi film that is a scathing indictment of consumerist culture. Carpenter verifies that Piper's most famous line in the film is an ad-lib, his statement before a massive gunfight, "I came to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum." He also starred in Hell Comes to Frogtown - thanks to Zombie Rotten McDonald for jogging my memory on this - and apeared in a few Canadian production genre shows, including Alien Opponent, RoboCop, Highlander and Superboy.

Best wishes to the family and friends of Roddy Piper, from a fan. He is never to be forgotten.
 
Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Another lazy Sunday with just a birthday list.
  
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!