May 22, 2013
Super Bass
Is Gian’s love for the Summer King stronger than his hate?
May 15, 2013
The Button Man and the Murder Tree
An all-new Wild Cards story
May 14, 2013
Shall We Gather
When one world brushes another, asking the right question can be magic…
May 8, 2013
Fire Above, Fire Below
The dragon below our city has died. What is to be done?
I have, throughout my life, been known as something of a Generations apologist. My reasoning behind this is not at all balanced—I am more of an Original Series fan than a Next Gen one, and Generations, to me, had some interesting things to say about being Captain Kirk.
But in terms of a film meant to launch the Next Generation crew into their own slew of Hollywood blockbusters, it is perfectly fair to say that Generations is a meltdown of nuclear proportions. Let’s be real here.
In Neal Stephenson’s rightly-beloved masterpiece Snow Crash, there are a few memorable moments of scorn in the story—which I’ve always thought, sidebar, to be slyly narrated by one of the characters, in an unbreaking deadpan manipulation of the fourth wall—for what their near-future society terms “gargoyles.”
These are people who, unsatisfied with the seamlessness of human-use technology, strap video cameras and tape recorders to their bodies, in order to more fully embody surveillance culture (couture, if you like). Of all the mystifyingly accurate parts of the satire/prophecy the book contains, that one always stuck with me. I liked to imagine them, steampunky almost, uploading their experiences at baud rates, one photo and soundbite at a time.
Of course the real future—us—is a much different situation, and we’re engaged right now in a cluster storm of debates about privacy, technology, even the very basics of how to accomplish capitalism in a world where information is literally free, because the real future takes its form from continuity. It’s a rare technology that survives without fitting seamlessly into daily life, which is why the few evolutionary jumps that actually change the way we operate ourselves—the PC, the Smartphone—do such big things to our economy.
Generally, when we say “early adopter” we mean physical technology, hardware. But there’s a rumbling undercurrent over the past few years that I think applies a new meaning to the word, and it has to do with the acquisition of IP. And it has to do also with being a dick.
I’ve been writing about television for the site Television Without Pity for about ten years now, and while I love having the opportunity to think more intensely and talk things out when it comes to the shows and stories I love most, that part of the job pales in comparison to interacting with the fans of the shows and seeing the communities they build around those shared interests.
It’s practically impossible—for me, at least—to think about shows (especially in the genre) without immediately attaching a kind of parallel narrative about the fandom of the show, its connections with other fandoms and geek interests, and what the things we love say about us as people. Not really in the same way as scholarly “media studies” work, or even the snarky metacommentary and inter-fandom sniping that goes on (no matter how often it’s hilariously true), but in the very personal and heartfelt ways fandom appreciation creatively expresses itself.
Being a TV recapper for so long, I’ve sometimes felt stuck in that blurry area between “consumer” and “producer” of content. I mean, I write stuff that people find enjoyable for some reason, but in my role as recapper it’s not really my toys I’m playing with.
For as long as there have been movies, dinosaurs have been roaring and stomping across the screen. Gertie the dinosaur was one of the first popular animated characters, and stop-motion pioneer Willis O’Brien had an unabashed love for prehistoric life that he brought to life in silent shorts as well as classics like 1925’s The Lost World and the original King Kong. Jurassic Park later picked up the spirit of these early forays, presenting audiences with what are still some of the most spectacular movie dinosaurs ever. Since the 1993 blockbuster is briefly back in theaters starting today, it’s fitting to look back at a short list of cinema’s best and worst Mesozoic monsters.
Tom Cruise is walking through a ruined library, asking people about memories, being watched on a space video and questioned ominously by Morgan Freeman in newly-released Oblivion footage. Watch and enjoy!
Whilst tip-toeing around Dol Guldur, the Necromancer’s Mirkwood fortress, Gandalf the Grey runs into an old friend, complete with birds! Check out this awesome new scene from the next Hobbit movie!
Iron Man 3 comes out next month, and Marvel has been doing everything it can to whet our appetites, but the release of their newest video detailing what the studio is calling “Phase Two” has significantly upped the ante. This video isn’t just packed with behind-the-scenes footage for Iron Man 3 (including the exciting information that Tony Stark will be doing plenty of fighting outside the Iron Man suit), it also lays out the arc for the rest of the movies that will lead up to Avengers 2. Check out the video below for Thor: The Dark World behind-the-scenes footage, concept art for Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy, and test footage for Ant-Man!
Tony Stark has a message for The Mandarin in the latest Iron Man TV spot. “It's just you and me!” Watch below.
Stephenie Meyer released her sci-fi novel The Host in 2008, right as soccer moms were waiting in line for the latest Twilight book and Kristen Stewart was biting her lip for the first time on the big screen. Though Twihards eagerly devoured this new work from their favorite author, the rest of us likely knew little about her literary detour until the release of the movie adaptation, written and directed by Andrew Niccol.
Unfortunately, The Host still possesses all the earmarks of a Meyer novel—a heroine you can’t quite root for, an even weirder love triangle—without the self-referential snark of the movies. It’s so painfully earnest, yet will never rank on the list of definitive sci-fi.
There is no escaping the bizzaro paradox surrounding dinosaurs in film. They’re almost never portrayed accurately, and they’re frequently brought out of their own time and pushed into a more contemporary setting. Sadly, the stars of most dinosaurs movies are not dinosaurs, but rather the people who somehow end up interacting with them! But as much as I’d like a dinosaur movie made for other dinosaurs, the range of cinema featuring our favorite long-gone animals cannot be ignored. Here are what I consider to be the eight films you must watch if you claim you like dinosaurs and want to understand what their image did to the zeitgeist.
I maintain that if The Lost World was not automatically pitted against Jurassic Park by virtue of being its sequel, people probably would have gotten a kick out of it.
That doesn’t change the fact that the movie couldn’t beat its predecessor without blindfolding it, hogtying it, and sending it into the raptor cage first, but come on—there’s nothing wrong with letting Dr. Ian Malcolm carry a film with a baby T-Rex in it. So why all the hostility?
[Probably has to do with that “dino eats the family dog” thing, right?]
The first international trailer for The Wolverine is here and it's full of plenty of brooding, historical flashbacks, and yes...those movie trailer BRAAAM sounds which have become mandatory. Watch below.
Aw...it’s okay, Hugh Jackman. The Wolverine cannot possibly be as bad as Wolverine: Origins was a few years back, right? And you had that awesome cameo in X-Men: First Class that was totally boss. And you were in that musical where you stole bread and were French—things have been going good for you! Also you’re going to be in X-Men: Days of Future Past so even though the new poster for your upcoming movie makes you look like a very scary stripper we’re sure you won’t have to scream to the sky for much longer.
Or maybe we’re not so sure. Take a look at the new movie photos released by Entertainment Weekly, featuring a new friend and a new enemy, and Wolverine dressed like Johnny Cash for some reason....
The movie poster has been revealed for the what is possibly the most anticipated science fiction film of the year. Here, we see Ender pondering what appears to the movie’s version of the Battle Room. Ender’s Game is coming November 1st.
There’s a lot to talk about in the newest trailer for World War Z: Brad Pitt saving the world, the fact that nobody actually says the Z-word at any point, some truly amazing visuals...but I think we’re probably all thinking the same thing, right about now: Zombies on a plane. As if air travel wasn’t already terrifying enough....
World War Z will be in theaters on June 21, 2013. Do you think it will live up to the hype (or at least the book on which it’s based)?
The newest teaser trailer for Iron Man 3 premiered over the weekend, and it clearly shows that while the third installment of the franchise might be the darkest yet, nothing can shake Tony Stark's trademark swagger:
Iron Man 3 hits theaters in the U.S. on May 3, 2013 (but who can wait?!)
As I noted during my post on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, my first viewing of the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory left me, how do we put this? Deeply traumatized for life. In the comments, many of you noted similar experiences. So it was with considerable trepidation that I listened to the Powers That Be at Tor.com and agreed to watch the film, along with a few others based on Roald Dahl books, comforting myself with the knowledge that on this viewing, I would be holding a cat.
So much for that theory. The cat was freaked out too.
Okay, it looks like we're finally getting somewhere with all these “mysterious Cumberbatch is mysterious” teasers for Star Trek Into Darkness. The current international trailer reveals a bit more about Villain-batch's background (inlcuding a possible connection to Starfleet), Kirk's personal investment in hunting him down and... possibly Carol Marcus in her underwear? If she is Carol Marcus. We're just going to call her that for now.
A great new blog called Thumbs and Ammo has taken on the challenge of removing guns from the hands of action stars and replacing them with a big thumbs-up! From The Matrix to Star Wars to Looper to Star Trek, the results are totally hilarious and actually uplifting! (We’re not saying Han still didn’t shoot first, nor would we want Ripley to lose her awesome flamethrower for real, but maybe Greedo did give the thumbs up first?)
But perhaps these photo manipulations really depict an alternate universe where all these characters are hitchhiking and/or have a really supportive view of their friends.
How does the old adage go? “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Then consider lovers Adam (Jim Sturgess) and Eden (Kirsten Dunst) certifiable, because they spend all of sci-fi indie Upside Down trying to fight the respective gravities that shackle each of them to their inverted planets. And frankly, watching them make the same attempt even after they’re derailed by amnesia, class culture, and Border Patrol is more exhausting than inspiring.
