In the year 2040, America's economic collapse is complete, the cloud has been repossessed, and Westerners are forced to take jobs that no one in the East will do. Chinese documentary program Window on the World
investigates the sad state of affairs.
[more inside]
posted by CharlesV42
on Sep 12, 2011 -
68 comments
Solaris, Stanislaw Lem's 1961 masterpiece, has
finally been translated directly into English. The
current print version, in circulation for over 4 decades, was the result of
a double-translation. Firstly from Polish to French, in 1966, by Jean-Michel Jasiensko. This version was then taken up by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox who hacked together an English version in 1970. Lem,
himself a fluent English speaker, was always
scathing of the double translation. Something he believed added to the universal misunderstanding of his greatest work. After the relsease of
two film versions of the story, and decades of speculation, a new direct English translation
has been released. Translated by American Professor
Bill Johnston '
The Definitive Solaris' is only available as an audiobook for the time being. Copyright issues, hampered by
several, widely available, editions of the poor English translation may mean it is some time yet before a definitive print edition makes it
onto our bookshelves.
posted by 0bvious
on Jun 19, 2011 -
64 comments
Damon Lindelof to
rewrite Alien Prequel?
Collider says "Lindelof reportedly met with Scott and 20th Century Fox to talk about the gig, but also ended up sparking a discussion that “could well turn out to be a free-standing science fiction film.”
Thumbs up? Down? I wasn't a fan of 'Lost', but
Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine did the trick for me...
posted by vhsiv
on Jul 28, 2010 -
87 comments
An
AWESOME collection of sci-fi illustrations by the prolific Shigeru Komatsuzaki (1915-2001), whose fantastic work appeared on plastic model kit boxes and in magazines and picture books in the 1960s to 1970s.
via [more inside]
posted by Monkeymoo
on Jul 5, 2010 -
18 comments
Janelle Monae has been busy since the release of
The Chase EP, the first of four "suites" that make up her genre-bending epic set in the distant future. She's been
"discovered" by Diddy, continued to find
inspiration in
unexpected places, founded an
artists' collective in her adopted hometown of Atlanta, and found time to
speak to Vogue about her singular sense of style. Somewhere in there, she's also recorded the next two parts of the Metropolis Suite, titled
The Archandroid (which is out today), put out a
teaser for the album, and also the video for the first single, Tightrope. [more inside]
posted by heeeraldo
on May 18, 2010 -
24 comments
Augmented Reality, You, Your Kitchen, and the Excellent Products You Will Buy Today. An architecture student films a Gibsonesque, banal-yet-vivid-and-colorful vision of the AR future; his half-dozen videos extend into different realms.
posted by darth_tedious
on Feb 11, 2010 -
49 comments
What's 51 years old and made of silicone with red food dye?
The Blob, best known for it's work in
The Blob, an independent film released in 1958, with Steve McQueen's second movie role (following
Never Love a Stranger, which was released earlier that same year). The movie has been considered
the definitive '50s film about a town that won't listen to the kids until it's too late (as noted in a review for the
Criterion laserdisc release), with a
super-catchy theme song (
extended single version and b-side
Saturday Night in Tiajuana) that was
Burt Bacharach's third US hit song. (See more:
theatrical trailer,
full film on Veoh,
full film as YouTube playlist) Times change, and so do monsters, and things got a bit wacky in the 1970s, with
Beware! The Blob (aka
Son of Blob;
wiki,
trailer,
full film). The sequel played more to the slapstick comedy than the sci-fi/horror spectrum of things. Thirty years after the original,
The Blob was remade in 1988 (
wiki,
trailer,
full film), and is supposedly
being re-created by Rob Zombie, though his statement about reviving The Blob without "the big red blobby thing" has people asking,
then why remake The Blob? (
previous blobby goodness)
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Nov 3, 2009 -
53 comments
GLAAD recently published their
third annual GLAAD Network Responsibility Index, evaluating networks on the quantity, quality and diversity of images of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people on television. The SyFy (Sci-Fi) channel was given an F rating for their failure of their depiction of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) characters. In response, the head of the SyFy network promised to
be more diverse.
[more inside]
posted by FunkyHelix
on Aug 13, 2009 -
250 comments
