(1) The title of Jeb Kinnison’s review encapsulates his opinion — “’Tomorrowland’: Tragic Misfire”.
Having seen mixed reviews, I waited until Tomorrowland came out on cheaper streaming services. Directed and mostly written by Brad Bird, auteur of brilliant work like Iron Giant and The Incredibles, the previews looked promising — a story about the shiny visions of the technological future we had as kids in the 1960s, and a world where they actually happened.
(2) An old b&w photo of a scientist controlling waldos to diaper a baby doll is one of the relics in the Vault of the Atomic Space Age.
(3) William Shatner tells how his face was used for the mask that Halloween film franchise killer Michael Myers wore.
(4) “Jim Burns’ Halloween Reverie: Then and Now” from last year, at the local New York CBS station’s website.
Twenty-five years ago, youngsters at my door could see through the screen to a life-sized Superman and Batman that were just past me, in the living room.
On another night, every window of my home was adorned with special Halloween themed balloons, the merry Mylar reaching high into the October sky.
For another year, a wide assortment of latex masks of classic Hollywood monsters (a wolfman, a mummy, Planet of the Apes’ Dr. Zaius and creatures from The Outer Limits)–an amazing collection I had somehow acquired–peered out from those portals, gazing upon a lawn filled with a virtual galaxy of giant pumpkin lawn bags!
(5) How big did you say those pumpkin bags were, Jim? A giant inflatable pumpkin got away the other day in Arizona….
Diego Ramirez captured video of the 25-foot-tall jack o’lantern blowing around in traffic after it broke free of its straps at the Peoria Sports Complex.
“I was so shocked to see that it was like bouncing like a basketball all the way down the road,” Patrick Sparkes of Big AZ Promotions, the company that owns the decoration, told KPNX-TV.
The company said the 350-pound pumpkin broke free from its straps with the help of strong winds.
“We showed up and it wasn’t there and we spent the last 40 minutes driving around looking for it,” Sparkes said.
There were no injuries from the pumpkin’s dash for freedom, but there was some damage done to streetlamps.
(6) The Addams Family: The Broadway Musical evidently has been around for years, but it’s news to me!
THE ADDAMS FAMILY features an original story, and it’s every father’s nightmare. Wednesday Addams, the ultimate princess of darkness, has grown up and fallen in love with a sweet, smart young man from a respectable family. A man her parents have never met. And if that weren’t upsetting enough, she confides in her father and begs him not to tell her mother. Now, Gomez Addams must do something he’s never done before — keep a secret from his beloved wife, Morticia. Everything will change for the whole family on the fateful night they host a dinner for Wednesday’s “normal” boyfriend and his parents.
(7) The SJW viewpoint strikes again! A. J. Jacobs told NPR host Scott Simon some famous monsters aren’t as horrible as you think. I think I hear “Officer Krupke” in the background…
SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Misunderstood, misunderstood.
JACOBS: Misunderstood – that’s what I’m here to do is trying to salvage the reputation of some of these Halloween monsters. So yes, Frankenstein I think gets a really raw deal in the reputation department. We all think of Frankenstein’s monster as this monosyllabic idiot from the movies. But actually, in Mary Shelley’s original novel from 1818, Frankenstein’s monster was more of a sensitive intellectual type. He read Plutarch and Goethe. He was more Brooklyn hipster and less unfrozen caveman.
(8) A mysterious castle, a deserted village and things that go bump in the night are all in a day’s work for a TODAY team on the hunt for Dracula — “Take a Trip ‘Behind the Screams’ in Transylvania”
(9) Today In History
- October 31, 1926 – Harry Houdini dies. Harry Houdini, the most celebrated magician and escape artist of the 20th century, dies of peritonitis in a Detroit hospital. Twelve days before, Houdini had been talking to a group of students after a lecture in Montreal when he commented on the strength of his stomach muscles and their ability to withstand hard blows. Suddenly, one of the students punched Houdini twice in the stomach. The magician hadn’t had time to prepare, and the blows ruptured his appendix. He fell ill on the train to Detroit, and, after performing one last time, was hospitalized. Doctors operated on him, but to no avail. The burst appendix poisoned his system, and on October 31 he died.
- October 31, 2001 — Lovecraft adaptation Dagon makes its theatrical premiere in Spain.
(10) Today’s Birthday Boy
- October 31, 1961 — Peter Jackson is born on Halloween in Wellington, New Zealand.
(11) The photo comes from “Susan Beatrice Recycles Old Watch Parts Into Intricately Detailed Steampunk Scultptures” on EarthPorm, but here full gallery is here. Amazing stuff.
Beatrice’s creations bring boring old gears and machinery to life. She has the ability to turn ratchets and other tiny technical parts into a lively mouse, seahorse or fairy. The more you look at her varied artwork the more you wonder what this woman can’t do… as it appears she can make everything out of anything.
(12) How badly do you want to be one of the first people to see the new Star Wars movie? Air France can help you out.
Lines will form at the crack of dawn on December 18 as die-hard fans set out to snag the best seats to see Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens in theaters.
But some very lucky trans-Atlantic plane passengers will get the jump on them.
In what seems like a ploy to rope super-fans into buying very expensive plane tickets, Air France will be letting passengers watch the much-anticipated flick two days before its official release, on December 16.
The French airline is teaming up with EuropaCorp CINEMAS to offer the advance screenings for passengers on four Paris-bound flights, AF083 from San Francisco to Paris, AF065 from Los Angeles, AF011 from New York and AF009 from New York.
[Thanks to James H. Burns, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day, Soon Lee.]
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First!
That was an odd review of Tomorrowland. I agree that it was disappointing but the writer’s diagnosis of the problem with it is odd:
Um, no. The story was already well off the rails by then and Hugh Laurie’s role was nothing to do with ‘political correctness’. The bad guy ends up being a white guy because of an overall lack of characters other than white people (aside from a dreadlocked killer-robot SF store keeper played by Keegan-Michael Key …with an interesting name).
I could just keeping posting comments until I was fifth…
…but that would be cheating.
Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden is also a Halloween birthday boy.
(11) Ooooh, I want a Katsu!!! Checked her website and no octupuses. I’m thinking about asking her if she’s willing. If yes, I can hint to family what I want for Christmas. :-9
::tick::
Camestros Felapton: That was an odd review of Tomorrowland. I agree that it was disappointing but the writer’s diagnosis of the problem with it is odd… Um, no. The story was already well off the rails by then and Hugh Laurie’s role was nothing to do with ‘political correctness’. The bad guy ends up being a white guy because of an overall lack of characters other than white people (aside from a dreadlocked killer-robot SF store keeper played by Keegan-Michael Key …with an interesting name).
I’d agree with you. Given the all lily-white cast (with the exception of, as you point out, a black person who plays the bad guy) I’m mystified as to why Kinnison brings “Political Correctness” into it.
But then he’s one of the loud, yapping Puppies, and they’re all fixated on shoehorning everything into being an example for their political screeds — even when their “example” is actually the opposite of what they’re claiming.
@JJ & Camestros
When you’re a
right-wing culture warriorhammer, everything looks like aSJW plot to make white men look badnail?@Meredith
ObDilbert
I have by now seen two productions of the Addams Family musical, one professional and one a surprisingly sophisticated high school version.
My chief disappointment is the mangling of the character of Morticia. One of the lovely aspects of the old show and movies was how confidently and clearly in love the two main characters, Gomez and Morticia were, and how supportive of their family. To change Morticia into an insecure manipulative aging woman jealous of her own daughter and demanding to be the center of attention seems a violation somehow, a misreading of the essential nature of the character so cackhanded as to make one feel an imposter is onstage.
Apart from that there were some other odd, incoherent, or not quite in character bits. Unce Fester had a hitherto unsuspected romantic entanglement with the moon. A strange relationship between Wednesday’s fiancé’s father and a giant tentacled creature seems to have been cut from later productions.
Which is all a shame, because there were fun parts too. Wednesday and Pugsly had some cute interactions. The truth behind Grandmama was amusing.
I give The Addams Family Musical points for effort, but overall it doesn’t really come together.
And what they did to Morticia’s character is disgraceful.
(11) I pretty much fell in love with the tiny fingertip dragon, but then I went to her site to check on international shipping prices. My feelings have now abated somewhat.
@Mark
What no don’t tell me. I need to retain my hopes for TINY DRAGON.
Regarding the Addams Family musical, saw it on Broadway when it first opened back in 2010, with Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth. It’s truly bad despite Marshall Brickman as one of the authors and the Charles Addams original material – most of the time, Lane could barely hide his disdain for the material. Sadly, it mostly consists of tired sitcom situations and really broad jokes, plus a bizarre plot point that seems to exist solely as an excuse for a whizbang special effect.
#1 – Huh. My issue with Tomorrowland was how, much like Interstellar, it veered into woo-woo territory (think happy thoughts and all will be well?). I’m more forgiving of Tomorrowland though, as it didn’t market itself as something it wasn’t.
But of course, considering that all of the article is a thinly-veiled (and tortured!) attempt to flog the authors book, I’m not surprised that he went through such contortions.
#12 Godsdammit the local theatre chains are still not selling advance tickets. Am getting increasingly annoyed.
Jeb Kinnison’s review of “Tomorrowland” seems unfocused.
His charge of “political correctness” seems a stretch, as it is complaining of a white villain in an entirely white (save for one actor) cast.
The nearest I can see to political correctness in the film is that sort of flat, forced, corporate optimism that tries to jolly up good feelings. But bullying good cheer that spins vague tales of happy futures (while lashing out in contempt at any who don’t go along) is not limited to the Left, as the actions of the late Hugo incident instigators demonstrate.
A.O. Scott’s review of “Tomorrowland” for the “New York Times” articulates what I mean.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/22/movies/review-tomorrowland-brad-birds-lesson-in-optimism.html?referrer=google_kp&_r=0
@JaniceG:
In all fairness, I have to say the thing was dire.
And I so wanted to like it.
Kinnison’s Political Correctness is a bit like Fox’s Eric Bolling slamming the Muppet Movie reboot for being anti-capitalist because villain was an oil baron called Tex Richman.
@ Mark
re: (11) clockwork pets
I want ALL of them. I have a display cabinet where I could clear out everything else. I’d take them out to play every day. Now if only I was semi-rich. ::sigh::
I emailed her about Katsu, mentioned checking out the book. She looks like she would totally get why there needs to be a clockwork octopus.
@Junego
You’ve reminded me, I need to decide which 2015 novel to start next. Maybe it should be Filigree Street so I understand the Katsu references!
[ticky]
My copy of Wired with the Hugo Awards article arrived in the mail yesterday.
Even when I’m offline I can’t escape the kerfuffle.
Not awake.
Waiting for the Food Delivery Drone to bring breakfast. Here in 5244, we have these, so that people like me don’t have to be either functional or social before breakfast.
A quick note that Round 2, Section 2 of the live-action TV tournament and brackets is running in a recent thread. Right now it’s early, but we have three or four potential upsets brewing.
Darnit ticky, why didn’t you tick!
@Jim Henley
Damn! I was just writing up a reminder and you beat me to it! 😀
@Meredith: There’s a first time for everything!
#11 – These are gorgeous. BtW, there is an extra t in sculptures.
Tomorrowland? Political Correctness?
Impossible, since John C Wright loved the movie.
I am going to be going on a trip to Rome, Italy in a few days. Sadly, this means a dearth of voting in Jim’s brackets. On the other hand, Rome!
I liked Tomorrowland a lot; but that’s because it had a really interesting metastory, focusing on the dialogue between utopia and dystopia. A dialogue that I thought was handled in a very different way…
Peace Is My Middle Name on November 1, 2015 at 2:13 am said:
I have by now seen two productions of the Addams Family musical, one professional and one a surprisingly sophisticated high school version.
My chief disappointment is the mangling of the character of Morticia. One of the lovely aspects of the old show and movies was how confidently and clearly in love the two main characters, Gomez and Morticia were, and how supportive of their family. To change Morticia into an insecure manipulative aging woman jealous of her own daughter and demanding to be the center of attention seems a violation somehow, a misreading of the essential nature of the character so cackhanded as to make one feel an imposter is onstage.
That sounds just dreadful.
And, mess with Morticia and I will hurt you.
JJ on November 1, 2015 at 1:10 am said:
Camestros Felapton: That was an odd review of Tomorrowland. I agree that it was disappointing but the writer’s diagnosis of the problem with it is odd… Um, no. The story was already well off the rails by then and Hugh Laurie’s role was nothing to do with ‘political correctness’. The bad guy ends up being a white guy because of an overall lack of characters other than white people (aside from a dreadlocked killer-robot SF store keeper played by Keegan-Michael Key …with an interesting name).
I’d agree with you. Given the all lily-white cast (with the exception of, as you point out, a black person who plays the bad guy) I’m mystified as to why Kinnison brings “Political Correctness” into it.
But then he’s one of the loud, yapping Puppies, and they’re all fixated on shoehorning everything into being an example for their political screeds — even when their “example” is actually the opposite of what they’re claiming.
So wait a minute.
It’s political correctness and inverse racism because both bad guys aren’t minorities, in an otherwise entirely white cast?
Where’s Cally with those face cloths?
Hugo Art question!
Is Sue Beatrice eligible for Best Pro Artist or Best Fan Artist? How would nominators find out which items were made or unveiled in 2015?
Minor news from elsewhere on the web: One of my favourite gaming sites has recently started branching out to other geeky things, and upon one of the writers asking for book recs from Amazon’s best of the month, a bunch of the commenters have chimed in to recommend Ann Leckie’s Ancillary books – far more than any other book, last I checked. The SJW conspiracy runs deep. 😉
—
Update on a Kickstarter previously highlighted here: A story from Spanish Women of Wonder has just won what is apparently the Spanish equivalent to a Hugo.
—
Amazon UK Kindle sales of the day:
Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London books (excluding the first one and the one currently on pre-order) are still on sale, so they’re worth snapping up if you’ve been meaning to get around to them.
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Okay, I have no idea if this is any good, and it isn’t Hugo-eligible, but it’s a Cinderella retelling where the titular character is a cyborg, it has great review scores, and honestly it sounds like a really fun read.
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Winner of the 2000 Booker Prize, and the plot? Structure? Sounds interesting, although I admit I’m somewhat at a loss as to whether it is or isn’t sf/f. Still! Decent discount, great author.
Doctor Science:
Based on this: http://allnaturalarts.squarespace.com/about/ I would call her a professional.
I saw the Addams Family in a touring version at the Kennedy Center in Washington, I thought it was all right but not great. I’d give it a B. I gather the script went through a LOT of rewrites.
If you want really awful horror-based musicals, Jekyll and Hyde was so bad that the CD for the show was a “concept” CD and half the songs weren’t in the score that was performed. Plus you had Jekyll turning into Hyde by having a scrunchy on his hair that he pulled out with great theatricality…
Fan artist requires “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared through publication in semiprozines or fanzines or through other public, nonprofessional display (including at a convention or conventions)” and fanzine/semi pro have requirements of “devoted to science fiction, fantasy, or related subjects” that I doubt her site meets.
Pro artist requires “An illustrator whose work has appeared in a professional publication in the field of science fiction or fantasy” and unfortunately she is neither an illustrator* or published in the SF field.
*cue a discussion of the difference between an illustrator and an artist.
RE: the AJ Jacobs interview. It immediately reminded me of Bill Maher’s recent Transylvania #DracLivesMatter sketch.
Although he has a point with respect to most of them; tragedies who’s most horrific elements are those reflected in humanity’s response.
Silly But True
Weekend reading: The February and August issues of Asimov’s both have a story by Nick Wolven, and both are very fine. “No Placeholder for You, My Love” (novelette) starts off in a dreamlike world — turns out the main characters are computer avatars, partial simulations of humans, in a simulated world created for the sole purpose of socializing and sorting through other avatars for someone their creator would probably “match” with in real life. Just how cynical about love were the people who designed this world? How can the avatars live what lives they have? Suspenseful and melancholy. “On the Night of the Robo-Bulls and Zombie Dancers” (novella) is a New-York-City-gone-mad story, where the invention of pills to remove the need for sleep has further accelerated the already fast pace of modern life; the main character, a Wall Street trader, treks through a Bosch landscape in search of interpretation of the incomprehensible computer simulation his firm relies on. It is suggested that the murder of sleep cuts people off from both past and future, zombies frantically dancing in an eternal present they can’t see the insanity of. The protagonist Gabriel Boateng is originally from Ghana; having lived in several cultures may give him the perspective needed to step back from it all, in the satisfying ending. Either of these stories is worthy of a Hugo nomination.
Other stories of note in those issues:
“Forgiveness” by Leah Cypess (short story, February): A 17-year-old girl is sorting out her feelings about her boyfriend, who used to hit her and now has been implanted with a chip that makes him unable to, even though he gets angry when she talks to other boys. She learns a lot.
“The Two-Year Man” by Kelly Robson (short story, August): The most striking of a trio of stories about fathers in this issue (another pretty good one is “Caisson” by Karl Bunker). In a society with an extremely stratified class system, a man finds a way of defining his role in the world when he takes home an abandoned baby; but it’s when he tries to apply his ideas to his wife that things go very wrong.
“Wild Honey” by Paul McAuley (short story, August): There’s a striking synchronicity here with Kimberly Unger’s story from September, “Sea Change”. Two post-collapse societies that include remnants of bioengineering projects and humans turned violent; both end with bioengineered beings turning away from their original purpose as a sign that change will continue. Although both stories are well worth reading, I think I’d give “Sea Change” the edge; it’s nicely-written from the perspective of a semi-sentient construct, allowing it to include no more world-building than is necessary to introduce its themes in a fresh and subtle way.
Also this weekend, reading the Imperial Radch trilogy and finding more synchronicity. Ancillary Sword was published in October ’14, David D. Levine’s story “Damage” (which many people here have read) in January ’15. Although the timing makes it very unlikely, “Damage” could almost be a response to the passage on p. 40 of Sword where Breq talks about how it was not possible for warship designers to make intelligent ships absolutely obedient, although they tried; her interlocutor asks whether it would work to make them love Anaander Mianaai, so that they’d want what she wanted, and Breq says that the nature of love makes that very unlikely to succeed. Levine could have said “Okay, what if it was possible to program a ship to love its captain, could it even then have an independent conscience?” As it is, the influence can’t have been that direct (maybe less directly inspired by Ancillary Justice); instead, it would be one more example of ideas bouncing back and forth among science fiction writers, making an ongoing conversation about shared concerns. The genre is too large nowadays for it all to be part of one conversation, but sometimes there are definitely connections.
Meredith:
It isn’t sf, but one of the main characters is an sf author, which I thought was a terrifically interesting thing to do. In fact, I think this is my favorite Atwood novel.
@ Mark
Uhrp! Hope the reference wasn’t too spoilery for anyone. There’s no mystery about the character in the story, just much coolness.
I highly recommend The Watchmaker. It seems to be one of those books a certain percentage of readers bounce off of. IMO, they often bounce because they’re expecting a different story than what’s written. Hope you enjoy it.
I would also rate The Blind Assassin as one of my … I’m going to say three favorite Atwood books (I really, really like Atwood.) It is not sf, although there is sort of an sf story in it.
@Lisa Goldstein – ETA & Kyra
See, this is what I like about doing those round-ups. My criteria are simple: Must have a decent discount (none of this 6% off nonsense); then I look for author names I recognise, high star ratings, and 2015 publication dates (for Hugo-eligibility); somewhere down the bottom and very optional is that I’ve read it and can vouch for it personally. So the best bit is when someone who has read it says whether they do or don’t like it and even better something in particular about it – thank you! 🙂
11) is fantastic. The bunnies are sweet, the seahorse is breathtaking, and of course I would love a dragon, but then there’s the tiny fingertip fairy/butterfly. Covet covet covet.
I decided to watch Alien last night because whynot. Only made it halfway through before I got too tired, but I gotta comment on the iconic death of Kane (John Hurt). That was some epic death by idiocy. “There seem to be some egglike things under what appears to be a motion detector that I’m going to wave my hand through several times. Whoops I’ve fallen through the motion detector. Oh well, while I’m down here I’ll investigate the egglike things closer. Ooh there’s something moving in this one! Look, it’s opening up at the top just after I’ve shone my light into it. Well I’ll just put my face over the opening, what could possibly go–AGHHH FACEHUGGER!”
Though how much did I love Ripley when she refused to break quarantine procedure and let them back into the ship. “Yes, I hear you. The answer is negative.” Made of awesome.
Alas, the Hugo award for artist definitely shortchanges those who work in 3D; it is slanted toward illustrators. The Chesleys have a category under which she would fit, but she would be up against some tough competition: Tom Kuebler, Vincent Villafranca, Virginie Ropars, Forest Rogers, and Rich Klink, to name just a few who were at Illuxcon last weekend.
@Vasha
Placeholder didn’t do it for me – I didn’t get the logic of the world and why it would be created – but “On the Night of the Robo-Bulls and Zombie Dancers” certainly did. The whole gonzo journey worked exceptionally well despite skirting the edge of ludicrousness. Equally, the theme around the overwork of modern life could have been trite, but the way it was fitted into an incipient dystopia actually suited the story.
@Peace – Glad to hear they dumped the polypus ex machina. As I noted, I think it existed solely for a whizbang special effect to prove they were On Broadway.
@Mark: Like “Zombie Dancers”, “No Placeholder” is a not-literally-workable means of exaggerating the anomie and detachment of modern-day life to the nth degree. From this perspective, Greg Hullender’s objection that society in “Zombie Dancers” is so broken that it couldn’t function at all is a bit beside the point, and “No Placeholder”‘s peculiar world is simply emblematic of its creators (don’t anyone ask how you could travel “out of” a simulation by ferry). It’s the Sisyphean search for a partner carried on without appetite, anonymously, among the erasure of past and identity. I can see how some readers would either not accept the story-world enough to be drawn into it, or not find it affecting; but it did really work for me.
In my reckoning she appears to be a professional artist, but I do not know the official definition as far as the Hugos are concerned.
“but I do not know the official definition as far as the Hugos are concerned.”
“3.3.11: Best Professional Artist. An illustrator whose work has appeared in a professional publication in the field of science fiction or fantasy during the previous calendar year.”
And while she is not an illustrator, in her bio that I linked to above she does describe herself as a professional.
The Fan Art Hugo is one of the awards I think has passed the Hugo voting community by. I can google almost any fandom, click on the images tab and see things overwhelmingly better than what gets nominated(and in some cases better than some of the Pro nominees). Frankly it is embarassing, and what is worse outside where I work is a begger who does chalk drawings and his stuff is better than much of the fan art too.