Tag Archives: Robert Downey Jr.

Pixel Scroll 7/28/24 If You Come To A Scroll In The Road, Click On It

Posted on by
17

(1) CONFICTION FINAL FAREWELL PARTY. The 1990 Worldcon will host a bash at Glasgow 2024.

(2) TIANWEN RESURFACES. [Item by Ersatz Culture.] From the Red Star News on July 26: 面向全球发出邀请：首届“天问”华语科幻文学大赛在蓉举办新闻发布会. Google Translate: “Invitation to the world: The first ‘Tianwen’ Chinese Science Fiction Literature Competition held a press conference in Chengdu”. [Via SF Lightyear.]

Relevant bit via Google Translate, my emphasis:

The first “Tianwen” Chinese Science Fiction Literature Competition is chaired by Wang Meng, a famous contemporary Chinese writer, scholar, former Minister of Culture, and winner of the national honorary title of “People’s Artist”. At the same time, the competition has established a review committee with Alai, vice chairman of the China Writers Association, as chairman, Su Tong, member of the presidium of the China Writers Association, Liu Cixin, director of the Science Fiction Literature Committee of the China Writers Association, and relevant members of the World Science Fiction Association Brand Protection Committee as vice chairmen, who are fully responsible for the selection of entries.

I don’t know whether “relevant members” (plural) could just as easily be “relevant member” (singular), given Chinese (and Japanese) don’t generally make distinction.

(3) CAN’T PHONE HOME. “A Smartphone Can’t Help You Now: How Horror Movies Solve Their Cell Problem” in the New York Times. (Paywalled, unfortuntately.)

A cellphone lies in a rustic Airbnb, smashed by an intruder. Then, when another is procured, a faulty connection interrupts a call to 911.

A navigation map on a smartphone glitches as a driver plunges deep into the woods.

Criminals on a kidnapping job are ordered to surrender their phones “to be completely certain that you can’t be tracked.”

An exasperated partyer in rural Ontario wonders aloud to a member in his group, “How long is it going to take for you to realize there’s no reception out here?”

These are some of the ways that recent horror movies have gotten around what is at this point an age-old problem: the cellphone. In working order, they can render predicaments more solvable and certain situations easier to escape — potentially. Before the late ’90s, there was little need to make such a show of connectivity failure. Lines would go down or get cut, sure, but isolation in the age before mass cellphone usage was easier to come by and therefore easier to believe onscreen. Back then, the tropes didn’t have to trope so hard.

Then came the cell, and movies like “House on Haunted Hill” (1999) and “Jeepers Creepers” (2001) featured characters realizing they were holding useless plastic flip-bricks as their situations grew hairy. (In the former, the possessed house kills the signal before any of its inhabitants; in the latter, young adult siblings bicker over a low battery notification after witnessing what turns out to be a winged demon.) With smartphones, there was even more to neutralize, like GPS maps and internet searches. Movies taking pains to explain away cellphones were so prevalent that by 2009, I could collect more than 40 clips for a supercut exploring this development in the previous decade or so….

At least you can watch the supercut free on YouTube:

(4) STOLEN VALOR – AND MONEY. Nature says, “Hijacked journals are still a threat — here’s what publishers can do about them”.

Late last year, Liverpool University Press (LUP), a UK-based publisher, received a concerning e-mail. A prospective author had contacted the editors asking how much it would cost to publish an article in one of its journals, the International Development Planning Review (IDPR).

This raised suspicions among the editors, because the IDPR doesn’t charge any publication fees. The message also contained a link to the IDPR’s website — but the URL was incorrect. When the editors clicked it, they discovered a counterfeit website with the journal’s branding and an e-mail address that they’d never seen before. The journal had been hijacked.

Hijacked journals are a form of cybercrime in which a malicious third party creates a cloned website to impersonate a legitimate publication. The forgery replicates the original journal’s important details, from its title to its archive and international standard serial number, a code that identifies the publication. The purpose of a hijacking is to generate money quickly by charging illegitimate article-processing fees to unsuspecting researchers. Although the hijackers often publish papers that have been submitted to the fraudulent site, these works are not peer-reviewed nor considered legitimate.

A blogpost in April presented the challenges that LUP faced as a result of the hijacking, including the burden placed on its small editorial team. The intention, according to Clare Hooper, director of journals publishing at LUP, is to alert researchers to the “growing problem of copycat journal websites”….

(5) WRITER BEWARE. Victoria Strauss offers advice about “Evaluating Publishing Contracts: Six Ways You May Be Sabotaging Yourself” at Writer Beware. The intro and first of six bullet points are excerpted below:

These issues are as relevant now as they were years ago, if not more so. I hear all the time from writers who’ve been offered seriously problematic contracts and are using various rationalizations to convince themselves (sometimes at the publisher’s urging) that bad language or bad terms are not actually so bad, or are unlikely ever to apply. For example, I recently evaluated a contract with multiple questionable terms, including net profit royalties and a life-of-copyright grant without adequate provision for termination and rights reversion; the writer shared my concerns with the publisher, which responded with a long explanation for why none of it was actually a problem. The writer chose to sign the contract.

Here are my suggestions for changing some potentially damaging ways of thinking.

Don’t assume that every single word of your contract won’t apply to you at some point. You may think “Oh, that will never happen” (for instance, the publisher’s right to refuse to publish your manuscript if it thinks that changes in the market may reduce your sales, or its right to terminate the contract if it believes you’ve violated a non-disparagement clause). Or the publisher may tell you “We never actually do that” or, more cagily, “We’ve never actually done that” (for example, edit at will without consulting you, or impose the termination fee that’s the price of getting out of the contract early). But if your contract says it can happen, it may well happen…and if it does happen, can you live with it? That’s the question you need to ask yourself when evaluating a contract….

(6) FREE READ. To encourage subscriptions, Sunday Morning Transport has posted “Artists and Fools”.

For July’s fourth, free, story, Paolo Bacigalupi brings us a tale from the world of his new fantasy novel, Navola. We hope you enjoy meeting Pico the artist as much as we have! 

(7) ROBERT BLOCH OFFICIAL WEBSITE UPDATE. Two essay contributions from Bloch historian/bibliographer, Randall D. Larson, have been added to the Robert Bloch Official Website’s “By Others” page.

(8) GENRE LODGINGS. This 2022 article from Travel & Leisure lets you visit “9 Magical ‘Harry Potter’-themed Airbnbs Around the World” – photos at the link. One of them is:

The Common Room: British Columbia, Canada

Are you a full-fledged Gryffindor? Come stay in The Common Room, modeled after the Gryffindor common room at Hogwarts. The home comes with all the amenities one would need for an ideal getaway, including a kitchen, lofted bed, and Wi-Fi, but it also has the added perk of looking just like the movie set, with framed photos of Snape, a magic broom, and of course, plenty of Harry Potter DVDs for a night in. Book it now starting at $148/night.

(9) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

1944 – The Canterville Ghost.

Eighty years ago, The Canterville Ghost premiered. It was somewhat loosely on the 1887 short story by Oscar Wilde of the same name as published in two parts in The Court and Society Review, a British literary magazine only published between 1885 and 1888. That wasn’t unusual as a lot of those literary and not so literary magazines failed after a few months, and not an insignificant number lasted just a single issue. 

I should note before we go any further that I stopped counting when I found at least nine films had been made of this tale, and at least two series. I’ll only mention one of these, a film in the Nineties with a certain naturally-bald Starship Captain, yes Patrick Stewart, given long flowing hair and a beard as the ghost. So how could I resist showing you him in that role?

The first version is a film very much of its time. The plot had Charles Laughton as a ghost doomed to haunt an English castle, and Robert Young as his distant American relative called upon to perform an act of bravery to redeem him. No one would get hurt in the story, no surprise at all. 

Yes, there is redhead here as well in the winsome form of the six-year-old Margaret O’Brien who was born Angela Maxine O’Brien. O’Brien is of half-Irish and half-Spanish ancestry. She was one of the most popular child stars in cinema history and would be honored with a Juvenile Academy Award as an outstanding child actress the year this film came out. 

I was looking for a particularly cute photo of her with Simon and I think that I indeed found in it in this one of her sitting on the stairs with him off to the right also sitting. What do you think? Am I right? 

Here she plays the Lady Jessica de Canterville, Robert Young is Cuffy Williams and Charles Laughton is the ghostly Sir Simon de Canterville. 

The motion picture was shot at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios with outdoor shots filming done at Busch Gardens in Pasadena, California. Busch Gardens was the almost forty acres of gardens owned by Adolphus Busch. The Hollywood film industry would use the gardens in many films shot in the Thirties onward such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein and Gone With the Wind.

It was directed by Jules Dassin with additional directing by Norman Z. McLeod who went uncredited, The only film I know I’ve seen by Dassin is Night and the City, a stellar British noir work.  Now the screenplay was by Edwin Blum who went on to script Stalag 17, an entirely grimmer affair. It was produced by Arthur Fields, just one of three films that he did. 

No idea how it did as I can find no box office or production costs for it. 

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) DEADPOOL DIES? No sooner does his movie make a mint than Marvel Comics announces Deadpool’s daughter, Ellie, will take over as Deadpool following Wade’s death this October in Deadpool #7!

 Deadpool is dead—long live Deadpool! It was previously revealed that Wade Wilson will meet his end at the hands of new super villain Death Grip this October in DEADPOOL #6. Following this shocking turn of events, his daughter, Ellie Camacho, will step up as the all-new Deadpool starting in November’s DEADPOOL #7! Just revealed at the Diamond Retailer Lunch at San Diego Comic-Con, Ellie’s new role is the latest twist in what’s been writer Cody Ziglar’s roller coaster of a run. To welcome the new Merc with a Mouth, Ziglar will be joined by guest artist Andrea Di Vito and co-writer Alexis Quasarano in her Marvel Comics debut.

Wade has fallen, and his daughter Ellie has taken up the mantle! Taskmaster continues her mercenary training, but what she really wants is vengeance. And to get that, she’ll need Princess’ help. For more information, visit Marvel.com.

DEADPOOL #7

Written by CODY ZIGLAR & ALEXIS QUASARANO. Art by ANDREA DI VITO.

Cover by TAURIN CLARKE

Variant Cover by MARK BAGLEY

(12) SPOILER, MAYBE? About a Deadpool & Wolverine cameo. “Blake Lively Recalls Meeting Ryan Reynolds on Set of ‘Green Lantern’”. No excerpt. Because spoiler, maybe.

(13) IT IS HIS DOOM. The Hollywood Reporter picks up more news at San Diego Comic-Com: “Robert Downey Jr. Back as Doctor Doom for Two ‘Avengers’ Movies”.

Robert Downey Jr. is set to return to the film franchise as classic Fantastic Four villain Doctor Doom for the newly titled Avengers: Doomsday, due out in May 2026, and Avengers: Secret Wars, bowing in May 2027. Kevin Feige also officially confirmed the Russo bros. will direct these next two Avengers films.

Downey became one of the biggest movie stars in the world after launching the Marvel Cinematic Universe with 2008’s Iron Man. His work helped propel the MCU to become the highest grossing film franchise of all time — and he was handsomely rewarded, earning $50 million paydays in the process. Downey retired from the role of Tony Stark/Iron Man with 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, in which his character died saving the universe. It’s been a challenge for Marvel to find a protagonist to replace the large hole left by Downey, giving Saturday’s announcement all the more meaning.

“New mask, same task,” Downey told the audience from the stage.

Downey was revealed in an almost religious ceremony as about two dozen olive-robed men with metal, Doctor Doom-like masks walked on stage, joining Feige and the Russo Bros. “If we’re going to bring Victor Von Doom to the screen — he is one of the more complex characters in all of comics … this is potentially one of the more entertaining characters in all of fiction,” said Joe Russo. “If we’re going to do this … then we are going to need the greatest actor in the world.”…

(14) PEACEMAKER RELOADED. “’Wynonna Earp Vengeance’ Reunion Movie Trailer, Streaming Soon on Tubi” – TVLine supplies the introduction:

A frightful phone call and a deadly threat lures Peacemaker’s wielder back to Purgatory in the full trailer for Wynonna Earp: Vengeance, the 90-minute reunion special coming “soon” to Tubi.

(15) HMS SURPRISE. While in town for Comic-Con, Naomi Novik visited the Maritime Museum of San Diego.

(16) CITIUS, ALTIUS, FORTIUS, MINIONUS. “Minions get into the Olympic spirit during Opening Ceremony” from NBC Sports. The video can only be viewed on YouTube – bastards!

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, Ersatz Culture, SF Lightyear, Rich Lynch, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 2/14/23 They Will Not Be Filed, Stamped, Indexed, Briefed, Debriefed, Or Numbered But They Will Be Pixelated

Posted on by

(1) CLOSE ENOUGH FOR…WHAT KIND OF WORK? Ted Chiang tells The New Yorker that “ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web”.

… This analogy to lossy compression is not just a way to understand ChatGPT’s facility at repackaging information found on the Web by using different words. It’s also a way to understand the “hallucinations,” or nonsensical answers to factual questions, to which large language models such as ChatGPT are all too prone. These hallucinations are compression artifacts, but—like the incorrect labels generated by the Xerox photocopier—they are plausible enough that identifying them requires comparing them against the originals, which in this case means either the Web or our own knowledge of the world. When we think about them this way, such hallucinations are anything but surprising; if a compression algorithm is designed to reconstruct text after ninety-nine per cent of the original has been discarded, we should expect that significant portions of what it generates will be entirely fabricated.

This analogy makes even more sense when we remember that a common technique used by lossy compression algorithms is interpolation—that is, estimating what’s missing by looking at what’s on either side of the gap. When an image program is displaying a photo and has to reconstruct a pixel that was lost during the compression process, it looks at the nearby pixels and calculates the average. This is what ChatGPT does when it’s prompted to describe, say, losing a sock in the dryer using the style of the Declaration of Independence: it is taking two points in “lexical space” and generating the text that would occupy the location between them. (“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one to separate his garments from their mates, in order to maintain the cleanliness and order thereof. . . .”) ChatGPT is so good at this form of interpolation that people find it entertaining: they’ve discovered a “blur” tool for paragraphs instead of photos, and are having a blast playing with it….

(2) ARGUMENT FOR SEPARATING ART AND THE ARTIST. [Item by Bruce D. Arthurs.] EV Knight, doctor, says she was dumped from a hospital position due to writing horror. There is further information in Knight’s response to comments.

https://twitter.com/EVKnightAuthor/status/1623861868782661633

(3) ATTENDING LTUE THOUGHTFULLY. At Being A Better Writer, Max Florschutz encourages writers attending LTUE to focus on the opportunity to learn more about their craft and not just bask in the reflected glory of celebrity authors: “How to Use a Writing Resource Like LTUE”.

…LTUE, Life, The Universe, and Everything, which is the writing convention for writers, is happening this week. It’s a big deal. I’ve been readying myself for several weeks now, making sure that I’m prepared and ready to go when this Thursday rolls around…. 

See, there’s a lot that goes on at LTUE, but one thing that people sometimes forget when they’re in attendance is that first and foremost, LTUE is an educational con. Yes, it’s neat and fun to be able to meet some of our favorite authors and creators in the Sci-Fi and Fantasy space … but we’re not there just to meet them. And when they bring up that book that you really love or that scene that you thought was very cool, they’re not just brining it up because of that—though they definitely love it too. No, they’re bringing it up because they want to illustrate a point, or demonstrate something….

He follows with a checklist to use in assessing which items to attend. It’s advice you could adapt for attending many different cons.

(4) AMAZING’S NEW EDITOR. Lloyd Penney is a news flash on the Toronto Metropolitan University School of Journalism webpage: “Alum named editor of sci-fi magazine Amazing Stories”.

Lloyd Penney

When Lloyd Penney ‘83 received a phone call last November, he was not expecting to hear surprising news. He says he was utterly shocked to find out he would be the next editor-in-chief for one of America’s most popular sci-fi magazines, Amazing Stories, external link.  

Penney describes Amazing Stories as the “best writing” of science fiction that is enjoyable to read.

“Some of them can be bizarre, but that’s the expression of imagination. And if you can think it, if you can imagine it, you can grasp it,” says Penney.

Published for almost a century, the idea of Amazing Stories is to challenge you to think the unthinkable, enhance your imagination and enjoy the writing.

“Now, one of my jobs, besides being the editor-in-chief, is also the defender of that long history. I want to make sure that we do right by it,” says Penney….

(5) STICKING TO IT. Jon Favreau now has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The actor he cast as Iron Man introduced him in Tony Stark style. “Watch: Robert Downey Jr. Honors Jon Favreau by Defiling His Walk of Fame Star With Chewed Gum” at Comicbook.com.

…Downey took the podium to pay tribute to his two-time Iron Man director, who lobbied producer Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios to cast the once-troubled actor at the time better known for his off-screen bad behavior than his movie career. (“It wasn’t an easy job to get him cast,” Favreau recalled to EW in 2018. “There was quite a bit of resistance at first.”)

“Never forget where you come from. 16 years ago this week, Jon and I were in pre-production on what felt like a high-concept indie, and we were fueled by this infectious, yet unfounded, confidence,” Downey said in his speech. “I was beyond grateful for the power of second chances. Strangely, Kevin Feige trusted us, he and I trusted Jon, and for no good reason, Jon and Kevin trusted me.”

Before Iron Man grossed more than half a billion dollars globally and kick-started the now 31-movie MCU, it was “a second-tier superhero property that had no shot at affording Kevin Feige the opportunity to launch a cinematic universe, because there was no such thing as a cinematic universe.”

“Now, I would never insinuate that it was me who made Jon a multi-hyphenate international sensation, because I have to leave something for his speech,” Downey quipped, breaking out in laughter. “And there’s nothing more awkward for my friend that we are here to celebrate and honor than being honored and celebrated.”…

(6) MEMORY LANE.

1981 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

I suspect that almost all of you here have seen the Who Framed Roger Rabbit? film. Brilliant I think we can all agree. The screenplay was by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman which they based off of Gary K. Wolf’s Who Censored Roger Rabbit? novel. 

Now how many of you have read the Who Censored Roger Rabbit novel? Well I have. It actually reads rather well.  It of course is an entirely different experience than the film but a rather excellent one none the less. The characters are well fleshed out, the setting is described quite well and the story which more or less makes it intact to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is quite good.

And now here is that Beginning…

I found the bungalow and rang the bell.

My client answered the door. Novel.

He was almost my height, close to six feet, but only if you counted his eighteen-inch ears. He wore only a baggy pair of shorts, held up by brightly colored suspenders. His shoulders stooped so badly, he had to secure his suspender tops in place with crossed pieces of cellophane tape. For eyes, he had twin black dots, floating in the center of two oblong white saucers. His white stomach, nose, toes, and palms on a light brown body made him resemble someone who had just walked face first into a freshly painted wall.

“I’m Eddie Valiant, private eye. You the one who called?”

“Yes, I am,” he said, extending a fuzzy white paw. “I’m Roger Rabbit.” His words came out encased in a balloon that floated over his head.

The rabbit ushered me into his living room. The angular furniture reminded me of the upward-reaching spires in caves. That, combined with an extremely low ceiling and stale air, gave the room the closed-in nature of an underground burrow. Perfect interior design for a rabbit.”

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born February 14, 1919 — David A. Kyle. He chaired the 1956 Worldcon, was a leader in First Fandom, and wrote innumerable fanhistorical articles for Mimosa. Along with Martin Greenberg, he founded Gnome Press in the late Forties. He also penned two illustrated SF histories, A Pictorial History of Science Fiction and The Illustrated Book of Science Fiction Ideas and Dreams. He wrote three novels set in the Lensman universe: The Dragon Lensman, Lensman from Rigel and Z-Lensman. So has anybody read these? (Died 2016.)
  • Born February 14, 1925 — J. T. McIntosh. Scottish writer at his best according to Clute in his early work such as World Out of Mind and One in Three Hundred. He’s deeply stocked at the usual suspects at very reasonable rates, indeed most as Meredith Moments. (Died 2008.)
  • Born February 14, 1933 — Robert Shea. Author with Robert Anton Wilson of The Illuminatus Trilogy (The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple and Leviathan). Is it really genre? Or just the ravings of two insane writers?  It won the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award. (Died 1994.)
  • Born February 14, 1942 — Andrew Robinson, 81. Elim Garak on Deep Space Nine. He wrote a novel based based on his character, A Stitch in Time  and a novella, “The Calling” which can be found in Prophecy and Change, a DS9 anthology edited by Marco Palmieri. Other genre credits include Larry Cotton in Hellraiser, appearing in The Puppet Masters as Hawthorne and playing John F. Kennedy on the The New Twilight Zone. 
  • Born February 14, 1952 — Gwyneth Jones, 71. Interesting person that she is, let’s start with her thoughts on thoughts on chestnuts. Just because I can. Now regarding her fiction, I’d strongly recommend her Bold As Love series of a Britain that went to pieces, and her twenty year-old Deconstructing the Starships: Science, Fiction and Reality polemic is still worth reading.
  • Born February 14, 1952 — Paula M. Block, 71. Star Trek author and editor; but primarily known for working in Paramount Pictures’ consumer licensing division and then with CBS Consumer Products. Remember that novel I noted by Andrew Robinson? Yeah that’s her bailiwick. She’s also written with her husband Terry J. Erdmann, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion and Star Trek: Costumes: Five Decades of Fashion from the Final Frontier. It looks like she did some Trek fanfic as well including “The Girl Who Controlled Gene Kelly’s Feet”.
  • Born February 14, 1963 — Enrico Colantoni, 60. Any excuse to mention Galaxy Quest is one I’ll gladly take. He played a delightful Mathesar on that film and that was his first genre role, lucky bastard. up next for him was A.I. Artificial Intelligence as The Murderer followed by appearing in Justice League Dark as the voice of Felix Faust where (SPOILER!) his fate was very, very bad. He had an amazing role on Person of Interest as Charlie Burton / Carl Elias. Not genre, but his acting as Sgt. Gregory Parker on Flashpoint, a Canadian police drama television series is worth noting
  • Born February 14, 1975 — M. Darusha Wehm, 48. New Zealand resident writer who was nominated for the Nebula Award and won the New Zealand Sir Julius Vogel Award for The Martian Job novel. She says it’s interactive fiction. You can read the standalone prequel novella, Retaking Elysium, on her website which can be found here.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

  • Sally Forth shows someone inventing an entertaining board game mashup.

(9) JEOPARDY! David Goldfarb chronicled two sff references in yesterday’s episode of Jeopardy!

TV Catchphrases, $200: “This Starfleet captain: ‘Make it so'”

The returning champion, Mira Hayward, tried “Who is Captain Kirk?”.

Jeff Paine responded correctly.

TV Catchphrases, $1000: “Mork: This double-talk Orkan signoff”

Jeff Paine (who looked a bit young to have watched it on first run) responded “Nanu nanu”. He hails from Colorado Springs, so perhaps the Colorado connection helped.

(10) VERDICT APPEALED. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Some little time back, Warner Bros. Discovery executives leaked that they axed the Batgirl film, which was well into post production, because, well, it sucked. “Not so!” says the title actress, Leslie Grace.  “‘Batgirl’ Star Leslie Grace Rejects Studio’s Claim the Axed Film Was Unreleasable: The Cut I Saw Was ‘Incredible’” in Variety.

When “Batgirl” completed its seven-month production in Scotland, star Leslie Grace received a wrap gift from Brendan Fraser, who played her nemesis, Firefly, in the DC movie — a gold necklace that included two charms, a little bell and a pair of dice.

“The card said a lot of really sweet things, but he basically said, ‘I give you this necklace because in this business you gotta have a little luck. So ring your bell and never stop,’” Grace says. “It was just like, Whoa. And after all this, it’s had so much meaning.”

“All this” is the August bombshell that Warner Bros. Discovery had decided to kill the film, co-directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. After the first disappointing test screenings, WBD executives chose to take a tax write-off instead of trying to complete work on the film, which had cost the debt-ridden studio $90 million, and would have cost many more millions to finish.

Grace says she had no idea the movie, originally set to stream on HBO Max, was shelved, until it was first reported by the New York Post.

“I found out like the rest of you,” she says. “And then my phone just started blowing up.”

Like Grace, Fraser says he was blindsided by the news. “I thought I was getting punked, but it checked out,” he says of reading the initial stories. “Then came hysterical laughter like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me?’ I know that the filmmakers and producers were expecting to hear from the studio about the film, and the anticipation was, ‘How do we broaden the movie out to take it from a streaming format to a theatrical release?’ But as we all know, it was the complete opposite. When we were expecting XYZ amount of support and money to expand scenes — to do pickup shots and those kinds of things — that was a gut punch. But then we learned that it was in the interest of writing down some debt? That part really stung.”

Fraser immediately called Grace. “What I find most lamentable is that now a whole generation of little girls are going to have to wait longer to see a Batgirl and say, ‘Hey, she looks like me,’” he says. “That makes me sad. I know how good she was. And I know what this would mean to so many people.”

Fraser gets emotional talking about working with Grace. “It was just magical to see how she was as quietly confident as a young actress in this breakthrough role and had a sense of purpose and dignity,” he says. “She has a work ethic that is unrivaled. She’s dynamite — and dynamite comes in small packages but still goes bang. We do battle each other several times. There was a lot of kicking and punching and getting hurt but we were always help each other to our feet after breaking set pieces and knocking the tar out of each other.”…

(11) A SPOKE IN SPACE. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Research in the journal Geophysical Research Letters highlights the start of a change in Saturn’s rings. “Hubble Detects the Start of a New Saturn Ring Spoke Season”.

Saturn is known for its iconic, pristine rings. However, the main B ring can have splotches and streaks of darker or lighter material, known as spokes, that may be tied to dust interactions with the planet’s magnetic field. These spokes appear periodically, lasting around 8 years, centered around Saturn spring or fall equinox. Hubble Space Telescope observations in 2021 and 2022 revealed the start of a new ring spoke season in advance of the next equinox in 2025. Multi-color observations reveal a reddish color, and that the spokes circle the planet at about the same rate as the ring particles, though perhaps influenced by the variable rotation rate of Saturn’s magnetosphere. Spoke activity should continue to increase for the next several years, becoming more visible to ground-based telescopes over time.

(12) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In Fabrice Mathieu’s “In the shadow”, a shadow is telling its life story with his “Wearer”, a flesh and bone double, who one day it decides to get rid of…

This prequel is a research and editing work based on footage from more than sixty movies showing the most beautiful shadows in the cinema history, from “Nosferatu” to “Sin City”. The story is narrated from the shadow’s point of view.

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, John King Tarpinian, Bruce D. Arthurs, Daniel Dern, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, David Goldfarb, Lloyd Penney, Fabrice Mathieu, Chris Barkley, Andrew Porter, and Michael Toman for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]