This is troubling to say the least. Hello 1930’s Weimar Republic. From the monetizing of debt to the actions of DC, it all follows the same pattern. As a person who values freedom of speech, this is frightening.
U.S. Repeals Propaganda Ban, Spreads Government-Made News to Americans | The Cable.
There have been plenty of decisions, legal and politically, I do not agree with, yet I haven’t rioted and violently protested them. The very fact that some segments of American society feel that rioting, and intimidation, is the answer to everything shows how far we as a society have fallen. In fact, it’s more indicative of how much western society as a whole has rotted out.
I shook my head continuously during the Zimmerman trial at the tweets and intimidation threats made during it. As an outside observer, it proved to be so counterproductive. In fact, all it’s done is continue to create racial strife in this country, and I blame both the media and the Obama administration more than the people on the street.
Why?
The media has, and continues to do so, stirred up the pot on this issue from day one. Once it appeared that Zimmerman would walk, they then started to fan the flames to get riots, etc etc started. Throw in the “If I had a son….” comment from President Obama, and there’s be a perfect storm created to try to tear the country apart.
And what gets me is the people pushing all this want to change the current system to a progressive lead one that reduces the rights each person has. There was a shocking video of people who were willing to sign a petition the eliminate the Bill of Rights. What the hell? Don’t these idiots know they’re slitting their own throats? I guess not..
From Yahoo! News
The new science fiction movie “Europa Report” is billed by some admirers as one of the most accurate depictions of human spaceflight ever put on film, and that realism is no accident.
Screenwriters, expert consultants, actors and others worked to bring a sense of reality to “Europa Report,” paying meticulous attention to the world they were creating in the spaceship and depicting on the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.
“One of the first things that drew me to the script was the fact that, as I was reading it, everything in there seemed to be at least inspired by what we know both about space travel and the possibility of what could be found on Europa while at the same time keeping a great equilibrium with making a movie that was also thrilling and interesting that kept me gripped until I finished the last page of the script,” Sebastián Cordero, the director of “Europa Report,” said. [See images and stills from the science fiction film “Europa Report”]
The movie follows the journey of a crew of astronauts sent on the first manned mission to Europa. It is shot documentary-style and features interviews with various people involved in the harrowing undertaking to seek out alien life in the solar system. You can watch the “Europa Report” trailer here.
Scientists working with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., consulted with Cordero and other members of the team during the film’s production. Steven Vance — the lead for the habitability team of JPL’s Icy Worlds Astrobiology group — and Kevin Hand — the deputy chief scientist for solar systems exploration at JPL — both helped to create the realistic world of “Europa Report.”
“We would go back and forth on the different issues that they would find … and different things we could incorporate that we could run by them,” Cordero said of Hand and Vance’s work on the movie. “During the shooting itself, we had a very short shooting schedule and basically once we had settled on the things that the screenplay called for, and once we basically had some sort of blessing from our scientists, we felt that we could go ahead and shoot this. However, during postproduction, there was also a lot of back and forth.”
Scientists helped Cordero and the rest of the production team craft a realistic-looking computer- generated surface of Europa when they were putting the final touches on the film.
The filmmakers also conferred with other scientists during the movie’s production. In order to understand the backgrounds of some of the astronauts written into the script, Cordero and his team worked with other researchers to more fully understand the motivations the characters could have for embarking on such a dangerous journey.
In the original script, the screenwriters had written generic scientists into the movie, but after consulting with an oceanographer, the filmmakers decided to be more specific, including an oceanographer, engineers and other scientists onboard the ship bound for Europa, Cordero said.
The filmmakers also added a few hidden gems for fans of space travel. The rocket launch shown at the beginning of the film was footage from the 2011 launch of NASA’s Juno spacecraft, expected to arrive at Jupiter in 2016.
“Europa Report” is currently available in the iTunes store and is set for release in theaters on Aug. 2.
per the UK Daily Guardian
Guillermo del Toro’s apocalyptic adventure can’t beat the combined might of Despicable Me and Adam Sandler sequels
Posted by
Monday 15 July 2013 07.23 EDTguardian.co.uk
Warner Bros‘ robots v monsters mash-up Pacific Rim arrived in third place at the North American box office this week on an estimated $38.3m. By most standards this would be a decent opening haul for the latest Guillermo del Toro movie. However in these days of engorged budgets and the close attention of a frantic US trade press desperate for headlines on a Sunday, it is simply not good enough.
Pacific Rim reportedly cost around $190m and that is a lot of lolly to recoup, especially when you add as much as $100m in global marketing spend on top of that. This was a big weekend at the box office and the potency of Del Toro’s film will have been neutered somewhat byDespicable Me 2 and the No 2 title Grown Ups 2 starring Adam Sandler.
Both the No 1 and No 2 movies are sequels boasting household names. Pacific Rim is neither: it’s hard to launch a new property with little brand awareness and a lack of A-list talent. Despite the opinion of some who say the effects are the real stars these days, you can never underestimate the allure of a celebrity.
Pacific Rim lacks one, with all respect to Charlie Hunnam, who will be familiar to US TV viewers through Sons of Anarchy, and the mesmerisingIdris Elba, a renowned TV actor on both sides of the Atlantic who you get the sense could be on the cusp of movie stardom. Maybe his lead role in the upcoming Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, will unlock the vault.Harvey Weinstein has the movie in the US and if he believes Elba has a crack at an Oscar, the British actor could not wish for a more influential advocate.
Still, the numbers are the only story the studios care about. On that note, it’s worth considering the movie’s international performance. Pacific Rim ventured into its first territories outside North America and the results were highly encouraging. Del Toro’s tentpole came within a hair’s breadth of kicking Despicable Me 2 off its perch, grossing an estimated $53m from a relatively light footprint of 38 markets, compared to the second weekend heroics of Despicable Me 2 on $55.5m.
Top brass at Warner Bros and their outgoing financing and production partner Legendary Entertainment will take heart from this. Legendary financed most of the movie so we’re not talking about a hit to the studio that will be anything like as severe as the one Disney is preparing itself for with The Lone Ranger. It’s possible Pacific Rim will become an international hit.
The 72% approval rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes could bode well for North America too if word of mouth gets out and the movie sticks around for a few weeks.
The aforementioned Harvey Weinstein released the acclaimed dramaFruitvale Station in seven US theatres at the weekend and it grossed an excellent $377,000. Weinstein snapped up the movie following its world premiere at Sundance last January and by eerie coincidence its themes echo those of the Trayvon Martin case that has gripped the US in recent weeks and concluded on Saturday. That could not have been Weinstein’s plan when he plotted the release date months ago, but the zeitgeist could fuel further admissions. This quietly devastating movie will play a part in awards season.
1. Despicable Me 2, $44.8m. Total: $229.2m
2. Grown Ups 2, $42.5m
3. Pacific Rim, $38.3m
4. The Heat, $14m. Total: $112.4m
5. The Lone Ranger, $11.1m. Total: $71.1m
6. Monsters University, $10.6m. Total: $237.8m
7. World War Z, $9.4m. Total: $177.1m
8. White House Down, $6.2m. Total: $62.9m
9. Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain, $5m. Total: $26.4m
10. Man Of Steel, $4.8m. Total: $280.9m
Captain James T. Kirk with the help of Scotty, Chekov and Sulu steal the Enterprise. Four men, with the help of Uhura, steal a 1200 foot long ship! The wildest action in any movie I’ve ever scene. Here’s the scene:
From the UK Daily Telegraph:
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
From man’s origins to his rebirth, Kubrick concentrates on technology – the primitive weapon of a femur bone becomes a space station in cinema’s most famous match-cut, and AI reaches a point where HAL 9000 is more human than the humans.
Planet of the Apes (1968)
A topsy-turvy political allegory about the misuse of civilisation, with Charlton Heston as the stranded astronaut being thrust to the bottom of an even baser society than his own. Amazingly, Fox just thought they were making a monkey movie.
Charlton Heston and Linda Harrison in The Planet of the Apes.
Blade Runner (1982)
An extraordinary feat of cyberpunk design, wrapped around an equally extraordinary premise about replicants raging against the dying of the light. Harrison Ford’s Deckard could easily be one of them – witness his unicorn dream in the Director’s Cut.
ET: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
It could have been little more than a movie about an extremely weird dog from space, but Spielberg’s subtle bead on childhood made it so much more. Simple yet profound visual ideas – the glowing finger, the flying bike – give it unbelievable lift-off.
Read a review of E.T The Extra-Terrestrial
The Thing (1982)
The same summer as Scott and Spielberg’s masterpieces, John Carpenter made his: a squirmy, what-the-hell-is-that experience which suggests some close encounters are best avoided. In the freezing Antarctic, look carefully at your neighbour.
Back to the Future (1985)
The best kind of gee-whizz blockbuster, and so beautifully low-tech about its devices – the gull-winged DeLorean as a time machine is a stroke of design genius. The mad-science aspects of the story delight constantly, as do the stars.
Brazil (1985)
Originally titled 1984½, Terry Gilliam’s crazily ambitious riff on Orwell is a dystopian comedy about a world stuffed to bursting point: one clerical error and it threatens to burst. A nightmare of retro-futuristic oppression, outfitted with mad bravura.
Aliens (1986)
On all fronts a spectacular expansion of Alien, especially in the ways it pits machinery against biology, and follows the creature’s whole life-cycle back to its source: what’s laying the eggs? Ripley’s confrontation with the Queen is truly inspired.
The Fly (1986)
Teleporting Jeff Goldblum gets an unwanted housefly trapped in his DNA, and becomes a missing link we weren’t missing. Cronenberg updates the 1958 original with hideous imaginative flair but also great sympathy – file it under Best Remakes, too.
Solaris (2002)
And another great remake, even beating Tarkovsky, because of its crystalline beauty as a thought-piece about the tyranny of memory. A huge flop for Soderbergh and Clooney, but scene for scene it’s their riskiest, most philosophical movie.
In the essence of transparency, I’m neither for or against homosexuals. Sometimes I think people on both sides are being far too militant over the entire thing. So, the purpose of the post is to point out the controversy swirling and why authors are best keeping their views to themselves sometimes.
Science-fiction writer Orson Scott Card is leading opponent of same-sex marriage
per the Independent
SUNDAY 14 JULY 2013
This is from Forbes magazine. I don’t agree with the article, but I’ll let you decide. Boycotting a movie that the author hasn’t been involved with for years is rather stupid. Boycotting his books would be far more effective. Avoiding the movie just hurts the film company because Card’s already gotten his money.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/07/14/perhaps-you-should-boycott-enders-game/
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