SLINGERS from Mike Sizemore on Vimeo.
It’s got circa-1960s style and spaceships. It’s got con artists in black-tie formal wear and holographic roulette wheels. It’s got a classic casino heist storyline and a self-aware pistol with a sense of humor. It’s got women in cocktail dresses…and one who changes out of hers into a spacesuit in an airlock. Slingers has all the anachronistic juxtaposition a sci-fi fan could hope for in a TV show, and it promises to return a level of playfulness to gritty, naturalistic sci-fi that we haven’t seen since the days of Firefly. If this all sounds too good to be true, it’s probably because it isn’t…yet.
Music fans, take note. John Boswell, a recent Galactic Watercooler guest and producer of the Carl Sagan inspired A Glorious Dawn video/song, has added yet another entry to his playlist of science-themed multimedia musical works. Our Place in the Cosmos takes its place, appropriately, beside Dawn and We Are All Connected on Boswell’s website, Symphony of Science. This new song features the inimitable Sagan, as well as evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, and the late astronomer/cosmologist Robert Jastrow. The message continues in the spirit of the previous two, and leaves one with a sense of wonder about the universe and the brilliant minds who have taken on the task of figuring it all out.
Mr. Boswell has been making additions to his website since his appearance on GWC, notably several remixes of A Glorious Dawn, as well as a free ringtone. He’s also cut a 45rpm vinyl album of the song, available from Third Man Records, which I picked up recently as a personal memento of the GWC Cosmos arc. Hint: The B side holds a special surprise.
Symphony of Science [Website]
Colorpulse [John Boswell's Other Music Project]
Two years ago this month a game arrived in an overly saturated market that changed the gaming landscape forever — and my perception of first person shooter games. That game was Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare from Infinity Ward. It was the third game of the series and a quantum leap up from Call of Duty 2. Modern Warfare combined a great story, great graphics, and an addictive RPG-like structure with multi-player gaming. More importantly, it changed the way I felt about the feel of firing a weapon in a video game.
We’ve been waiting for it. We’ve marked our calendars and counted the months for the Battlestar Galactica tele-movie, The Plan. Sometime in June SyFy president Dave Howe mentioned it would air in November. However, now the network says The Plan will not air in 2009.
This should come as no surprise.
The Magic Kingdom’s Cinderella Castle may soon be due for renovations. Over five thousand characters from the Marvel Universe could be moving to the Disney camp, as Disney head Robert Iger and Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter announced their plans for the acquisition of Marvel Entertainment by The Walt Disney Company. What this means to shareholders and corporate expense accounts is a topic sure to keep the financial experts busy for awhile.
The 2009 Creative Arts Emmy winners were announced Saturday, September twelfth in Los Angeles.
Please join in congratulating a few old friends in their Emmy win! So say we all!
For Outstanding Sound Editing in a Series
Battlestar Galactica • Daybreak (Part 2) • Syfy • R&D TV in association with Universal Cable Productions
Daniel Colman, Supervising Sound Editor / Sound Designer
Jack Levy, Supervising Sound Editor
Vince Balunas, Dialogue/ADR Editor
Sam Lewis, Sound Effects Editor
Michael Baber, Music Editor
Doug Maddik, Foley Artist
Rick Partlow, Foley Artist
Complete List of Creative Arts Emmys Noms and Winners
In a move sure to excite every geek in the frakking universe, Dark Horse Comics is about to release a One Shot Wonder comic book. The subject? Why, none other than that holder of a Ph.D. in Horribleness: Dr. Horrible. Every poser in a parka is going to want one of these!
NCSoft announced on Friday that it will be opening up the beta version of their new MMORPG, Aion, on September 6th for a one-week period before the game is finalized for their release version, which comes out September 22nd. If you pre-order your copy of Aion now, you can get a two-day head start on gameplay beginning on September 20th. NCSoft’s press release states:
Aion’s Open Beta Test featuring version 1.5 will take place 6-13th September and will include numerous Western enhancements, including improvements to Aion’s innovative character customization with a host of Western styles, as well as new zones, instances, skills, quests and continued game balancing and improvements. Open Beta will retain a level cap for both Elyos and Asmodians characters at 30 allowing players to focus on getting to the same level so they can explore the lands of Atreia together, as well as the Abyss.
If you wish to try the closed beta client to fight the celestial war as one of the four classes on Atreia, you can download the client from FilePlanet (you have to be a registered member of their service) or from GamersHell. This is a six-gigabyte file, so plan your download accordingly!
Have you always thought that a catchy pop tune about gaming would be the best thing since sliced rye bread? Even if you haven’t, The Guild’s new music video, “Do You Want to Date My Avatar,” is a great way to get in the mood for not only the new season of The Guild but also for the GWC podcast’s next few upcoming episodes! However, be prepared to be singing the song afterwards… be sure to check out the lyrics.
The song’s also available for download from iTunes and Amazon (ASIN B002JEEJ2A).
The Guild [website]
Push didn’t promote itself well. Released almost a year to the day after the similarly-themed and poorly-received Jumper and featuring a synopsis that sounds like a repeat episode of Heroes — or worse, X-Men Lite — the movie doesn’t first present itself as something you have to see. So most people didn’t, including me. Fortunately, I just caught some friends watching it, and now that I’ve checked it out, I’ll happily do the heavy lifting for the movie’s marketers and explain why it’s worth watching.
No, not the Tennessee football team! A remake of the 1981 adventure-fantasy classic Clash of the Titans is underway! Director Louis Leterrier plans to bring the eternal trials of gods and men back to the big screen. In truth, you probably recall much more about the original’s special effects than the acting, but that’s for another blog.
Eric Bana’s latest movie The Time Traveler’s Wife is sci-fi romance — a genre we haven’t seen often since the days of Han and Leia or George and Lorraine. Bana’s Henry DeTamble is a handsome librarian who travels through time; Rachel McAdams is Clare Abshire, the artist who falls in love with him.
Interesting trivia: according to IMDB, Bana shaved his head for his role as Nero in Star Trek just after finishing filming for The Time Traveler’s Wife. However, TTTW required some reshoots and they had to push back the release date almost a year while Bana’s hair grew back. Hello, people? Get a wig! No one’s going to be looking at Bana’s head anyway… because he apparently spends a good amount of the new movie in the nude. (The Terminator franchise firmly established that nudity in muscular men is necessary for time travel.)
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