NASA Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Launch Joss Whedon's 'Serenity' Back into Space!
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Fandom »
We're not talking about a remake or a sequel to the great 2005 film. But even as Joss Whedon was explaining why movies made from DC comics suck won't work, his secret minions at NASA were cooking up a complicated scheme to launch Serenity back into space. Fans of the Firefly TV series and the follow-up movie version hold a special place in their heart for the battered cargo vessel Serenity, beloved home to Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) and his band of smugglers. When the film didn't perform up to box office expectations, it appeared that Serenity had flown for the last time.
Until NASA asked for the public's help in naming the International Space Station's Node 3, which is "a connecting module and its cupola." (Space nerds, feel free to explain in the comments.) As the very alert Sarah Jaffe at Newsarama pointed out, NASA states: "The name should reflect the spirit of exploration and cooperation embodied by the space station, and follow in the tradition set by Node 1- Unity- and Node 2- Harmony." Their choices include Earthrise, Legacy, Venture, and ... Serenity!
As of this afternoon, when I voted, Serenity was leading with 86% of the vote. I'd say it's no contest, but you never know when secret fans of Earthrise, Legacy, or Venture will come out the woodwork, so I encourage you to head over there now and cast your vote. (No registration or other identifying information required.) Let NASA -- and Universal Studios -- know that you want to see Serenity fly in space.
To borrow a plea from Frank Costanza : "Serenity now!"
Bruce Willis Hosting Screening of 'Armageddon' at Kennedy Space Center
Filed under: Action », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Fandom », Exhibition », Movie Marketing », Other Festivals »
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The two alternate identities of Bruce Willis -- curmudgeonly father-figure who must occasionally save the planet from annihilation and baby-boomer pop-bluesman Bruno Radolini -- rarely interact with one another. On August 2, however, they will. As part of the Netflix LIVE! music and movies series, Willis is leading his band The Accelerators in a blues concert outside the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The concert will then be followed by an outdoor screening of Armageddon. For those of you who paid vast sums of money to have Armageddon total-recalled out of your memory, that was the movie where Willis teamed up with Ben Affleck and Billy Bob Thorton to stop a giant rock from crasing into the planet. Willis had this to say about the music-movie event: "It is truly thrilling to return to The Kennedy Space Center to enjoy 'Armageddon' with my band on hand. Movies have been my career, but music has always been my love, so I am excited about merging the two worlds in such a unique way and being able to share it with so many people."
About 5,000 fans are expected to pack the Center's Rocket Garden for the show that begins at 7:30pm on August 2nd and Netflix had this to say about the Willis event: "Netflix LIVE! On Location is a great way for us to share the Netflix experience with thousands of people around the country. Bruce's popularity with movie fans is enduring, and we are delighted to be able bring him back to Kennedy Space Center for this one-of-a-kind event." The Netflix LIVE! On Location series is also expected to announce more music-movie pairings in the coming weeks.
Al Gore and Friends: A Wired Town Hall On the Climate Crisis
Filed under: Documentary », Politics »
Who wants to spend a beautiful summer evening inside an overly-air conditioned concert hall listening to a washed up politico, some gadget nerds, a NASA guy and a couple of Hollywood producers talk about the environment? Apparently, everybody. WIRED Magazine threw just such an event in New York City last night, occasioned by this week's release of Al Gore's global warming doc, An Inconvenient Truth, and judging by the clamoring crowds that spilled out of Town Hall onto 43rd street as far down as 6th Ave fifteen minutes before showtime, it was the hottest ticket in town. Boldfaced names in attendance reportedly included director Darren Aronofsky and his Oscar-winning baby mama Rachel Weisz, and Chelsea Clinton, who Gore took pains to point to from the stage as "a friend of the family".
But if we're talking about "hot" -- and, considering the bounty of temperature-related puns the topic at hand brings to the table, we most definitely are -- could anyone hotter have been in attendance than the guest of honor himself? Though it's way too early for it to mean anything (or, at least, for it to mean anything good), the liberal media is currently under the spell of a debilitating case of Gore Fever, They've got it bad, got it bad, got it bad - they're hot for an aging also-ran who won't even admit to thinking about running for President in 2008. Or maybe they're just, understandably, hot for the idea that liberal passion could actually mean something again. Or maybe -- and this is the one I'd like to believe -- we're talking about social movement that ostensibly thrives on dissent; Gore not only stands for the opposite of everything the current administration has come to represent, he's also the Anti-Hillary. You don't have to know much about global warming to warm to the appeal of the presumptive Democratic nominee's polar opposite.
The evening certainly wasn't billed as Al Gore's Coming Out Party -- in his opening remarks, WIRED editor Chris Anderson labeled the event as a celebration of "a new kind of environmentalist" he called the Neo-Green, a gadget-savvy do-over of the spacey hippie drip of olde, one "that realizes that technology doesn't only create problems - it solves them." But from the standing ovation that met the Vice President's entrance, to the thunderous applause with which the audience punctuated his every minor point, it was clear that the mass assembled were there to hear a statement of intent.
They didn't quite get that, but most in attendance seemed happy enough with what they did get. At the very least, the event showcased an Al Gore to which jokes involving the words "bore" or "snore" did not apply. At most, it was a chance to contemplate a rabblerouser in the body of an elder statesman, and that in itself was a spectacle rare enough to rouse my interest.
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