UGO offers up a list of every SF reference in Futurama. Though there are a few things to quibble with (occurrences of written SF predating some of the media citations they provide), overall it’s a fun list.
And as long as we’re talking Futurama, here are links to the reviews Howard and I did of the four Futurama DVDs:
In yet another worrying sign of the decline of printed books, Dorchester books has announced they’re going all digital.. Dorchester was also the distributor for Hard Case Crime, but not the imprint owner, which is mystery writer Charles Ardai (who, in “it’s a small world after all” fashion, is married to fantasy writer Naomi Novik). So Hard Case Crime (which has published a number of extremely interesting titles, including works by Stephen King, Roger Zelazny, and Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt) will either disappear or move to another publisher; things are still up in the air.
Sadly, for a paperback publisher like Dorchester, this is probably the right economic decision. There may come a day when the only fictions books actually printed will be signed limited editions…
Movie: Silk
Director: Chao-Bin Su
Writer: Chao-Bin Su
Cast: Chen Chang, Yosuke Eguchi, Kuan-Po Chen, Kar Yan Lam, Barbie Hsu, Bo-lin Chen, Chun-Ning Chang, Fang Wan,
I can honestly say that this is the first horror movie I’ve seen using fractals as the main plot device.
A modestly-budgeted Taiwanese film, Silk follows a team of researchers using a Menger Sponge in an attempt to trap a ghost, ostensibly as part of government-funded anti-gravity research. More specifically, they plan to capture the ghost of a child trapped in a single room in a Taipei tenement, repeating the same actions over and over again. Hashimoto (Yosuke Eguchi) is the crippled leader of the team with an ulterior motive, while Tung (Chen Chang, the desert bandit love interest from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) is the “man of action” brought in because of his skills at keen observation and lip-reading. Naturally, as the research progresses, complications ensue. For one thing, the ghost really doesn’t like people looking at him, and he can reach into their chests and stop their hearts…
This harks back to a number of early SF works on scientific methods for capturing ghosts or the soul. The Menger Sponge functions as a sort of universal plot device: because of its ability to store different wavelengths of energy, not only does Hashimoto intend to use it as a ghost storage jar, but they also use special Menger Sponge film to photograph the ghost, Menger Sponge eye-spray to see the ghost, coat the walls of the room to prevent the ghost from escaping, etc. It has just enough of a veneer of plausibility to engage your sense of disbelief, and is certainly more plausible than the magic icky fluid in District 9.
This is a very solid, well-paced ghost story with some intellectual novelty, albeit one that owes a number of stylistic elements to recent Japanese horror movies like Ringu and Ju-On. While modestly budgeted, it doesn’t come across as cheap, and the special effects are simple but effective. (The only place where they fail is in the CGI for an SUV crash, which looks like it could have been rendered in the latest Grand Theft Auto. Even so, it’s still miles above the digital bloodshed in Ugandan action films.) Best of all, they’ve eschewed all the boo-shock scares that infest modern horror films in favor of a certain amount of depth and subtlety.
The DVD contains deleted scenes and outtakes that were properly excised. However, do watch the director’s original ending, which is considerably darker, more effective, and more appropriate than the one in the film.
Here’s a trailer:
Like all fractals, Menger Sponges engender a certain geeky fascination, so I’ve found a couple of videos that show various Menger Sponge animations and recursions.
Here’s a Menger Sponge recursion (which is far less disturbing than The Hasselhoff Recursion):
A level 6 Menger Sponge:
It is not, to my mind, as interesting as a Mandelbox:
I get about 10-20 spam comments for every real one. I know all this is done by automated bots, and all of it should get filtered into the spam folder (then deleted). However, I did think that this one, with the links stripped out, was funny enough to save:
I’m currently being held prisoner by the Russian mafia penis enlargement and being forced to post spam comments on blogs and forum! If you don’t approve this they will kill me. penis enlargement They’re coming back now. Please send help!
Let’s hope posting this doesn’t get my blog labeled as spam itself…
Or rather, a website devoted to same.
Leave it to Bleacher Report to ask the one question no one else dares:
“Is Tracy McGrady the Savior of the NBA?”
As a follower of the Houston Rockets, and thus having some passing familiarity with TMac’s career, I’m happy to provide an answer:
No.
Next up: Is Pauley Shore the salvation of American cinema?
Saturday night the SDC crowd watched Black Dynamite for our usual after-dinner movie, and it’s a hoot-and-a-half. A loving and extremely well-crafted satire of 70s Blaxpotation films, Black Dynamite manages to get just about everything pitch-perfect in an ultra-violent, ultra-improbable tale set in a world of big Cadillacs, big guns, and big Afros. Hats off to writer and star Michael Jai White for penning a constantly-entertaining parody where the laughs rarely flag, and also for having a totally bad-ass theme song play every time he enters a room.
The really amazing thing is that, for all the intentionally included boom-mikes, deliberate continuity errors, and obviously fake stunt doubles, the production quality is actually much higher on Black Dynamite than the real Blaxplotation films that inspired it. In particular, White is far better at kung fu than any black star was in the 70s.
In short, there hasn’t been such an awesome send-up of a movie genre since Hot Fuzz (which is still in a league all its own). This came and went so quickly that there’s a good chance you never heard of it, but it’s well worth seeking out.
And here’s the trailer.
