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These new quarters for 2020 featuring bats on them are the most gothic American currency ever produced.
THIS IS INSANE!!!!
From the trenches: Other Worlds 2019
Art by Lauren Kitching
As always, Austin’s own Other Worlds delivered a fantastic collection of top notch films. Of the 20 or so selections for this years festival, I managed to see 10 of them plus the live recording of the podcast Science Vs Fiction.
Here’s my quick recap.
Thursday
Dreamscape (35TH ANNIVERSARY SCREENING) LAUNCH FILM
The flawed, pioneering film, a staple of late 80s/early 90s cable, has aged well despite some terrible acting by pretty much everyone not named Sydow or Plummer.
Friday
Afterlife
The powerful, intelligent Dutch film Afterlife ponders the choices we make and the very perceptions of what we know to be true, while confirming that parents often make the most unreliable narrators of all. Sanaa Giwa delivers a virtuoso performance as the tortured Sam.
Afterlife also presages a common thread throughout the festival: the usage of time travel tropes.
Time After Time (40TH ANNIVER. SCREENING)
Another staple of 80s cable, Time After Time details the first ever fictional meeting of H. G. Wells and Jack the Ripper. The tense, intelligent film, deservedly so, is often lauded as on the true classics of time travel cinema. Malcom McDowell in one of his few heroic roles, David Warner at his creepiest best, and Mary Steenburgen in only her second screen appearance, ground the film with their excellent performances. Perhaps the only flaw lies in neophyte Nicholas Meyer’s direction, which at times feels like TV movie-of-the-week. Thankfully, his near perfect script overcomes any of the firs time director’s shortcomings.
The film was screened to honor Meyer, who was in attendance, with the Defender of the Universe Award. In the q&a following the film, Meyer revealed that Jenz-Luc Goddard’s legendary Alphaville served as an inspiration and scenes that were cut from the original screenplay showed up in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
The Other Worlds 2019 preview Day 4
Art by Lauren Kitching
Returning for a sixth exciting year, Other Worlds, one of the premier SciFi Film Festivals in the US, features some of the best and unheralded genre films. Beginning on Thursday December 5 at Austin’s Galaxy Highland 10, the four day event includes over 20 feature films, a slew of shorts, a screenwriting workshop, and the Mary Shelley Award. This year also features the return of Under Worlds, which brings the best of indie to Austin.
Not terribly surprising to anyone who regularly follows my writings, I’ll be there.
Here’s what to expect at Other Worlds 2019.
11:15AM AROUND THE SUN (Texas Premiere)
Oliver Krimpas | UK | 78 min
Writer: Jonathan Kiefer Cast: Cara Theobold, Gethin Anthony
A film location finder is shown around a repossessed, crumbling French château. Over the course of the afternoon, he slowly falls for both the place and the owner’s flirtatious representative, as she recounts the story of a famous book set there. But is their present-day connection for real, or just a projection of the book’s 17th Century characters? As the scene plays over in different variations, the two almost lovers orbit around each other like a binary star system, forever circling but never quite reaching each other.
11:45AM SciFi Shorts 1: Love in the Time of Robots
12PM The Old Dark House (World Premiere OF NEW SCORE)
James Whale | USA | 73 min | 1932
Writer: J.B. Priestley (from the novel by) (as J.B. Priestly), Benn W. Levy (screenplay) Cast: Boris Karloff, Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughton, Gloria Stuart
A precursor to the genre of renegade young people getting stranded among older (and far more degenerate) adults in a remote location, THE OLD DARK HOUSE is a “pre-code” film and features some language and sexually suggestive material that would be banned from American screens until the 1960s. Boundaries will be crossed, reality will fail, and mayhem will ensue. The family our kids come across, this time, can also be seen as the grandparents of THE ADAMS FAMILY. THE OLD DARK HOUSE, is FRANKENSTEIN director, James Whale’s follow up horror film that also stars the previously unknown Boris Karloff and is a precursor to their final film together, BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Like many films of the day, it was released with a “library score,” music not specifically composed for the title. Award-winning composer Jay Woelfel has composed a brand new 52-minute music score, the first ever done for the film.
1:45PM Defender of the Universe conversation with Nicholas Meyer followed by a screening of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Nicholas Meyer | USA | 110 min | 1991
Writer: Leonard Nimoy and Lawrence Konner & Mark Rosenthal (story), Nicholas Meyer & Denny Martin Flinn (script), Gene Roddenberry (creator) Cast: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Jame Doohan, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei
The Other Worlds 2019 preview Day 3
Art by Lauren Kitching
Returning for a sixth exciting year, Other Worlds, one of the premier SciFi Film Festivals in the US, features some of the best and unheralded genre films. Beginning on Thursday December 5 at Austin’s Galaxy Highland 10, the four day event includes over 20 feature films, a slew of shorts, a screenwriting workshop, and the Mary Shelley Award. This year also features the return of Under Worlds, which brings the best of indie to Austin.
Not terribly surprising to anyone who regularly follows my writings, I’ll be there.
Here’s what to expect at Other Worlds 2019.
Saturday, December 6
11:30AM SciFi Shorts 1: Love in the Time of Robots
11:30AM Dementer (Texas PREMIERE)
Chad Crawford Kinkle | USA | 80 min
Writer: Chad Crawford Kinkle Cast: Larry Fessenden, Katie Groshong, Stephanie Kinkle, Scott Hodges
Katie begins to put her life back together after escaping a backwoods cult by taking a job in a home for special needs adults. Then the dark messages of her past tell her one of the sick patients needs more than just medicine. Dementer is an art house horror passion project that came to life when director, Chad Crawford Kinkle wanted to make a film with his special needs sister. Shot in an almost documentary style, the film embraces and properly represents the developmentally disabled, both in the script and in the actual casting, while still being both thrilling and disturbing.
11:45AM I Am Human (Texas Premiere)
Taryn Southern, Elena Gaby | USA | 90 min
I AM HUMAN explores the co-evolution of humans and technology, focusing on a small group of people with different ailments that choose to use robotic implants to cure themselves. Diving deep into the current technology and where science could take us in the future, I AM HUMAN fills its frames with heart-warming stories of real people and their process of deciding to accept technology as a part of their bodies.
The Other Worlds 2019 preview Days 1 and 2
Art by Lauren Kitching Returning for a sixth exciting year, Other Worlds, one of the premier SciFi Film Festivals in the US, features some of the best and unheralded genre films. Beginning on Thursday December 5 at Austin’s Galaxy Highland 10, the four day event includes over 20 feature films, a slew of shorts, a…
The Other Worlds 2019 preview Days 1 and 2 was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon
So this is happening now
About two months ago, an artificial intelligence-generated Batman screenplay hit the scene on Twitter, posted by Keaton Patti. I forced a bo
Take a gander at Joe R. Lansdale’s new Hap and Leonard book OF MICE AND MINESTRONE
A brand-new Hap and Leonard series collection chock full of Joe R. Lansdale’s inimitable blend of humor, mayhem, and insight, OF MICE AND MINESTRONE delivers never-before-seen stories, a selection of the boys’ favorite recipes from Kasey Lansdale, and an introduction from New York Times bestselling crime author Kathleen Kent.
Hap Collins looks just like a good ol’ boy. But from his misspent youth on, his best compatriot is Leonard Pine, who is black, gay, and the ultimate outsider. Inseparable friends, Hap and Leonard climb into the boxing ring, visit each other’s families, get in bar fights, and just go fishing—all the while confronting racists, righting wrongs, and eating a whole lot of delicious food.
So pull up a seat and sit a spell, and let master storyteller Joe R. Lansdale regale you with a new passel of tales about the unlikeliest duo East Texas has to offer.
Joe has decided to shelve the boys for a bit so this is the last Hap and Leonard for the foreseeable future. Or at least until Hap starts whispering to Joe again.
Available at all finer outlets in March 2020!
Keep reading
I edited this one
The first-ever all-female spacewalk is slated to take place aboard the International Space Station within the next 48 hours.
What it would cost to build Trump's snake-and-alligator border moat
Earlier this month, we learned that one of the most enduring frustrations of Trump’s presidency is that no one will take his suggestion of building a moat filled with man-eating alligators and poisonous snakes along the US border (something he’s been talking up for at least 35 years!).
The editorial staff of Defenseone, presumably still stinging from being accused of being anti-Trump propagandists by a belligerent CBP officer at Dulles Airport, have decided to give Trump a little help by costing out the total budget for such a project.
They have to make some assumptions, of course – such as a minimum of 10 gators and 1,000 snakes per moat-mile – and they also count on making some cost savings by sourcing cheap gators from police auctions.
Here’s the bottom line, though: 19,450 border gators will run $40.4m, including shipping. 1,954,000 snakes, meanwhile, will cost $683.9m, a cost that must be reupped every seven years, due to the regrettably short lifespans of coral snakes and water moccasins.
Then there’s the feed issue: if the snakes and gators work, there will be a shortage of human border-crossers for them to eat, so that’s $291m/year for frozen rats and gator pellets. The accompanying zoologists will cost $135.7m/year.
Then there are the medical costs for border crossers who are injured but not killed by the moat-dwellers, ballparked at $1.3b/year (much of that is price-gouging by monopolistic pharma companies who have giant markups on their antivenom).
The total bill? $2.5b to set up and $1.8b/year to operate. But that’s before the beltway bandits get a chance to put in their no-bid, cost-plus contracts, so probably safe to quintuple that.
https://boingboing.net/2019/10/14/many-frozen-baby-rats.html
Kickstarting a deluxe "Dracula" edition in a suitcase full of "primary source materials" from the novel
Josh O'Neill writes, “We’re doing a box set edition of Dracula in which we reconstitute the novel into the primary source documents from which it’s drawn: Mina’s diary, Lucy’s letters, Dailygraph newspaper clippings, even an actual phonograph record from Dr. Seward. It comes in a suitcase. Or a wooden casket or stone crypt, depending on the edition.”
Josh is from Beehive Books, who’ve produced some of the loveliest limited editions we’ve featured over the past three years, and they’ve got an excellent track record when it comes to delivering on these crowdfunded editions.
Dracula itself is a remarkable text, a combination of epistolary novel and assemblage of clippings and other fragments, still modern-seeming after all these years (which is fitting, given the extent to which it is at root a parable about the power of modernity – lights, telegraphs, science – to defeat superstition).
$25 gets you a PDF, $100 gets you the record with its jacket and accompanying textual material as well as a map, $350 gets you a suitcase with all the materials, $800 gets you a limited version with bonus materials, $2000 gets you the “Entombed Edition” with a letter from Dacre Stoker (Bram’s grand-nephew), handmade items, and a special case (“a stone vault”).
It’s all scheduled to ship in Oct 2021.
Beehive ends its pitch by supporting the unionization drive by Kickstarter workers, noting that the workers have not called for a boycott while they seek recognition for their union.
https://boingboing.net/2019/10/14/epistolary-fiction.html
True Romance Vol. 22 No. 3, December 1957
Lesbian Jungle https://pulpcovers.com/lesbian-jungle/
Tribal Map of America Shows Whose Land You're Actually Living On
http://flip.it/6TYazI
And here we go again: ArmadilloCon 41
The mercury is hitting triple digits and we’re just passed the halfway point of the baseball season. It must be time for ArmadilloCon once again!
This year’s con, the 41st such affair, takes place this coming weekend, August 2-4.
Guest of Honor: Rebecca Roanhorse
Toastmaster: Marshall Ryan Maresca
Fan Guest: Dan Tolliver
Editor Guest: Patrice Caldwell
Science Guest: Moriba K. Jah
Special Guest: Martha Wellls
As I have done for roughly the past 25 years or so, I’ll be in attendance and because apparently the con organizers have learned nothing, I’ll be sitting in on several panels.
Best Comics You’ve Never Read Friday 8PM Rick Klaw (moderator), A. Lee Martinez, Alan J. Porter
What’s new, what’s surprising, and what are upcoming titles that have got you pumped?!
Godzilla in 2019 Friday 9PM Don Webb (moderator), Aaron de Orive, Mark Finn, Rick Klaw, Lawrence Person
The big guy is back!
The Best and Brightest of the New Generation of SFF Short Story Writers Saturday 3PM Rick Klaw (moderator), Patrice Caldwell, Suyi Davies Okungbowa, David Afsharirad, Josh Rountree
The best and brightest of the new generation of SFF short story writers
Editing Anthologies Saturday 8PM Patrice Caldwell (moderator), David R. Stokes, Rick Klaw, Matt Cardin, Adrian Simmons, Paige E. Ewing
What are the goals? How do you put together a cohesive but representative collection? What is the difference between a collection and an anthology anyway?
Texas in SFF Sunday 11AM Rick Klaw (moderator), Joe R. Lansdale, Kenneth Mark Hoover, Don Webb, Josh Rountree, Juan Perez
What are some of the best, and most fantastical, re-imaginings of Texas in sff? What are the most dystopian places, things and people in Texas (present and past)? what are the most utopian?
Giants in the Earth Sunday 12PM Mark Finn (moderator). Paul Benjamin, Rick Klaw, Lawrence Person, Howard Waldrop
With the return of Giant Monsters, Kaiju movies, and of course, Godzilla and King Kong, it’s time to unpack what (if any) larger message these Earth-Shakers represent; nature striking back, mankind’s hubris, or simply big,. goofy fun? Our panelists will get to the heart of the matter with the usual amount of gravitas and snarkiness.
How to Work with Editors Sunday, 1PM Rick Klaw (moderator), David R. Stokes, Patrice Caldwell, Jacob Weisman, Adrian Simmons
What do editors bring to the the table? What should authors expect from editors? How do editors perceive the relationship with authors?
Hope to visit with you this weekend at one of my talks, at the Tachyon table, or just wandering the halls. Come by and say howdy.
And here we go again: ArmadilloCon 41 was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon