Nearly six years ago, I wrote a post called "What Happened To The Future?" where I cried and moaned about the lack of imagination in much of what passes for modern sci-fi. Basically, we're all just retreading ground already laid by Ridley Scott and Philip K. Dick instead of introducing and proposing new worlds, new frontiers, new questions, etc.
Now, my complaint was born largely of boredom and artistic longing. But engineer/entrepreneur/would-be NYC mayor Jack Hidary suggests something deeper in this great little video from The XPRIZE Foundation (the people who sponsor competitions for innovations that can provide solutions to some of the world's most pressing problems). Hidary suggests that science fiction serves a social purpose beyond mere entertainment. And, frankly, I agree with him.
There's a line in the pilot for David Goyer's new show "Da Vinci's Demons", where the fictional Leonardo says that anything that can be dreamt of can eventually be built by someone. But you have to have the dream first, and it's the responsibility of artists of all stripes to seed our imaginations so that there actually are dreams to harvest in the autumn of our worlds.
After all, winter is, in fact, coming.
July 29, 2013
July 27, 2013
July 24, 2013
Tumbling into movie trailers
So, I just started a Tumblr blog that's dedicated exclusively to one of my not so secret guilty pleasures, movie trailers. You can check it out at www.trailerfeast.com, but, to give you a taste, here's the latest post I made regarding the trailer for the abyssmal "John Carter":
John Carter Teaser Trailer
#johncarter This was the best trailer I'd seen in years. Why? Because it made me want to watch a movie I had to turn off after the first ten minutes. They get around the big explosions problem by finding a piece of music that perfectly captures a FEELING that's at the heart of this story (after all, the original book was called "A Princess of Mars"), and then they cut the highlight scenes to match the building pace of the music. It effectively hides the horrible cgi characters that overpopulate and kill the movie. You feel like you get hints of something sweeping and romantic. It feels like David Lean doing a sci-fi film. Which says to me that there is actually an opening in the marketplace for a film just like that: something epic and grand and passionate set on other worlds. But, frankly, it hasn't been made yet. Star Wars: Episode II wanted you to think that it was it. Alejandro Jodorowsky's Dune could have been that (if he'd made it a 4 hour movie w an intermission, where the first half was Dune, the 2nd have was Dune Messiah, and the love story is about Paul and Chani). But no one has done it yet.
July 23, 2013
What Baby Cambridge has taught me about The Press
KI'd written a long screed about how the media frenzy around the birth of the latest royal baby was just another example of our decadent culture when I suddenly had a moment of clarity.
I realized I was only writing it because I thought it was provocative enough to get people to read it. Moreover, I realized that the content I was putting into the atmosphere was venal and had no redeeming value other than to boost views for my blog.
Just like the very culture I was condemning.
And all of this shallowness over something beautiful and profound.
Much like this very post.
I guess I can only get so far outside of this particular box yet. But recognition is the first step to resolution for any problem.
So, for now, let me just say this.
To the Duke @ Duchess of Cambridge, you have my congratulations.
July 14, 2013
A Prayer for George Zimmerman
For anyone who's been reading my blog recently, I'm sure the title of this post is a bit surprising.
But it's Sunday.
I have so many thoughts and feelings going through me right now. But let me start with the Black Panther Party.
Most people don't know that the full name of the organization was "The Black Panther Party for Self Defense", which was originally conceived as a response to police brutality. In addition to using California's open carry laws to defiantly confront law enforcement with their own weapons, people forget that the Panthers also feed the hungry, clothed the needy, and even organized schools for the children in their neighborhoods.
They forget because the sight of Huey Newton walking into the California State Assembly brandishing a shotgun overpowers any story about school lunches or clothing drives.
Guns have a tendency to do that.
If you'd like to know what happened to the Black Panthers, don't look at these impostors who are occasionally trotted out on Fox News as if they were Emmanuel Goldstein from the book "Nineteen Eighty-Four." According to the documentary "Bastards of the Party", you should look at the Crips, the notorious LA street gang, which, after years of sabotage from law enforcement, violence, arrests, political pressure, and the introduction of the drug trade, is what the Los Angeles Panthers devolved to in the late 70's. Most of the prominent leaders of the party are either dead, in prison, or in exile.
Guns have a tendency to do that, too.
In "Bastards of the Party", the filmmaker, a former gangbanger, lamented the cycle of violence, where you feel compelled to kill the people who killed your friend, just like they felt compelled to kill members of the gang who killed their friend, and so on, and so on, and so on.
In the end, he said that the only way he could help brake the cycle was if he chose NOT to seek revenge on the people who'd murdered one of his family members.
As one of my friends, an AME minister, once pointed out to me, mercy is where you give someone something they don't deserve, but GRACE is where you don't give someone exactly what they deserve.
It's Sunday, and despite the pain and fear in my heart, grace is on my mind, because it's what Christ would ask of me in this moment.
My old film school instructor once said that, according to Catholic canon, the definition of a miracle is any moment where fear is transformed into love.
It was fear that led that jury to say George Zimmerman was justified in stalking and killing an unarmed Black teen. It was fear that led Zimmerman to arm himself and appoint himself protector of the neighborhood.
And as angry and as fearful as I've been since the verdict, as much as I've imagined being Trayvon (I can not tell you how many times I've walked home at night from the store wearing a hoodie) and, being someone who hopes to be a Black father one day in an affluent and largely white suburb of Los Angeles, as much as I've imagined the unspeakable pain of his parents, Christ calls me to also imagine being George Zimmerman.
This is a man who wanted to be a hero, a small man who dreamed of pride and respect from being a protector and defender. Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine he would become one of the most hated men in America because of his own prejudice and fear. Ironically enough, his unspoken fear of African Americans has transformed into a very real and, sadly, justifiable fear after this whole business.
There will be plenty of time for lawsuits and recriminations and acrimony.
But today is Sunday, and so, in addition for praying for Trayvon's soul, I'm also praying for George Zimmerman and his soul. I am digging deep into my heart to find, if not love, a measure of empathy for a man who has rightly earned my rage. In the same way, I pray for the jurors. I pray that my heart and my prayers can reach out to those who would fear me, my sons, and those that look like us for no reason and feel justified in our murder.
I'm sending them love to cancel out their fear.
I'm praying for them because America needs a miracle.
For George Zimmerman, I can only say what the priest said to Jean Valjean: "I've bought your soul. No go forth and be a good man."
For Travyon's parents, I'll ask for their forgiveness.
And for Trayvon, well, he's with God right now, so he already knows what's right.
But it's Sunday.
I have so many thoughts and feelings going through me right now. But let me start with the Black Panther Party.
Most people don't know that the full name of the organization was "The Black Panther Party for Self Defense", which was originally conceived as a response to police brutality. In addition to using California's open carry laws to defiantly confront law enforcement with their own weapons, people forget that the Panthers also feed the hungry, clothed the needy, and even organized schools for the children in their neighborhoods.
They forget because the sight of Huey Newton walking into the California State Assembly brandishing a shotgun overpowers any story about school lunches or clothing drives.
Guns have a tendency to do that.
If you'd like to know what happened to the Black Panthers, don't look at these impostors who are occasionally trotted out on Fox News as if they were Emmanuel Goldstein from the book "Nineteen Eighty-Four." According to the documentary "Bastards of the Party", you should look at the Crips, the notorious LA street gang, which, after years of sabotage from law enforcement, violence, arrests, political pressure, and the introduction of the drug trade, is what the Los Angeles Panthers devolved to in the late 70's. Most of the prominent leaders of the party are either dead, in prison, or in exile.
Guns have a tendency to do that, too.
In "Bastards of the Party", the filmmaker, a former gangbanger, lamented the cycle of violence, where you feel compelled to kill the people who killed your friend, just like they felt compelled to kill members of the gang who killed their friend, and so on, and so on, and so on.
In the end, he said that the only way he could help brake the cycle was if he chose NOT to seek revenge on the people who'd murdered one of his family members.
As one of my friends, an AME minister, once pointed out to me, mercy is where you give someone something they don't deserve, but GRACE is where you don't give someone exactly what they deserve.
It's Sunday, and despite the pain and fear in my heart, grace is on my mind, because it's what Christ would ask of me in this moment.
My old film school instructor once said that, according to Catholic canon, the definition of a miracle is any moment where fear is transformed into love.
It was fear that led that jury to say George Zimmerman was justified in stalking and killing an unarmed Black teen. It was fear that led Zimmerman to arm himself and appoint himself protector of the neighborhood.
And as angry and as fearful as I've been since the verdict, as much as I've imagined being Trayvon (I can not tell you how many times I've walked home at night from the store wearing a hoodie) and, being someone who hopes to be a Black father one day in an affluent and largely white suburb of Los Angeles, as much as I've imagined the unspeakable pain of his parents, Christ calls me to also imagine being George Zimmerman.
This is a man who wanted to be a hero, a small man who dreamed of pride and respect from being a protector and defender. Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine he would become one of the most hated men in America because of his own prejudice and fear. Ironically enough, his unspoken fear of African Americans has transformed into a very real and, sadly, justifiable fear after this whole business.
There will be plenty of time for lawsuits and recriminations and acrimony.
But today is Sunday, and so, in addition for praying for Trayvon's soul, I'm also praying for George Zimmerman and his soul. I am digging deep into my heart to find, if not love, a measure of empathy for a man who has rightly earned my rage. In the same way, I pray for the jurors. I pray that my heart and my prayers can reach out to those who would fear me, my sons, and those that look like us for no reason and feel justified in our murder.
I'm sending them love to cancel out their fear.
I'm praying for them because America needs a miracle.
For George Zimmerman, I can only say what the priest said to Jean Valjean: "I've bought your soul. No go forth and be a good man."
For Travyon's parents, I'll ask for their forgiveness.
And for Trayvon, well, he's with God right now, so he already knows what's right.
July 09, 2013
The Only Thing That Should Matter about Trayvon Martin
Before an armed stranger stalked him in the middle of the night, Trayvon Martin had committed no crimes.
None.
Up until the moment a man with a gun started chasing him.
For no reason.
Let me repeat that.
A complete stranger with a GUN was stalking him at night.
Not a cop or a security guard. Not even a man who owned a property where Trayvon was trespassing. A total stranger with absolutely NO authority of any kind whatsoever was STALKING HIM WITH A GUN.
And Trayvon had committed no crimes.
A court of his peers may decide that George Zimmerman did not, according to the letter of the law, murder Trayvon Martin (and, sadly, that does sound like the direction we're heading).
But I guarantee you that George Zimmerman knows, in his heart, that he is a murderer.
And that thought either makes him feel remorse or it makes him feel pride.
Consider that for a moment.
None.
Up until the moment a man with a gun started chasing him.
For no reason.
Let me repeat that.
A complete stranger with a GUN was stalking him at night.
Not a cop or a security guard. Not even a man who owned a property where Trayvon was trespassing. A total stranger with absolutely NO authority of any kind whatsoever was STALKING HIM WITH A GUN.
And Trayvon had committed no crimes.
A court of his peers may decide that George Zimmerman did not, according to the letter of the law, murder Trayvon Martin (and, sadly, that does sound like the direction we're heading).
But I guarantee you that George Zimmerman knows, in his heart, that he is a murderer.
And that thought either makes him feel remorse or it makes him feel pride.
Consider that for a moment.
July 03, 2013
Burning Questions for "Pacific Rim"
As much as I am a Trekkie and a comic book geek, I have to say that the movie I have been the most fired up to see all summer isn't "Into Darkness" or "Man of Steel", but Guillermo Del Toro's giant monsters vs. giant mecha battle royal, "Pacific Rim".
Movie Trailers: Pacific Rim - Trailer 2
For anyone who's ever loved Voltron - lions or cars, take your pic - or old Godzilla movies, or even that crazy show Tranzor-Z, this movie has got to seem like a dream come true.
Pacific Rim - "Under Attack" Featurette
But the Lovecraft fan in me has these questions.
For instance: given the size of their brains, are the Kaiju (the giant monsters) actually intelligent? Like, can they strategize in combat?
And, most importantly, who, or what, is on the other side of that interdimensional rift at the bottom of the Pacific ocean that is mass producing these kaiju to exterminate the human race?
Any way, my hope is that this is finally a film that is really worthy of the 3D Imax experience. With a guy like Del Toro at the helm, my faith is very strong.
Should be a blast.
Movie Trailers: Pacific Rim - Trailer 2
For anyone who's ever loved Voltron - lions or cars, take your pic - or old Godzilla movies, or even that crazy show Tranzor-Z, this movie has got to seem like a dream come true.
Pacific Rim - "Under Attack" Featurette
But the Lovecraft fan in me has these questions.
For instance: given the size of their brains, are the Kaiju (the giant monsters) actually intelligent? Like, can they strategize in combat?
And, most importantly, who, or what, is on the other side of that interdimensional rift at the bottom of the Pacific ocean that is mass producing these kaiju to exterminate the human race?
Any way, my hope is that this is finally a film that is really worthy of the 3D Imax experience. With a guy like Del Toro at the helm, my faith is very strong.
Should be a blast.
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