This looks amazing. It’s the first film by director Peter Jackson following his Lord of the Rings masterpiece trilogy. Adapted from the novel, this looks to be a remarkable film about a girl who is raped and murdered, yet maintains a connection to the living world, watching over her family.
Looks like one of my favorite shows about movies is getting a new look and with both of the critics I’d originally hoped Roger Ebert would have chosen to replace Siskel years ago. This is looking good and it’s time to add AtM to my TiVO once again.
Check the HD trailer for Tim Burton’s latest acid trip movie, the big screen Alice in Wonderland, starring Johnny Depp.
See? If those crappy prequels had been anything like this, we’d have a new Star Wars legacy to look back upon fondly. As it is, George Lucas can’t tell a story to save his life anymore (poor Indiana Jones) and the best stories in the mythology for the past several years have been coming from the video game company Bioware, who previously made the excellent Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
Now a brand new cinematic trailer comes down the pipe from Bioware’s eagerly anticipated Star Wars: The Old Republic. This MMO adaptation of the pre-history of Star Wars was on display at E3.
Looks like we’re getting treated to a remake of classic 80s cheese, in that the original miniseries ‘V’ is coming back to television in the form of an ongoing series. The new ‘V’ (if successful) is purportedly slated to run like ABCs Lost, with a long storytelling arc stretching out over four seasons.
So get ready for some more hot chicks as nazi lizards from space!
I read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road about six months ago and it was an interesting read. A fairly simple plot, the book’s strong suit was it’s evocative description of a post-apoclayptic landscape and the dread and suspense of a father and son moving across the decaying landscape toward some hope for a better future.
The long awaited trailer for the film version of The Road is finally here, and it looks amazing. It seems some liberties may have been taken with the book (as is often the case), but I can’t tell for sure from this preview.
The wasteland shots look incredible, and the cast is all-star calibre, with Viggo Mortensen, Guy Pearce, Robert Duvall and Charlize Theron all starring in the film. The Road hits theatres October 16th, 2009.
Here are five 30-second “character profiles” from the upcoming move X-Men Origins: Wolverine. They are quick jump-cut introductions to the main characters of the film – Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber), Gambit (Taylor Kitsch), Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), John Wraith (Will i Am).
X-Men Origins: Wolverine hits theatres May 1st, 2009.
First Ion drives, now magnetic shielding? At this rate, I’ll have my Millenium Falcon before the end of the year.
Researchers from the U.K. and Portugal are developing a portable miniature magnetosphere to protect spaceships from high speed particles traveling through space, such as plasma from solar flares or cosmic rays. The Earth’s magnetosphere protects our planet from many of these particles, deflecting them harmlessly into space; a miniature magnetic field surrounding a spaceship could serve exactly the same purpose.
Researchers from the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, the Universities of York, Strathclyde in the U.K., and the Institutio Superior Technico in Portugal have created a simulated solar wind inside their laboratory and successfully deflected it around a central spot using magnetic fields. The result is a hole in the middle of the solar wind free of all harmful particles. They managed this small-scale test – creating a one meter area devoid of particles – using a plasma jet and a simple $20 magnet. The experiment was successful on the first attempt and the generated hole was observed to adjust itself based on the strength of the solar wind. Stronger winds resulted in a smaller but more intense magnetic field, resembling their behavior in the real magnetosphere.
While wholly successful, these tests are just the first step to creating a successful magnetic shield for a spaceship. It’s unclear whether it’s best to simply include a magnetic generator inside the spaceship or to use secondary ships accompanying primary (manned) spaceships to allow finer tuning of the field strength and direction. It may also be possible to cycle the magnetic generators on and off in order to conserve power on a long journey where power may be at a premium. The project head, Dr. Ruth Bamford of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, believes they are 15 to 20 years away from practical implementation of these magnetic shields.
In addition to protecting astronauts from long-term effects of exposure to these particles, a magnetic shield would also protect the spaceship itself. There has already been one documented case of a solar flare damaging the electronic systems on a spaceship (the Japanese Nozomi Mars mission in 2002); protection against such damage may be the difference between successful future missions and expensive failures.
TFOT has previously reported on innovative space technologies currently under development or in their testing stages. Among others, you can find articles on the VASIMR plasma rocket, which is being developed by Ad Astra Rocket Company, the NanoSail-D solar sail developed by NASA, and the Lemur robots that were designed to aid astronauts in spaceship and space station maintenance tasks.
You can read more about the magnetic shield in the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) press release. You can also read the abstract of the paper written by Dr. Bamford and her colleagues here. The paper was published in the December 2008 issue of Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion.
Image icon: Diagram showing the shielding effects of Earth’s magnetosphere (Credit: NASA)
Genre movie fans (or just adherents of the “Mad Arab” Abdul Alhazred) can rejoice that Ron Howard is set to bring to the big screen The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft
Yet another indie graphic novel is headed to the big screen. Image Comics’ The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft, created by Mac Carter and Jeff Blitz, is being developed for Ron Howard to direct at Universal. The fictionalized tale borrows elements from Lovecraft’s life, such as his own bouts with writer’s block, and transforms his darkest nightmares into reality when he comes across a book that puts a curse on him and lets the evils he conjures up loose on the world. Universal picked this up because its take on classic horror fits in well with their monster movies like Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy and the Wolf Man.
I watched a very cool special from National Geographic a few weeks ago that I thought was good enough to recommend to you guys. The premise is simple: Imagine if one minute from now, every single person on Earth disappeared. All 6.6 billion of us. Human history just stopped. What would happen to the world without us?
This extraordinary special details in each period of time what would happen to the earth, starting in this first five minute and slowly going through every era of time that would eventually pass after we vanish.
Check the link above for a video sample and your National Geographic channel listings for the next complete showing of this engrossing special.
