All Things:Science Fiction/Fantasy

FBJ said:
The only point I agree with is #10.

Saw it for the second time last night with my daughter, niece, nephew, and nephew's girlfriend. The all said it was a really enjoyable movie. The second time through for me, it was easy to analyze stuff like plot inconsistencies, acting, etc. I won't lie...there's some cheese in there that I didn't notice before, but it's not enough to wreck the goodness of this movie for me.
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Telling you...at times, if you throw some Queen in the mix, it could feel like the second coming of Flash Gordon. That just made me love it more. Of course it has cheese. It's about a hero a princess and martians.
 
Movie Review: John Carter | Geeks of Doom

Fewer movies will be released this year that seem like they weren’t merely made but rather willed into existence and painstakingly crafted into genuine entertainment as much as John Carter. This is a movie that despite its flaws (which I’ll get to shortly) bleeds passion, ambition, imagination, and excitement from its pores. It respects the source material while finding ways to update and expand Burroughs’ narratives beyond the printed page. This movie is pure fun. I love how Stanton and his co-writers Mark Andrews (the director of the upcoming Pixar feature Brave) and novelist Michael Chabon (Wonder Boys) tell the story from the perspective of Burroughs himself, portrayed here as a awe-inspired young man by Daryl Sabara (Spy Kids), in keeping with the narrative of A Princess of Mars. By inserting the actual creator of John Carter into the story the filmmakers shrewdly imply that Burroughs had some real-life inspiration for his amazing tales, much in the way Rudyard Kipling appeared as a supporting character (played by Christopher Plummer) in John Huston’s 1975 adaptation of the author’s classic story The Man Who Would Be King. The entire story is told by Carter in the form of a journal he bequeathed to his favorite nephew Edgar Rice Burroughs after he suddenly dies. Best of all Stanton and company use the wraparound story to great effect in John Carter.

But once Carter reaches the planet of Barsoom the real fun begins. There are spectacular battles on great airships that recall Return of the Jedi, a sword-slashing melee between Carter and an army of vicious brutes that could have come from one of the late Frank Frazetta’s paintings, and wondrous visuals depicting fantastic Martian cities. Alien creatures are brilliantly realized by the film’s effects team. The Tharks are rendered using motion capture CGI and the actors chosen to portray the main Thark characters are all terrific and expressive in their roles, in particular Willem Dafoe as the noble, battle-hardened Tars Tarkas and Samantha Morton as the sweet but haunted Sola. Thomas Haden Church and Polly Walker fare almost as well as the treacherous Tal Hajus and Sarkoja respectively. None of the actors playing the Tharks are given the chance to truly shine the way Andy Serkis did last year in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but they still do wonderful work. The humanoid denizens of Mars are also a mixed bag, but I truly enjoyed Lynn Collins as the beautiful and headstrong Dejah Thoris, looking lovely with red etchings on her skin and a fire in her eyes that would motivate any man to join her cause. James Purefoy, as Dejah’s brave fellow warrior Kantos Kan, brings mighty swash-buckling flair and great humor to his performance. Dominic West and Mark Strong both make for capable villains, but neither are able to adequately project the deadly charisma and menace of the greatest of classic movie baddies.
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Just go and see it.
 
Is anyone else watching Once Upon a Time? I'm really loving this show, I guess it's made by the same people as Lost. I saw it at Wondercon for the first time yesterday and have already gotten all caught up with the show :)
 
I'm watching it... but I'm not loving it. I'm liking it well enough... but it's pretty corny.
 
DiscoHoDown said:
Is anyone else watching Once Upon a Time? I'm really loving this show, I guess it's made by the same people as Lost. I saw it at Wondercon for the first time yesterday and have already gotten all caught up with the show :)
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I'm hooked. It's almost so corny it's likeable.

Robert Carlyle is fantastic.
 
Help Grant Terminally Ill ‘Doctor Who’ Fan’s Wish For TARDIS Urn | Geeks of Doom

Through sci-fi and our limitless imagination we can live forever, we can touch the stars, and we can best any foe. There is a romance in that free and unbelievable escape, a poetry to the words of Bradbury, Wells, and the contemporary masters. Sci-fi fans Tashi King and Kevin “Wash” Pratt felt the pull of that romance and their shared love of it made their love for each other stronger. Just 22 and 24 when they married, the two were partners in crime, going to Cons and taking in copious amounts of Joss Whedon and Doctor Who.

It’s a familiar story to those who are lucky enough to have someone to share their interests with and it’s a thing that others who don’t have that often wish they did — a friend, a partner, someone to geek out with. For Tashi and Kevin, though, things would soon take an awful turn.

It began with Kevin losing his job as an architect and then snowballed from there. Sarah Fenske from the Phoenix New Times tells the full story here, but in short — Kevin stopped laughing and he stopped being himself. This wasn’t depression though and it wasn’t marital troubles. Kevin had a tumor in his brain, an aggressive one that had compromised his memory, his physical ability, and his state of being. Worse still, the tumor, a gliobastloma multiformeit, was a likely death sentence, usually taking those afflicted by it 9 to 12 months after diagnosis 95% of the time. Kevin is presently 27 and he has lived with terminal brain cancer for 28 months.


Words can’t express the frozen hell of lost memories, missed moments, and helplessness that these two have doubtlessly suffered through — their once boundless imaginations forced to entertain thoughts of his end and her journey without him. Tashi, who is her husband’s full-time caregiver, spoke of her love for Kevin in a blog post, a piece that kicks you hard and feels like a near invasion to read, or in my case, post about, but she clearly wants the world to know how this man has made her feel:

You care. My Wash, you care.

You have always been supportive of who I am, what I love, and what I care about.

You give me the motivation and inspiration to always be better, to be patient, to be kind, to be loving.

You are the person I want to touch as I fall asleep every night. You are the person I want to speak my last words to every night, “I love you”.

You push me to keep living, every day.

Even in the bad times, you are still my best friend.

I will take happily every day I am allowed to wake up next to you, my love. For however long we get.
Kevin is in Home Hospice Care now and his condition is worsening. Mindful that the end may be near, Tashi has taken to the net to let people know about her husband’s last wish, one that is as heartbreaking as it is splendidly geeky. He would like a portion of his ashes to be placed in a TARDIS urn (you can see details about the urn at Regretsy).

In an effort to help make that happen and help ease the extreme financial hardship placed on the couple, her friends have started a donation site and several sites like Comics Alliance, Blastr, and now us have taken notice. According to the fundraising page, the money received “will be used for things like rent, general expenses, end-of-life care, medical bills, and memorial costs.”

The message is clear: We are a community and Kevin and Tashi are a part of that, so while we are tragically unable to deliver immortality, the stars, or the ability to best this foe, we can stand here in awe of their love and help give them one last thing to geek out about.
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Truly heartbreaking...thoughts and prayers to the two of them.
 
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