INCOMING !

First up is Skyline. Seems to be a combination of Cloverfield and Independence Day. Debuts in the UK 12/11/2010.






Second is Paul with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. This doesn't come out until February 2011 but the trailer is a hoot. Think Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead meets Roswell.

Incoming and worth a watch?

First up is #4 in the Resident Evil franchise, 'Resident Evil: Afterlife' filmed in 'the worlds' most advanced 3-D system'. Let's hope it's not all hype but it does have Milla so that's one thumb up already :-)



but the big one for me is the announcement of 'Priest' in May 2011. See the trailer and can you spot the 'Man with No Name'? Sorry it's not embedded but IMDb doesn't like me :-(

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1116145945/

The Particle Physicists Song

Hmmmmmm; nerds or what?

Is that Sheldon Cooper I see in the back row?

Books - don'tcherluv 'em

There's something about the feel/smell/ownership of a new book. You just don't get any of those sensations with an e-reader. You can fall asleep and your book will fall on the floor; it's still readable in the morning. You can drop your book in the bath while stretching for the cold beer and once you've finished cursing and dried it out it will be still readable. E-readers don't hack it but we are going to be forced that way because it's in the interests of the publishers. Look at the number of bookshops gone due to the efforts of Amazon who coincidentally sell their own e-reader. The future is digital, my friends, and we will all be poorer for it.

Q. Why am I waxing lyrical on books?

A. Because there is a new Pratchett out tomorrow and I love Pratchett! Well, the 50% that are actually on song. This time, having temporarily forsaken the world of mercantilism, we will have a 'Witches' story. But not only witches but also the Nac Mac Feegle and as his last effort of 'Wintersmith' was a bit of a bust we are expecting great things from this one on the 50% rule. Well, it's not so much of a rule as a general observation but it seems to work.

The book's called 'I Shall Wear Midnight" and is out in the UK tomorrow 2nd Sept 2010.

The blurb on Amazon reads

A man with no eyes. No eyes at all. Two tunnels in his head ...It's not easy being a witch, and it's certainly not all whizzing about on broomsticks, but Tiffany Aching - teen witch - is doing her best. Until something evil wakes up, something that stirs up all the old stories about nasty old witches, so that just wearing a pointy hat suddenly seems a very bad idea. Worse still, this evil ghost from the past is hunting down one witch in particular. He's hunting for Tiffany. And he's found her..."I Shall Wear Midnight" is the fourth Discworld title to feature Tiffany and her tiny, fightin', boozin' pictsie friends, the Nac Mac Feegle (aka The Wee Free Men).

The Wee Free Men also have a film coming out sometime in 2010 directed by Sam Raimi. Let's hope Hollywood does not do it's usual studio hatchet job on a much loved novel.

The Walking Dead

Allegedly this will air on FX UK in October to stop transatlantic downloading

Looks promising though.

Monsters Coming soon

The hype's there and the shaky hand-held camera shots. It is incredible, however, when you take into account this whole movie was filmed by two (count them!) people and the CGI was done on a home computer.

Let's hope it's good after a pretty sucky year!

Marcel the Shell with Shoes on!

Fantasy? Oh yes! Brilliant!

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.

We heart Lovecraft

New Whisperer in Darkness film from the HPLHS.



Official Trailer for Cthulhu, the Movie



New "At the Mountains of Madness" Trailer

Blue Star Red Sand - a BSFFG film

First two parts are now up on YouTube at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CLYZm-v8_s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EA4qiiUdtM&feature=related

Of Bookshops and how they can affect Time/Space

To Lyme Regis and another expedition to 'The Sanctuary'. It's obviously one of those little shops that wasn't there yesterday (except it was there the last time I was in Lyme, maybe due to the time/space warping properties of its stock). These shops have been described by everyone from H.G. Wells to Terry Pratchett to the Simpsons so they obviously must exist in our collective consciousness. They are usually transient because they they are either a simple literary device to pass on a magic sword/lamp or FTL device or they transport the unwitting visitor/purchaser to some other place during their frequent moves. They're something like the Tardis but with stock. Usually they are run by some sort wizened and cranky anthropoid with a personal and unique sense of fashion (this, of course, does not refer to the august persona of the Sanctuary).








So why doesn't this shop move like the genre suggests? My personal theory is like the library at the Unseen University of Ankh Morpork the mass of the ideas/knowledge distorts the continuum so badly that it cannot move. The prediliction of the staff to keep adding books means this is not likely to change in the near future. Support for this theory comes from the fact that I was down in one of the sub-basements looking through a particularly fine assemblage of random copies of Analog from the 1970's and was surprised when a gentleman carrying a framed poster of Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle. After he had passed I inspected the dead-end he appeared from, there was no door, no room where he could have come from. I diligently moved books, tapped wainscoting looking for a secret door or switch. There wasn't one to be found and I subsequently searched the shop through many and varied rooms but to no avail. No gentleman, no proprietor to ask but a hung Miyazaki poster in the window. Had he come from another place? I couldn't find out but my time was sadly up and had passed in a strangely fast fashion.

If you are ever passing through Lyme then I can only advise you that you visit the Sanctuary Bookshop with your eyes open and your wits about you. Just don't buy/accept any magic swords/lamps or other goods and never, never get locked in after closing time.

Please excuse the lousy photographs. Half of them never came out and the rest are so bad it's almost like the shop never wanted to be photographed.

'New' Doctor Who?

After two episodes and the poxy BBC running 5 minutes late I can only say that The Who (no relation to the Doctor) had it exactly right

Meet the new Doctor
Same as the old Doctor
Don't get fooled again

Actually I quite like him!

10 Best Webcomics Ever (IMHO)

(1) Steampunk Heaven http://www.girlgeniusonline.com
(2) I can't draw but my imagination is off the scale http://www.waterphoenixking.com
(3) Gunnerkrigg Awsome http://www.gunnerkrigg.com
(4) Hardcore scifi Crimson Dark http://www.davidcsimon.com/crimsondark
(5) Zombie Heaven http://www.everydaydecay.com
(6) Zombie Heaven 2 http://deadwinter.cc
(7) If you don't know One Death then you don't know Fineas http://www.goats.com/
(8) It's got Elves http://www.lfgcomic.com/
(9) And the meek shall inherit the earth http://www.meekcomic.com
(10) Lovecraftian http://www.shadowgirlscomic.com

(11) So I lied :-O Spacetrawler rocks http://spacetrawler.com

Film Trailer Voiceover Compo

Free from Yahoo try this trailer voiceover app at http://www.yahoofilmtrailer.co.uk/.

Club members should try to bring their best effort to the next meeting. Email me your links and I'll save them for playback.

A quick effort can be found at www.yahoofilmtrailer.co.uk/?songID=80.

Stupid time machine and random mutterings

There I was looking forward to sipping Pan-Galactic Gargleblasters on the beachworld of Zooton 3 when a miscalibration landed us back in the Napoleonic War era where we met this bloke. You'd never believe he had a Dalek's** head in his knapsack! Them buggers get everywhere.

(Note to the confused: If you understand this then you're already a member of the club. If you are a member of the club, why haven't you bought me a beer lately? If you aren't a member of the club then buying me a beer is the first step)

** It seems that the 'new' Doctor is back at Easter and the Dalek's are involved. This is after them being "irrevocably" destroyed three times to the club's knowledge. The show may be acquiring the traits of a one-trick pony again.

Where's Leela when you really need her? (Andy has had to go for a lie down)

On the subject of the homicidal wheelie-bins I'd like to suggest to Channel 4 that they do not drop 'Big Brother' but instead rename it 'Dalek Death Match'. Get some paranoid killing machines in a large house/building/hangar and then import the usual Z-list celebs & bimbo/muscle wannabees and the winner is the last sentient standing!

Wait a minute though that excludes all participants of 'not really' reality shows.

Archivist BSFFG out

Aliens are among us and we have the proof!

One day in what starts to feel like an alternative dimension I found myself needing to trade a cup of coffee for a clean restroom. This is becoming a common transaction in these days of no public conveniences and thus was it that I found myself drinking a cup of very generic coffee in a Pizza Hut and hoping the restroom was going to be clean.

I ventured into the room with what I hoped was the right pictogram on the door and found this.

What does this have to do with aliens you ask, dear reader? Look carefully at the picture and consider the maths of Urinal Vulnerability Protocol at http://blog.xkcd.com/2009/09/02/urinal-protocol-vulnerability/ .

A simplified solution could be stated as (Urinals / 2 - 0.5) where the number of urinals is an odd number over one.

Looking at the photo we can see that the optimum urinator can only be one person but that is not possible at most times. How do we take into account the urinal for the really vertically challenged people on the right?

What is really obvious is that this restroom could not have been designed by humans. The urinals are too low and too close together, elbows would touch and willy watchers would not be deterred. Not suitable for average size human males but for Greys, Leprechauns, Smurfs, Hobbits and Dwarves (take your pick here). Too tall for the Wee Free Men though so I think we can eliminate them.

The only problem is that if it's not aliens then it could have only been designed by a woman.

We're entering the Purbeck Shorts Compo

(14TH PURBECK FILM FESTIVAL) 15 TO 30 OCTOBER 2010

SHORT FILM SUBMISSIONS for “PURBECK SHORTS”

Deadline: 15 SEPTEMBER 2010

LENGTH: Up to 10 minutes

FORMAT: Preferred format DVD initially

SCREENING DATE: FRIDAY, 22 OCTOBER 2010

SCREENING VENUE: THE REX CINEMA, WAREHAM, DORSET

AWARDS & PRIZES: THE AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD & THE JUDGE’S CHOICE AWARD

We have Lee's 2 minute storyboard as a template.

Therefore we need talent in screenwriting, acting, production, cinematography, key gripping and gaffering.

Any volunteers let us know through the blog.

Is 'Avatar' really 'Pocahontas in Space'

As we wait breathlessly for the club reviews on 'Avatar' (probably something along the lines of 'Terminator meets the Smurfs') check out this intriguing post here and BELIEVE!

And is this further evidence towards the hypothesis that there are only seven basic plots and any permutation of them.

Who are we (and where do we live?) Part 2

Lee says he lives on the border of dork and nerd and it looks like I exist on the interface between geek and nerd.

What is for certain is that I don't think that there is a member of the club who does not live within the diagram.