Terrible Beauty in Slow-Mo

My current musical obsession is the piece below from the soundtrack of a new dystopian sci-fi fave of mine which I re-watched a few nights ago and has become my latest cult favorite movie, to wit, Dredd. This second go-around watching it, was in super 4K HD. Not only did I notice how much more of a great movie it is the second time around but the sound and video quality were stunning at times, none more so than when this music is playing when people are using the fictional futuristic drug Slo-Mo which makes the user experience time at 1/100th of reality in a very hazy dreamy euphoria. The movie is set in an environmentally and socially post-apocalyptic dystopian future where life is rough for the urban-bound denizens of the super-cities where the survivors try to eke out a soul-crushing existence, many of them in "tower blocks", 200-story apartment tenements designed to house many thousands of people. This movie centers around a conflict in a tower block named "Peach Trees". To see this Paul Leonard-Morgan-created haunting atmospheric ambient musical score played to scenes from the movie in which it is played go HERE.

Graphic of the Day - Happy Xeno-Momma's Day!

The Last Jedi Trailer #1

Looks promising.... this will be merely the first of two or three.

I'm Making A Covenant To See It In IMAX

Alien: Covenant IMAX Featurette from Chris Picard on Vimeo.

Aliens in 60 Seconds

For those of you not culturally hip enough to get this clever animated short, this is a humorously animated and foreshortened interpretation of the 1986 sci-fi/action blockbuster Aliens.

Image of the Day - Twelve Colonies of Kobol

Both today after school while driving home as well as tonight, I find myself thinking about the destruction of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica television series. I feel it is a metaphor for something else as in God is using it to get me thinking about something that is anything but fictional and imaginary. I'm still pondering and discerning the meaning per the truism in Proverbs 25:2. Left-click on image for expanded view. Cartographic artwork by Werthead HERE. All rights reserved!

A Last Supper Where Nobody Survives

Usually studios put out trailers, previews, and advertisements for upcoming movies soon to be released. However, this is something new to me: a nearly-five-minute segment of the soon-to-be-released movie Alien Covenant, intended to hook audiences with a more powerful connection to story and characters. It works for me! I am looking forward to this movie's release this coming spring. As goes with these movies ongoing themes and patterns, there will be few survivors of this crew.

The Great Martian War (1913-1917)

Yesterday and today, I executed my second consecutive and second-ever fully original lesson plan created by me for all six 85-minute block periods of standard tenth grade world history that I and my co-operating teacher split this quarter. He is gone this week due to a family health emergency so instead of doing what I did the first two weeks of the quarter and of my student teaching career which was follow the general game plan of my co-teacher with my own spin on it, this week I created wholly original and organic lesson plans. In the just-ending today lesson plan, I used THIS World War One - War of the Worlds mash-up video as an anticipatory set in our current World War One unit. You might notice I posted that blog piece back in 2014. While researching it, I found this longer clip (below) from whence its footage was derived which is a faux preview of a full-length "mockumentary" for which I have heard conflicting reports as to if its existence is fictional or real, such as that would be.

It's a Rap on Stranger Things

Last night I watched parts of the Golden Globe Awards next door at my buddy's house. Some of it was fairly insufferable and tantamount to a Hollywood circle jerk of self-congratulation, self-aggrandizement, and self-affirmation. Some parts of it were interesting or even funny, but given my buddy had recorded it I was spared the worst of it and allowed to watch the highlights. The highlight of the night was the intro segment which includes this highlight of the highlight which is a segment of the intro featuring the cast of Stranger Things doing a clever rap making topical references to the show and possibly offering us a spoiler about the fate of one character. Note: if you did not watch this television series then this clip will make no sense to you.

Quote of the Day - Detective Thorne

Tonight I watched the entirety of the 1973 dystopian movie Soylent Green and was struck by this comment by Charlton Heston's Detective Thorne early in the movie:

"I know. Sol. You told me before. A heat wave all year long. A greenhouse effect. Everything is burning up."
~ Detective Thorne

Indeed, throughout the movie it is made clear that a permanent heat wave is in place in New York City in 2022. This is but one more anecdote that gives the lie to the Conservative myth that climate change advocates in the 1970s were exclusively worried about a coming ice age and global warming was not yet "a thing."

My Top Ten Unobtainiums

Tonight I watched the latest Star Wars film Rogue One and once again had the topic of Kyber Crystals tossed onto my intellectual plate. This got me thinking about other such examples of Unobtainium on the small and big screen over the years.  This is my list of favorite mineral/metal substances that exist only in science fiction/fantasy.

1. Mithril ( Lord of the Rings universe)
2. Dilithium (Star Trek universe) 
3. Kryptonite (DC Comics universe)
4. Infinity Gems (Marvel Comics universe)
5. Adamantium (Marvel Comics universe)
6. Kyber Crystal (Star Wars universe)
7. Naquadah (Stargate universe)
8. Tylium (Battlestar Galactica universe)
9. Eludium (Looney Toons universe)
10. Mimetic Polyalloy (Terminator universe)

*Postscriptum: CrazyDave65 reminded me of Isaac Asimov's Thiotimoline.
**Post-Postscriptum: Linsis reminded me of Star Trek universe's Tritanium which was also appropriated by the Transformers' universe.
(Updated 1/05/17)

Westworld Painted Black

Entering the new year I am absolutely haunted by HBO's new series Westworld whose first season I finished watching last Thursday night and which I have already blogged about since HERE. Many years ago I watched the Michael Crichton-written/directed movie Westworld and loved it, particularly memorable about the movie being actor Yul Brynner's performance as the relentless, rogue, murderous android referred to as "Gunslinger." HBO's version has more time to develop the story and characters and does so to an admirable degree. Anthony Hopkins' Robert Ford steals the season but shares that designation with Evan Rachel Wood's Dolores Abernathy, my newest crush. The song accompanying this fanboy tribute is The Rolling Stones' "Paint it Black" as performed praiseworthily by Ciara, an artist to whom I was previously unaware.

Quote of the Day - Dolores Abernathy

The past couple of weeks I have become addicted to the new HBO series Westworld whose first season I finished watching tonight. I have long loved the original 1973 movie Westworld starring Yul Brynner as the rogue robotic killer running amok in the futuristic fantasy park originally contrived by Michael Crichton. Any movie or television program or song or poem that makes one think about it for days after encountering it is something special. This Westworld television series is something special. It is good on every level from storywriting to casting to acting sets and shooting localities to special effects. My newest crush is Evan Rachel Wood as the unforgettable Dolores Abernathy. She repeats the Shakespearan line below (from Romeo & Juliet) which her "father" tells her which has the same effect on her as it does on the person she shares it with and it spreads like a virus. She was neither the first or last to say it but to me her telling of it is the most memorable. I will not say more as to not spoil it for you but this is must-see-tv!

"These violent delights have violent ends." ~ Dolores Abernathy

He's Back!

Earlier this evening I went alone to Park Cinemas in downtown Paso Robles and watched the new Star Wars movie Rogue One on its opening night. I enjoyed it and feel it is a solidly good movie, but I believe I liked the previous offering in the franchise a bit more, to wit, The Force Awakens. Anywho, there were a number of things to like about this movie, most significantly, Darth Vader is back and with a vengeance and voiced by James Earl Jones as God intended. Jones is aged 85 and so I'm glad they did at least one more movie with this greatest ever of all movie villains with the right voicing. Image courtesy of Disney Corporation (all rights reserved).

Run To Or From Alien: Covenant

Director-Producer Ridley Scott and Twentieth Century Fox recently released this teaser poster of the next movie in the Alien movie franchise, to wit, Alien: Covenant, to be released next May.

A Funeral Like No Other

This is the full, uncut, alternate funeral scene in the highly underrated movie Alien 3. You never saw this in the theaters or regular CD/Blue-Ray. I feel it is one of the most emotionally powerful and tragically beautiful and spiritually symbolic and forebodingly ominous movie scenes ever.

Emo Kylo Reviews Rogue One - Trailer Two

The second of probably three trailers for the next Star Wars movie which is currently still in post-production  (Rogue One) was released in recent days and can be viewed in the player immediately below.


An unknown clever party constructed a funny faux film review of this movie by the fictional character Kylo Ren of the most recently released movie in the franchise, The Force Awakens, which can be enjoyed in the player immediately below. If one did not watch the previous film and perhaps more importantly is not a fanboy of the franchise then this will probably not hold much meaning.


While we're at it we might as well take yet another gander at the first trailer/teaser for this movie which can be viewed in the player immediately below.

Da Vinci Does Xenomorphs

This eye-catching and ominous Da Vinci-esque diagramming of the late H.R. Giger's xenomorph by Elkin Salamanca Alarcon is modern art quite to my liking. Illustrations and accompanying writings by Elkin Salamanca Alarcon (all rights reserved).

Shakespeare in Space

While reading Macbeth last night for my Intro to Shakespeare class (English 339) I noticed Macbeth referred to a "dagger of the mind." I immediately recognized it as a title of an episode of the original Star Trek series. This got me to thinking about how many other episodes of the original Star Trek series likewise quoted Sharkespeare verbatum or in paraphrase. Below is my list:

1. "Dagger of the Mind" (Season 1, Episode 9) ~ (Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1)
2. "Conscience of the King" (Season 1, Episode 13) ~ (Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2)
3. "By Any Other Name" (Season 2, Episode 22) ~ (Romeo & Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2)
4. "All Our Yesterdays" (Season 3, Episode 23) ~ (Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5)

 Of course this list only refers to episode titles in the original series and does not address the plethora of Shakespeare references in quotes and plot lines in the original series and the later spin-off series. It is also worth noting that numerous episodes of the original TV series featured names that looked/sounded Shakespearean but were not.

Pillar of Light's Pattern of Darkness

A friend of mine cued me into this rather haunting Star Wars video tribute to Luke Skywalker's lightsaber and its tragic path of destruction wending through the lives of so many people over the course of three generations and several wars.