Party beyond Earth's gravity

I've long wanted to live near the shuttle launch pad and throw parties for shuttle launches. The idea was this: I'd be able to email all my friends around the world with the schedule for the next few month's launches, then if anyone wanted to make the trip anytime, they could rely on the fact that in my little beach house there would be a party to watch the rockets. People from different parts of my life could meet each other... I'd stay in touch with everyone... It'd be great.

This Saturday is "Yuri's Night." On April 12th, 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human being in space, orbiting around the Earth once during a 108-minute flight. Exactly twenty years later, on April 12th, 1981, the United States launched their first Space Shuttle into space.

So I looked online and the only Los Angeles Yuri's Night party I saw was at Cinespace in Hollywood which sounds kinda cheesy and not really what I'm into. I'd prefer to have a party where you could see the night sky, for one thing. Maybe I'll throw together a small get together at the last minute in my backyard. Although in all honesty, I'll probably end up just getting drunk by myself and yelling at the stars.

UPDATE: In looking on the map where the closest launch to me is, Vandenberg Airforce base is just north of the Wine Country! Wine and rockets, together at last! Although I'm not sure how we can be awake for the 4:47am launch time. Well, we have until June 15 to figure it out.

Poly Poly Oxen Free

There has been a lot in the news lately about Polygamy, which I want to point out is very different from Polyamory. Ever since I took a Social Construction of Sexuality class back in college I've considered myself to be polyamorous. For those in the don't know, this basically is an alternative lifestyle to serial monogamy. In serial monogamy you can have attachments to as many people as you want as long as you break one off before moving to the next one. Where as poly is not so much. Sometimes this leads to big family of amorphous couples living in houses together raising children. But for me personally it's mostly just about letting go of the jealously of thinking that just because my partner is attracted to someone else they wont be attracted to me. I would never do anything with my partner's knowledge and consent (keystones of polyamory) but I just don't start with the same assumptions that monogamists do.

There was a fascinating Wired article about the polyamorous culture recently here. It talks about how the Internet has helped Polyamory find a name for itself and is helping launch the concept into mainstream consciousness. Fascinating stuff.

Will an original alien please stand up?

I'm so sick of alien species in science fiction looking vaguely humanoid. It makes little sense to me that any sort of sentient species would be a lizard-person or a insect-person. Star Trek is the worst at this suggesting that a completely separate race would look like a person with some bumps on their heads, or longer ears.

Alan Moore came up with brilliantly original ideas just for the background of one Green Lantern story. One alien was a super intelligent smallpox virus. (This made them difficult to socialize with.) Another sentient being was an "abstract mathematical progression." Now THAT is clever alien design, a mathematical theory so complex it becomes self aware. The main character in that story was a being named Mogo which was an intelligent planet sized ecosystem. Essentially a sentient planet.

With all the various environments for life to evolve in it just makes sense that alien races would look nothing like humans. For example, life that evolved on a gas giant planet like Jupiter might be shaped like long thin jellyfish types. The incredible gravity and lack of a solid crust would create much different lifeforms. Can you imagine what type of structures a civilization shaped this way would come up with? Or what their spaceships would look like? Can you?

Craig Zobel

Craig Zobel is one of the co-creators of the Internet animated series Homestar Runner. He also made one of my favorite films from last year, GREAT WORLD OF SOUND. It is one of those incredible cinematic gems that straddles genres and defies descriptions, fueled by amazing performances (especially the underrated Pat Healy) and an incredibly authentic background.

The premise is simple, a guy down on his luck lands a job with a record company. The job is to travel the country with his new partner and sign local talent to the label. Of course the musicians need to put up a little bit of money to prove their dedication to the recording label. It's a dryly funny look at the broken state of music recording, salesmen and the American dream. It won a bunch of independent awards around the country and is available on netflix right now.



Craig's next film sounds incredible. It's titled TURKEY IN THE STRAW. I could give you a brief description of the plot but instead I'll just mention two cast members, Amy Sedaris and Paul Rudd. Yeah.

What got me thinking about Craig today was this news that there is a Wii game coming out based on Homestar. It's called Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People. Like I needed another reason to get a Wii.

Adapt this comic

Two things led me to this idea. First is simply the sad boring state of the movies today. And second is the continuing coverage of the film adaptation of Watchmen, the most highly regarded comic book of all time.

The comic book I would love to see someone try and adapt is Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol. I already wrote a bit here about his amazing series The Invisibles, but that story has to actual function as a comic for a number of reasons. If someone tried to make a film out of Doom Patrol it would undoubtedly be one of the most original and outrageous films made that year. Doom Patrol is a classic superhero team story. The team features Cliff Steel, a man trapped in a robot body (who later learns even his brain is machinery and begins to question the nature of identity.) It also features Crazy Jane, a schizophrenic who has different super powers for each of the dozens of identities in her head. The third member of the team is Remus, a half man half woman hermaphrodite covered in bandages and housing a "negative energy spirit." Other significant supporting characters included a sentient roadway named Danny The Street.

It was weird stuff.

The storyline and villains were even weirder beginning with a showdown with a character named Red Jack who claimed to be god and Jack the Ripper. One of my favorite story lines had the DP battling the Brotherhood of Dada. Dada and surrealism were major influences on this comic book as well as other sources such as Czech animator Jan Svankmeyer and William Burroughs.

The effects budget bringing a story like this to the screen would be substantial, and the audience appeal is admittedly a bit limited. But still who out there has the guts to try and pull off a truly ambitious comic adaptation? Consider this a challenge!

A slut at the festival

Well, I missed this last weekend for a number of reasons. (I was busy, in another region of the country and probably drunk.) But one of my favorite bloggers out there, Tracie "Slut Machine" Egan apparently was a participant in the New York Underground Film Festival. They put on a live game show called TUBE TIME. It sounds like the point of the game is a competition who can find the best online videos. I hope you did good Tracie, sorry I missed it!

Please read in a southern accent

I've just returned from a rainy weekend in Durham North Carolina where I attended my first ever Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. My mom grew up in Durham and my grandparents and other family lived there so I have a bunch of lovely childhood memories of the place. My cousin and his wife still live there and they seem to think it's a crime ridden haunt, but that's another opinion. Anyway it was very interesting to come back to a place like this (childhood memories) for a film festival (adult occupation.)

Well the verdict in a nutshell was that I was absolutely delighted by the festival. Such a refreshing change of pace from the frantic corporate sponsored events I had attended in other locales. The whole place seemed to be melding high minded cinema with a southern genteel charm. (The same southern charm I normally find unsettling but oddly this time not so much.)

I saw almost 20 films over the weekend, a few I really liked. Probably my favorite was the doc BIGGER, FASTER STRONGER by Chris Bell. It was sort of similar to the doc HECKLER in how it starts with a narrow premise and evolves to a larger thesis. While HECKLER began with hecklers and then expanded to discuss criticism in general, BFS starts off talking about steroid use and grows to become an examination of America's desire to succeed at any cost and even the general hypocritical nature of our society overall. Bell's film also does this while both maintaining sweetly personal tone and a cheeky sense of humor. Bravo.

That's just one highlight of the weekend. Well done Full Frame you've given me the vapors, please invite me back next year for another mint julep.

New play by Chris Merrill

Overheard in Texas

Maybe I'm just picking the wrong shuttles, but here are some of the things I've heard on my trip:

"I don't like shorts, I don't ever watch em."

"I don't want to watch that film with subtitles, I don't want to read."

And "Fuck L.A. I've never been to California but I hate L.A."

That last one came from supreme asshole of the festival, this guy who was telling me that when he makes a movie, it will go to either Toronto or Sundance first and then to SXSW and that he wouldn't show in Dallas. Despite the fact this asshole lives in Dallas. And that he is drinking for free at a Dallas party.

Joss Whedon internet musical

I'll be keeping a close eye on this as it develops for sure. According to various reports, Whedon is creating an online musical called "Doctor Horrible's Sing A Long Blog." I'm not really clear what that means or what it will look like but I'm sold. Neil Patrick Harris stars as the evil Doctor Horrible (!) and Nathan Fillion as the strapping hero. Here is the official site which doesn't have much on it yet, and then here is the fan blog...for the blog....