News Bytes:
- DVD Release for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire set for March 7th
- Changes abound for Resident Evil: Afterlife
- Rogue Pictures signs Fillion and Sackhoff for White Noise 2
- Uncle Sam Rants about Zanesville
Movie Talk: Mission:Impossible 3 looks promising with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laurence Fishburne.
Slice of Trivia: Three new movie clips from Doug for the gang to guess.
TV Talk:
- Jeff Goldblum signs on for new series “Seeing Red”
- Galactica Season 2 finale gears up for political faceoff
Interview: Daniel Roebuck, veteran character actor and monster movie aficionado. Dan’s HALLOWEEN SPOOKTACULAR won a Rondo Award on 2/19 for “Best Fan Event”.
Future Talk: What’s Coming Up?
- Dick King-Smith’s YA fantasy The Water Horse being adapted for big screen production by Walden Media
- Gibson gambling that audiences will also like Apocalypto despite the subtitles (see the trailer)
Listener comments: We’ve got plenty of voicemail from fans to listen and respond to!
If you have any suggestions or comments, please let us know.
First off – I listen to all three of your podcasts every week and enjoy them greatly.
Ranting on Rants:
Consider this – http://www.ipl.org.ar/ref/QUE/FARQ/plotFARQ.html – before you make your next rant on the lack of creativity in “Hollywood” (a term which is arguably at least 10 years out of date).
If any of this is true in the least, then, can film-makers help but repeat themselves? It would be difficult not to do so, except for the details. I guess, in this case, the devil would really be in the details, for that is where diversity in story would arise from.
Of course, the same limitations in the number of possible plots would apply to literature. If true, the question arises, why be relatively tough on screenwriters and relatively easy on authors?
You may also consider the relative ease or difficulty of being wildly creative and original for an individual creating a work of art on his/her own with relatively small capital investment, versus the creation of a collaborative work of art requiring an investment of millions of dollars/euros/rupees.
Lastly, if you’re truly fed up with science fiction/fantasy/horror films as created by the major media creation corporations, why not focus part of Slice of SciFi on independent film. Consider films like “Primer” or “Wax” or “Pi” or “The Sacrifice”.
I have to say that the reason that I(we) are so hard on the films coming out of Hollywood is because we have seen such incredible stuff in scifi literature. Doing Cover 2 Cover for 4 years has shown us how many really great stories get passed over by Hollywood. The stuff being written by cutting-edge authors never seems to make it to the big screen in its true form.
The great independent films that do make it are for the most part exciting, but they come too few and far between.
I have been enjoying the Shatner DVD club, and Netflix keeps me from becoming completely jaded to all film.
As a true fan, I demand more from my films. It is a curse of being old enough to have seen every storyline rehashed time and time again. (No, Really! I have rated over 6000 movies on Netflix.) After seeing that many films, you start to know the formula, and can predict every movie.
Still, we have hope that not everything is bad. The new X-Men 3, Superman and others look promising.
Ugh.. iTunes link broken…. Just me? Need my SoSF#45 or will go crazy… Loading weapon with beer dart to end my misery…. oh, well downloaded directly from site dodged the dart this time. Guess will have to go to work after all…. /sigh beer dart looked like a good option, now will have to wait 10hrs for beer… /cry /cry /cry
The Four Surfers of the Apocalyps-O. Anyone else ever played that game? I think they should be made into a feature film–starring Keanu.
To Big Mack:
I had my computer on, at some point it downloaded the SoSF, but the link is currently broken (7:50p central time)
Evo, “Cube” was a great film. It was certainly something different to the usual stuff Hollywood is churning out.
You know what book I would realy like to see taken up by Hollywood. “The Stainless Steel Rat” That would be damn cool. Of course I would also like to see Rama done too. But thats hard core SF. Would be stunning visually though.
“Cube” wasn’t great, but it was a pretty decent film (with surprisingly good effects for the low budget), hampered by a lousy ending.
“Doing Cover 2 Cover for 4 years has shown us how many really great stories get passed over by Hollywood. The stuff being written by cutting-edge authors never seems to make it to the big screen in its true form.”
All too true.
It has also been argued that science fiction / fantasy film is a victim of its own success. Big budget SF films are now mass market entertainment. When your audience is a nitch, you can afford to be experimental. When your audience is a mass market, eh, it’s tougher to gamble with tens of millions of someone else’s money. Not impossible, but definitely requiring gigantic cojones of titanium.
I guess that’s why I stopped watching most mass market SF films. I’m not in their demographic. I know the common tropes of the genre too well.
I guess I’m more of a Slamdance – http://www.slamdance.com/2006/festival/films.asp – guy now.