Behold, yet another tribute!
This one was contributed by my friend Jared (an expert in spyware and virus
removal, so if you need any assistance in that area, check
out his website www.rightcoaster.com).
Archive for February, 2005
Oscar-nominated Short Films
Salon.com has made this year’s Oscar-nominated short films available to view on their website. Hurry, go watch now, because you’ve only got until midnight tonight to watch them. If you don’t subscribe to Salon, just watch one of their ads so you can get the day pass, which will give you full access for the day.
I’ve watched two of them so far (“Guard Dog” and “Ryan”), and both are great, definitely worth watching. Go check them out:
http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2005/02/25/shorts/index.html
Jonesin’ for Eucalyptus
Over a noisy lunch the other day, I overheard Ellen Datlow talking about her experiences in Australia and New Zealand while she was teaching Clarion South. I only caught bits and pieces of the conversation, but I heard someone say “I heard they’re mean,” to which Gordon replied “That’s because they’re all hopped up on eucalyptus.” Naturally, I assumed he was referring to the Clarion students, and I found myself looking forward to seeing the prose churned out by the eucalyptus-fueled rage of the Aussies.
Turns out they were talking about koalas. Needless to say, I was greatly disappointed.
More Audiobook Reviews
Mad Cow Films
In his book COLLAPSE, author Jared Diamond says that in order to effect a change in a large company, one has to determine “which links in the supply chain are sensitive to public pressure.” For instance, when mad cow disease was a potential threat here in the states, the FDA issued some edicts to the meat industry, but the meat industry was slow to enact any changes. However, once McDonalds noticed a distinct decrease in customers and determined that the lack of business was due at least in part to fears over eating meat that could possibly have been infected with mad cow disease, they went to the meat industry and complained…which produced near instant results.
This got me thinking about the current state of science fiction in television and movies. The reason all these crappy SF movies keep getting made is because people keep going to the theater to see them. We allow the lure of special effects and pretty movie making lure us to the theater to see movies that usually don’t turn out to be any good, yet no matter what is said about the movie critically, our money is still going into the production company’s pockets; if enough of our money gets into their pockets, they translate that as a successful movie. So you end up with a director like Paul W. S. Anderson (or a screenwriter like Jeff Vintar, post-I, Robot), becoming, in the eyes of the production companies, authorities on science fiction, when in fact–to quote From Dusk til Dawn–they “don’t know rat shit from Rice Krispies.”
Unfortunately, the way Hollywood works, the failure of any SFnal movie would be bad for all SF movies; while it would be nice to see the genre not be further disparaged by the likes of films (and I use the term loosely) such as Battlefield Earth, the failure of any SF movie would only make it more difficult to get *any* SF movie made, even one with a brilliant script.
New Goal for 2005
I say witty things on occasion. Sometimes I even write them down, or post them to this blog, or to a newsgroup or a message board. Thus it is my goal this year to say something clever enough for Dave Langford to quote me in Ansible; failing that, I hope to say something stupid enough, or Thog-like enough, that he will be compelled to mock me.
February Acquisitions
This month, we bought new stories from: Paolo Bacigalupi, Terry Bisson, Scott Bradfield, Robert Reed, Carter Scholz, Sydney Joyce Van Scyoc, Bruce Sterling, and Steven Utley. We also bought a story from Michaela Roessner, which we believe makes her and her grandfather Elmer the first grandparent/grandchild duo to publish stories in F&SF.
And lest I forget — yet another new slush survivor, by the name of Ef Deal.