Serenity is here. (Go see it!)

Three remarkable movies open this weekend - David Cronenberg's A History of Violence, Dave McKean & Neil Gaiman's Mirrormask - and Joss Whedon's Serenity. All are worth seeing, but Serenity has the most special place in my heart (and is my favorite movie of the year so far). As anyone who hasn't been living under a rock knows, it is the big-screen resurrection of Firefly, an inspired sci-fi/western series that got better with each episode - only 11 of which were aired by Fox. In the wrong order.

But don't be scared off if you haven't seen the series (everything you need to know is spelled out with inspired and brisk efficiency), or by the admittedly weird-at-first-glance sci-fi/western genre-collision. On the one hand, Serenity is a mystery; a young fugitive on the run, trained by the government as a psychic assassin, harbors a traumatic memory that's driven her insane... which the government wants kept secret, so they're out to kill her. On the other hand, it's a love story - of a brother's love for his sister, a farm girl's love for a big city doctor, a soldier's love for her husband, and a captain's love for his ship, his crew, and the woman he can't stand to be with (or be away from). And ultimately, it's a movie that actually has something timely and meaningful to say.

Happily, it's opened to a preponderance of favorable reviews (it's got an 86 "Cream of the Crop" rating on Rotten Tomatoes), and is tracking to open at #1 this weekend with at least $15 million, which (if it holds up well its second weekend, which it should given strong buzz and positive word-of-mouth) means we may get a sequel. (Or two.) I can't wait, because I haven't dearly loved a movie (and its characters) this much in quite some time.

Manohla Dargis in the New York Times writes: "this unassuming science-fiction adventure is superior in almost every respect to George Lucas's aggressively more ambitious Revenge of the Sith. Scene for scene, Serenity is more engaging and certainly better written and acted." Roger Ebert gives it three stars, hailing the film's "energetic special effects, breathless velocity, much imagination, some sly verbal wit and a little political satire." And Kevin Crust of the Los Angeles Times calls it "a strongly acted, well-written story fortified by riveting action sequences. The comic exchanges among the crew initially seem like mere banter until you realize that Whedon is presenting well-developed relationships involving rejuvenated archetypes. A highly entertaining piece of genre-blending fun."

Europe, Russia plan joint mini-spaceplane

The European Space Agency plans to team up with Russia to develop a six-person mini-spaceplane dubbed the Clipper, which would replace the aging Soyuz capsule by 2014, providing access to Earth and Lunar orbit.

Chilean robot finds "Robinson Crusoe" treasure

A Chilean robot named Arturito has discovered what may be the biggest treasure in history, buried 50 feet deep on the archipelago that inspired Daniel Dafoe's novel Robinson Crusoe (where Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk was marooned in 1704 for four years). The treasure, comprising hundreds of barrels of gold, silver, jewels and other Incan artifacts worth an estimated $10 billion, is believed to have been buried by Spanish sailor Juan Esteban Ubilla-Echeverria in 1715 - and then discovered and reburied a few years later by British sailor Cornelius Webb. The robot, developed by Wagner Technologies, uses GPR (aka georadar) to detect subsurface objects via microwave radiation, and has recently made headlines in Chile for solving some of the country's biggest criminal mysteries. (The Guardian has more details.)

Two things that will fry your brain.

In the slim chance you haven't seen them yet...

Tom Cruise Kills Oprah
(explanation ; if you just can't get enough)

Trailer for "Shining"
(mirror ; source ; NYT article ; also... "West Side")

Top Gear and the Ariel Atom

With the Fall TV season now well underway, you may have noticed (via the trusty "TV I TiVo" section on the sidebar) that not a single new network series has hooked me. However, what has is Discovery Channel's addictive BBC Two import Top Gear, which I've been watching diligently since its low-key U.S. debut a few weeks ago. (It airs Wednesdays at 9pm & midnight CST on Discovery, though they haven't even bothered to give it a proper webpage yet.)

Basically, what Iron Chef is to food shows and Globe Trekker is to travel shows (and Anthony Bourdain is to food-travel shows)... Top Gear is to car shows. The long-running British show (which has spawned an eponymous website and magazine), will convert even casual viewers into hard-core automotive geeks with its infectiously gleeful enthusiasm about its subject matter, peppered with sharp wit and abundant personality. And it's all wrapped up in an impressively well-produced package - particularly the field segments, which are beautifully shot and cut, and given a cinematic sheen with Bruckheimer-esque color correction (largely, I surmise, to compensate for the dreary English weather). Host Jeremy Clarkson (who can "reduce car manufacturers to a flood of tears with nothing more than a long pause and a few well considered words") comes across vaguely like Stephen Fry's more manly older brother, and is well complemented by Richard Hammond as the cheeky young sidekick. These are blokes you want to hang out with at the pub.

You can sample streaming video clips of the show online here and here, but my favorite is probably the Ariel Atom segment (9 min. / 41MB mpeg), which aired in last week's episode. What is the Ariel Atom, you ask? Oh, you pitiable bastard. Behold...

Reign of the Whedon

The Serenity marketing machine is (thankfully and impressively) in full swing as it heads into the home stretch this week, with an aggressive TV campaign that has happily coincided with the launch of the Fall season (and even includes an ongoing TiVo promotion). But what's most striking is the high-profile global publicity the film has garnered, with feature stories in The New York Times, USA Today, Toronto Star, The Scotsman, Australia's The Age and many more the past few days - including a very entertaining TIME Magazine combo interview with Joss Whedon and Neil Gaiman. But perhaps the best of the current batch is by M.E. Russell of The Oregonian, who has posted his uncut, 9,500-word interview with Joss online (the second-longest I've ever seen). Also interesting: vfxblog interviews visual effects supervisor Loni Peristere.

Serenity has been my favorite movie of the year ever since I saw the rough cut back in May. I'll finally see the finished version Tuesday, and then attend the Austin premiere Wednesday (after which I could probably die happy if I still didn't have so much else to do right now).

P.S.: In related news, Fox Music has at long last released Greg Edmonson's Firefly score online as a downloadable mp3 soundtrack album for a mere $10. It's beautiful. (Oh, and you can buy that t-shirt if you click on it.)

KYOSHO unveils MANOI

Last week, KYOSHO Corporation of Japan (makers of cool radio controlled model cars and planes and such) unveiled MANOI, their "1/5 scale athlete humanoid" hobby robot created by Takashi Satoshi. You can view more details here, photos from the press conference here and a tantalyzing video of an early prototype in action here [15.5 MB direct link]. MANOI will be released next June for ¥150,000 (approximately $1,333 at the moment).

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Inside Apple and the iPod nano

BusinessWeek takes an intriguing look inside Apple's new iPod nano, estimating an impressive 50% profit margin on each device sold before marketing and distribution costs. (What, you haven't bought one yet?) Apple has sold 16 million iPods this year alone, generating some $2.6 million in revenue. (21 million iPods have been sold since the product's debut in 2001.)

Meanwhile, The Guardian talks to Steve Jobs and looks inside Apple. "There's a very strong DNA within Apple, and that's about taking state-of-the-art technology and making it easy for people who don't want to read manuals, people who live very busy lives. [And] we have world-class competitors trying to kill us."

Austin Serenity Premiere with Summer & Jewel

Next Thursday, September 29, Wednesday, September 28, at an abandoned Old West town somewhere near Austin, the Alamo Drafthouse's Rolling Roadshow, Ain't It Cool News and Fantastic Fest will present the Austin premiere of Serenity with Summer Glau and Jewel Staite in attendance.

An extremely limited number of tickets will go on sale starting 5pm this Friday, 9/23, at rollingroadshow.com - but you can get your ticket right now for absolutely free if you purchase a badge to Fantastic Fest. How shiny is that?

Now, for those of you who still haven't figured out what all the fuss is about, try to imagine a brilliantly written Star Wars movie where Han Solo is the main character (and shot first). Joss Whedon elaborates in an interview with About.com: "The idea behind Serenity in the first place really did have to do with the idea of the Millennium Falcon as a real concept. What if you were that guy, forget the aliens and the robots and the Force. What if you just had a crappy little spaceship and you had to make a living and you didn’t really care how? How hard would your life be? That to me, the reality of that fantasy is what makes it so fascinating and ultimately that’s the benchmark of everything I do. It’s finding the reality behind the fantasy no matter how absurd the fantasy may be."

Fantastic Fest announces Sin City: Recut & Extended, Feast, The Wild Blue Yonder

The inaugural Fantastic Fest (Oct. 6-9, 2005) will present sneak previews of Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller’s SIN CITY: RECUT & EXTENDED; John Gulager’s Project Greenlight horror film FEAST as a work-in-progress; and Werner Herzog’s science-fiction fantasy THE WILD BLUE YONDER (Winner, FIPRESCI Prize, 2005 Venice Film Festival). The Opening Night film will be ZATHURA, Jon Favreau's adaptation of Chris Van Allsburg's best-selling sci-fi adventure.

Fantastic Fest is a new four-day international genre film festival devoted to sci-fi, horror, fantasy, and animation, presented by the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema South Lamar under the direction of Tim League (“#1 Theater Doing It Right” - Entertainment Weekly). It was conceived by co-chairs Paul Alvarado-Dykstra and Tim McCanlies (The Iron Giant, Secondhand Lions), who comprise a programming team that also includes Harry Knowles (Ain’t It Cool News), Matt Dentler (SXSW Film Festival), and Kier-La Janisse (Cinemuerte Film Festival).

(Buy you badge now!)

Jonathan Lethem wins MacArthur "Genius" grant

Holy crap! The 2005 MacArthur Fellows grants have been announced, and Jonathan Lethem got one! Only 25 Fellows were selected by the non-profit MacArthur Foundation "for their creativity, originality, and potential", and will each be given $500,000 over the next five years - no strings attached. Lethem has been one of my favorite authors since his brilliant 1994 debut novel Gun, with Occasional Music, and most recently wrote 2003's highly acclaimed Fortress of Solitude. (His other novels include Amnesia Moon, As She Climbed Across the Table, Girl in Landscape, and Motherless Brooklyn.)

Lock up your vegetables!

The Guardian interviews Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park about their long-awaited feature film debut, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (which opens October 7).

"At first it was called Wallace & Gromit and the Veggieburglars, and it was about these rabbits who keep invading Wallace and Gromit's vegetable plot, and then we started to develop that into an idea of a great rabbit beast who comes to town. A were-rabbit as opposed to a werewolf, because it seemed to fit the Wallace and Gromit world." Park and [writer Bob] Baker were inspired by the venerable cycle of Universal studio horror movies. "They're all filled with blood and guts and we thought that that could really suit Wallace and Gromit's world because it's absurd. It's about people locking up their vegetables rather than their children."

In very vaguely related news, the New York Times has a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the death of hand-drawn animation at Disney. And in very vaguely related news to that, the L.A. Times profiles Skip Brittenham, arguably the most powerful entertainment attorney in Hollywood.

TRAILERS: The Goblet of Fire, Memoirs of a Geisha, Elizabethtown, Onajitsuki

The full trailer for Mike Newell's adaptation of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire hits theaters today, attached to all prints of Corpse Bride (which I highly recommend, btw). Other new trailers worth a look include those for Rob Marshall's adaptation of Memoirs of a Geisha and the "music trailer" for Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown. (You may also want to check out the inexplicable trailer for Onajitsuki from Japan.)

QT Six: WWII & '70s Italian Crime Films

Tuesday night was a real treat at QT Six, with two intruiging Italian WWII productions (though I would hardly call either an "epic", as advertised). First up was the fantastically fun Five for Hell from 1969 directed by Gianfranco Parolini (aka Frank Kramer), and starring John Garkok, Margaret Lee - and Klaus Kinski as a deliciously creepy Nazi. It's a crackerjack "men on a mission" flick, and I have no doubt we'll see its influence on Quentin's forthcoming Inglorious Bastards. Next up was Umberto Lenzi's 1979 WWII melodrama From Hell to Victory, which I thought was overly reliant on convenient plot coincidences, but still engaging (and it had a rather lovely, if entirely predicatable, ending). George Peppard and George Hamilton (as a wine-loving Frenchman, no less) lead a cast of six friends who are torn apart by the outbreak of World War II, only to unexpectedly reconnect over the years that follow.

Wednesday night was "Italian Crime Films of the '70s", and it was pretty kickass. First up was Antonio Margheriti's Death Rage from 1976, starring Yul Brynner as a hit man who takes one last contract - to kill the man who murdered his brother - only to unexpectedly fall in love with the beautiful Barbara Bouchet along the way. Next up was Duccio Tessari's No Way Out from 1973, starring Alain Delon as a hit man who wants to retire to live happily ever after with his family, but his bosses have other ideas. (This film actually reminded me quite a bit of Layer Cake, or vice-versa.) And I'm seriously kicking myself for not being able to stick around for the midnight film (Peter Collinson's The Sell-Out from 1976, starring Oliver Reed and Richard Widmark), but I just had/have way too much work to do. Dammit.

For more extensive QT Six coverage, I of course recommend AICN, but also Cinema Strikes Back, which has been doing a heck of a good job. (Check out their 25 Things I've Learned @ QT6.)

Miyazaki interviewed in Venice

The Guardian offers a rare interview with Hayao Miyazaki from the Venice Film Festival, where he was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.

Among other things, he amusingly responds to the rumor that he sent Harvey Weinstein a samurai sword with a note reading "No cuts" when Weinstein was assigned the U.S. release of Princess Mononoke. The director chortles. "Actually, my producer did that. Although I did go to New York to meet this man, this Harvey Weinstein, and I was bombarded with this aggressive attack, all these demands for cuts." He smiles. "I defeated him."

AIST/Kawada HRP-3P All-Weather Robot

Remember the HRP-2 Promet industrial robot I mentioned back in January?

Behold its successor, the 5' 2", 132 lb. HRP-3P all-weather robot, scheduled for release next year from AIST (Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) and Kawada Industries. (Here's the press release... in Japanese.)

QT Six kicks off

QT Six is here, the long-awaited sixth edition of the Quentin Tarantino Film Festival of the Obscure, and there is much rejoicing. (Though sadly, at this very moment I'm missing day two - the All Night '80s Horror Marathon - as I just had far too much work to do today. Dammit.)

Anyway, the first QT Fest in four years kicked off yesterday with Secret Agent Night, featuring a fun '60s Robert Vaughn double-feature. The first film, 1965's The Spy With My Face, was basically - and literally - a two-part episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (originally aired in 1964 as "The Double Affair"), in which T.H.R.U.S.H. unleashes an agent surgically altered to impersonate our suave hero, Napolean Solo. It was gleefully absurd, unapolagetically crappy (in terms of production value, or lack thereof), and consistently if only mildly amusing. But next up was 1967's virtually forgotten The Venetian Affair, an exponentially more handsome and fascinating spy thriller that clearly had an actual budget (it was actually shot in Venice), not to mention a uniquely eclectic cast including Elke Sommer, Karl Boehm, Roger Carmel, Ed Asner and Boris Karloff, all of whom were excellent. Vaughn plays an anti-Napoleon Solo with haggard aplomb, in stark and refreshing contrast to his more famous persona, and with the added benefit of a catchy Lalo Schifrin score. It was a tad lethargic and convoluted, but rather engrossing, gutsy and ultimately quite satisfying. Finally, Quentin took a hard left turn into animated pornography with the astonishingly tasteless Tarzoon, King of the Jungle from 1975, and we all couldn't quite believe what we were seeing. It's probably for the best that I don't elaborate, but you can read all the sordid details in Harry's enthusiastic (and obscenity-laden) report for AICN chronicling the entire evening (which amusingly mentions me).

I'm going to try and attend as much of the fest as I can through next Saturday (which will be followed next Sunday by the Firefly Marathon, btw), but I'm most looking forward to Tuesday's World War II Epic Night (Five for Hell and From Hell to Victory), Wednesday's Italian Crime Films of the '70s Night (Death Rage, No Way Out, and The Sell-Out), and Friday's Grindhouse Triple Feature (Crack House, The Dirty Outlaws, and Fistful of Talons). Should be fun.

INTERVIEWS: Taylor, Whedon, Orphanage, Anderson, Minear, HD, Benzali

Just so we're all caught up...
IGN interviews Weta's Richard Taylor about Narnia.
Now Playing interviews Joss Whedon about Serenity.
(As does London's Sunday Times.)
Cool Hunting interviews the Orphanage's Scott Stewart & Dav Rauch.
The Guardian interviews Gillian Anderson about life after The X-Files.
iF interviews Tim Minear (in three parts) about the death of The Inside.
Millimeter interviews Rescue Me DP Tom Houghton and Arrested Development producer Tom Houghton about HD.
Happy News interviews Daniel Benzali about his new album.
And watermelons are being marketed as Godzilla eggs in Japan.
(Just so you know.)

The iPod Revolution continues...

Earlier today, Apple debuted the stunning iPod nano, replacing the iPod mini (the most popular music player in the world) with a smaller, lighter model a third the size with flash memory and a color screen. It weighs a mere ounce and a half, is thinner than a #2 pencil, and plays for up to 14 hours on a full charge. It's priced at $199 for 2GB (500 songs) and $249 for 4GB (1,000 songs) -- and it also comes in black. (FYI, Apple's sold 22 million iPods since the gadget's 2001 launch, and 6 million were sold in the June 2005 quarter alone.)

Oh, and they also announced iTunes 5 (immediately available as a free download), a Harry Potter iPod, and the iTunes phone - aka the Motorola ROKR from Cingular, the first mobile phone with iTunes. (Sadly, Motorola's industrial design skills pale in comparison to Apple's, and the ROKR holds only 100 songs. I'll stick to my Treo.)

UPDATE: Gadget guru and geek godfather Walter Mossberg offers a a rave review of the nano in Thursday's Wall Street Journal, stating "It's not only beautiful and incredibly thin, but I found it exceeds Apple's performance claims. In fact, the nano has the best combination of beauty and functionality of any music player I've tested."

From the Earth to Mercury

On August 2, the MESSENGER spacecraft performed a gravity assist flyby of Earth to change trajectory and build speed for Mercury, during which it took 358 pictures with its on-board wide-angle camera. These photos have since been sequenced into a stunning QuickTime movie documenting the view from MESSENGER as it departed Earth, chronicling one complete rotation of the planet.

The camera started rolling when MESSENGER was 40,761 miles above South America, and the last picture was taken 24 hours later when it was 270,847 miles away – farther than the Moon’s orbit.

Newsweek visits the Superman Returns set

Newsweek takes a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Superman Returns in their September 12 issue, which was posted online today. "On an external level, the movie's about how an idealistic superhero functions in the modern world," director Bryan Singer says. "But it ultimately becomes a story about what happens when an old boyfriend comes back into your life, and about Superman trying to find a place in Lois Lane's world. I'm attempting to make a very emotional film. This is certainly the most romantic movie I've made."

In other Superman news, the teaser poster was recently released, and BlueTights.net continues to post fascinating behind-the-scenes video journals. (So far my favorites are #22, which showcased tantalyzing footage that was presented at ComicCon, and #17, which ends with an image so beautiful it made me gasp.)

Wired, Blumenthal: They Knew What to Expect

According to a disturbing Wired/Reuters report, virtually everything that happened in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck was predicted by experts and in computer models, so emergency management specialists wonder why authorities were so unprepared. "The scenario of a major hurricane hitting New Orleans was well anticipated, predicted and drilled around," said Clare Rubin, an emergency management consultant who teaches at the Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management at George Washington University.

On Thursday, President Bush said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." But LSU engineer Joseph Suhayda and others have warned for years that defenses could fail. In 2002, the New Orleans Times Picayune published a five-part series on "The Big One," which predicted that 200,000 people or more would be unwilling or unable to heed evacuation orders and thousands would die, that people would be housed in the Superdome, that aid workers would find it difficult to gain access to the city as roads became impassable, as well as many other consequences that actually unfolded after Katrina hit.

And according to former Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal, "in early 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent since 2001 - including an 80 percent cut in funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain."