arotrios

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/513056

The Brooklyn SciFi Film Festival returns for 2023 with 135 films selected for screening October 9 through the 15th. SciFi fans from around the world are welcomed to join this one-of-a-kind event as all films will be made available online for streaming and rating through Brooklyn SciFi's Netflix style festival platform. This year we are proud to select the best films from independent filmmakers representing 26 countries, including first-time filmmakers and industry veterans alike. Classic SciFi themes of time travel, malevolent and friendly robots, clones, space travel, and aliens are well represented along with a renewed focus on A.I. appropriately including some of the festivals first A.I. generated content. U.F.O. fans are sure to enjoy several documentaries delving into extraterrestrial visitors including Accidental Truth - UFO Revelations narrated by actor Matthew Modine (Full Metal Jacket, Stranger Things).

"When the headlines are filled with stories of A.I., dystopian climate change, and UFOs, it's hard to deny we're living in a SciFi future. Let us be your guide."
— Michael Brown, Executive Director - Brooklyn SciFi Film Festival     

Categories include Live Action Short Films, Animation, Comedy SciFi, SciFi Documentary, Feature Films, Student Films and Young Filmmakers. The complete listing of selected films is available online at the BrooklynSciFiFilmFest.com website. The Brooklyn SciFi Film Festival is kicking off its fourth season this year on October 9th and will stream online through October 15th. There will be special events each night as well as watch parties, voting, panels, and the return of the 4th season of our curated film series The Sixth Borough featuring three outrages dystopian SciFi tales each episode. Think of it as the Black Mirror or Twilight Zone of independent SciFi.
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Online and In-Person Events

Events include a Best of Brooklyn screening of 12 Brooklyn-based SciFi short films at Stuart Cinema Cafe in Greenpoint, Brooklyn on October 11th. Animation Exploration night with a panel of 10 animators followed by an evening of films available online on October 12th, a 10th Anniversary online screening of the feature film Computer Chess by director Andrew Bujalski October 13th, and the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in-theater event and after party in Brooklyn on On Saturday October 14th, where we will feature a program of select short films and announce awards in each category. Tickets are available on Eventbrite or from the Brooklyn SciFi website at brooklynscififilmfest.com.

Filmmakers will be recognized in the following categories:

Best Feature Film - Awarded to the best feature length entry selected by our committee.

Best Live Action Short Film - Awarded to the best live action (non-animated) short film (30 minutes or less) selected by our committee.

Best Animated Short Film - Awarded to the best animated (non-live action) short film (30 minutes or less) selected by our committee.

Best Comedy SciFi Short Film – Awarded to the best SciFi comedy short film across all ages and groups.
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Best Student Short Film - Awarded to filmmakers between the ages of 18 and 26, and currently attending a film program at a recognized college, university, or certificate program.

Best Young Filmmakers Award - Awarded to filmmakers under the age of 18, with recognition according to age and/or grade level (depending on number of entries).

Best In Brooklyn - Awarded to the best entry shot in Brooklyn or directed by a Brooklyn-based filmmaker.

Peoples Choice Award - Recognition to the film that receives the most viewer upvotes. Attendees of the festival cast votes for their favorite film to determine the winner.

More About the Brooklyn Scifi Film Festival

Born from a DIY spirit, the BSFFF is committed to being a place of inclusiveness. From its inception, the team behind the BSFFF knew they wanted to create an event that was open to anyone with the passion and determination to get their film made. “Unlike established festivals, which have acceptance rates that resemble the Ivy League, the Brooklyn SciFi Film Festival is a non-elitist home for indie filmmakers everywhere,” said Michael Brown, the co-founder and executive director of BSFFF. “It is, in that sense, the film festival for the people.”

Hat tip to @inkican for his post on @scifi that gave me the heads up on the festival.

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/478961

It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.

Wikipedia

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/476755

Don't panic, and bring a towel.

For seasoned galactic travelers, if you're looking for the Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which includes:

• Hitchhiker's Guide
• The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
• Life, the Universe, and Everything
• So Long and Thanks for All the Fish
• Young Zaphod Plays It Safe
• Mostly Harmless

... this wormhole should get you there.

Also, upon conferring with both Space and Ice Pirates, I've been persuaded to also provide their contribution here in honor of the late, great Douglas Adams.

Now could you guys please untie my cats and get them off the plank?

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/317329

The Blues Brothers is a 1980 American musical comedy film directed by John Landis. It stars John Belushi as "Joliet" Jake Blues and Dan Aykroyd as his brother Elwood, characters developed from the recurring musical sketch "The Blues Brothers" on NBC variety series Saturday Night Live. The script is set in and around Chicago, Illinois, where it was filmed, and the screenplay was written by Aykroyd and Landis. It features musical numbers by rhythm and blues (R&B), soul, and blues singers James Brown, Cab Calloway (in his final feature film role), Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Chaka Khan, and John Lee Hooker. It features non-musical supporting performances by Carrie Fisher, Henry Gibson, Charles Napier, Kathleen Freeman and John Candy.

More detail

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/468313

Black Orpheus (Portuguese: Orfeu Negro [ɔɾˈfew ˈneɣɾu]) is a 1959 romantic tragedy film directed by French filmmaker Marcel Camus, and starring Marpessa Dawn and Breno Mello. It is based on the play Orfeu da Conceição by Vinicius de Moraes, which set the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice in a contemporary favela in Rio de Janeiro during Carnaval. The film was an international co-production among companies in Brazil, France and Italy.

The film is particularly noted for its soundtrack by two Brazilian composers: Antônio Carlos Jobim, whose song "A felicidade" opens the film; and Luiz Bonfá, whose "Manhã de Carnaval" and "Samba de Orfeu" have become classics of bossa nova. The songs performed by Orfeu were dubbed by singer Agostinho dos Santos.[6] Lengthy passages of filming took place in the Morro da Babilônia, a favela in the Leme neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro.

Black Orpheus won the Palme d'Or at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, the 1960 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the 1960 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film and was nominated for the 1961 BAFTA Award for Best Film.

Important to note, there's some controversy over the film in Brazil:

While the 1959 adaptation has been celebrated internationally, it has been criticized by Brazilians and scholars for exoticizing Brazil for an international audience and reinforcing harmful stereotypes.

and...

The Palme d'Or and Oscar-winning film was celebrated internationally and criticized in Brazil; Vinicius de Moraes, author of the play Orfeu da Conceição upon which the film was based, was outraged by the film and left the theater in the middle of the screening. Critics of the adaptation by Marcel Camus argued that it reinforced various stereotypes about Brazilian culture and society and about Afro-Brazilians specifically, portraying the characters as "simple-minded, overtly sexual, and interested only in singing and dancing." Setting out to make itself more "appealing" to foreign audiences, the film resorts to a "cheap and problematic exoticism" of Brazil.

Wikipedia

This movie is an explosion of cinematic joy de vivre, unique in the energy it brings to a classic tragedy, and a unique picture of Brazil in the late 50s, I've decided to let the audience decide where their opinions sit in the controversy above.

Captions in English available in settings -> captions on the player for those that don't speak Portuguese.

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/468547

David Day's A TOLKIEN BESTIARY is a scholarly, definitive and enchantingly beautiful explanation of all the imaginary beasts, monsters, races, nations,deities, fauna and flora of J.R.R- Tolkien's fantasy worlds of Middle-earth and the Undying Lands.

David Day has identified, analyzed and described 129 separate races. Each is lucidly explained in terms of its physical appearance, language, behavior and culture. A TOLKIEN BESTIARY does not retell their stories: its purpose is to make Tolkien’s own books more accessible by identifying his living creatures and explaining their roles in his epic world.

While not the most accurate of the Tolkien Bestiaries, this one was the first, and the one with the best artwork.

Downloads for the novels:

• Fellowship of the Ring

• The Two Towers

• Return of the King

• The Silmarillion

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/359206

Karel Čapek’s last major novel, War with the Newts, is a satirical dystopian masterpiece, both prescient and timeless, uniquely Czech and yet universal in appeal. Published in 1936, it remains one of the most thought-provoking novels ever written.

Wikipedia

The full novel in html, courtesy of Project Gutenberg Australia

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/465146

Why are you such a derelict? Such a piece of human junk? The answer's simple. You're a scanner, which you don't realize. And that has been the source of all your agony. But I will show you now that it can be a source of great power.

CW: Exploding head. David Cronenberg. Genetic manipulation. Homeless escalator acrobatics. Involuntary suicide. Thinly veiled Thalidomide allegory. Did I say exploding head? Exploding head.

Wikipedia

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/457507

"The feeling is definitely there. It's a new morning in America... fresh, vital. The old cynicism is gone. We have faith in our leaders. We're optimistic as to what becomes of it all. It really boils down to our ability to accept. We don't need pessimism. There are no limits."

"Outside the limit of our sight, feeding off us, perched on top of us, from birth to death, are our owners! Our owners! They have us. They control us! They are our masters! Wake up! They're all about you! All around you!"

One of the best everyman's survival guide to dealing with alien infiltration. The Electroids love to use these kind of tactics.

They Live is a 1988 American science fiction action horror film written and directed by John Carpenter, based on the 1963 short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson. Starring Roddy Piper, Keith David, and Meg Foster, the film follows an unnamed drifter who discovers through special sunglasses that the ruling class are aliens concealing their appearance and manipulating people to consume, breed, and conform to the status quo via subliminal messages in mass media.

Wikipedia

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/403415

The Third Man is a 1949 British film noir directed by Carol Reed, written by Graham Greene and starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, and Trevor Howard. Set in postwar Vienna, the film centres on American Holly Martins (Cotten), who arrives in the city to accept a job with his friend Harry Lime (Welles), only to learn that Lime has died. Viewing his death as suspicious, Martins elects to stay in Vienna and investigate the matter.

The atmospheric use of black-and-white expressionist cinematography by Robert Krasker, with harsh lighting and largely subtle "Dutch angle" camera technique, is a major feature of The Third Man. Combined with the iconic theme music by zither player Anton Karas, seedy locations and acclaimed performances from the cast, the style evokes the atmosphere of an exhausted, cynical post-war Vienna at the start of the Cold War.

Greene wrote the novella of the same name as preparation for the screenplay. Karas's title composition "The Third Man Theme" topped the international music charts in 1950, bringing the previously unknown performer international fame; the theme would also inspire Nino Rota's principal melody in La Dolce Vita (1960).[citation needed] The Third Man is considered one of the greatest films of all time, celebrated for its acting, musical score and atmospheric cinematography.[5]

In 1999, the British Film Institute voted The Third Man the greatest British film of all time. In 2011, a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics for Time Out ranked it the second best British film ever.

Wikipedia

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/452228

In the remote border town of Q., which when seen from the air resembles nothing so much as an ill-proportioned dumb-bell, there once lived three lovely, and loving, sisters. Their names . . . but their real names were never used, like the best household china, which was locked away after the night of their joint tragedy in a cupboard whose location was eventually forgotten, so that the great thousand-piece service from the Gardner potteries in Tsarist Russia became a family myth in whose factuality they almost ceased to believe . . . the three sisters, I should state without further delay, bore the family name of Shakil, and were universally known (in descending order of age) as Chhunni, Munnee and Bunny.

And one day their father died...

Shame is Salman Rushdie's third novel, published in 1983. This book was written out of a desire to approach the problem of "artificial" (other-made) country divisions, their residents' complicity, and the problems of post-colonialism when Pakistan was created to separate the Muslims from the Hindus after Britain gave up control of India.

The book is written in the style of magic realism. It portrays the lives of Iskander Harappa (sometimes assumed to be Zulfikar Ali Bhutto), and General Raza Hyder (sometimes assumed to be General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq), and their relationship. The central theme of the novel is that begetting "shame" begets violence. The concepts of 'shame' and 'shamelessness' are explored through all of the characters, with the main focus being on Sufiya Zinobia and Omar Khayyám.

Wikipedia on Shame

Wikipedia on Sir Salman Rushdie

While the Satanic Verses get most of the press when talking about Rushdie, Shame is a masterwork of magical realism that deserves more attention.

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/448597

Amoebae leave no fossils. They haven’t any bones. (No teeth, no belt buckles, no wedding rings.) It is impossible, therefore, to determine how long amoebae have been on Earth.

Quite possibly they have been here since the curtain opened. Amoebae may even have dominated the stage, early in the first act. On the other hand, they may have come into existence only three years—or three days or three minutes—before they were discovered by Anton van Leeuwenhoek in 1674. It can’t be proven either way.

One thing is certain, however: because amoebae reproduce by division, endlessly, passing everything on yet giving up nothing, the first amoebae that ever lived is still alive. Whether four billion years old or merely three hundred, he/she is with us today.

Where?

Well, the first amoeba may be floating on his/her back in a luxurious pool in Hollywood, California. The first amoeba may be hiding among the cattail roots and peepers in the muddy shallows of Siwash Lake. The first amoeba may recently have dripped down your leg. It is pointless to speculate.

The first amoeba, like the last and the one after that, ishere, there and everywhere, for its vehicle, its medium, its essence is water.

Water—the ace of elements. Water dives from the clouds without parachute, wings or safety net. Water runs over the steepest precipice and blinks not a lash. Water is buried and rises again; water walks on fire and fire gets the blisters. Stylishly composed in any situation—solid, gas or liquid—speaking in penetrating dialects understood by all things—animal, vegetable or mineral—water travels intrepidly through four dimensions, sustaining (Kick a lettuce in the field and it will yell “Water!”), destroying (The Dutch boy’s finger remembered the view from Ararat) and creating (It has even been said that human beings were invented by water as a device for transporting itself from one place to another, but that’s another story). Always in motion, ever-flowing (whether at steam rate or glacier speed), rhythmic, dynamic, ubiquitous, changing and working its changes, a mathematics turned wrong side out, a philosophy in reverse, the ongoing odyssey of water is virtually irresistible. And wherever water goes, amoebae go along for the ride.

Sissy Hankshaw once taught a parakeet to hitchhike. There is not much in that line she could teach an amoeba.

Wikipedia on the book

Link to the stinker of a movie adaptation of 1993 - a prime example of when a novel absolutely flops as a film. Read the book before seeing it, because you won't want to afterwards.