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Everybody is YouTubing Barack Obama's March 18 speech about racial politics partly because it was one of the most nuanced political speeches in recent memory, but also because he played the futurist card. He talked about his own racially-mixed family, and speculated about how mixed-race community and people represent the future of the United States. He described several ways that racial reconciliation of the future could begin on a foundation of mixed-race identity. What do you think of this style of futurism? By answering, you can help an undergrad at the University of Arkansas, who wrote in to pose a question about Afrofuturism. More »
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There are two ways of taking a science fiction classic and bringing it to the screen: You can bring it up to date, setting it in the present day and revamping the characters accordingly, like Steven Spielberg's War Of The Worlds. Or you can set it in the era when it was written, and painstakingly recreate the time and place that gave birth to it, like Zack Snyder's Watchmen movie. Which route do you think works better for movies of classic novels? More »
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What do you call it when a filmmaker takes the present day and makes it futuristic? Andrew Niccol, who wrote The Truman Show and directed Gattaca, says his movies take place "five minutes into the future." But that's kind of a mouthful. We need a term that you can ask for at your indy video store. More »
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