io9: recommendation

James Bond Fails To Stop New York From Getting Atomized

Kevin Kelly — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:30:42 PST

Long before there was Armageddon or Deep Impact, or even the fear of our own falling spy satellites, there was Meteor. Sean Connery goes into full science mode as he tries to stop a huge meteor named Orpheus from crashing into the Earth. The good news: he's partially successful. The bad news: Oops, sorry about that Hong Kong and New York. The opening scene, where astronauts watch the cosmic ballet of a comet striking an asteroid just before it obliterates them and their ship, is worth the price of admission alone.

The 1970s were obsessed with large-scale disaster movies, offering audiences everything from Earthquake to Airport were all about massive mayhem and destruction with massive casts featuring top stars of the day, and Meteor stands as the bookend to that obsession. What's really impressive about the movie (besides the cast, which also included Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Brian Keith, Martin Landau, Trevor Howard, Henry Fonda) was that it was based on an M.I.T. student science project called Project Icarus. If you've ever wondered how to stop a four-billion ton rock from hitting the Earth, then you might want to rent the movie, and pick up the book of the science project. Oh, and keep Sean Connery on your speed dial.

Go Back To Where We Once Feared To Tread

Kevin Kelly — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:32:20 PST

The documentary In The Shadow Of The Moon comes out on DVD in a month, and is well worth picking up. Today we take moon landings for granted, but it's been 35 years since Gene Cernan was the last man on the moon (note for you trivia nuts), and we haven't come close to going back. In the intervening years, we've forgotten just what it took for our country to land people safely on the moon, and bring them back home.

Today we're not impressed unless our science fiction involves explosions, boobs, mutants, or all three, but back in the 60s when science fiction became science fact, it seemed like the country could unite to do anything. I caught this film last year at Sundance sandwiched between melancholy indie art films that make you pray that you might choke on your own tongue, and I was blown away. It's a great testament to the entire space program, and what might be one of the last memorable looks at the surviving men who have walked on the moon.

If you're looking for a trippier moon experience, however, pick up the Brian Eno scored For All Mankind, which was culled from the massive amounts of film that NASA shot on flybys of the moon. You'll recognize the "Deep Blue Day" track immediately from the time Ewan McGregor had to go diving in that shit-encrusted toilet in Scottish junkie flick Trainspotting to fetch his opium suppositories.

io9: the only place that will take you from the surface of the moon to a feces-covered toilet in Scotland. Sorry, it had to be said.

Fire A Retro Rocket Into Your Living Room

Kevin Kelly — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:00:23 PST

If you want to snaz up your rumpus room with a retro-pop science fiction look, your options have been limited to old posters from The Day The Earth Stood Still or glow-in-the-dark stickers. But now you can have install actual vintage-looking rockets, from Cool Rockets. They obsess over details in their rocket designs, making sure they capture that old-school feeling of Tom Swift gee whizzery.

I have one of their Big Boy rocket lamps sitting on my desk, and it not only helps inspire me to think up a new triviagasm every day, it also helps hold down my errant papers. Artist Jeff Brewer, who also works in special effects, designs the rockets and coldcasts them by hand before painting them and making sure you'll get your own unique piece of atomic-era wonder delivered to your doorstep. But a word of warning: They don't play well with kids, according to the instructions for the Big Boy Mark II.