Awesome Anachronistic Alt/1977

I just stumbled upon Alex Varanese's website courtesy of Boing Boing and am in love with his Alt/1977: We Are Not Time Travelers. He takes 2010 technology and re-imagines it in glossy 1977 ads with faux-wood products, red LEDs, and a orange and yellow color scheme straight out of the 70s. Even better than the retro-mp3 players or the LapTron is the ad copy.

Sample line from the Pocket Hi-Fi:

"So next time you are looking for a way to bring your tunes with you on the go, remember two things: Nothing beats the Pocket Hi-Fi^tm and our company definitely wasn't started by rogue time travelers from 33 years in the future. Like at all."

Priceless.

Now, I need framed prints of these ASAP!

Summer Movies with Time Travel

There are at least two movies coming out this summer with elements of time travel and alternate universes.

Due out May 21st is Shrek Forever After, the fourth installment in the franchise. This go around finds Shrek doing battle with Rumpelstiltskin who tricks him into wishing for a universe where he never met Fiona and still lives in the swamp. This alternate universe has Rumpelstiltskin as King and Shrek is forced to try to set things right.

Due out May 28th is Prince of Persia: Sands of Time which is based on the video game of the same name. Starring a very buff Jake Gyllenhaal, as the Prince Dastan who is trying to stop the Sands of Time from destroying the world. The Prince is able to control the flow of time using a magical dagger.

Hot Tub Time Machine

Yup, you read that right. Hot Tub Time Machine is coming to a screen near you this March. A R-rated comedy starring John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, and Clark Duke, the group is transported back to 1986 and a ski weekend via a hot tub time machine.

It looks ridiculous and who doesn't love to make fun of the 1980s. Those of us that are of the main character's generation remember it well and anyone born in the 1980s is sure to love the retro-nostalgia of a time they don't remember. Only an iPod-generation would find the thought of a chunky, yellow, Walkman, that plays cassettes funny.

The trailers do look funny and I think its largely a combination of the material and the deadpan comedic timing of the actors involved.

Check out the latest trailer here at i09.com http://bit.ly/90mxhs

The trailerw can also be found here - http://www.apple.com/trailers/mgm/hottubtimemachine/

Or you can go to the official website http://www.kicksomepast.com

io9.com also has the Restricted trailer (NSFW)here - http://io9.com/5454056/raunchiest-hot-tub-time-machine-trailer-to-date-%5Bnsfw%5D

Time Travel is a Bitch

"Time travel is a bitch" - Sawyer from "Lost"

Time travel's a bitch sound bite  LOST sound bites

I was just browsing this site Entertonement.com which has a wealth of clips from everything and anything imaginable including Time Travel related quotes like the one from Sawyer above.

There's also the sound from Lost when they are travelling through time.

Time travel sound sound bite  LOST sound bites

You can also find audio clips from Terminator, Back to the Future, and Dr. Who television series. Surprisingly there are very few clips from movies like Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure or say Donnie Darko.

Let me know if you know of any other great sites for sound clips (especially time travel / sci-fi related ones).

I'll leave you with this last one with wise words from Doc Brown.

If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're gonna see some serious shit sound bite  Back to the Future sound bites

Inglorious Basterds - Alternate History (?)

Finally got around to seeing Tarantino's Jewish revenge epic Inglorious Basterds on DVD yesterday.

I generally thought it was well done despite feeling like it was overly slow in places. Was surprised how little the over-the-top violence factored into the story. They sure played it up in the marketing when the film first debuted. I figured it was going to spend a lot of time focusing on how the Basterds found creative ways to take revenge on the Nazis they caught. While the scalping and the other torture is pretty graphic it didn't amount to a lot of screen time. It's almost like Tarantino want's to make a 'straight' movie but can't quite let go of the gimmicks. The morality is a bit murky throughout the film which contributes to a lot of the controversy.

Tarantino's revisionist history results in an unique alternate history tale. It works on a number of levels the most obvious of which is the divergent timeline and the outcome of World War II.

Watched a really good discussion on the film online here today - Inglorious Basterds: Can Hollywood Rewrite History? which has a lot to say about cinema, Jewish history, holocaust, Tarantino's work in general. It's in several parts and runs over an hour.

Hirsute - Time Travel Short Film

I saw this short film about time travel called Hirsute a couple years ago at a film festival and love the tone and simplicity of it.

A man trying to invent time travel is visited by a future (parallel) self who is more arrogant and devoid of body hair. The movie plays with time travel and sexual themes, but in my mind is really about identity and self-perception.

It's well acted and directed and takes you places you probably don't expect. All things a good movie should do.

You can watch the entire movie at the Internet Movie Database site. Here's the URL.http://www.imdb.com/video/wab/vi1670644505/ You can also catch it at the Vimeo site here: Hirsute. It's about 14 minutes long.

Visit the film makers A.J. Bond and Amy Belling website at http://hirsute.thesiblings.ca/

Read a review of the film here - TIFF 2007: Hirsute And The "Many Martys" Theory

The Yiddish Policemen's Union - Michael Chabon

Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a ground-breaking alternate history novel that was released in 2007. Combining the best of alternate history story telling and hardboiled detective fiction, it's a bit like Harry Turtledove meets Raymond Chandler.

Description of Meyer Landsman:

He has the memory of a convict, the balls of a fireman, and the eyesight of a housebreaker. When there is crime to fight, Landsman tears around Sitka like a man with his pant leg caught on a rocket. It's like there's a film score playing behind him, heavy on the castanets. The problem comes in the hours when he isn't working, when his thoughts start blowing out the open window of his brain like pages from a blotter. Sometimes it takes a heavy paperweight to pin them down.

Chabon asks what if the Jewish state of Isreal never gained a foothold in the Middle East in 1948? What if, instead the Jewish refugees from the Second World War found sanctuary in the most unlikely quarters - Sitka, Alaska?

The novel opens with the imminent threat of the 'Reversion' of the Sitka settlement to the U.S. and the displacement of the Jewish settlers to points unknown after building a culture and a community for 60 years.

Meyer Landsman, an alcoholic homicide detective at the end of his rope, finds himself investigating the murder of a John Doe in the Zamenhof, the rundown hotel that Landsman calls home. As Landsman begins to unravel the identity of the murder victim with the aid of his partner and cousin, Berko Shemets, they find that a number of people don't want the murder solved including Landsman's superior officer and ex-wife Bina Gelbfish. Bina has the unpleasant task of informing Landsman and Shemets that the squad has been ordered to solve all cases or declare them unsolvable before Reversion occurs in two months time.

Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and numerous other accolades the novel is well worth the read.

You can check out my full review here - Andy's Anachronisms review of Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon