HUGE NEWS: An Alien World Is Officially Found Orbiting 'Only' 24+ Trillion Miles From Earth... (James Cameron Would Be Proud)

ESO / M. Kornmesser

Planet Found in Habitable Zone Around Nearest Star (Press Release)

Pale Red Dot campaign reveals Earth-mass world in orbit around Proxima Centauri

Astronomers using ESO telescopes and other facilities have found clear evidence of a planet orbiting the closest star to Earth, Proxima Centauri. The long-sought world, designated Proxima b, orbits its cool red parent star every 11 days and has a temperature suitable for liquid water to exist on its surface. This rocky world is a little more massive than the Earth and is the closest exoplanet to us — and it may also be the closest possible abode for life outside the Solar System. A paper describing this milestone finding will be published in the journal Nature on 25 August 2016.

Just over four light-years from the Solar System lies a red dwarf star that has been named Proxima Centauri as it is the closest star to Earth apart from the Sun. This cool star in the constellation of Centaurus is too faint to be seen with the unaided eye and lies near to the much brighter pair of stars known as Alpha Centauri AB.

During the first half of 2016 Proxima Centauri was regularly observed with the HARPS spectrograph on the ESO 3.6-metre telescope at La Silla in Chile and simultaneously monitored by other telescopes around the world. This was the Pale Red Dot campaign, in which a team of astronomers led by Guillem Anglada-Escudé, from Queen Mary University of London, was looking for the tiny back and forth wobble of the star that would be caused by the gravitational pull of a possible orbiting planet.

As this was a topic with very wide public interest, the progress of the campaign between mid-January and April 2016 was shared publicly as it happened on the Pale Red Dot website and via social media. The reports were accompanied by numerous outreach articles written by specialists around the world.

Guillem Anglada-Escudé explains the background to this unique search: “The first hints of a possible planet were spotted back in 2013, but the detection was not convincing. Since then we have worked hard to get further observations off the ground with help from ESO and others. The recent Pale Red Dot campaign has been about two years in the planning.”

The Pale Red Dot data, when combined with earlier observations made at ESO observatories and elsewhere, revealed the clear signal of a truly exciting result. At times Proxima Centauri is approaching Earth at about 5 kilometres per hour — normal human walking pace — and at times receding at the same speed. This regular pattern of changing radial velocities repeats with a period of 11.2 days. Careful analysis of the resulting tiny Doppler shifts showed that they indicated the presence of a planet with a mass at least 1.3 times that of the Earth, orbiting about 7 million kilometres from Proxima Centauri — only 5% of the Earth-Sun distance.

Guillem Anglada-Escudé comments on the excitement of the last few months: "I kept checking the consistency of the signal every single day during the 60 nights of the Pale Red Dot campaign. The first 10 were promising, the first 20 were consistent with expectations, and at 30 days the result was pretty much definitive, so we started drafting the paper!"

Red dwarfs like Proxima Centauri are active stars and can vary in ways that would mimic the presence of a planet. To exclude this possibility the team also monitored the changing brightness of the star very carefully during the campaign using the ASH2 telescope at the San Pedro de Atacama Celestial Explorations Observatory in Chile and the Las Cumbres Observatory telescope network. Radial velocity data taken when the star was flaring were excluded from the final analysis.

Although Proxima b orbits much closer to its star than Mercury does to the Sun in the Solar System, the star itself is far fainter than the Sun. As a result Proxima b lies well within the habitable zone around the star and has an estimated surface temperature that would allow the presence of liquid water. Despite the temperate orbit of Proxima b, the conditions on the surface may be strongly affected by the ultraviolet and X-ray flares from the star — far more intense than the Earth experiences from the Sun.

Two separate papers discuss the habitability of Proxima b and its climate. They find that the existence of liquid water on the planet today cannot be ruled out and, in such case, it may be present over the surface of the planet only in the sunniest regions, either in an area in the hemisphere of the planet facing the star (synchronous rotation) or in a tropical belt (3:2 resonance rotation). Proxima b's rotation, the strong radiation from its star and the formation history of the planet makes its climate quite different from that of the Earth, and it is unlikely that Proxima b has seasons.

This discovery will be the beginning of extensive further observations, both with current instruments and with the next generation of giant telescopes such as the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). Proxima b will be a prime target for the hunt for evidence of life elsewhere in the Universe. Indeed, the Alpha Centauri system is also the target of humankind’s first attempt to travel to another star system, the StarShot project.

Guillem Anglada-Escudé concludes: "Many exoplanets have been found and many more will be found, but searching for the closest potential Earth-analogue and succeeding has been the experience of a lifetime for all of us. Many people’s stories and efforts have converged on this discovery. The result is also a tribute to all of them. The search for life on Proxima b comes next...

Source: European Southern Observatory

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ESO / M. Kornmesser

ESO / L. Calçada / Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org)

Exoplanet Update... I usually title these posts "Kepler Update", but since the prolific NASA space telescope wasn't involved with this recent awesome discovery, things will be different this time around...

(By the way, James Cameron's Avatar just came one step closer to reality. All we need to find now is a moon orbiting the Alpha Centauri B planet that's just like Pandora.)

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NASA Statement On Alpha Centauri Planet Discovery (Press Release)

WASHINGTON -- The following is a statement about the European Southern Observatory's latest exoplanet discovery from NASA's Science Mission Directorate Associate Administrator, Dr. John Grunsfeld.

"We congratulate the European Southern Observatory team for making this exciting new exoplanet discovery. For astronomers, the search for exoplanets helps us understand our place in the universe and determine whether Earth is unique in supporting life or if it is just one member of a large community of habitable worlds. NASA has several current and future missions that will continue in this search.

"An example is NASA's Kepler mission. It was specifically designed to survey a specific region of our Milky Way galaxy to detect Earth-size and smaller planets in or near the habitable zone -- that region around a star where it is theoretically possible for a planet to maintain liquid water on its surface -- and determine the fraction of the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy that might have such planets. Kepler works very differently from HARPS. Rather than detecting the wobble in the host star, Kepler detects the slight dimming of a star when a planet passes in front of it.

"NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have contributed to the study of exoplanets. Using their photometric and spectroscopic sensitivity, these space telescopes have made the first steps in characterizing the atmospheres of planets around other stars. They can only do this when the exoplanets pass serendipitously in front of its star, allowing the space telescope to study light that has filtered through the planet's atmosphere.

"NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will provide a unique facility that will serve through the next decade as the mainstay for characterization of transiting exoplanets. The main transit studies JWST will be able to undertake are: discovery of unseen planets, determining exoplanet properties like mass, radius, and physical structure, and characterizing exoplanet atmospheres to determine things like their temperature and weather. If there are other planets in the Alpha Centauri system farther from the star, JWST may be able to detect them as well through imaging.

"NASA is also studying two medium-class exoplanet missions in our Explorer program, and in the spring of 2013 will select one of them to enter development for flight later in the decade."

Source: NASA.Gov

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ESO / Iztok Bončina

Brook Rushton / Deepsea Challenge

Props to filmmaker James Cameron for successfully diving to the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean, and to be more exact, the deepest point on Earth. At 7 PM, Pacific Daylight Time yesterday, Cameron's Deepsea Challenger submersible was lowered into the water 200 miles off the coast of Guam. After a 2 1/2-hour descent, Cameron safely landed on the surface of the Mariana Trench's Challenger Deep, which has a depth ranging from 35,768 feet (10,902 meters) to 35,814 feet (10,916 meters). Cameron spent about 3 hours exploring the "lunar-like" landscape (Cameron's own words)...taking some soil samples (even though the sub's robotic arm wasn't operable because of a hydraulics leak) and filming the outside environment (in 3-D) before returning back to the surface in a 70-minute ascent. Not surprisingly, Cameron is planning to go back to this vast, undersea frontier in the future.


Mark Thiessen / National Geographic

I think it's totally awesome that Cameron would go on such endeavors when he's not making blockbuster movies such as Avatar and Titanic (whose actual wreckage he visited in the Atlantic multiple times). It's not much of a presumption to say that his experience at Challenger Deep will no doubt influence Cameron's vision for Avatar 2 for when he begins pre-production on it a few years from now...especially considering the fact that Avatar 2 is supposedly set to take place underwater.



James Cameron was also involved with the MastCam (Mast Camera) instrument on NASA's Mars-bound Curiosity rover. Originally, the MastCam, which are the two main cameras aboard the rover, was suppose to have zoom-in lens that would've allowed Curiosity to shoot movie-quality videos and 3-D images of the Red Planet's landscape...videos and images that Cameron would've no doubt combined into an actual film to mesmerize the public with. Unfortunately, due to budget issues, NASA shelved the zoom-in lens...with Curiosity having static ones installed instead.


NASA / Charisse Nahser

One wonders what kind of amazing film James Cameron would've made if he had real 3-D pictures of Mars at his disposal. No doubt the imagery would be as amazing as anything we see in Avatar or from NASA's other deep space missions. I also seem to recall that he wanted to visit the International Space Station once...being a 'space tourist' whose achievement would've no doubt resonated in Hollywood and space aficionado groups alike. To get back to what has actually been achieved, we can be thankful that Cameron is sharing his journey (and future trips) into a 7-mile-deep watery abyss with the rest of us. As the saying goes, the ocean really is the last unexplored frontier.


Acheron Project Pty. Ltd.

Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex

SINCE IT’S GONNA BE quite a while till we see preliminary designs of the building that will house space shuttle Endeavour at the California Science Center (considering the fact the Center—or CSC—has yet to hire an architect who will design and build the orbiter’s final home), just thought I’d post these two pics of the exhibit that will eventually surround space shuttle Atlantis at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex (KSCVC). You can read more about what the KSCVC has in store for NASA’s second oldest existing space-flown orbiter by clicking here. What I’m thinking is...what was the artist thinking not drawing people to scale with the shuttle in the image above? I’m trying to fit in a joke about the shuttle being in an exhibit on Pandora (as in the movie Avatar) and those folks being giant Na’vi (disguised as um, humans), but I changed my mind, haha. In terms of where to place Endeavour while the new air and space building is being built at CSC, might I suggest the Spruce Goose Dome in Long Beach? How far is that from Los Angeles International Airport (or even Long Beach Airport)? Hm.


Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex

BATTLE: LOS ANGELES... I finally saw the alien-invasion film today, and needless to say, it was the sci-fi version of Black Hawk Down. Which means...I thought it was pretty cool! Non-stop action was waged throughout B:LA, much like in Ridley Scott’s 2002 war flick about the 1993 conflict in Somalia. Aaron Eckhart was awesome as Staff Sergeant Nantz; while compared to her gung-ho attitude in Avatar, Machete and the Fast and the Furious films, Michelle Rodriguez was somewhat tame as Tech Sgt. Elena Santos in B:LA. As Santos, Rodriguez didn't have the usual sarcastic quips that she had playing previous movie characters. Not that that's a bad thing. Nothing exceptionally noteworthy about the civilians played by Bridget Moynahan and Michael Peña, but I’ll give them props since my review about this flick is supposed to be a positive one. I just found out through IMDb.com that 2nd Lt. William Martinez, who was in charge of the Marine platoon before handing command over to Eckhart's Nantz and then sacrificing himself later in the film, was played by Ramon Rodriguez. In case you’re wondering who this is, Rodriguez played the wacky college roommate of Shia LaBeouf in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. But back to B:LA.



Battle: Los Angeles didn’t exactly have a deep message like 2009’s District 9 (which B:LA also borrowed elements from...namely weapons that cause explosions surrounded by bolts of lightning) did, but it was still a lot better than last year’s Skyline. B:LA didn’t have a "WTF??" moment at the very end of the movie like Skyline did...though as I said at the beginning of this journal entry, B:LA was obviously inspired by Black Hawk Down in that Eckhart and Co. go back into the battlefield at the film's conclusion to take care of unfinished business. Also, the battle in Los Angeles lasted for one day...while the 1993 battle in Mogadishu, Somalia lasted a day as well. Nothing wrong with that. My personal gripe about B:LA is that, like the Bourne movies (as in The Bourne Identity, Supremacy and Ultimatum), it overdid it with the shaky cam. By now using this camera technique in war films has become a cliché, and unfortunately B:LA suffers from this tired method. It was cool in Saving Private Ryan, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down...but try spending more time setting the camera up on a tripod or at least a Steadicam, folks—if there’s a sequel (Battle: San Diego, anyone?). Thanks. Another gripe is that the trippy song used in B:LA's theatrical trailers, "The Sun’s Gone Dim and the Sky Turned Black" by Icelandic musician Johann Johannsson, wasn't featured in the movie. Oh well.



Special effects-wise, the aliens in B:LA looked interesting...though were they using projectile weapons (RE: bullets) just like the humans were? I guess having the invaders shoot laser beams at the Marines would’ve ruined the gritty, realistic tone of the film. After all, this ain’t Star Wars. Or Star Trek. Or Independence Day. Or Transformers. Or Terminator. The same people who did the visual FX on Skyline also did the FX work on B:LA. The FX work was what saved Skyline since its CW Network-quality cast of actors wasn’t exactly the saving grace of that movie. That is all.

TRON: LEGACY... I saw the movie today, and as expected, the visual effects (VFX) were AMAZING. From the gladiatorial fights between Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) and the programs to the Light Cycle race on The Grid, and then the aerial dogfight between Clu (Jeff Bridges) and Sam’s father Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges again) at the climax of this film, Tron: Legacy didn’t fail to entertain. There were two issues I had with the flick, but other than that, I’ll possibly buy this on DVD when it gets released.



Tron: Legacy wasn’t short on hot gals. Despite wearing a short black wig, Olivia Wilde still looked totally stunning. Heck, even the Light Runner (shown above) her character Quorra used to rescue Sam from The Grid was pretty awesome. Beau Garrett as the ‘Siren’ known as Gem looked gorgeous. And so was Elizabeth Mathis (who was last seen wearing a Hooters outfit in the recent Tony Scott action film, Unstoppable) as another Siren. I’m assuming if this film got at least a PG-13 rating, Gem’s outfit would’ve been even hotter. But hey, this is a Disney film... This is all wishful thinking.



In terms of the issues I had with the Tron sequel, it was the opening real-world scene and the ending that I took notice with. Granted, the whole premise of both this flick and the classic 1982 original was a total exercise in suspension of disbelief (humans get zapped by a laser projector and become digitized into a video game where the computer programs are so lifelike they dance and drink at bars). While I was waiting for Sam to get zapped into the world of Tron, I felt that the shot of him finally getting hit by the digitizing laser was too abrupt. In fact, we don’t even see him getting shot by the laser. One would think that dramatic music and some cool CGI sequence (like the shot where Jake Sully's mind connects with his avatar's body for the first time in Avatar) would accompany Sam’s entry into the realm that his father created, but nope. The movie wastes no time (if you didn’t think watching Sam parachute off that ENCOM skyscraper was a waste of time... What other expedient way could he have escaped the building?) in getting to the real—RE: digital—action. And now onto the ending.



While one can rationalize that Kevin and Sam Flynn are able to re-enter the real world from The Grid because they’re originally humans, Tron: Legacy doesn’t bother to explain how Clu and his army could convert to actual living organisms if they succeeded in entering that portal. Of course, Tron doesn’t need to bother explaining this particular plot-point...because it didn’t bother explaining how Quorra could become human after she joined Sam in the real world at the end of the movie (apparently, that laser projector is so advanced that it can create body organs even for non-biological things that leave The Grid). Also, the movie didn’t bother to show Sam and Quorra actually re-emerging from the digitizing laser in the finale...but this one isn’t really a criticism. I’m not one of those moviegoers who need everything spelled out for me in a film. Okay— That’s not really true. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have typed these last two paragraphs.


(By the way, am I the only one here who noticed that Kevin Flynn suddenly impersonated Obi-Wan Kenobi—complete with the hood—the minute he showed up at The Grid? Just being facetious.)



So will I watch Tron: Legacy at the theater again? Most likely...but definitely not in IMAX (since I spent $17.50 on the ticket today. Good grief). If I can watch Avatar numerous times at the theater last Christmas, I can re-watch Tron 2. Its story wasn’t as derivative as that of the James Cameron flick, but the VFX was just as awesome. That is all.

TAKERS... I saw The Italian Job-ish bank heist film last weekend, and while it had a couple of unintentionally laughable moments in it, the movie was actually pretty decent. The main reason why I saw Takers—being a Star Wars nerd and all—was to see Hayden Christensen’s acting in the flick. The last movie I saw him in was, of course, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. I didn’t see Christensen’s last film Jumper (which came out in 2008), and judging from the score it received on Rotten Tomatoes, I didn’t miss out on much. In terms of Christensen’s acting in Takers, you really couldn’t compare it to his role as Anakin Skywalker...since all Christensen had to do in this latest flick was look cool in a zoot suit and drink a glass of martini. A scene where he beats the crap out of a couple of Russian dudes with a baseball bat is nothing compare to The Duel at the end of Revenge of the Sith. Anyways...



Dealing with the other characters in Takers, it’s always cool to see the gorgeous Zoe Saldana make an appearance in the movie. She was hot in last year’s Star Trek, and her beauty shined through her character Neytiri in Avatar (though I have no intention of seeing her pro-longed Na'vi sex scene in the Special Edition of Avatar that came out in theaters last weekend). Matt Dillon essentially reprised his role as a cop from 2005's Best Picture winner Crash, and it was with his scenes that I smirked a bit during the movie. Doesn’t Dillon’s character ever lock his car’s door when he’s driving? Hell— Even his daughter didn’t lock her door in that scene where Dillon was sharking that SUV Idris Elba and Paul Walker were cruising in. And why didn’t Dillon just ask his daughter to jot down the description of the SUV while he was driving? Way to endanger your child’s life by not keeping your eyes on the road, jerk. Speaking of Walker (Elba’s character was okay in the movie); I’m surprised he wasn’t revealed to be a cop since he acted just like his character in The Fast and the Furious films. I was waiting for a scene where he called up Vin Diesel to ask him to get rid of Chris Brown’s character. Speaking of Chris Brown...



On the positive side, Chris Brown was sorta convincing as the double-crossing ex-convict Ghost. On the negative side, the way he talked in the film was hilarious. Apparently, he decided out of the blue to channel Snoop Dogg the minute he got out of jail. Though after his famous real-life incident with the singer Rihanna, I didn’t find it farfetched that Brown would harm Saldana’s character (who was Ghost's GF before he got sent to prison) later on in the film. Saldana’s character ended up becoming engaged to Jake Attica (played by Michael Ealy)...whose brother Jesse (played by rapper T.I.) had the coolest but most laughable action sequence I’ve ever seen on the big screen.



Seeing as how Takers was executive-produced by T.I., I’m not a bit surprised that he would portray himself as a bank robber capable of going all Jackie Chan by jumping through small windows on kitchen doors, getting hit by cars but continuing to dash away from cops like he was Usain Bolt, jumping off a wall and flipping in the air like he was Jet Li, hopping on top of car after car like he was Spider-Man, and jumping two to three stories off a building and landing feet-first on top of another car like he was um...Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Chuck Norris, Jason Statham, Spider-Man... Take your pick. Maybe T.I. will be in The Expendables 2 if it actually gets made. And you know that T.I. was lookin’ forward to that final scene where he and Ealy storm out of that building to make one last stand against the police. Guns a' blazing and dying in a hail of bullets... What more could a rapper want?



All-in-all, Takers was an OK film. Nice touch with that dramatic music score that plays when Chris Brown finally betrays Walker and Co. to those Russian mobsters in the Roosevelt Hotel. I gotta admit... I was rooting for Ealy when he sneaks up behind those mobsters in the hotel room and blows them away with a shotgun. I bet T.I. wished he was the one who unloaded that 12-gauge into those damn Bolsheviks. But I guess he preferred to have guns a' blazing and dying in a hail of bullets by the cops instead. That is all.

INCEPTION... I saw Christopher Nolan’s latest flick this past weekend, and much like his 2008 mega-blockbuster The Dark Knight, this movie was...AMAZING. Inception was just as richly complex as Nolan’s last Batman film. Much like The Dark Knight, Inception had lots of dialogue-driven scenes, but these scenes paid off at the end when they conveyed a nicely-told tale of a group of agents carrying out a very unique form of corporate espionage. Inception is also just like The Matrix (unsurprisingly) in that it shows us an awesome but easily manipulated world within the minds of the movie’s main characters...displayed through eye-popping visual effects that should no doubt be nominated for an Academy Award next year.



However, Inception is without question much more cerebral than the Wachowski Brothers’ 1999 sleeper hit (The Matrix’s two 2003 sequels were um...nevermind). And much like James Cameron’s Avatar, Nolan presents us with another provocative science fiction tale (though this might sound too complimentary of Cameron’s visually rich but otherwise derivative Best Picture nominee) that delves with how the human mind can be used to control other beings for the sake of financial gain. It sounds cynical, but it’s still interesting nonetheless.



In terms of casting, Inception had lots of amazing actors in it. Leonardo DiCaprio was great as the main character Cobb; Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who was in last year's um, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra) was cool as Arthur, the "Point Man"; Tom Hardy kicked ass as the "Forger" named Eames; Ellen Page was nicely casted as the "Architect" named Ariadne; and Ken Watanabe was just as commendable as Saito, the "Tourist", in Inception as he was a samurai in 2004’s The Last Samurai. Not to be forgotten is Cillian Murphy as Robert Fischer; Michael Caine as Cobb’s father-in-law; and of course, Marion Cotillard as Cobb’s very beautiful and ultimately deadly but deceased wife Mal. In terms of Cillian Murphy’s character, it was kinda odd seeing him play a good guy in Nolan’s new film after he was known for playing the villainous Scarecrow in Nolan’s Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, and a terrorist in Wes Craven’s 2005 thriller Red Eye. And Inception would actually be the second film for Leonardo DiCaprio this year where he played a character whose psychopathic wife wrought havoc within DiCaprio’s mind right after she died a horrid death (I’m referring to Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, of course).



In terms of nitpicking, there isn’t that much to criticize about Inception. Sure, Inception had lots of dialogue scenes in it as pointed out in the first paragraph above, but this is because Nolan wanted to make sure we understood his unique take on dreams and how they could be used to influence other people. Nolan superbly makes up for this with the visual effects, but I already mentioned that in the first paragraph as well.



One thing about Inception that you definitely need to suspend disbelief on is how Cobb and his posse physically manage to connect themselves to each other, as well as their oblivious targets, as they are about to venture into a dream. A cable extending from a special suitcase is inserted into the main characters’ wrists like an IV tube... How this cable exchanges brain signals among Cobb and Company through their arms is perplexing. I understand that this tube injects some kind of sedative to make them fall asleep, but I guess Nolan wanted to visually simplify the way "Extractors" penetrate the minds of their subjects to steal secrets from them. Oh well. This in no way tarnishes the extraordinary film that Inception is.



If you’re a die-hard video gamer who likes SOCOM and/or Grand Theft Auto, then you’ll like certain action scenes in Inception that unintentionally pay homage to these games. That being said, Hans Zimmer’s music score for this flick is phenomenal. Gotta buy it on CD... It’s available on Amazon.com now.

CLASH OF THE TITANS... Yesterday, I saw the movie as promised in my previous journal entry, but unlike what I said in that entry, the film wasn’t so bad. Just your usual CGI-ridden but entertaining action-adventure flick. I didn’t watch Clash of the Titans in 3-D, so I don’t know how badly done the gimmick was for this movie. What I will say is, I imagine this is how the film version of God of War will be like. The difference is— God of War will most likely be a lot more violent (if it wants to stay true to Kratos' badassery in the Playstation video games). I never saw the original 1981 version of Titans, FYI.



Sam Worthington’s performance as Perseus was comparable to his role as Jake Sully in Avatar; Liam Neeson was good as Zeus; Ralph Fiennes was a’ight as Hades and Gemma Arterton was sexy as Io (ditto with Alexa Davalos as Andromeda). Gemma Arterton also stars in the upcoming Disney flick Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (with Donnie Darko’s Jake Gyllenhaal). Hopefully, Ms. Arterton won't be getting typecast as the love interest to royal heirs-turned-heroes-with-mystical-weapons in these kinds of films. Come to think of it— She was in the last James Bond flick, Quantum of Solace...which was actually a disappointment. Oh well.

HUBBLE 3D... I’m lookin’ forward to this new space documentary, which gets released in IMAX theaters next week (on March 19). The trailer below was first shown in front of Avatar at IMAX (or should I say, "fake" IMAX) screenings last December. Kinda weird seeing NASA documentaries being advertised at regular AMC theaters and whatnot...but I'm glad America's space program is getting this kind of exposure.

82nd ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS... Congrats to Kathryn Bigelow and the rest of the crew behind The Hurt Locker for tonight’s 6 Oscar wins, including one for Best Picture (duh)! Pretty much the only Academy Award that Avatar truly deserved was for Best Visual FX...which it received. And props to Christoph Waltz on winning the Best Supporting Actor award for Inglourious Basterds, and Sandra Bullock on winning an Oscar for The Blind Side. She won a Razzie Award (for All About Steve) AND an Academy Award on the same weekend. Good for her.



Did District 9 win anything tonight? No? Oh well. It’s still kewl in my book.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND... I watched Tim Burton’s latest flick today, and with the exception of some moments (most of them towards the end) in the movie, I was disappointed. After being immersed in the awesome world of Pandora that was created by James Cameron in Avatar, I was underwhelmed by Burton’s depiction of Wonderland...possibly because the visual FX in Alice in Wonderland was pretty poor. I read an article late last year about how Burton was in a rush to complete this latest reincarnation of Lewis Carroll’s classic tale in time for opening weekend... I didn’t know he was in that much of a bind. Just watching this movie made me realize that Avatar should at least win the Oscar for Best Visual FX tomorrow.



Acting-wise, there was nothing special to note in the film. Johnny Depp’s portrayal as the Mad Hatter pales in comparison to his funny portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies...despite the bizarre look Burton gave to the Hatter in this flick. Speaking of Pirates of the Caribbean, there were lots of moments in Alice in Wonderland where I (and most likely a couple of other people in the theater audience) couldn’t hear or understand a damn thing some of the characters were saying (some of this due to Danny Elfman’s music score playing essentially nonstop throughout the movie). This problem was also prevalent when I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest in 2006 and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in 2005. These two flicks were also let-downs.



Helen Bonham Carter’s portrayal of the Red Queen was the one positive thing that stood out from Burton’s movie (FYI, Carter and Burton are domestic partners in real life. Just thought I’d share). It might be attributed to her huge honkin' head in this film. Mia Wasikowska, who plays Alice, is very attractive...but performance-wise? Think Jake Lloyd as Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace to know what I’m about to say.




One last note... What’s up with that song that played during the end credits of the movie? It totally didn’t suit the film. To give props to James Cameron again: At least he was shrewd enough to have Celine Dion incorporate James Horner’s main love theme from Titanic into her song "My Heart Will Go On", and again have Leona Lewis incorporate Horner’s love theme from Avatar into her song "I See You" (which, admittedly, still seemed out of place at the end of the sci-fi epic, haha). And Linkin Park and Steve Jablonsky collaborated on the score for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen...with the song "New Divide" being the main music theme for the Michael Bay sequel. Anyways. That is all.