It came from Mars, lands at Ann Arbor

It came from Mars is a new play staging now at the Performance Network Theatre in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It's described as "An off-the-wall story about a group of radio actors terrified by Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast. Passions ignite and secret identities are revealed when a washed-up director, his diva ex-wife, a wanna-be war hero and a German sound effects wiz think they are about to be annihilated by men from Mars." Sounds like a lot of fun. Full details can be found on the Performance Network Theatre website.

Space Shuttle in Central American scare

Concerned citizens of El Salvador had a scare on Sunday, when the returning Space Shuttle made an unexpected detour over their country. Avoiding bad weather, the shuttle caused a sonic boom over the country, sending people into the streets and setting dogs barking. According to Information Week, "Endeavour's sonic boom over El Salvador caused a stir not unlike what occurred in the wake of Orson Welles' infamous War Of The Worlds radio broadcast." Well, not quite the same, as calm was quickly restored, but apparently the story was headline news in the region the next day.

Mars- The Movie - trailer worth checking out

This looks pretty interesting. To quote from the blurb "MARS is a uniquely animated romantic comedy about astronauts and robots falling in love on their way to the red planet. Told in the playful style of a graphic novel, MARS is equal parts character driven story, homage to our galactic neighbor, and exploration of why we explore." The trailer is certainly very odd but strangely compelling. The style is very much influenced, or so it seems to me, by the director Richard Linklater, who pioneered this sort of rotoscoped animation. Definitely well worth a look.

MARS - The Movie [HD Trailer] from Geoff Marslett on Vimeo.

War of the Worlds mock documentary on the way

Back in 2005, Steven Spielberg turned his attention to a big budget remake of The War of the Worlds. At the same time, another director was aiming to produce a version of the story, set not in modern times (as Spielberg elected) but in its original Victorian setting. Hopes were high, but the end result was rightly considered a critical disaster. Now an interesting story has cropped up on the Mukilteo Beacon website, which reveals the full story behind director Timothy Hines' attempt to film The War of the Worlds and the fascinating news that he is putting together a new film, which will weave in some of the original footage he shot into a documentary style format. This could actually work. No one can deny that Hines wanted to make a great movie, but circumstances and limited resources conspired against him. I for one am more than willing to give him another chance and hope this intriguing project goes well.