In this episode of Gweek, I talked to Ramez Naam and Jason Snell.

Ramez Naam is a computer scientist and the H.G. Wells Award-winning author of three books, including the sci-fi thriller Nexus.

Jason Snell is editorial director at IDG, the publishers of magazines and web sites about technology such as Macworld, PCWorld, and TechHive. He was the editor of Macworld for eight years. He's also the host of The Incomparable, an award-winning podcast about geeky cultural topics including movies, TV, books, and comics.

Here's what we talked about:

Real-life cyborg tech Ramez: "In the last couple years we’ve seen the approval of the first bionic eye, trials on implants that let paralyzed people move robot arms via their thoughts, and brain implants that make rats and monkeys smarter. What’s going on here? Are we headed towards The Matrix?"

Star Trek Into Darkness Jason: "A lot of complaints I see about this movie (which I really liked) seem to involve fans who are offended by divergences from continuity, or because the movie dares to tread over (and rewrite or subvert) old ground." Ramez: "How much do we expect our sci-fi to be scientifically accurate? Or even self-consistent? I enjoyed Avengers despite it being very silly and at times illogical. But much more minor flaws in logic ruined Prometheus for me."

Feedly Mark: "A replacement for Google reader, which is going away."

Morning Glories Jason: "Just started reading this comic, which just began its second "season." As a big fan of Lost, I'm intrigued by this time-bending combination of Lost and Buffy or Runaways."

Mark: "I'm buying a $100 Samsung Galaxy Pocket and a local SIM card when traveling to Japan instead of buying AT&T's expensive international data plan."

And a whole lot more!

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Warner Bros. announced production of a live-action Archie film. According to the Washington Post, "Glee" writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is working on the script that Jason Moore ("Pitch Perfect") will direct. And lest we forget the last time this was tried, here is a clip of the 1990 TV movie "Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again," which you can also watch in full here. (Gotta love Jughead dancing to The Replacements though.)

Apropos of yesterday's post about punks in Myanmar, Rene from Nerdcore sez, " German Journalist Alexander Dluzak did a documentary about the Burma punk scene a few months ago, here's the trailer (with English Subs), he also sent me some pretty awesome pics for my blog which you can see here. They also did a successful crowdfunding campaign and the DVD should be out sometime soon.

Jamie King from VODO (a film company that raises money through crowdfunding and releases the results over BitTorrent with CC licenses) sez, "BritDoc and VODO have come together for this Free-To-Share release of a crucial film on the attempts by two warring gangs in inner-city Birmingham (UK) -- the Burger Bar Boys and the Johnson Crew -- to bring peace to their neighbourhoods. One Mile Away is compelling, ground-breaking viewing, showing how the determination of ordinary people can transform entrenched social problem. We're sharing under a CC license in the hope that as many people as possible will help get its important message out there!"

One Mile Away (Thanks, Jamie!)

Picture Day is one of the best movies I saw last year. It's Kate Melville's directorial film debut, but for those of us who've followed her career since she was the youngest-ever playwright-in-residence at Toronto's Tarragon Theatre, it is the apotheosis of everything Melvillian -- witty, wry, insightful material about teen relationships, the dreadful and wonderful desire to experience adult life, and the fundamental bizarreness of being a teen who has the self-awareness to understand how reckless actions are self-destructive but can't seem to give them up.

Here's the official synopsis:

Forced to repeat her senior year of high school, Claire’s (Tatiana Maslany) reputation is sliding from bad-ass to bad joke. Armed with an acid tongue and shielded by ever-present headphones, Claire locks onto the only student clueless to her sordid rep: Henry (Spencer Van Wyck), a nerdy freshman she used to babysit. At night, Claire escapes to raucous concerts where she catches the eye of 33-year–old Jim (Steven McCarthy, frontman of The ElastoCitizens), a would–be rock star who feeds on young fans’ adoration. Jim leads her into an intoxicating world of hard-partying musicians, while at school, Claire takes Henry under her wing. She reinvents her dorky friend as the mysterious rebel, throwing Henry’s life into hilarious turmoil. As Claire dances across the surface of these relationships, she eventually learns hard lessons about the difference between sex, intimacy, and friendship.

Picture Day has won a string of awards since it debuted at last year's Toronto International Film Festival -- but it has been locked up in distribution wrangles since then. Finally, it's available on DVD and as a download in the USA and Canada at least.

I've known Kate since she was 15 and I was 17, and I've been admiring her work for more than 25 years. It is such a pleasure to be able to recommend her film to you and to share the secret of her wild talent with the rest of the world.

Picture Day [Amazon]

Picture Day [Official Site]

SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED & time travel lecture in San Francisco —

This coming Saturday, the SF in SF reading series is presenting the movie SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED, followed by special guest Prof. Ken Wharton talking about "the logic - and illogic - of time travel." Tix are $25, proceeds benefit Variety Children's Charity of N. CA and Wonderfest. — Cory •

"There comes a point where people will reject digital effects and want movies where we actually did something in real space, and real time.” 

That's a quote from a film director perhaps the least likely to decry computer-generated special effects: Peter Jackson. Interviewed for the 2011 documentary Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan, Jackson said, essentially, that as digital special effects in movies become increasingly advanced, we'll crave the real even more. Real, as in "real" fake -- physical puppets of gorillas and T-Rexes, Medusas and animated statues, not ones made from pixels. Real, as in physical models manipulated by hand and filmed one frame at a time, not rendered in some fancy computer program.

Read the rest

Watching the video about Luiz, the adorable boy who explained why he didn't want to eat octopus, gave me the same feeling as the beautiful ending of Black Orpheus, which is one of the best movie endings ever. It's not really a spoiler either, so enjoy it then watch the entire movie when you can.

Paul sez,

MLE is a wonderful 'spy film with heart' an simultaneously an undercover tribute to the videogame Portal, based on a true story. It's about the unfortunately-named actor Julie Robert, stranded in a foreign country when her only gig evaporates, and who ends up spying as way to survive.

It is the second film (and first full-length comedy) written and directed by the Atom Egoyan-mentored Sarah Warren, who is fresh from films in Cannes and Toronto film festivals. Sarah's assembled an Oscar-nominated/BAFTA-winning crew and production team, including Simon Shore and the cinematographer Kristin Fieldhouse. Half the micro-budget has been raised from a Canadian investor, and now she's looking to Kickstarter for the remaining £17k. It also has the best Kickstarter fundraising film ever, starring a mischievous Makie doll. Perfect. The voice of the script is unique, and wonderfully fresh — imagine a feminist Woody Allen who's played too much Half Life and you're getting there.

MLE — a feature film

Here's a 2-minute preview of "The Spirit Level," a documentary based on the the bestselling book about the way that income equality is better for society, and how 30 years of economic policy has made everything much, much worse. The doc is funded by a successful Kickstarter, but they're still looking for pre-orders.

SpiritLevelDoc