Month: August 2014

Schedule for Dragon Con 2014

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Now that the full schedule has been released for Dragon Con 2014, I can tell you where I will be as a panelist for this year’s con.

 

Thursday

I will be arriving to the convention area on Thursday morning, and will hit up the registration line to get my badge and program. After that…

4pm – Dragon Con Newbies Meetup and Hotel Tour (Marriott A601 – A602)
Want to know the best way to get from one hotel to another? Need to learn where the food court is? If so, come on this walking tour and find out! I will be helping to coordinate this with Kevin Bachelder, Sue Kisenwether, and Kim McGibony.

5:30pm – Dragon Con Newbies Q&A and Social (Marriott A601 – A602)
Meet fellow first time con attendees and many long time attendees in a casual setting. Ask questions and learn about the awesomeness that is Dragon Con. Again, I will be helping to coordinate this with Kevin Bachelder, Sue Kisenwether, and Kim McGibony. This event is schedule for 2.5 hours, but it is not required that attendees stay the entire time. Come and go as you want.

 

Friday

10am – Dragon Con 101 (Hyatt Regency V)
Connect with fellow newbies and get helpful advice/tips from several long-time con attendees to get the most out of the Dragon Con experience. Again, I will be helping to coordinate this with Kevin Bachelder, Sue Kisenwether, and Kim McGibony. This event is scheduled for 2.5 hrs, but it will be a come and go type of panel. I will be leaving about halfway through for the next event on my schedule.

11:30am – Farscape Revisited! (Hyatt Centennial I)
Check in with the stars who played favorite characters. This year’s guests are Gigi Edgley (Chiana) and Lani Tupu (Pilot/Crais). I will be facilitating the discussion with the fans by standing in the center of the room and holding the wireless microphone.

4pm – Quantum Leap 25th Anniversary (Marriott M303-M304)
Every Scott Bakula show and movie is really Sam, still leaping. Discuss. I will be joining panelists Keith R. A. DeCandido and Tegan Hendrickson.

 

Saturday

10am – Geek Year 1984: Classic Sci-fi Roll-A-Panel (Marriott M303-M304)
A 20-sided die decides which classic sci-fi TV shows or movies from 1984 this panel will geek out about. For this randomized goodness, I will be joining a large cast of geeky experts including Joe Crowe, Kevin Eldridge, Tegan Hendrickson, Michael D French, Michael Gordon, Melinda R. Mock, and Phantom Troublemaker.

5:30p – Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: No Time For Love (Marriott M303-M304)
Celebrating the 30th anniversary of Short Round, Club Obi Wan, and the runaway mine cart. I will be joining panelists Elizabeth Jones, Jessa Phillips, and Shaun Rosado

 

Sunday

8:30am – Batman: 75th Anniversary of Justice (Marriott M303-M304)
It’s an early morning panel! Cramming a month of awesome things about the best superhero ever into a one-hour window. I’ll be joining panelists Mike Faber, Michael Gordon, John S. Drew, Geena Phillips, and Will Price… along with a large cup of coffee.

 

The rest of the con will be spent catching up with friends and family, watching the costumes that never disappoint, and celebrating all things geek for four days. See you there!

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Timestamp #20: The Myth Makers

Michael Falkner12 Comments

Doctor Who: The Myth Makers
(4 episodes, s03e06-e09, 1965)

Timestamp 020 The Myth Makers

Doctor Who visits the Trojan war. The serial’s opening battle seems almost comical, but does a decent job of establishing the conflict among the plot’s characters. Looking back from 2014 to 1965, the Doctor pretending to be a god in order to more freely explore the setting is a clever meta nod to the deus ex machina that is Doctor Who. With his virtual immortality, changing faces, and supernatural abilities in comparison to the cultures he visits, The Doctor is, quite literally, a god in a machine.

The serial seems rather run of the mill, though the re-interpretation of the stories from myth are quite refreshing to see. It was a fairly clever ruse to rescue Vicki from the Trojans, and it was hard to watch her leave the TARDIS and the Doctor. I will certainly miss her wit and spunk. Her departure seemed rushed but still emotionally touching, and it will be interesting to see how the Doctor will respond. Unfortunately, this leaves us Steven (ugh) and the unknown (but quite limited) variable of Katarina as companions leading into the twelve-part master plan of the Doctor’s most powerful enemies.

As a side note but not a hit to the score for this review, the reconstruction’s music track is pretty bad. It sounds like a warped 45 RPM record, but there’s probably not much they can do about it since this serial is lost. It was distracting, but easy to work around.

 

Rating: 3/5 – “Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.”

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The Daleks’ Master Plan

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

Goodbye, Robin Williams

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Good-Morning-Vietnam-robin-williams-25340806-500-338

Few celebrity deaths in recent times have hit me as hard that of Robin Williams. Unless I have met them in person, I usually see celebrities as people who entertain me for a living, but not as friends or family. It’s a nice touch to wave a greeting, shake hands, or even exchange a few words at a convention, but in general, they are strangers that I invite in for a few hours to make me laugh, cry, or think.

Robin Williams was different for me.

He made a mark with his unique style of original, lively, rapid-fire wit and delivery. His one-man stage shows were always fantastic – Live on Broadway had me in stitches for the entire duration – and his films were a centerpiece of my childhood’s cinematic awakening. He wasn’t family, but he was loved for the impacts he made on my life.

I first encountered him in Good Morning, Vietnam as he portrayed Airman Adrian Cronauer, a DJ for the Armed Force Radio Service. The film has always been my benchmark for his humor and zany voices, as well as his dramatic skills as the horrors of war caught up with Cronauer.

The second major slice of Williams in my life was in Disney’s Aladdin, where his mostly improvised on set lines were the lifeblood of one of my favorite entries from the Mouse House. The third biggest influence on my life from his catalog is the oft-maligned Hook, which grabbed me with the transition from Williams acting like a responsible adult to embracing the bang-a-rang child that is Peter Pan. Robin Williams made Hook work for me.

I adored his comedic turns in films like Happy Feet and Mrs. Doubtfire, and enjoyed his dramatic roles in Dead Poets Society and Good Will Hunting. I deeply enjoyed catching re-runs of Mork and Mindy, and even though his darker roles like One Hour Photo never clicked with me, I was glad to see him trying to break free of comedic typecasting.

Robin Williams made a major impact on both the industry and audiences, and the world is a much darker place without the light of his genius and wit. His death is both tragic and heartbreaking, and has come far too soon.

Godspeed, dearest genie, for you are free. You will be deeply missed.

May you rest in peace.