Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
For those of you who have hankering for something not of this world, and enjoy the possibility that lies within the ‘what if?’ air that surrounds the genre of science fiction, here is a guide to some of the world’s biggest and best sci-fi conventions.
A great place to start is with the more mainstream and familiar I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. The plot centres on the topic of artificial intelligence, and a future where robots are an under-class created by humans to serve them in day to day life. The interlinking stories take you through the origins of the robots, and the beginnings and consequences of their growing intelligence and rebellion. If you disliked the movie, the book is a different take on the story, as the film has had to be rewritten for the screen and therefore differs substantially from the original plot. If you haven’t seen the film, it is worth a watch, but don’t expect the two stories to match up, only expect the underlying idea to be the same.
Haven, supernatural drama series, is based around the goings on in a town named Haven, where some of the towns people are plagued by supernatural afflictions also known as ‘TheTroubles’. It soon becomes clear to FBI Special Agent Audrey Parker, who is brought in to the town on a routine case, that the town has more in store for her than a day’s work. It emerges that there is an inexplicable link to Audrey’s past in Haven, only she needs to find out what and why, which could prove dangerous territory.
Fedcon is the largest sci-fi convention in Europe, and is held every spring in Bonn, Germany. It’s an expensive event for sci-fi fans, but it is perfect if you are looking to buy items that would not be readily available anywhere else in the world. Unfortunately to simply view what a dealer has to offer you must pay to enter their room, but if you are into the seriously collectable, it would be worth your while. You can also splash your cash on autographs and photographs with your favourite stars, or simply enjoy the main stage entertainment, and a highly unmissable show from the convention’s stunt team Defcon Unlimited.
1984 is classic writer George Orwell’s unsettling prophecy about the future, written in 1948. And though the year of the prophecy and has long since been and gone, the popularity of the haunting vision of our world is ever growing with the generations, as we become hooked on his convincing and powerful prediction and story-telling.
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Monday, February 13th, 2012
Hip hop music isn’t whatsoever a new product or fresh starting point for anything in recent music. To put it accurately, hip hop culture earned its path on the world good in the late 70s and from there, hip hop knocked down every barrier in it’s way. Hip hop music is in every city and in every single nation, small and large.
With this being the case, hip hop culture will live provided that it advances because hip hop has previously shown unoriginal potential from the way modern hip hop performers usually tend to imitate the style of many of those rappers just before them.
For example, female rap singers, generally had some form of focal point within the hip hop music industry. Queen Latifah and Salt N Pepa are just a handful of the female hip hop artists that obtained success in the old days, yet feminine accomplishment in the hip hop industry seemed to come to a standstill right up till there was something completely unique to emerge. Even Foxy Brown and Da Brat mastered hip hop music for some time, even so, the styles were not progressing into anything more and further than having a male rap artist standing in the shadows.
For some time, no female rap entertainer received air play until Nicki Minaj who actually introduced the level of artistry to a new and exciting standard lyrically and in hip hop music videos.
Without having the continual progression of hip hop culture, it can expire by way of the regular copying of musicians who have previously been here and already gone. One of the most desirable qualities of the late rap artist 2Pac was that his material brought down so many different domains, commenting on thug life to God and also the political scene while not holding back. At the time, Pac differed from just about every person in the game. Pac became untouchable and generated one major arena for hip hop music to survive.
As a final point, hip hop culture isn’t merely a gimmick, nonetheless, it can very easily become gimmicky when the rap musicians forget about the skills part of their art form, and just write words that simply rhyme without any substance. Hip hop culture flourishes via evolution, yet it passes away through a lack of individuality.
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Thursday, February 9th, 2012
Universal Studios or Universal Pictures or Universal City Studios is one of the largest American film studios. It absolutely was established in 1906 when Carl Laemmle started his first theater in Chicago. He soon started by playing short silent movies. He later switched to production and distribution. To start the production of his own films, he opened the Independent Moving Picture Company in New York in 1909. His first work, Hiawatha, premiered in the same year.
Laemmle’s dream ended up being to make his presence felt around America. His next target was the west where he bought the Nestor Studio in Hollywood. He formed the Universal Film Manufacturing Company on June 21, 1912. This company which was New York based, incorporated the already established Independent Moving Picture Company and five other companies into it. By that time he had already conquered the east as well as the west coast of America and today he decided to centralize his production companies. He asked Isadore Bernstein to acquire plots in Los Angeles. Both hundred and thirty acre land bought had become the Universal City, the entertainment center worldwide. Although film production here began in 1914 plus 1915 it was officially inaugurated on March 15, 1915. The very first production of this studio was Damon and Pythias. Many films were released after the studio opened including comedies, drama, action, and adventure.
A few of the popular movies that were stated in this studio are “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, “Dracula”, “Bride of Frankenstein”,” The Phantom of the Opera”, “The Mummy”, and “All Quiet on the Western Front”. Laemmle developed a habit of inviting guests to look at the movie making procedure also to give suggestions to improve them. After that it became a tradition at Universal studios, and later temporarily visitors were banned due to the disturbances on the sets.
Carl retired in 1936 and sold the corporation to Standard Capital Company. In 1946, Universal merged with International and yes it was named as Universal-International. In 1947, the business produced “Hamlet” which won the Best Picture Academy Award. In 1952, Universal-International was sold to Decca Records. Decca Universal gave many hits in Milt Rackmil. Music Corporation of America, Inc. bought the Universal City studio and shifted its studio there and the two companies merged officially in 1962. Jules Stein was the founder of MCA, Inc., who was later joined by Lew Wasseman in 1936. At first this company prepared bands to execute in clubs and parties. Later it took over as the leading talent agency and conquered the entertainment world. They provided motion pictures and also serials for television. Later additionally, they ventured into the world of musical entertainment around 1960s to 1980s. The tradition of tours was started again.
The company was taken over by Matsushita Electrical Industrial Company Ltd. in 1991. The Seagram Company Ltd. Bought large number of shares in 1995 and MCA Inc. was finally named as Universal Studios on December 10, 1996. The Universal International television operations merged with USA Networks in 1998. At the conclusion of the year the company took over PolyGram and Universal Group became the largest music company on the globe. The Seagram collaborated with Vivendi and Canal in June 2000 now Universal Studios is a section of Vivendi Universal, a global media and communications company.
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