August 22, 2011

KaCSFFS Happenings!

Lots of things are set for the days and weeks ahead!
As a group, KAXFEN are active people.  This blog exists to help them keep everyone posted on upcoming activities.

If this compilation has missed a group who'd like to have an announcement made, please contact Jan Gephardt with information! (We like photos, too!) The deadline is midnight Monday of the week the post will be published.

SF & F Literati Meet Monday, 8/22
Vegas Knights is the August book.
The book club associated with our group meets the last Monday of each month, and August is no exception. 

Meeting time: 7:30 p.m.
Meeting location: 2nd floor lobby of the Oak Park Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 11323 W. 95th St., Overland Park, KS 66214.
Book under discussion: Vegas Knights, by Matt Ferbeck
Next month's book: To be announced


ACT NOW for the 40th!
If you don't have your 40th Anniversary Ticket, please buy it soon!
The deadline for ticket sales is August 27!
Tickets are $11, and are available online.

We will celebrate the 40th Anniversary of KaCSFFS:
Where: The Writers Place, 3607 Pennsylvania, Kansas City, MO 64111.
When: September 17, 2011, 6:30 p.m.

Get your 40th Anniversary tickets by Aug. 27!
Coffee and tea, will be served, but please bring other drinks, according to your preference. Also welcome: a side dish, appetizer, or dessert. 

Please dress up a bit: not formal, but "cocktail nice."

Toastmasters for the evening are Sherri Dean and Robin Wayne Bailey; T-shirt display is by Cindy Norton; commemorative fanzine is by Jim Murray.

Longview Literary Festival is October 15!
Our own Susan Satterfield is involved in organizing this.  We will post more information as soon as we can.


Our October Meeting is rescheduled to October 29
We didn't want to keep anyone away from the Longview event, so we've decided to have a Halloween meeting, complete with costumes. We'll update again with more information soon!

August Art Night was such a success, we are now planning a Thanksgiving Visual Feast!
Thanksgiving Meeting is November 19 
This is one of the most popular meetings of the year, because we feed you! KaCSFFS supplies the turkey, and we all bring the trimmings.  Help us fill the first floor of the Writers Place with tables for dining and an even bigger buffet than last year!
This year, also enjoy a Visual Feast!
Because the August Art Night display was such a resounding success, we've decided to do it again! The Thanksgiving Visual Feast will have expanded floor space, for local and regional artists to display their work and offer it for sale, just in time for Holiday shopping!
Officer Self-Nominations begin in November:
Begin thinking about who might be good candidates for Director, Secretary, Treasurer, and Communications Officer--then try to talk them into nominating (or re-nominating) themselves!

PHOTO CREDITS: 
Many thanks to Barnes & Noble Booksellers, for the cover image for Vegas Knights.
Kudos to Robin W. Bailey, for design of the 40th Anniversary ticket. 
And much gratitude to "Neelix" (Tracy Majkol) for the art display image. Artists featured, L-R, in case you can't recognize them: Allison Stein, Jan Gephardt, Lucy A. Synk, and Rachael Mayo. Also participating in the display but not shown were Bev Hale and Signy Gephardt.

August 06, 2011

First (Annual?) August Art Night is August 13

Bad Boys, by Allison Stein.  
KaCSFFS will host the first of what may become an annual "August Art Night" event, in conjunction with its monthly meeting at The Writers Place, 3607 Pennsylvania, Kansas City, MO 64111. The meeting and display begin at 6:45 p.m.

Seven artists, two from outside the Kansas City metro area, will display their artwork. They are Sherri Dean, Bev Hale, Jan Sherrell Gephardt,  Signy Gephardt, Rachael Mayo, Allison Stein, and Lucy A. Synk.
Avatar 3, Bev Hale
Jazzdragon 18, by Rachael Mayo

Art media will range from original paintings and paper sculpture, through prints, to jewelry. Rachael Mayo has requested extra space so she can exhibit "some new, large-ish stuff" that she wants "to show off." Rachael was one of our top-sellers at ConQuesT, so this should be a treat!
Oriental Delight, by Lucy A. Synk

Nearly all of the artwork will be for sale, and most of the artists will be there in person.

NOTE: We cannot process charge cards at the show, so if you think you might even possibly want to buy some artwork, please bring cash and/or your checkbook!
Treetop Primaries, by Jan Sherrell Gephardt

In addition to the art display, several other things will be going on as well:
  • A short business meeting. 
  • An old-time radio play program, coordinated by Robin W. Bailey.
  • Sharing of cookies brought by any members who wish to bring them (each person should bring his/her own drink and ice).
  • One last raffle to help fund the 40th Anniversary celebration, which is scheduled for next month, September 17, 2011, at the Writers Place.
  • The last chance to reserve your 40th Anniversary admission (which includes hors d'oeuvres and dessert). You may place reservations online for $11 via PayPal, or pay in person on Aug. 13, via cash or check for $10 (children ten years old or younger get in free). Either way, the deadline is Aug. 13!
  • This also is a final chance to share ideas with Diana Bailey, about names for the pair of bats, and also "the ghosts currently calling the Writers Place home." Any final name choices must be approved by the Writers Place management, and the deadline is approaching soon.
Looking Ahead to Two Events Happening Soon:
"KaCSFFS Memories" are due September 1!
Please write a short description of some of your KaCSFFS memories, and send or give them to Diana Bailey, between now and September 1. She also is looking for recipes that have been favorites at KaCSFFS meetings in the past, and artwork. Here's the format for "Memories" and recipes:
  • Typed 11-point Times New Roman
  • One page or less
  • NO LATER THAN Sept. 1, 2011
These are for a presentation on the 40th Anniversary, Sept. 17.


The August book
SF&F Literati Meeting
This KaCSFFS-affiliated book club is set to meet August 22 at the Oak Park Barnes & Noble.

The book under discussion will be Vegas Knights, by Matt Forbeck. Start reading today!


IMAGE CREDITS:
Many thanks to the artists who gave permission for us to use the images of their artwork in this blog post. EACH IMAGE IS PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT. Please respect this, and DO NOT RE-POST THEM WITHOUT THE ARTISTS' PERMISSION (their contact information is linked to their names, so that should be easy). Specifically, we thank Allison Stein for Bad Boys; Bev Hale for Avatar 3, Rachael Mayo for Jazzdragon 18, Lucy A. Synk for Oriental Delight, and Jan Sherrell Gephardt for Treetop Primaries.
We also wish to thank Barnes & Nobles Booksellers for the Vegas Knights cover illustration.

August 03, 2011

Lensman's review of "Cowboys & Aliens" and "Captain America"

A Guest Review! Communication Director's note: please share your reviews with us! The KaCSFFS Blog is your blog, and our organization is devoted to learning about and discussing artistic works in the sf/f/horror genres. We would love to publish more reviews from members! Please email them to Jan S. Gephardt


Fresh, enjoyable, great FX; some
difficulty with suspension of disbelief.
Cowboys & Aliens
(***/***)

A science fiction adventure film in an Old West setting.

Interesting to see Harrison Ford play a villain.  And I always find it fun to see familiar actors dressed up in Spaghetti Western style dusters, grungy, pseudo-Western frontier clothes, and period facial hair.

Daniel Craig continues to show his acting chops.  Here he plays a bad-guy-turned-good-guy, and I think he did a fine job. He does a lot to help the audience suspend its disbelief, to "sell" the rather far-fetched story.

Of course, the most important part of a movie is the story and the script.  Here, we get some entertainingly fresh ideas, and not just from the Old West setting. Kudos to the writers.  Like the movie overall, it doesn't reach the level of a Great Story, but it's a pretty good one.

I do give it one down-check for never explaining why the aliens wanted to abduct humans, but other than that I didn't notice any sizable plot holes. Also, it did somewhat strain my willing suspension of disbelief that a bunch of people from the Old West would take bombardment and strafing by aircraft, and being subjected to intense bombardment, so much in stride . . . no panicking by the gunslingers or the Amerind warriors. But given the nature of a fast-moving action film, I guess you either have to accept that as part of the story, or get up and walk out of the movie.
FX by ILM, so no surprise they are fine and appear about as convincing as they can be when they obviously are not real. (And it's amazing how much better these FX fit seamlessly into real-life backgrounds, when the Star Wars prequel trilogy had such fake-looking FX. Did Lucas *want* them to look fake? Did he have the idea that making it look unreal fit the genre of a "space fantasy" better?)

"Marvel-ous" time, great FX, okay story.
Captain America--The First Avenger
(***/***)

A comic book/retro-SF adventure film giving the origin of a Marvel superhero.

I can't help but compare this to Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I just *love* retro-SF, filled with super-science vehicles and weapons! This one even has a huge flying wing.
Chris Evans does a credible job as Steve Rogers/Captain America, although it's bizarre to see the same actor playing this character who previously played Johnny Storm in the two recent Fantastic Four movies, considering they are both Marvel characters, and should be in the same universe!

They had me wondering all through the film about just how they managed to get the same actor (or at least his head) to portray both the 4F (military reject) 90-lb. weakling Steve Rogers, AND the ripped, hunky Super Soldier. Did they get a small guy to play a body double, with his head digitally replaced by Chris Evans? Or did they shoot Evans in the scene, then digitally alter his appearance to make him small and slight? And what about sight lines--how did actors in the same scene with him appear to be looking into the eyes of the wimpy Rogers, if he was being played by the tall Evans?

Well, as it often is, the answer is: All of the above. Quoting from Wikipedia:

"Most of the shots were done by an L.A. company called LOLA that specializes in digital 'plastic surgery'. The technique involved shrinking Chris in all dimensions. We shot each skinny Steve scene at least four times; once like a normal scene with Chris and his fellow actors in the scene, once with Chris alone in front of a green screen so his element could be reduced digitally, again with everyone in the scene but with chris absent so that the shrunken Steve could be re-inserted into the scene, and finally with a body double mimicking Chris's actions, in case the second technique were required. When Chris had to interact with other characters in the scene, we had to either lower Chris or raise the other actors on apple boxes or elevated walkways to make skinny Steve shorter in comparison. For close-ups, Chris' fellow actors had to look at marks on his chin that represented where his eyes would be after the shrinking process, and Chris had to look at marks on the tops of the actor's head to represent their eyes. . . . The second technique involved grafting Chris's head onto the body double. This technique was used mostly when Chris was sitting or lying down, or when a minimum of physical acting was required."

Hollywood magic!

I am very, VERY pleased with the look of the FX. The screen was filled with control panels which had dials, knobs, and levers everywhere. This is 40s retro-SF as it *should* be! And unlike Sky Captain there was none of that soft-focus effect . . . which is fine if you want to give it a romantic, other-worldly appearance, but has the disadvantage of constantly reminding you that you're not looking at anything real. Here, the metal machinery appeared to be real, solid steel, with real, no-nonsense, industrial-grade paint on it.

The appearance of the characters was reasonably well-done . . . and the Red Skull was a stand-out! A story like this needs a menacing super-villain. The Red Skull is so comic-book, even cartoonish, that I was afraid they wouldn't pull it off. Kudos to the prosthetics team, costumers, and the actor--this Red Skull is menacing indeed!

Also, it was interesting the way they first parodied the superhero costume, showing "Captain America" debuting in a singing-and-dancing chorus stage show to sell war bonds. Later, of course, they switched him into a costume with colors slightly muted, and looking more like something a mortal action hero would wear--not Spandex. I have no objection to that; it's what they did for Daredevil, and unlike the heresy of the X-Men movies, the filmmakers didn't abandon the costume's colors.

I wish I could say the story was up to the fine quality of the other elements of this film. But it was merely good, not great. Nonetheless, comparing it to Sky Captain, the film "works" a lot better *as* a movie. It "felt" more real, the direction was better (not surprisingly; Sky Captain was made by a first-time director), and the various elements were assembled more seamlessly. But the basic story lacked the truly earth-shaking menace that an epic retro-SF tale about superheroes vs. super-villains needs. Oh, sure, they threw in a last-minute plot element about a bomber that would destroy America, but they didn't really *sell* that to me. It seemed more of an excuse to get Captain America and his team to do some fighting and stunts, rather than the existential menace to humanity that we see at the end of Sky Captain. And although the 40s retro-SF elements gave this story a fresh setting, the story itself seemed all too familiar. So that's why I give this film only three stars (***) out of four, even though I had a marvelous time! (Or is that a "Marvel-ous time"?)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Aside to Ty Gephardt: Please feel free to post this to any KaCSFFS Internet site or blog, and/or pass it along to Jan for that purpose.
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~
Keep Watching the Skies!
David Sooby aka "Lensman"

Movie posters were taken from Wikipedia.
Cowboys and Aliens
Captain America - The First Avenger