Stephen King's Son, Owen King, Writes First Novel "Double Feature"

Double Feature, by Stephen King's son Owen King, is due out March 19th.

Here is the description from Simon and Schuster:

SAM DOLAN is a young man coming to terlife in the process and aftermath of making his first film. He has a difficult relationship with his father, B-movie actor Booth Dolan—a boisterous, opinionated, lying lothario whose screen legacy falls somewhere between cult hero and pathetic. Allie, Sam’s dearly departed mother, was a woman whose only fault, in Sam’s eyes, was her eternal affection for his father. Also included in the cast of indelible characters: a precocious, frequently violent half-sister; a conspiracy-theorist second wife; an Internet-famous roommate; a contractor who can’t stop expanding his house; a happy-go-lucky college girlfriend and her husband, a retired Yankees catcher; the morose producer of a true-crime show; and a slouching indie-film legend. Not to mention a tragic sex monster.

Unraveling the tumultuous, decades-spanning story of the Dolan family’s friends, lovers, and adversaries, Double Feature is about letting go of everything—regret, resentment, dignity, moving pictures, the dead—and taking it again from the top. Against the backdrop of indie filmmaking, college campus life, contemporary Brooklyn, and upstate New York, Owen King’s epic debut novel combines propulsive storytelling with mordant wit and brims with a deep understanding of the trials of ambition and art, of relationships and life, and of our attempts to survive it all.

Read more about Owen King and his book over at USAToday.com: Owen King's debut novel is not about his famous dad.

Best of luck to him! Sounds like a great story.

Photo credit: "BORDERS" by VinothChandar under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Sleeping Beauty, From a Different Perspective

You may have seen this before, it was uploaded in December 2009, but it's a great twist on the story of Sleeping Beauty.

Moon Base Could Be Built Using 3D Printing. No, Really!

It's true, fact is stranger than fiction.

This amazing story comes by way of Jacqueline Howard over at The Huffington Post.

As if planning to build a moon base weren't enough, the European Space Agency may try to do it with 3D printing.

"Printing" a building out of layers of lunar soil could be much easier and cheaper than bringing the whole structure from earth. And there's even a printer that can do the job -- a device known as the D-Shape, produced by London-based company Monolite UK. It hasn't used real lunar soil yet, but tests with similar mixtures have been successful.

Read the rest here: ESA Moon Base Plan Could Use 3D Printing & Lunar Soil (PHOTOS)

Roger Ebert's Review Of The Believers

Roger Ebert, wow, that man can write!

I watched The Believers yesterday, it wasn't good. Wanting to share the pain, I read some reviews on IMDB and Ebert's stood out. He wrote:

I'm getting tired of the dingy tenements in Spanish Harlem with the blood-soaked chicken feathers on the floor, and the scenes where the shrink realizes he needs a witch doctor to save his child.

One thing you gotta say about Caribbean native religions: They don't inspire stories that could star Loretta Young. Most religious movies are about peace and love and friendship, and how one day all of humanity is going to hold hands and be brother and sister. Movies about Caribbean native religions are always about guys with blank eyes who stare at you for 10 seconds and you're volunteering to wring the chickens' necks yourself. (The Believers)

Question:  Have you seen a movie about Santeria or Voodoo that you would recommend?

About the photograph: "fallen angel panorama.jpg" by rhoftonphoto under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

We Are Stardust

I'm a science geek, so when I saw this post on Brain Pickings I had to share. The visuals are stunning. Of course they are recreations, but still.

This is a beautifully breathtaking "short film based on a combination of real NASA footage and science fiction imagery, celebrating the legacy of Voyager 1".

Dutch Designer and director Mischa Rozema says of the film:

I wanted to show the universe as a beautiful but also destructive place. It’s somewhere we all have to find our place within. As a director, making Stardust was a very personal experience but it’s not intended to be a personal film and I would want people to attach their own meanings to the film so that they can also find comfort based on their own histories and lives. (Stardust: A Mesmerizing Short Film About the Voyager 1 and the Wonder of the Universe)

The score is beautiful and haunting, if you would like to own it it's available from iTunes. All of the proceeds are going to the Dutch Cancer Society.

Photo: "Noche de luna llena - Full moon night" by Luz Adriana Villa A. License: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0. (I cropped the photo, but that was the only change.)