June 16, 2020

SciFi4Me TV for you

SciFi4Me TV for you

On the sci-fi edition, Thomas talks with the guys from SciFi4Me's H20 Podcast about their Indigogo campaign. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-new-scifi4me-tv#/,Star Trek changes its invasion date, Ahmad Best plays Jedi, The Peabody Awards and we remember actor Anthony James.    All that and more on this edition of Multiverse Tonight!

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Transcript

Tonight! Star Trek changes it’s invasion date, Ahmad Best plays Jedi and we talk with the folks over at SciFi4Me’s H2O Podcast,  all that and more on this scifi edition of Multiverse Tonight.


Welcome to episode 80 of Multiverse Tonight. The times keep getting weirder and weirder. Only halfway through the year, First a plague, then riots. Please folks, I think Rodney King said it best during the LA Riots, “Can’t we all just get along?”

Let’s get on with the news.


Well, it seems that after decades of not playing Captain Kirk, William Shatner says that he would be open to returning to the role, but with some conditions. Bill spoke with Metro UK about Star Trek. He told them quote ‘If they wrote it and it made reasonable sense then I’d love to [revive Captain Kirk],’I wouldn’t do a series,’ he continued. ‘If the role was written properly and it wasn’t a cameo or gratuitous; being there just to show my face, I wouldn’t do that.’ unquote He also told them that he hasn’t been approached by Star Trek Picard, nor has he watched it.  So in other words, it sounds like he’d do it if they made a Star Trek Kirk series. Frankly, I think we might be fine without him, stary retired William, stay retired. 


One series we won’t be seeing any guest stars from any Generation old or not so old will be Star Trek Discovery. The show is now in the far too distant future, thirty-second century AD. Producer Akiva Goldsman, who worked on seasons one and two before moving on to Picard and Strange New Worlds, has some ideas about what the post Federation future might entail.  He told Collider quote "I'm not on Discovery now. I just know things," Goldman prefaces in discussion with Collider about the end of Discovery's second season. "We all helped build that idea, all the way back to Season One. Aaron Harberts and Gretchen Berg, the original showrunners from season one, that idea dates all the way back to that. I think it's a spectacular idea, which is to go post the timeline we know. I think Alex Kurtzman has really been deeply involved in the building out of what Season Three looks like and what that post-Federation future is. I've seen some of it because we all work together in the same, or we did, place with lots of Star Trek pictures on the wall and editing bays and things. It seems awesome to me. It's not a final frontier, but it's a new one."


Jonathan Frakes has confirmed that he will direct an episode of Star Trek Strange New Worlds telling Syfy Wire quote I've been asked to direct, and I'm looking forward to it very much.


I've had great experiences with all three of them. Anson and I worked through finding Captain Pike. And Ethan and I worked through finding who Spock was. And the mantle of Spock, in particular, was so complicated and so emotionally taxing and was such huge shoes to fill, and Ethan felt it. Rebecca and I have a long relationship from back on The Librarians, and we have a fabulous working shorthand, so it will be great getting back to the floor with three old friends.


The annual Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas has been postponed and moved.  According to Star Trek dot com, the con will be moving to the Caesars Forum Conference Center Las Vegas, a brand new 375 million dollar state of the art facility with direct access to the host hotel, the newly renovated Harrah's Las Vegas. The new date will be December ninth to the thirteenth, 2020. Las Vegas in winter, that’s a bit of a step up from Vegas in the August heat. Right now William Shatner, Kelsey Grammer and  Walter Koenig are confirmed as guests. If you're going, go to the creationent.com website to find out more.



Star Wars

We start Star Wars news with a breaking story. Star Wars Celebration 2020 has been canceled. Instead the Convention will take place in Anheim on August 18-21 2022.

Ahmed Best has finally earned his lightsaber, the actor best known for portraying Jar Jar Binks in the prequel trilogy will now portray Jedi Master Kelleran Beq in the Jedi Temple Challenge that will debut on StarWarsKids.com. The series is described as quote Ahmed Best, known to many fans as Jar Jar Binks from the Star Wars prequels, hosts the show as a new Jedi, Master Kelleran Beq. Best guides players through three rounds of trials as they vie to become Jedi Knights and wield the iconic symbol of the guardians of peace and justice, the lightsaber. Accompanying Best is Mary Holland (Veep, Upright Citizens Brigade) who voices the wise-cracking protocol droid companion AD-3, and Sam Witwer, who gives a unique voice to the dark side of the Force. Witwer recently reprised his role as the voice of Darth Maul in the critically acclaimed final season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars." unquote Ahmed Himself posted on Instagram a pic of himself in his Jedi robes with the caption quote "Balance is one of the challenges in [Jedi Temple Challenge] and something I truly believe in," "The inspiration behind the #lightsaber has to do with the balance of peace and justice. I chose #purple because of the balance between the red and blue #kybercrystal. The leather on the hilt is large enough for one hand. I took inspiration from a Filipino Martial Art that I study called #Escrima and #musashimiyamoto for a one-handed style of fighting. #keleranbeq is nicknamed #thebladedhand for his effectiveness with the one-handed lightsaber style and the empty hand which wields #theforce simultaneously like another #lightsaber." unquote 


The Baby Yoda merchandising machine roles on. This Christmas, you can expect Christmas Decorations. The Baby Yoda nutcracker stands at 9.5 inches tall and has a red base with snowflakes on it and a gold nameplate. It’s part of the Kurt S Adler Star Wars collection which includes Baby Yoda stocking, a Darth Vader tree skirt, a Sith Trooper nutcracker, and more. You can preorder the nutcracker at ENTERTAINMENT EARTH for $49.99


Star Wars The Mandalorian has added the director of Netflix’s Extraction Sam Hargrave as a second unit director for the second season of the Disney Plus series. He told Collider that he’s confident that season two will top the explosive action of the first season.


The anthology book, Star Wars From a Certain Point of View is getting a sequel. The new book is called From a Certain Point of View: the Empire Strikes Back. Here’s the blurb quote "The anthology series From a Certain Point of View is set to return with From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back, celebrating 40 years of Episode V and arriving November 10th. Like its predecessor, From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back will feature 40 stories by 40 authors reimagining the classic sequel through the eyes of background characters — heroes, villains, droids, and creatures." Unquote  Authors that will be a part of this include Tom Angleberger, Sarwat Chadda, S.A. Chakraborty, Mike Chen, Adam Christopher, Zoraida Córdova,Delilah Dawson,Tracy Deonn,Alexander Freed,Jason Fry,Christie Golden,Rob Hart,E.K. Johnson,Lydia Kang,Rebecca F. Kuang,Michael Kogge,C.B. Lee,Mackenzi Lee,John Jackson Miller,Michael Moreci,Daniel José Older,Mark Oshiro,Amy Ratcliffe,Beth Revis,Lilliam Rivera,Emily Skrutskie,Karen Strong,Catherynne M. Valente,Austin Walker,Martha Wells,Django Wexler,Kiersten White,Gary Whitta,Brittany N. Williams,Charles Yu,Jim Zub


It has also been announced that the authors are foregoing their fees, instead, it’s going to First Book, a non-profit that provides new books, learning materials, and other supplies to educators and organizations that serve children in need. Del Rey’s parent company, Penguin Random House, will donate $100,000 to First Books. Disney and Lucasfilm will also donate 100,000 children’s books, valued at $1 million, to support the organization.




Now in Geek News Tonight, we’re gonna do something completely different. We are gonna start with an interview with a couple of friends and fellow podcasters, Jason Hunt and Timothy Harvey from SciFi4Me. Let’s start the interview, oh Thomas?

Thomas Townley  0:35  
Alright, three to thanks me. Now it's time for an interview and I know we haven't had much interviews lately no Comic Con to speak of, you know? But no, we must do something to to create content here. So today my guests are the hosts of sci fi for me is the h2o podcast Mr. Jason hunt and Mr. Timothy Harvey. And oh, they're here for a brand new project over at sci fi for me. Welcome, gentlemen. Thanks, Seamus. Yeah, great to be here. All right now, we've had Mr. Hunt. We've had Jason on the show before so Timothy told me a little bit about yourself.

Timothy Harvey  1:17  
Um, I I'm a big science fiction fantasy and horror fan. Always have been since I was a very young child and my father used to both give me his old pulp novels and sit with me on the weekend and we would watch the creature feature or the classic science fiction film and he in in instilled in me from a very young age, a love of fantastic fiction, and a love of science. And this has turned into a lifelong love of comic books and science fiction novels and horror films and, and then of course, when I moved to Kansas City in 2005, and even getting involved with cancer The city film community, which is how I met Jason, and he had this little project of his, his thing, what he was working on. And he said, you know, well, we would have these long conversations about various things in science fiction, like, Are we recording this? Because I was always doing some already doing some writing for the website, just reviews and a little bit of commentary every now and again, mostly reviews. And we would have these like, discussions about these TV shows and films and ideas and concepts. Like why aren't we recording this? Why aren't we doing something with this? And suddenly, we had this little show called h2o, which, with the exception of a small hiatus has been around for

many, many episodes. 200 and what Jason what

Jason Hunt  2:52  
200 we just did 227 I think we started December of 2012.

Timothy Harvey  3:00  
A small gap there where we didn't have any show. And there was a small, even smaller gap where there was just a show that he abandoned before. So it was just me

Jason Hunt  3:14  
that the Tim Harvey show is still a viable idea I maintain?

Timothy Harvey  3:20  
Well, you know, it's it's a problem with the Tim Harvey show versus the HBO show is that it's a single opinion. And while I happen to you know, it's my opinion, therefore, I think I must have some value. That's the theory of an opinion. Right? But at the same time, you know, it's, it's like any single person opinion show. It has the risk of being you know, that's all you hear. And, and in those particular days of that particular show, we did, we were doing a lot of audience engagement. So there was no one that wasn't really able to have a discussion with somebody who was listening to the show, and it was just a podcast, really So, and that's something that I think that because we do have the ability to have the engagement with our audience.

Yeah. The Tim Harvey show we're returning anytime soon.

Thomas Townley  4:13  
Now what Jason I've had I had to wait back way back on episode 16 back in January 2019. Sorry, I haven't had you back since then. 

Jason Hunt  4:22  
Oh, that's that's fine. Everybody's been busy. 

Thomas Townley  4:24  
So nothing personal. But what now what have you been up to?

Jason Hunt  4:33  
As far as the magazine goes, I have been making a lot of coffee. A recruiting as much as far as new new contributors for the staff we've been producing. Now we're up to 10 programs on our video channel. So besides h2o, we've got a doctor who program we've got two Star Wars shows two Star Trek shows. We've got our weekend. News wrap up. We have the cosplay program, my little one man show on Sunday night. And then we just launched last week, a show called daily dose of dog, which is a kind of a meditative relaxation lets everybody take a break in the middle of the day type of thing. It's a half hour. And I just throw the camera up on on the office dogs here while they while they do their thing and play some relaxing music and some people seem to like it. But it's Yeah, it's been it's been fairly busy because you kind of keep track of everything we're doing the updates on convention schedule changes and the cancellations. We did c two e two, which was the last event we were actually able to attend before all of this happen. So we're hoping to get back into doing live broadcasts from events as soon as they start opening up events again.

Thomas Townley  6:00  
Okay, so tell me more about your new project. The reason for your fundraiser here, sci fi for me TV, which I am a backer of. I'll admit to that. 

Jason Hunt  6:13  
So Apreciate that,yes. Well, it's it's been a conversation that we've had since we came back we took like Tim says, We took a break, and in 2018 because the the traffic was was just not really there. And as we got to examining some of the reasons why and we came back in January 2019, and at the time, all of social media was all about video, video, video, video video. And as it turns out, you know, advertising agencies were making this shift and news news organizations everybody was shifting over to video based on false data. inaccurate data basically Facebook had led the charge on this trying to get more video on their on their platform. And turns out that a lot of the data that they were using to support this was fought and so we had put a lot of concentration on our video content. And as we're going through this, and then you had the, you know, you had that information come to light. You had the various different ad pocalypse events that have come out you've had you know, the Project Veritas videos, you've had the censorship questions, you've got the stuff going on with Naughty Dog, the situation with Susie Lou it just all of these different things plus, over the last year and a half we ourselves we've had on our channel every week pretty much a regular copyright claim on the music we use for Saturday. Morning Show it's company called mad Rev. And they have multiple copies of our license to use the music and they still make these claims. So it's all of these, all of these things just start piling on. And we've seen YouTube start to shift their focus to the more corporate media entities. It's almost like they want to become another Netflix then you know, you've got the YouTube read, you have a priority given to, you know, outlets like msnbc or CNN or or ESPN or Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon and you're all all of the all of the corporate stuff that YouTube didn't build it success on. And we've seen conversation in a number of places where the channels are sitting there going okay, YouTube seems to be abandoning the individual independent creator in favor of the big big media giant We've experienced some of this ourselves. But I've also run across some information over the weekend. That channels that do a mix of live programming and pre recorded programming also get suppressed by the YouTube algorithm. So we've got all of these different things that are working against us. The algorithm doesn't let you talk about certain topics, you can't say certain words you can't talk about certain people and channels can't react to other channels, there's all these different rules that are in place, and different interpretations of the rules and, and capricious and, and inconsistent application of the rules. And we finally got to the point that we're throwing our hands up saying, We're not our content is not getting in front of our audience. Something needs to change. And so this idea of a new sci fi for me TV grew out of that where we have more control of our content, we have control of all of our ad revenue instead of YouTube. Taking Have it. And so the Indiegogo campaign is to raise money to build the architecture for that. So sci fi for me.tv will be the new landing page. And that'll be where we stream all of our content. We've got any kind of pre produced stuff that it's going to go the excuse me, it'll go there instead of instead of YouTube.

Thomas Townley  10:26  
Alright, and and what qualities are you going to have with the programs and things that you want for sci fi for me TV?

Jason Hunt  10:39  
You mean in terms of the new programs.

Thomas Townley  10:41  
Yeah.

What kind of a pprograms what kind of programs do you envision for this? endeavor?

Timothy Harvey  10:50  
Any many programs, there's a whole bunch of things we've done. Well, one thing I wanted to do, and this has been a long running discussion is have a As a video library, there's a lot of and this is something that you know, folks, if you're ever interested in, in taking advantage of this, it's out there in the world there are, there's a lot of films that don't that are basically copyright free. They don't. They're not. They're not. They're not owned by anybody right now. And you can license them for reasonable fees are the folks who compile this sort of stuff. And there's a lot of great fantastic science fiction and a lot of horror con classic Oregon, you're really kind of surprised to see how many things were, were there. But you know, having that out there that people can actually see this because there's so much stuff that people just don't know that they can watch that and that they've never been exposed to. I mean, where everybody loves an Avengers movie, but you know, there's so much great stuff from the 1930s and 40s. The old serials the old, you know, classic films like The Cabinet of Dr. caligari, which is incredibly influential to science fiction in horror filmmaking in general, I mean this, you know, it's a classic silent movie, but it's had an incredible impact metropolis, Fritz Lang's masterpiece, I mean, all this stuff is out there, and having a chance to bring that to people in a way that where they can not only can go and find, you know, interviews and, and articles and reviews, but also sit there and go, here's this amazing film, which, you know, influenced everyone, you know, up to, you know, whichever filmmaker you're following right now, trust me, they were influenced by these movies. And so that's, there's, there's things like that. There's a whole slate of programming, Jason has developed, that he would love to sit there go and all this.

Jason Hunt  12:40  
 Well, when, when we came back, and one of the things that I did as part of the research and the prep, I just, I just started brainstorming, just making a bunch of notes of all of the different things that that that that we could do, not just with the TV channel side of things, but the.com and all the social media and marketing and everything. And I had 30 pages of notes. At least a page and a half two pages are dedicated to new programs or ideas for programs. So besides the 10 that we've got in production now, we have all sorts of different ways that we could expand that program. And of course, a lot of that's going to depend on manpower and resources and you know, who's going to make these who's going to host them who's going to produce them. But you know, we have ideas for comic book focus shows and horror, and anime and you know, all of these different ideas for different programs, both on the side of the news and information programming, as well as opinion and commentary. But also, you know, there's nothing that says that we couldn't get into scripted narrative stuff at some point, you know, we have we have relationships with a number of different filmmakers and and the acting community and the film community here in Kansas City. There's nothing that says that we couldn't do it. sci fi for me original movies, or TV series or anything like that. I mean, with us having full control over the channel. Really, there are no limitations outside of the resources that we have available to us in terms of money, manpower, time, that kind of thing.

Thomas Townley  14:23  
I could see it now the sci the sci fi for me original movie, what's in Jason's basement?

Timothy Harvey  14:30  
Actually, we are legally obligated to not tell you what's in Jason's basement, I've signed a nondisclosure. To be honest, you don't want to know.

Jason Hunt  14:41  
Well, in Tim talks about, you know, things that are in the public domain. One of the things one of the short films that he and I put together was an adaptation of the statement of Randolph Carter by HP Lovecraft and those kinds of things, whether it's short films or you do the longer, longer feature length You could adapt those stories, you could do a lot of original programming that's based off of material that's in the public domain. Not only that, but you could do like Tim was saying we do movie night. You could do those showcases where, you know, you could have the little wraparound bookends like Mankiewicz does for for Team C, as well. Here's some trivia about this movie. Now let's watch the movie. And then it comes back. And here's some more trivia about this movie. Thanks for watching, you know, we could do those kinds of things. It basically just requires that we have money. Yeah. So that's, that's the, that's the start of this, this is this is the starting point for all of that.

Thomas Townley  15:43  
Alright, so let's kind of get into brass tacks here. You know, there is nothing given without something given back usually. So what are the benefits that the person who is going to give to this fundraiser is going to it

Jason Hunt  16:02  
well, the the overall and that was one of the things that we had kicked around for a long time because this is not your typical Indiegogo campaign. This is not a graphic novel. It's not a comic book. It's not a it's not a game. So there's actually not a physical product that comes with the transaction. So we had to get a little bit a little creative on on the perks, because the the end result product is something that we're already doing, we're already making these shows we already have the channel in place. This just gives us another another way to do it. So we had to come up with different different ideas for this. So the very basic level is the $3. We call the sticker shock level, everybody who contributes is going to get their name on a on a page on our website that says these people supported our project. And then at the $3 level, there's a there's a final step. That you can put wherever you want to put it on your tablet or your or suitcase or wherever, at the $20 level, you have early access to programming and that can range from, you know, being able to watch behind the scenes as we shoot a show or seeing some different behind the scenes segments that we put together, or you know, advance QA or you could see the show prior to anybody else getting to see it, that sort of thing. at the $30 level, we have the mug, which has our branding on it. And all of these levels are cumulative. So you get the mug you also sticker and you also get the early access. at the $50 level, you've got the T shirt, and then we have to what we call producer level tears. And what this does is it gives people a way to be a part of making our programs so they'll get producer credit either associated A producer depending on the level, and that gives them a credit on our on select numbers of our shows for a select period of time. And, and they, they also get some ability to have a say in some of the topics we've talked about. So, you know, we, for instance, for h2o project, h2o podcast will put together a list here are some different things that we're going to be that we're thinking about talking about. And they'll get to help us narrow it down and suggest topics and tell us some different things that they're interested in hearing us discuss.

Timothy Harvey  18:36  
Or maybe, let me let me jump in there. And one of the things that's important about that, is that the the whole name of here, the sci fi for me, is about science fiction for everybody. Right? So it's the idea that the me is you. And so it's all about our fandom and our relation, you know, our shows and all this stuff. It's it's a conversation. It's supposed to be a comic conversation and things like HTML gives Jason and items to have that conversation in real time. But it's a way for the for the folks who are involved with with reading our site and interacting with us through through the internet, to have that kind of influence with us. And to be able to have that it's another way of having that conversation. It's, it's a, it's a way for the supporters to have an h2o type conversation with us as a production team. As folks were producing this this site. It's a it's obviously not quite the same because you know, oftentimes Jason and I are sitting in the same room having that conversation. I'm not there's that's a different tier level where you get to actually come over, but

Jason Hunt  19:45  
accommodations are all on you.

Timothy Harvey  19:48  
But not to say not to saying that for a reasonable sum of money. I could be a new teacher as

Jason Hunt  19:53  
well and I was looking at because I've been talking to the people who are going to be doing our math Ad we have been talking about a Yeti with our branding on it. And so that's a that's a possible tear that could be coming. I've also got one that we're going to be announcing here soon that is going to be at a at a higher probably at a $200 level. That is going to be a little bit different than what you would normally expect, but I think people will get a kick out of it.

Thomas Townley  20:26  
So okay. Well, so when the when does the fundraiser end?

Jason Hunt  20:32  
Well, as of today, we're recording on Sunday, the seventh there's 25 days left, and we are currently sitting at 8% of our goal and according to the trend. Right now at this, at this juncture, it's projecting that we own that we will only make 35% of our goal at our current rate of support, so

Thomas Townley  21:00  
So, come on people give give till it hurts. Or give till you give till you hurt someone else I guess.

Now, well, tell me about the notes in this with a little, you know, how how's the how well, where am I going with this? The h2o podcast? how, you know, where do you Where do you go from here?

Jason Hunt  21:29  
All over?

Timothy Harvey  21:32  
Well, that actually leads to one of the things that we've been really, really good at doing prior to. Well, prior to the pandemic, obviously, a lot of the cons going away one of the things that we pioneered, that other people are doing now is actually going out to cons and doing live streaming from conventions. We, we did that from Worldcon and everyone said they went This is amazing. We said we know give us somebody more of it. But being able to Being able to take what we're doing and going to other places, I'd love to do h2o. Well, we did h2o from Worldcon to be able to do h2o from around the country and bring more some of this stuff into the into the homes and to the eyes of a lot of fans who can't afford to go to a lot of these places and get can be able to connect them with the creators and the talent who makes the programming they love so much, whether it's books or comics, or film and television, and make that conversation bigger. It's great that Jason and I can have those conversations, one on one with each other. It's always great when we can bring other people into it and make it a bigger conversation. We don't do a lot of roundtable programming right now that we have in the past. It's something we like to do more. Because it's great when Jason and I can talk and because we love some of the same things and we love things that are different. So we have we come from different viewpoints on a lot of things which makes the conversation interesting, but it's always better when you can make that conversation broader. Because different viewpoints.

Jason Hunt  23:02  
Yeah, and we have a number of shows that we've got planned that are in that roundtable format, whether it's talking about the general news of the week or specific things, you know, as far as like Star Wars or Star Trek or Doctor Who, or, or Battlestar Galactica or comic books or anything like that. So there's a lot of potential for the programming and like Tim says, you know, we want to get out into the live the live event space again, as soon as we can, as often as we can. And so, you know, part of that is going to be, you know, making those making those connections with those event organizers. And now that they understand there's value to the virtual streams, the live streams, capitalizing on that in a way that benefits both parties,

Thomas Townley  23:46  
right, and when and where can they find the h2o podcast?

Jason Hunt  23:51  
Live Monday nights at 8pm Central is when the h2o podcast runs, and then we have the rest of the world Programming is pretty much all week, various different episodes for the different shows.

Thomas Townley  24:06  
Alright, Timothy Harvey, Jason hunt. I wish you the best of luck, and I'll see you around the galaxy.

Jason Hunt  24:13  
Appreciate it. Thanks for the time.

Timothy Harvey  24:15  
Yeah, thank you so much.

Thomas Townley  24:17  
All right. Now back to me.

All right.

Again go and head on over to scifi4me.tv to give to their campaign.


The Cinematographer for Denis Villeneuve’s production of Dune is comparing the new production of Dune to Star Wars The Mandalorian. Director of Photography Greg Fraser who has also worked on Rogue ONe and the Mandalorian told Collider how Dune compares to Star Wars saying quote “It was quite fun because I had to forget a lot of Star Wars when I was making Dune,". "It wasn’t hard, though. Denis and I spoke clearly about how the film should look and should feel, and the formats and this and that, so it was not hard to swerve and change lanes. There were some similarities like the deserts. I mean listen, ultimately I’m positive George Lucas was inspired by Dune when he made Star Wars. I don’t know if that’s sacrilegious to talk about, but there are a lot of similarities in some areas, so you could tell he was definitely influenced by that. So I had to be careful doing both [Dune and The Mandalorian] and not to repeat myself. Also not just for the sake of the movie, but for fun. I hate to do the same thing twice.” Dune stars Timothee Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgard, Jason Momoa, Zendaya, Javier Bardem, and Charlotte Rampling. It opens in theaters on December 19th.


Roland Emmerich is bringing another disaster film to theaters. Moonfall sees the moon on a collision course with earth after an unknown force knocks the moon out of orbit. With weeks to impact a team embarks on a do or die mission to land on the moon and save the human race. Patrick Wilson will play a former astronaut whose career ended in disgrace when his last mission ended in tragedy but hold a clue to the disaster, Charlie Plummer plays his Son and Halle Berry plays Patricks’ former co-workers. The movie also features Josh Gad as the person who figures out that the moon is out of orbit. Lionsgate hopes to release the film in 2021.


The Peabody Awards Winners have been announced. The thirty programs selected are quote “the most compelling and empowering stories released in broadcasting and digital media during 2019.”

Here are this year’s 30 Peabody award winners.


ENTERTAINMENT

“Chernobyl”

HBO Miniseries and SKY in association with Sister, The Mighty Mint, and Word Games (HBO)


“David Makes Man”

Page Fright and Outlier Productions in association with Warner Horizon Scripted Television

(OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network)


“Dickinson”

Apple / wiip / Anonymous Content / Tuning Fork Productions / Sugar 23 Productions (Apple TV+)


“Fleabag”

All3Media International Limited and Amazon Studios (Prime Video)


“Ramy”

Hulu, A24 Television (Hulu)


“Stranger Things”

Monkey Massacre Productions & 21 Laps Entertainment (Netflix)


“Succession”

HBO Entertainment in association with Project Zeus, Hyperobject Industries, and Gary Sanchez Productions (HBO)


“Unbelievable”

Timberman-Beverly Productions, Sage Lane Productions, Escapist Fare, Katie Couric Media, and CBS Television Studios for Netflix (Netflix)


“Watchmen”

HBO in association with White Rabbit, Paramount, Warner Bros. Television and DC (HBO)


“When They See Us”

Participant Media, Tribeca Productions, Harpo Films, Array Filmworks for Netflix (Netflix)


DOCUMENTARIES

“Apollo 11”

CNN Films (CNN)


“For Sama”

FRONTLINE PBS, Channel 4 News, ITN Productions, Channel 4 (PBS)



“Independent Lens: HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING”

A production of Idiom Film, LLC and Louverture Films, in association with Field of Vision (PBS)


“POV: Inventing Tomorrow”

Fishbowl Films, Motto Pictures, 19340 Productions, Shark Island Institute, HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, IQ190 Productions, American Documentary | POV (PBS)


“POV: Midnight Traveler”

Old Chilly Pictures LLC, American Documentary | POV, Independent Television Service (PBS)


“POV: The Distant Barking of Dogs”

Final Cut for Real, Mouka Filmi, STORY, Bayerischer Rundfunk, ARTE, American Documentary | POV (PBS)


“POV: The Silence of Others”

Semilla Verde Productions, Lucernam Films, American Documentary | POV, Independent Television Service, Latino Public Broadcasting, El Deseo (PBS)


“Surviving R. Kelly”

Bunim/Murray Productions and Kreativ Inc. for Lifetime (Lifetime)


“The Edge of Democracy”

A Busca Vida Filmes Production in association with Violet Films for Netflix (Netflix)


“True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight for Equality”

HBO Documentary Films and Kunhardt Films (HBO)


PODCAST/RADIO

“Dolly Parton’s America”

Osm Audio and WNYC Studios (WNYC)


“Have You Heard George’s Podcast?”

BBC Sounds/George the Poet Ltd. (BBC Sounds)


“In the Dark: The Path Home”

American Public Media (APM Reports)


“Threshold: The Refuge”

(Auricle Productions)


NEWS

“A Different Kind of Force: Policing Mental Illness”

(NBC News)


“American Betrayal”

NBC News, Engel Unit (NBC/MSNBC)


“Long Island Divided”

(Newsday)


“The Hidden Workforce: Undocumented in America”

(CNN)


“Unwarranted”

(WBBM-TV)


CHILDREN’S & YOUTH

“Molly of Denali”

WGBH Educational Foundation, Atomic Cartoons (PBS Kids


What we do in the Shadows will have to do season three without writer and actor Jemaine Clement. Clement told Entertainment Weekly quote "The writers will have to figure that one out because I won't be in the writers' room next season," Clement told EW. "I'm leaving them with this big problem to work out. I think it's a good idea to end on a big cliffhanger, we did the same thing last season. Now they can figure out how to get out of this big mess." unquote and don’t expect him to appear again next season quote "You can't expect that!" Clement said of his theoretical return in later seasons. "I wasn't even going to do this until the day before, because we had trouble getting anyone in time. We were hoping we'd get someone who has played a vampire before, like in 'The Trial' last season with the vampire council, but we didn't have enough time. So I happened to be in Toronto, where we shoot the show, so I put my wig on again, but it wasn't planned." unquote 


More movie shifting news, Warner Bros. has announced that Godzilla vs Kong will be moving from this Thanksgiving to May 21st, 2021. This in turn is causing The Matrix 4 to be moved from May 21, 2021 to April Fools day 2022. The Witches remake has also been delisted and the Tom & Jerry movie is going from December 23rd, 2020 to may 21, 2021 and finally the next James bond movie, No Time to Die has actually been moved up by five days to November 20, 2020.


Mad Magazine's legendary artist Al Jaffee has announced his retirement at the ripe old age of 99 after a 56-year career, this officially makes him the longest working comic artist in history. So to mark his farewell, Mad Magazine will salute Jaffee with a special tribute issue, one of the last to feature new material it will include Als final Fold-In, 65 years after he first made his Mad Magazine debut. Congratulations to Al, enjoy your retirement, no matter what length it may be. 



Tonight we say goodbye to actor Anthony James. Mister James was a prolific actor. Known for his tall, lanky appearance and his pockmarked face. He had an intense screen presence. He was born on July 2nd, 1942 as James Anthony moved to LA when he was eighteen. And made his first on-screen appearance in an episode of the 1966 NBC series T.H.E. Cat. He has appeared in episodes of The Big Valley, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Hawaii Five-O, The mod squad, Police Story, Charlie's Angels, Starsky and Hutch, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Knight Rider, V, Riptide, The A-Team and many more.  He will be known to Star Trek fans for his guest appearance in the first season episode The Neutral Zone as Sub Commander Thei. He also appeared in the movies Naked Gun 2 1/2  The Smell of Fear and Unforgiven. He passed away at the age of 77 after a battle with cancer.


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