Re: TANSTAAFL

On Thu, 2 Dec 1999, Alan E and Carmel J Brain wrote:

> Nyrath the nearly wise wrote:
> 
> >	    Actually, I believe the basis for those mass drivers
> >	    can be found in the much older novel
> >	    THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS by Robert Heinlein.
> 
> this is
> a book that really deserves to have someone of the calibre of Stanley
> Kubrick or JMS make a movie out of it. Finding an outstandingly
> talented, Black, One-armed actor who can speak fluent Russian,
Cantonese
> and Australian English to play a lead role won't be easy though. And
the
> minigravity SFX would be a right pain, even Kubrick didn't attempt it
in
> the lunar scenes of 2001.  

a while back, wired magazine came out with a futurological 'scenarios'
supplement full of adverts (hey, this is wired after all); in there were
also a few good articles. one was a set of future newspaper front pages
(well, news site index pages, anyway), and one of the stories that
cropped
up was news of the production of 'Harsh', a film of this book. it was
directed and starred in by Macaulay Culkin (remember him?), co-starred
Oprah Winfrey Jr, suffered from amazing budget overruns, scandals and
infights and led to debate over whether the CGI or on-location orbital
scenes are more realistic. oh, and is was a remake of Kevin Costner's
1999
version ...

sometimes, just sometimes, wired delivers the goods.

tom