400 (PPM) Blows.

“The news that CO2 is near 400 ppm for the first time highlights a question that scientists have been investigating using a variety of methods: when was the last time that CO2 levels were this high, and what was the climate like back then?…By drilling for ice cores and analyzing the air bubbles, scientists have found that, at no point during at least the past 800,000 years have atmospheric CO2 levels been as high as they are now.”

Carbon concentration in the atmosphere veers dangerously close to the dubious milestone of 400 part per million. (The revised reading came out at 399.89.) “For the previous 800,000 years, CO2 levels never exceeded 300 ppm, and there is no known geologic period in which rates of increase have been so sharp. The level was about 280 ppm at the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, when the burning of fossil fuels began to soar.”

The Worlds’ Ender.

In the trailer bin, Asa Butterfield gets trained for interstellar war by a grizzled Harrison Ford and a tattooed Ben Kingsley in the first trailer for Gavin Hood’s adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, also with Hailee Steinfeld, Viola Davis, and Abigail Breslin. Eh, seems a bit big and busy for this particular book, but I guess Ford should gets his reps in before Episode VII.

Meanwhile, Simon Pegg’s plan to get the lads together for a pint or twelve is muddled by an altogether different alien invasion in the first trailer for Edgar Wright’s The World’s End, closing out the trilogy started by Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Along for the ride: Nick Frost (naturally), Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan, David Bradley, and Rosamund Pike. I’m in.

Update: Another arrival today: Paul Greengrass of Bloody Sunday and United 93 dramatizes another bad day on Earth in the first trailer for Captain Phillips, a.k.a. the true story of Somali pirates vs. the MV Maersk Alabama, with Tom Hanks, Catherine Keener, Max Martini, Yul Vazquez, Michael Chernus, Chris Mulkey, Corey Johnson, David Warshofsky, John Magaro and Angus MacInnes.

Update 2: Also in this week’s queue, a red-band trailer for The Coens’ Inside Llewyn Davis, based on the memoirs of Dave Von Ronk and starring Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake, Garret Hedlund, F. Murray Abraham, and John Goodman. To be honest, this is barely indistinguishable from the one making the rounds in January, but I’m not averse to double-posting for the Coens.

And finally, Sandra Bullock and George Clooney experience mechanical difficulties at the ISS — er…was ammonia involved? — in the first teaser for Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity. I’ve been looking forward to this one for awhile, but I gotta say, all the noisy explosions in space vex me. It’d be a much more powerful trailer if you couldn’t hear any of that.

Mighty Ray Young.

“Harryhausen’s fascination with animated models began when he first saw Willis O’Brien’s creations in KING KONG with his boyhood friend, the author Ray Bradbury in 1933, and he made his first foray into filmmaking in 1935 with home-movies that featured his youthful attempts at model animation.”

“Ray has been a great inspiration to us all in special visual industry. The art of his earlier films, which most of us grew up on, inspired us so much.” “Without Ray Harryhausen, there would likely have been no STAR WARS” — George Lucas.

“THE LORD OF THE RINGS is my ‘Ray Harryhausen movie.’ Without his life-long love of his wondrous images and storytelling it would never have been made – not by me at least.” — Peter Jackson

“What we do now digitally with computers, Ray did digitally long before but without computers. Only with his digits.” — Terry Gilliam.

“I think all of us who are practioners in the arts of science fiction and fantasy movies now all feel that we’re standing on the shoulders of a giant. If not for Ray’s contribution to the collective dreamscape, we wouldn’t be who we are.” — James Cameron

The Master stops motion: R.I.P. Ray Harryhausen, 1920-2013.

Things I’ve Learned from the Archives, 2003-04

Hello all. Even though the Ghost has been silent over the past fortnight, I’ve been continuing to bang around on the insides over that time. As I said back in early March, I’ve been working on repairing and improving the post-Geocities archives around here — although, since it’s taken me all of two months to re-categorize and tag the 2004 posts, I kinda wish I hadn’t started this little project.

But, oh well. It’ll be grand once it’s all completed. And to be fair, I’ve also fixed the less post-intensive 2010-2013 period since the last update, so perhaps the next few sections will go faster. (Only five more years to go…) In any case, things I’ve recently (re-)learned:

Howard Dean is a total lockity-lock for the 2004 Democratic nomination.

Ok, never mind that. But with five months before Election Day, John Kerry is up by 11 over Dubya. Hey, he’s totally going to win this thing. Hope is on the way! It’ll be a landslide, a new progressive era. (That is, unless the swift boat on the horizon and the terror terror terror somehow flip the script…D’oh.)

Election 2004 post-mortem: “[O]ur standard-bearers now appear to be Hillary Clinton (about whom the country has already made up its mind), John Edwards (whom I still admire, but he couldn’t carry his home state), and Barack Obama (who’s probably too inexperienced to make much headway in 2008.)”

Now it’s all said and done, this post was right — Frodo was likely getting a PhD.

Darren Aronofsky is making Batman: Year One or Lone Wolf and Cub. Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman are making a horror movie. Shekhar Kapur is directing Arthur C. Clarke’s Foundation. Stephen Soderbergh is making The Fantastic Four. Michael Mann is making a film about the Battle of Britain. Bryan Singer is re-making Logan’s Run. Chris Columbus is making Namor. Quentin Tarantino is making a low-budget Casino Royale with Pierce Brosnan. Joe Carnahan is making Mission: Impossible 3 with Kenneth Branagh, Carrie-Ann Moss, and Scarlett Johansson. John Woo is making Metroid and/or He-Man. Michael Bay is making Superman.

The debt ceiling hijinx, the Budget Control Act, the sequesters — It has all been proceeding to plan.

Jean Claude Van Damme will be playing Steve McQueen in a remake of The Great Escape. Matt Damon will be playing the Sub-Mariner. John Cusack will be playing Nite-Owl in Watchmen.

Maciej Lampe is the future of the New York Knickerbockers. And there was a time when Isiah Thomas’s tenure as GM seemed bright.

Chuck Hagel and Lindsey Graham saw the GOP’s current predicament coming a long time ago.

Star Wars Episode III will be subtitled “The Creeping Fear”.

The cast for Chris Nolan’s Batman Begins will apparently include Viggo Mortensen (as either Ras al Ghul or Rachel’s dad), Chris Cooper (as Commissioner Gordon), and Cillian Murphy…as Harvey Dent.

This site not only used to have more readers. It even used to get hate mail.