Gossip Central

Rory Kennedy Premieres her NASA Documentary for Sarasota Film Festival’s Awesome Closing Night

Planet Earth was the star of the Sarasota Film Festival’s closing night film, Rory Kennedy’s Above and Beyond: NASA’s Journey to Tomorrow, just in time for Earth Day. Following up on an aspirational speech given by her uncle, President John F. Kennedy, about going to the moon at Rice University, Kennedy’s documentary tells the history of NASA from the ‘60’s to the present, how space, the planets, and the universe, have been explored and what scientists have learned about the Earth. David Bowie may sing his query, Is there life on Mars? And the answer is still looking for signs. For sure, the Earth is vulnerable. Global warming is irrefutable. Following the screening, a panel featuring Kennedy, Mark Bailey, her husband and the film’s producer, and scientist Dr. Ellen Stofan answered questions about the possibilities of life beyond our planet, and the excitement of continued exploration. What about space tourism?

An Enigma Wrapped in Inhumanity: The Imitation Games’ Algebra of Need

The story of a brilliant man, Alan Turing, brought to suicide after being disgraced for being gay, the movie The Imitation Game reflects the sexual politics of a bygone era. In the midcentury, homosexuality was a disease that could be cured, and surprisingly in the US Bible belt, some believe that canard today. In this riveting if conventional movie, directed by Morten Tyldum from Graham Moore’s screenplay, Benedict Cumberbatch plays Turing’s stunning mental power, bungling social grace, and naievete so compellingly, his demise at age 41 supplies an added irony to the history of his work in cracking the Nazi enigma code, using a machine that would be a forebear to the modern computer. But with all of his mind-bending intelligence, he lacked the resources to survive society’s ignorance.