Museum’s new Final Fridays program explores intersection of science and cinema, begins Aug. 26
For immediate release ‐ August 11, 2016
Contact: Jon Pishney, 919.707.8083. Images available upon request
RALEIGH — Friday night programming at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is back with new movies, programs, food, and a new name — Final Fridays! Do zombies exist? Are there really 40-foot-long anacondas? Did old sci-fi movies get anything right about the 21st Century? On Final Fridays, you’re invited to come explore the often wacky intersection between science and cinema!
Join us Friday, August 26 for the inaugural Final Friday, “Science-Fiction Night: The Future Is Not as Good as It Used to Be.” The 1960s … a decade that brought us mop tops, Woodstock, and the invention of AstroTurf. It was also a decade defined by excitement about the future, culminating in 1969 with the first lunar landing, and a quietly released short film from Philco-Ford called “Year 1999 AD,” that attempted to portray what life on the brink of the 21st Century might look like. The short film features actress Marj Dusay, who played Kara in the “Star Trek” episode “Spock’s Brain,” as well as a young Wink Martindale. At this first installment of Final Fridays we’ll explore what the film got right and wrong, and the difficulties in predicting future technology and culture.
We will be joined by science-fiction author Dr. John Kessel, who will give a presentation at 7pm prior to the movie. Kessel is a professor of creative writing and American literature at NC State University. A winner of the Nebula Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Award, the Locus Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the James Tiptree Jr. Award, his books include “Good News from Outer Space,” “Corrupting Dr. Nice” and “The Pure Product.” His story collection, “Meeting in Infinity,” was named a notable book of 1992 by the New York Times Book Review, and Kim Stanley Robinson has called “Corrupting Dr. Nice” “the best time travel novel ever written.” With James Patrick Kelly he edited the anthologies “Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology”; “Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology”; and most recently, “The Secret History of Science Fiction.” His recent collection “The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories” contains the 2008 Nebula-Award-winning story “Pride and Prometheus.”
Representatives from the Chapel Hill Brain Center and RTP Virtual Reality will host interactive science stations that will help you train your brain to be more focused and let you experience virtual reality using an Oculus Rift headset, from 6 to 7pm.
Final Fridays will take place on the last Friday of each month. A/V Geeks’ Skip Elsheimer returns to provide a fun night of trivia and tongue-in-cheek commentary on not-so-mainstream movies as well as samples from his vault of 24,000 films. Movies will be complemented by experts and hands-on science stations related to each night’s theme. Dinner (such as sliders or tacos), drinks (including NC beer and wine) and popcorn will be available to buy before the show. Doors open at 6pm, movies and presentations begin at 7pm. Admission: $5/person. For more information, a list of future Final Fridays, or to buy tickets, visit naturalsciences.org/finalfridays.