Buckaroo Banzai: An Inspiration for Your New Year Resolutions

The ultimate overachiever, Buckaroo Banzai, a neurosurgeon/scientist/multi-dimensional traveler/adventurer/samurai/rock musician, teaches us many lessons that will aid us in our new year‘s quest to better ourselves.  In the 1984 cult classic, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, Buckaroo teaches us that (1) learning, whether its science or music, is even more fun and exciting when doing it with a rat pack comprised of your best buddies, (2) being a Renaissance man or a polymath never goes out of style and learning about a variety of different subjects can increase your creativity and ingenuity in all your fields of study, and (3) following your passions, such as making music, inspires great minds to achieve greater dimensions.  

I don’t know how I missed this classic movie, but it has a star-studded cast including Peter Weller, Robocop, Jeff Goldblum, Jurassic Park & Independence Day,  Christopher Lloyd, Back to the Future, and John Lithgow, Third Rock From the Sun.  Despite its cult following, fans are still waiting for a sequel or a television series.

Here’s to following your passions in 2011!

Being Human- Should Be Called Been Human, Done Human in the UK

The BBC original series Being Human is a heart-warming tale of a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost who just happen to be roommates trying to make it in the big bad world.  Now the recently renamed SyFy channel (personally, not digging the re-branding of the SciFi Channel although I do love a number of SyFy original series) is re-making Being Human in a U.S. friendly format.  It is not clear to me why the perfectly charming and at times dark and moody British version of the series needs to be translated into an American English version.  The SyFy original series premieres Monday, Jan. 17 at 9pm ET/PT on the SyFy Channel.  However, season three of the BBC’s Being Human will likely also premiere in January as well as a new spin-off online series Becoming Human commissioned by Sarah Clay, BBC Multiplatform Drama Commissioner. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/beinghuman/2010/10/new_series_becoming_human.html. I’m not clairvoyant, but I have a feeling that there is a ghost of a chance that the new SyFy version of Being Human is little more than an apparition of its UK version.  That aside, I am a fan of Sam Witwer (Smallville) and am glad to see him in a lead role as a hot-blooded vampire and lady-killer (in every sense of the word).