Steeltown Film Factory Script Competition Kickoff

Over the last few years, the kickoff for the Steeltown Film Factory Script Competition has gone from an informal meeting to an event at the Regent Square Cinema where this year's winner was shown. This year's winter was a charming script called "My Date with Adam," a science fictional rom com.

If you're interested in entering a short script, read the rules and write a script. The early bird deadline is 12/15.

In addition to talking to other finalists from this year, Carl Kurlander mentioned two upcoming feature films that will be shot here in the not too distant future:

• The Last Witch Hunter, starring Vin Diesel
• The Chair, a project being developed by producer Chris Moore

Why Science Fiction Movie Fans Should Go See Ender's Game

I don't like homophobes. I've marched with gay people multiple times and have been helping to fight for marriage equity.

So why in the world will I be going to see Ender's Game on opening night? It was written by Orson Scott Card who's become quite anti-Muslim, anti-gay and who's fighting gay marriage.

But, as a younger writer, Card wrote movingly about tolerance and acceptance of all kinds, in several books including Ender's Game. Many readers remembered this, and one of them, Rany Jazayerli, wrote a terrific essay on how important the book Ender's Game was to him while growing up.

I completely agree with the article. That's an awful lot that Orson Scott Card, the writer, used to understand about tolerance that he's completely lost sight of as he's gotten older.

I really enjoyed the book, have read generally good reviews of the movie and will go tonight. Normally, I do boycott homophobic movies/TV shows, but while Ender's Game was written by a homophobe the theme of the book is anything but (and the movie apparently shares this quality). As a movie fan, I want to support good science fiction movies, in hopes of seeing more movies like Gravity or Ender's Game and fewer movies starring comic book heroes or supernatural horror.

I will make a donation to a LBGTQ charity today to acknowledge OSC's homophobia. This idea came from a friend and it's spot-on. I went to Charity Navigator (which ranks charities) and gave $30 to the Human Rights Campaign Foundation and said the donation was made because "Orson Scott Card's homophobia raised this money."

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11/2/2013

I've seen Ender's Game, generally liked it and would give it a 7 on the IMDB scale.

I hadn't read Ender's Game in about 25 years so seeing the movie was fascinating. In many ways, the movie felt more like a post-9/11 movie given the societal paranoia the movie makes clear (and seeing the movie made me remember the book much more clearly). While the movie is flawed (Harrison Ford's part was both written and acted oddly), it's definitely worth seeing. Asa Butterworth as Ender was excellent and the effects are very, very good. People who want the movie to do badly at the box office are making a point that it's a bad movie, which it is not.