The filmmaker who made Arnold Schwarzenegger a household name in the 1977 film "Pumping Iron" is making an IMAX documentary about NASA's dual rover mission to Mars. George Butler previewed his project here Tuesday at Flight School 05 and PC Forum, a combined meeting of top space industry officials and entrepreneurs as well as leaders in the tech industry. Several people in the small audience expressed awe at both the mission's scope and the telling of the story in the film, titled "Mars."

If NASA is ever able to put a man on the moon again, or on Mars, it's very likely that the agency will owe a bit of thanks to a small Maryland video-game developer. In recent months, Vision Videogames has been putting the finishing touches on SpaceStationSim, a game timed for publication when the next space shuttle launches, supposedly this spring. As its title suggests, the game lets players pretend they're astronauts on the International Space Station in a 3-D, simulated environment. But pure fantasy this is not. In fact, Vision Videogames designed the game using technical specifications from NASA as part of a Space Act agreement. And now the company is under contract to play a crucial role in the development of the crew exploration vehicles, or CEVs, that could someday prowl around the moon or Mars.

Frank Buss writes "A new challenge: Mars Rescue Mission. Have fun! Now you can win real prizes."

The Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame will celebrate Halloween with a new exhibit that explores H.G. Wells' 1898 classic novel, The War of the Worlds. Through dozens of book editions, radio and film adaptations, and even a musical, The War of the Worlds continues to amaze us more than a century after its first publication.

Millions of panic-stricken Americans clogged the roads, loaded guns and hid in cellars 66 years ago as news spread of a Martian invasion. Mass hysteria gripped parts of New Jersey and New York on Oct. 30, 1938 when Orson Welles broadcasted a radio drama of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds" reset in the actual U.S. town of Grover's Mill. While the same mass hysteria is not expected this Oct. 30, GhostLight Productions is hoping to scare scores of people with their live onstage recreation of the infamous radio play at Heard-Craig Hall.

While a team of aerospace engineers takes aim this week on the $10 million Ansari X Prize competition for privately developed suborbital spaceflight, a Nevada millionaire is planning an even loftier contest. Robert Bigelow, chief of Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace, is apparently setting higher goals for private spaceflight endeavors with America's Space Prize, a $50 million race to build an orbital vehicle capable of carrying up to seven astronauts to an orbital outpost by the end of the decade, according to Aviation Week and Space Technology. Bigelow told Aviation Week that not only would Space Prize winners secure the $50 million purse, half of which he's putting up himself, but also snag options to service inflatable space habitats under development by Bigelow Aerospace.

The Bigelow Aerospace project to privately develop inflatable Earth-orbit space modules is beginning to integrate diverse U.S. and European technologies into subscale and full-scale inflatable test modules and subsystems at the company's heavily guarded facilities here. While much public attention is focused on the massive International Space Station (ISS), Bigelow has quietly become a mini-Skunk Works for the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC). Ongoing technical assistance to Bigelow from JSC is focused on helping the company spawn development of orbiting commercial inflatable modules by the end of the decade, with the possibility of JSC later using the Bigelow technology for inflatable modules on the Moon or Mars.

Pendragon Pictures proudly announces the completion of principal photography of H.G. WELLS' THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. Set in Wells' intended turn-of-the-century English locale, the movie is the world's first authentic adaptation of the H.G. Wells classic 1898 novel. The live-action production, lensed in tight security under the cover title THE GREAT BOER WAR, took two and a half months to complete on location in England and the Pacific Northwest. The picture wrapped almost three years to the date when Pendragon's original updated version of WAR OF THE WORLDS was shut down due to the events of September 11th. Director Timothy Hines reflects, "We never stopped really. After an initial two-week hiatus, we saw the light in adapting a dead-on accurate version of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS from the original source material.

A major sensation was caused at the convention by the announcement by award-winning filmmaker Sam Burbank that he would be making a theatrical motion picture based on Robert Zubrin's novel "First Landing." Listing the various Hollywood horror pictures or shoot-em- ups nominally featuring Mars, Burbank drew a sharp distinction between those efforts and the kind of movie "First Landing" will be. There never has been a movie actually about the human exploration of Mars. This will be the first." Burbank said, adding: "It will not be set in the glorious science fiction future, but in our own time, and it will show the mission done with all the grungy realism of the kind of space travel we can really do. It's not going to show the Mars mission as being easy. It's not going to show it as being impossible. It's going to show it as being really tough, but doable, by a group of people who have what it takes to do it."

When NASA foots the bill for producing a video game about colonizing Mars, there are rules. “No explosions and no dead people,” says University of Montana computer science professor Joel Henry. “Not even harmed people.” Last year, the University of Montana received a $51,000 grant for students to design, write, code and record audio for an educational video game about Mars for 12- to 18-year-olds. Henry believes he knows why NASA prohibited explosions: “I’m pretty sure that [decision] was politically motivated.” Despite the limitations on graphics, the team of nearly 30 computer science, English and media arts students completed Mars: The Journey Begins early this summer.

The NASA rover that landed on Mars this year has found Inuit colonists living on Mars! At least, that's according to the August 2, 2004 cover story of the tabloid, the Weekly World News, that shows a family of Inuit dressed in fur and eating country food on Mars — all with large alien eyes. The article says NASA's Spirit Rover has sent back photos of "an Eskimo-like tribe living at the north pole of Mars" with 187 people living in Martian homes that look like igloos.

Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise will bring the classic H.G. Wells alien-invasion novel, "The War of the Worlds", to the big screen, with Cruise expected to star, according to Variety magazine. The movie version has been accelerated onto a fast track, with only 10 weeks of pre-production scheduled before the film goes into shooting later this year. DreamWorks and Paramount are co-financing "War of the Worlds" which is expected to cost around or over $100 million --with both Cruise and Spielberg opting out of fees in favor of a share of the gross. "War" is now on track for a November start date and a 2005 release.

Four years of waiting, breathless previews, tantalizing glimpses. Not to mention delays from id Software, in which its typical message was: It'll be done when it's done. It's hard to overstate the anticipation for "Doom 3" or the impact of the series, especially in light of attempts in recent years to establish a causal link between violence in video games and reality. The addictive 1993 original popularized the first-person shooter genre, became one of the all-time best-selling computer games and helped propel the Mesquite, Texas-based company, which also makes the "Wolfenstein" and "Quake" games, to net revenues of $948 million in the past fiscal year.

Kerry Conran (Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow) is in line to helm Alphaville's SF adventure-action movie A Princess of Mars for Paramount, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Conran entered the picture after former Princess director Robert Rodriguez resigned from the Directors Guild of America earlier this year, making him ineligible to direct the Paramount movie.

Now, the granddaddy of all alien invasion tales will be adapted for a second big-screen treatment (the first was in 1953, starring Les Tremayne and Gene Barry). And who better than to put his name on a big-budget special effects extravaganza than the master himself, Steven Spielberg? The eminent director of such modern classics as Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan and Minority Report will team with Really Big Star Tom Cruise to bring the film to the big screen. Currently, Spielberg is expected to join Cruise in producing the film. It is anticipated that Cruise will also take the starring role. The two will be expected to settle on a production start date once screenwriter David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Spider-Man, Secret Window) delivers an acceptable script.

A group of mice will be trained and sent off the planet in 2006 to help pave the way for a human visit to Mars. This is a serious space project by US-Australian scientists. But before the rodents rocket away from earth, a Chinese company will create a sci-fi cartoon based on their interstellar adventures. "The Mouse Tronaut" is the first cartoon based on a real space project, designated to bring a hi-tech and adventurous feel to young audiences in China.

Horror movie about Martians invading earth to grow their "Gargon Herd" (actually a lobster). The hero realizing that there is intelligent life on Earth decides to warn us. Eventually he sacrifices himself to destroy the incoming herds of Gargon's and save Earth. Come see this amazing film. But you get to change the plot! Thanks to Twisted Flicks, you can decide what happens. Make the teenagers German! Make the hero a Microsoft employee! Your suggestions make it a different movie every night. All dialog, sound effects and music will be performed live by the Twisted Flicks cast.

Call it an invasion for Mars. Aerospace groups are planning a blitz next week to visit more than 200 members of Congress to push for funding for President Bush's proposal to return man to the Moon, then go to Mars and beyond. Among the ringleaders is former astronaut and senator Jake Garn, R-Utah, although he personally will not be part of the visits because of speaking engagements in Utah. Garn is chairman of Global Space Travelers, one of 20 aerospace organizations that have decided to band together for what it calls the Moon-Mars Blitz from July 11-13, 2004.

Friday marked the opening of the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. It's located in Seattle at the foot of the Space Needle. Billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen built the 13,000 square-foot museum next-door to his Experience Music Project. The featured exhibit at the museum is "The Changing Face Of Mars: the past, present, and future of the "Martians" and their red planet."

Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: Infestation from Mars is the brainchild of Elliott Haimoff, the film's executive producer, who is a tropical biologist and maker of science documentaries. Mr. Haimoff credits producer Barbara Sharp, a former area resident, with persuading him to film his latest project in northwest Ohio. Kerstin Khalfani, a bodybuilder and actress, plays Eve II, a Martian who takes over the body of a local housewife and terrorizes the town, sucking the brains from unsuspecting humans.

Universal Pictures has optioned the film rights to the Doom SF video-game franchise for producers Lorenzo di Bonaventura and John Wells, Variety reported. Enda McCallion is attached to make his directorial debut, the trade paper reported.

Lubinsky is contracted by BBCWA separately and directly in the United States to produce and edit the Tom Baker special featurettes of the original 98 Tom Baker episodes that had Howard Da Silva's narrations exclusively for the US market. For Pyramids of Mars, it's all eight original introductions and recaps as recorded by Da Silva in 1978. Lubinsky used old off-air Beta 1 and VHS sound recordings from when WOR New York first aired Doctor Who with these segments. Lubinsky cleaned up, eq'd and matched the original off-air sound recordings with the new DigiBeta clone restored footage and effects wipes. He even recreated the actual font used to credit Da Silva at the end of each of the four episodes, and put this all together for the Pyramids Of Mars DVD's Region 1 release.

IGN FilmForce has confirmed that Robert Rodriguez is no longer the director of Paramount's A Princess of Mars (a.k.a. John Carter of Mars). We were tipped off earlier today that he wasn't going to be directing and that his decision was final. Rodriguez's reps at ICM have confirmed that the Spy Kids filmmaker has indeed departed the Paramount/Alphaville project.

Arguably the world's most lovable band, THE FLAMING LIPS will co-headline this year's Lollapalooza Festival. The 2-day event will feature The Lips on the main stage on the 2nd day, just before String Cheese Incident. THE FLAMING LIPS are nearing completion of their oft-mentioned Sci-Fi movie "CHRISTMAS ON MARS," which will be released this December. The feature-length film was written and directed by Wayne Coyne and The Lips, and features band members, family, friends and a few celebrity cameos in the cast.

A rocket ride to Mars is bringing tourists back into the orbit of Disney's Epcot theme park. “Mission: Space,” a simulated voyage to the red planet, opened seven months ago in Disney's second-oldest Florida park, and the results have been out of this world.

NASA's March 23 announcement of evidence of the past presence of "a body of gently flowing saltwater" on Mars is big news for America, and giant news for seafood fans. In January, Long John Silver's offered to give America free Giant Shrimp if NASA found conclusive evidence of an ocean on Mars. To celebrate the success of NASA's Mars Rover project, the company is going to give America free Giant Shrimp on Monday, May 10, 2004.

On the anniversary of the day Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth in 1961, more than 100 students, space addicts and self-described sci-fi fanatics gathered at the top of the Space Needle for a night of celebration in the Soviet cosmonaut's honor. The local event was the brainchild of Graylan Vincent, who graduated from UW with a bachelor's degree in geology and aeronautical and astronautical engineering last quarter. Vincent first heard of the global celebrations of Yuri's Night from a colleague at NASA, where he worked last summer.

Robert Rodriguez's resignation from the Directors Guild of America has jeopardized Paramount's development of its adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic SF book A Princess of Mars, Variety reported. The director of Spy Kids quit the union so he could co-direct Sin City with Frank Miller, who created, wrote and illustrated the three-book graphic novel series on which that movie is based, the trade paper reported. (Guild rules do not permit such "co-directing" credits.)

In recent decades a few popular artists have penned songs with at least vague space themes: “Major Tom” by David Bowie and Elton John’s “Rocket Man” come to mind. The 1982 Rush album “Signals” included “Countdown”, a song inspired by the band’s visit to Cape Canaveral to watch the first shuttle launch. In addition, in the last several years Elaine Walker, both solo and with her band, Zia, have recorded several albums devoted almost exclusively to space topics (including a CD of “space elevator music”). However, in general spaceflight is a topic generally overlooked in nearly all music genres, from country to rap to pop. (Sorry, but Britney Spears prancing around in a spacesuit for the video of “Oops, I Did It Again” doesn’t really count.) In an effort to fill this void comes “To Touch the Stars” ($15.97), a compilation of 17 songs about space exploration released recently by Prometheus Music.

A rocket ride to the red planet is bringing tourists back into the orbit of Disney's Epcot theme park. Mission: Space, a simulated voyage to Mars heavy on G-forces and "gee-whiz," opened six months ago in Disney's second-oldest park, and the results have been out of this world. Emphasizing the attendance boom was the sea of people watching Tuesday as Disney honored NASA's two Mars rovers, currently rolling atop the martian rocks and dirt.

For the past few years, all eyes in Hollywood have been squarely focused on the portly figure of Peter Jackson. His creation of a multi-billion earning trilogy is a feat for the ages, and one that will keep New Line accountants smiling for years to come. Such success inevitably leads to coypcat behavior as competing studios look to create their own cash cows. That makes every existing established literary franchise a potential gold mine for someone. Paramount Pictures is not normally known as a financially adventurous studio. After the disappointment of the Tomb Raider sequel, many observers expected the studio to grow even more fiscally conservative. Oops. Paramount is spending over $100 million to ignite a new potential franchise, and it's not exactly a Harry Potter situation.

Harry Knowles, creator of the Ain't It Cool News Web site, will co-produce the upcoming SF movie Princess of Mars for Paramount Pictures, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Knowles will join a production team that already includes director Robert Rodriguez, his wife Elizabeth Avellan, Jim Jacks and Sean Daniel.

First water, then methane... what else will we find on Mars?

To save you some time and effort ... this review is for dyed-in-the-wool film buffs. No one else, you see, will ever understand or appreciate a film such as "Destination Mars." And more's the pity, since this 2002 spoof is one fun film. However, you do need to be intimately acquainted with the films of Ed Wood Jr. and of the naive science-fiction flicks of the '50s to get the point of the whole thing.

If a few still pictures from the Mars rovers can capture the nation's attention, imagine what a high-definition video -- compiled by a supercomputer, projected onto a 36-foot screen, with 50 times the detail of any previous image -- will do to the minds of school kids. It could very well blow the doors off, if Tuesday's unveiling at the Mars Center at NASA Ames Research Center near Mountain View was any indication.

Daniel Maas is the film-maker that first brought animation to the Spirit and Opportunity rovers' launch, landing and driving. His video required four years of research to achieve eight minutes of realism in high-definition. Maas described what it meant to join the Cornell team that landed on Mars.

The IMAX Corporation today, in association with Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks, and aerospace technology leader Lockheed Martin Corporation, announced a new IMAX® 3-D space film, which will take moviegoers to the moon and allow them to walk side-by-side with the brave astronauts of the Apollo program. IMAX will produce "Magnificent Desolation" along with Hanks' and Gary Goetzman's production company Playtone.

Variety and The Hollywood Reporter have confirmed that Paramount Pictures has tapped Spy Kids director Robert Rodriguez to helm the $100+ million adaptation of A Princess of Mars, part of Edgar Rice Burroughs' 11-volume series of John Carter sci-fi novels. Variety points out that the film – which will hopefully spawn a franchise – may ultimately be titled John Carter of Mars.

Soft drink maker Pepsi have taken notice of the recent Mars craze and produced a TV spot about a scientist monitoring a Mars rover's travels, who becomes so engrossed in his Diet Pepsi, that he misses a bunch of Martians jack it up on cement blocks and try and steal its wheels.

Robert Rodriguez is a busy fellow these days. Hot on the heels of the announcement last week that he'll be adapting Frank Miller's graphic novel Sin City for the big screen comes word that he's also signed on to A Princess of Mars. Variety reports that the project, a version of author Edgar Rice Burroughs' first novel, is expected to be a big-budget flick ($100 million) thanks to CGI, with the Lord of the Rings series mentioned as a parallel. Paramount Pictures is hoping to develop it into a franchise.

Academy Award winning film director, James Cameron, takes a tour through a human mission to Mars. His commissioned renderings of the Mars Design Reference Mission illustrate how a quarter billion miles away, a crew and cargo will meet up to build and fuel their future habitat.

Fans of suspense adventures will soon learn the end of a story that started a long time ago -- last year, at the very least. In the imagination, decades -- if not centuries. Another American spacecraft is due to land on Mars tonight. Sunday's "Mars: Dead or Alive," a "Nova" documentary on the project, provides detailed background on the project.

The final minutes of "Mars Dead or Alive" promise to be as gripping as a movie cliffhanger and the best reality TV going. The PBS "NOVA" special details the building and launch of a Mars-bound rover set to land on the red planet Saturday one day before the program airs. The ending, at this moment, is literally a blank. The film's final 2 1/2-minute sequence will be hastily added when the fate of Spirit is known. The title is no exaggeration: Mars is a "graveyard" for half the spacecraft sent there, we are told.

As the rest of the country settles down with the turkey today (December 25), members of BLUR will be holed up inside CHESHIRE’s JODRELL BANK OBSERVATORY – waiting on word back from life on Mars. Today sees the climax of the band-backed Beagle 2 project, the British effort to land on Mars. If things go to plan, the probe will land on the planet’s surface on Christmas Day and the first signal we Earthlings will hear back will be a Blur song.

In its early moments this documentary, hosted by British actor Brian Blessed, ponders whether man could ascend the biggest mountain on Mars, Olympus Mons, a massive peak three times as high as Everest. It might have proceeded as a predictable vanity exercise for an actor, playing the hero, and dashing to a TV-produced finish line. In fact, Blessed proves he's more than up to the task and the results make for breathtaking television.

After months of deliberating over 27 proposals submitted for Discovery's Race to Mars project, a winning production team has been named at the World Congress of Science Producers in Paris. The triumphant group consists of Galafilm Productions, Snap Media and Mentorn. Race to Mars will encompass a television event consisting of several docudramas and a companion reality series simulating a daring human expedition to the Red Planet, all shot in HD. On-line interactivity and games, as well as a companion book will support this initiative.

Michelle! Do you want to go to Mars? "Let's go!" The two young girls dashed off to Mars, reinforcing the premise of the newest Pacific Science Center exhibition - "Space" - that an exhibit, a film, a speech can be an inspiration for a young person. Ask Susan Helms. As a child, she visited the center and was inspired to dream of becoming an astronaut. Today, Air Force Col. Susan Helms holds the record for the longest space walk, spent six months on a space station and starred in the IMAX film "Space Station 3D."

The collection of animated short films features a wide variety of films from different countries and even different eras, like the very rare excerpt from "Mars and Beyond" -- a 1957 Disney film.

The show, which has been touring the country since mid-September, is a compilation of animated shorts from around the world. Many of the selections have been nominated for Academy Awards, among other honors; most have been in circulation for a few years. Anyone who follows animation closely probably won't be seeing anything new, but what the show does offer is a collection of some of the best, most beautiful work of the past few years. One of the most interesting selections is "Mars and Beyond," part of a series of color shorts done for Disney in 1957 by Ward Kimball. The film is a nature documentary theorizing what life on Mars would be like and borders on the surreal in both its vision and brilliance.

Mission: Space, a new ride/space flight simulator at Epcot Center, part of the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, takes Disney guests in a whole new direction -- straight up into space. The byproduct of a partnership between computer giant Hewlett Packard and Disney, Mission: Space cost approximately $100 million to construct, making it one of the most expensive attractions at the world-famous theme park. It is also the most technologically advanced attraction.

Shot in Black Panther Oakland in the early '70s, the legendary funkadelic independent Afro-centric underground blaxploitation film Space Is the Place decrees that intergalactic cultural and free-jazz revolutions will indeed be televised. Imagine Sweet Sweetback Goes to Mars. John Coney's feature has caped crusader Sun Ra, benignly enigmatic throughout, fighting a war of mind control against the satanic, supernatural pimp known as the Overseer.

To increase viewer involvement with National Geographic (NGC), the infotainment channel plans to launch a new programming initiative, Mission Mars, in January next year. The much-touted programme will coincide with NASA’s probes landing on Mars. Mission Mars will be telecast across the world, with exclusive behind-the-scenes look at NASA and the scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, the masterminds of the Mars space programme. Mission Mars, in a way, is expected to follow up on the success of Mission Everest, launched earlier this year.

If you've been dying to take a ride into space, there are three ways to go about it. You can go through years of training to become an astronaut. You can sign up for a citizen-in-space program and pay for the trip, just like Dennis Tito did. The going rate these days is a cool $20 million. Or you can pay far less than that by heading to Orlando, Fla. Tonight on "Tech Live" we take you to Disney's Epcot Center where a new ride could be the closest thing to the real going-to-space thing, and it's right here on Earth.

Did the infamous Orson Welles The War Of The Worlds broadcast actually cause mass hysteria, or was it the biggest hoax to be found in the fact that we believe so many panicked?

Radio's most famous broadcast celebrates -- if that's the right word -- its 65th anniversary this Halloween eve, a literal and figurative dramatic presentation that shook the nation from New York to Concrete, Wash. The CBS Radio network's production of H.G. Wells' science-fiction novel "The War of the Worlds" aired on Oct. 30, 1938, locally on KIRO and KVI (both were CBS affiliates at the time). The P-I listed the production, part of "Mercury Theater of the Air," as one of the "best bets."

Guess what it pays to package. After the success of Mission Everest, National Geographic Channel has announced its next big programming and marketing initiative Mission Mars. The infotainment channel plans to invest $ 2 million for the initiative. In a bid to spread the spirit of exploration and adventure, the latest initiative Mission Mars is another big step towards emphasizing the channel's positioning as the provider of wholesome, credible entertainment, says a company release. Scheduled to air in January 2004, to coincide with Nasa's probes landing on Mars, the special will provide an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Nasa. The channel will also offer a special peek into works of the scientists at the Jet propulsion laboratory in California, the masterminds of the Mars space program.

By bringing "taikonaut" Yang Liwei safely home from orbit, China's communists staged the most compelling production of their 54 years in power. Because the Shenzhou 5 mission, while grounded in science and the military, was at heart pure Hollywood blockbuster. "China's manned `Star Trek' signals a brighter future," the state-controlled newspaper China Daily enthused.

Tuesday night may be the last chance to see the fabulous Flaming Lips for quite a while. This may be disappointing news for avid fans who love to dress up in outrageous costumes to attend the Flaming Lips' flamboyant, balloon-filled shows. But while the Lips will be off the road, they won't be far from reach. An EP titled "Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell" is due in November, and a DVD will be out shortly thereafter. There's also a much-delayed movie, "Christmas on Mars," due in the fall of 2004.

Makoto Shinkai's Voices of a Distant Star is truly a work of love--created, produced, and animated all by a single man. Using the focus and cohesiveness that only an individual work can provide, Shinkai has created a masterpiece, blending luscious animation, a tear-jerking story, and beautifully honest dialogue to create one of 2003's very finest releases.

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin has had another taste of space travel ... by blasting off on Walt Disney World in Florida's newest ride. The space veteran, the second man ever to walk on the Moon, rocketed to Mars on the world's most expensive roller coaster and loved every minute of it. The hi-tech Mission: SPACE will let thrillseekers experience what it is really like to blast off towards the stars.

Dragon 4D F/X Theater has been offering sensory 4-D rides that exceed the virtual level such as Himalamazon and Dino Island since their grand opening in March. Their virtual reality attractions give you the four-dimensional amusement, amazement and excitement of a high-speed story that races all over the theater. The latest attraction, Mars (Space Odyssey to Mars), is now open at Dragon 4D F/X Theater. This is a science fiction tale that takes place in the not-too-distant future, when many people move to Mars, Earth's new frontier.

People who love animation but can't take the bad-taste-and-gore-fest that is "Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation" should find that "The Animation Show" is just their speed. "The Animation Show" screens this weekend at the Cleveland Cinematheque. Show times are 9:30 p.m. tomorrow, 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 8:50 p.m. Sunday.

To experience the thrill of space travel, you can pursue a university technical degree, be accepted into the U.S. astronaut program, train for years, and possibly get a seat on a shuttle mission. Or, you can do the next best thing and plunk down $52 at Walt Disney World Resort to ride its newest Epcot attraction: Mission: SPACE. Mission: SPACE - conceived, designed, and developed by Walt Disney Imagineering - is set several decades into the future at the International Space Training Center. "Astronauts in training" board capsules that hang from the arms of four independent centrifuges. Sophisticated hardware and software, high-fidelity visuals and audio, and special lighting, perfectly synchronized with capsule motions, simulate what it feels like to launch into deep space. "It's an amazing experience," says Senior Show Producer Bob Zalk, Walt Disney Imagineering. "In fact, it's out of this world. Guests will certainly say this ride is unlike any other experience they have had before."

The Flaming Lips' long-awaited feature film, 'Christmas On Mars', will be released before the end of the year, dotmusic can confirm. The movie, written and directed by frontman Wayne Coyne, tells the story of Major Syrtis and his experiences of spending the festive season on a newly colonised Mars. Coyne described the movie as: "Maybe 'Eraserhead' or 'Dead Man' crossed with some kind of fantasy and space aspects, like 'The Wizard of Oz' and maybe '2001: A Space Odyssey', except done without real actors or money, and set at Christmas-time."

With "The Animation Show," animators Mike Judge ("King of the Hill," "Beavis and Butt-Head") and Don Hertzfeldt (an Oscar nominee for "Rejected") put together a program of animated shorts that have one thing in common: They all are really cool.

This festival of animated shorts should attract a wide audience. Serious cinephiles will want to check out ambitious, Oscar-nominated foreign titles like Katedra, which recalls Final Fantasy in its stunning resemblance to live-action sci-fi, and La Course a L'Abime, a gay romp in the world of Impressionism set to the strains of Berlioz's "The Damnation of Faust." Connoisseurs of the lowbrow will revel in early works by Beavis and Butthead creator (and Show co-producer) Mike Judge; the festival's other producer, Don Hertzfeldt, supplies several of his patented gag reels—wicked, mean, and piss-your-pants funny. Trust