“Battle of Los Angeles” Flash Microsite
To promote the highly-anticipated alien invasion movie from South African director Jonathan Liebesman, Sony has unveiled a Flash microsite incorporating faux viral videos with “expert testimony” and “eyewitness accounts” of extraterrestrial incursions. The actual Battle of Los Angeles/Great Los Angeles Air Raid (1942) and other reported UFO sitings and encounters of the 20th century serve as the movie’s historical context and back story.
From the microsite and limited production photos, the Battle of Los Angeles looks to be set in contemporary America rather than—as I’d hoped—just before World War II. Rather than rehash Independence Day, why not let the Greatest Generation take a crack at the aliens? Would the Allies and Axis powers have joined forces to defend the Earth?
Battle of Los Angeles stars Aaron Eckhart and is scheduled for release on March 11, 2011.
Related: The movie was filmed partially in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Why use Baton Rouge as a stand-in for war-ravaged Los Angeles? Check out this New York Times article.
Photo Credit: Richard Cartwright
If the 2010 Pakistan Flood Had Hit Portland Instead
The BBC microsite How Big Really? has created an application to put the size of this disaster into geographic context relative to anywhere else in the world. Had this massive disaster hit Portland, the affected area would’ve stretched from the Bay Area nearly to Calgary, Alberta:
I don’t know which relief charity is best, but please make a donation of any kind however you can. This might be the worst catastrophe of our lifetimes, including this year’s Haitian earthquake or even the 2004 Indonesian tsunami. Hurricane Katrina was a light shower compared to this. The number of deceased and displaced children is an unfathomable tragedy.
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