Brave New World

As Criswell explains in Plan 9 From Outer Space, “We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.” And Jacque Fresco has been thinking about the future longer and more intensely than the rest of us. The 94-year-old futurist, architect and “social engineer” appears, at first glance, to be Isaac Asimov, George Orwell, I.M. Pei and L. Ron Hubbard all rolled into one, designing sustainable cities (under the sea! in outer space!) and imagining a global utopian society in which our monetary system is supplanted by a resource-based economy. The docu-manifesto Zeitgeist: Moving Forward presumably explains — more clearly than we can in this limited space — the man, his vision and the movement he founded; it screens at 6 p.m. at Tivoli Cinemas (4050 Pennsylvania, 913-383-7756). To order tickets ($7) and experience information overload, see zeitgeistmissouri.com.

— Brent Shepherd

Thu., Jan. 20, 6 p.m., 2011