Tony Stephens / Simian Design

Wow. I’m a fan of Dune, both the books and the movie, but this blows me away.   I was not aware that this ever was conceived.

Alejandro Jodorowsky worked at creating a truly amazing Dune movie in 1975.  He worked with H.R.Giger (!!), Jean Giraud, Chris Foss, Pink Floyd (!!) to do the score.  Funding stopped the process, and it’s a shame.

Casting, sound, art, it was all planned out to be a beautiful, weird movie (and yes, I know Lynch’s was the same, but go look at the art and tell me that this wasn’t going to be magic.)   I mean, check out his description of Emperor Padishah Shaddam IV.

The Emperor of the galaxy is insane. He lives on an artificial gold planet, in a gold palace built according to not-laws of antilogical. He lives in symbiosis with a robot identical to him.

 

 From his summary of the script:

Already 20,000 years ago
        that the Earth burst…
Man conquered the Galaxy,
        but he realizes
        that he still lives on an Island:
the Galaxy itself is encircled by
        an insuperable Magnetic Wall.
No one could cross it.
Not having anything more
        to discover,
        to conquer,
Man delivers himself completely
        to the pleasure,
give his capacity to machines
        and degenerates in the luxury.

Oh how I wish this was made.  The imagery just brings the books to life, just so much more in line with the books tones.

AskMen has a great listing of 10 things you might not have known about James Bond. Now, I love James Bond, the books and the movies.  A number of fascinating tidbets can be found in here.

Now I knew that Ian Flemming wrote the James Bond books at his estate (called Goldeneye).  I didn’t know that he negotiated two months of vacation a year (nice deal, I’m jealous) when he got a job at Kemsley Newspapers.  It was during those two months he banged out the next Bond book.  So you really got a new Bond book a year, which is impressive in itself.  I couldn’t write a book in two months under any circumstances.

In regards to the name James Bond, Ian Flemming has been quoted as saying

“I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest-sounding name I could find, ‘James Bond’ was much better than something more interesting, like ‘Peregrine Carruthers.’ Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be a neutral figure — an anonymous, blunt instrument wielded by a government department.”

Peregrine Carruthers. Thank God that didn’t come about.

I also didn’t know aobut there only being 7 00’s.  We’ve seen the deaths of 002, 003, 004, and 009.  006 was killed as the villian in GoldenEye.  008 is the only one we don’t see die, and he is mentioned to be Bond’s replacement.   001 and 005 never are mentioned. 

Ian Flemming wrote the following books:
1953: Casino Royale
1954: Live and Let Die
1955: Moonraker
1956: Diamonds Are Forever
1957: From Russia with Love
1958: Dr. No
1959: Goldfinger
1960: For Your Eyes Only (short stories)
1961: Thunderball
1962: The Spy Who Loved Me
1963: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
1964: You Only LIve Twice
1965: The Man with the Golden Gun
1966: Octopussy (short story)
1966: The Living Daylights (short story)

The books are all fantastic, and worth reading if you’re a fan at all. It’s a totally different take on Bond from the movies, yet just as enjoyable.  I haven’t read much of the other authors Bond books, but have thoroughly enjoyed Ian Flemmings works.

Volkswagen: Enjoy the Everyday.  This is another commercial (can’t embed directly) that is totally worth watching.

Brilliant commercial. Just brilliant.

Incredible. Thank you Kanye West. Yes, from Kanye Wests Vivemo account. It’s a very fun video.

Incredible! from kwest on Vimeo.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkYZ6rbPU2M]

YouTube - Why Men Die Early. BWAHAHAHAHAHA.

The moon Mimas, poses in front of Saturn’s rings.  And the result is STUNNING.  I want this as a poster.  Life imitating art indeed.

Really got to watch this commercial.  One of the better ones I’ve seen recently.

Wow.  I’m a huge fan of any Thriller remake.  But this one takes the cake (at least for now).  I don’t know what it is, but it just kills me.  Maybe it is all the background dancers, maybe its the guy in drag playing the girlfriend role, maybe it’s the fact it’s in a prison yard.  I don’t know.  I just know that it rocks.