Archive Category: Movies & SciFi

Hollywood's Top Villains

Forget heroes. I find villains much more interesting. Here’s a wonderful montage titled: Heart of Darkness, a Montage, Cinema’s Top Human Villains, by YouTube user hh, listing 45 of the best (worst?) Hollywood baddies.

The music, East Hastings by Goodpseed You! Black Emperor, certainly contributed much to the awesomeness of the clip.

I’m glad that Kathy Bates’ character Annie Wilkes from the movie Misery made the list. Who do you think is the best Hollywood villain?

Link [embedded YouTube clip]

Comment (10)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Neatorama Shop » Food & Drink » Offbeat Mints & Candies
Bacon Mints	Chum Bucket Candy	Family Guy Stewie's Death Defying Mints
See more Offbeat Mints & Candies »

---

Film's Best Geek Girls

Cinematical put together a shockingly small list of great geeky girl movie characters.  They’re all fine examples, but surely there must be more out there along the lines of Thora Birch in Ghost World (left).

Geeky girls are few and far between in the 100+ years of cinema, but they are key to the revelation that technology and freethinking are not the sole playground of men. Geekology is omnisexual, and has been since…well that’s the mystery.

Check out their list, and tell us what they missed.  They did well as far as post 1990 goes, but what about the classics?  I’m calling dibs on Lt. Uhura, possibly the first geek girl who simultaneously had a free, sometimes kooky mind,  and access to a computer.  Who else is a geek grrl of filmdom?

Link (Image: MGM)

Comment (5)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

The 10 Greatest Books Adapted Into Movies

Here’s a list sure to spark debate. Which is better, the movie or the book? Usually one is much better than the other. With the ten books and movies listed here, it’s all a matter of opinion because both the book and the movie are classics. Still, I will always recommend reading the book before seeing the movie. Link [possible malware alert @ link - go there at your own risk]

Comment (23)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Return to Malibou Lake

Screenwriter John Cox posted a guest blog at Frankensteinia about his search for the site of the only location shot in the 1931 movie Frankenstein.

Where did Universal shoot the famous Maria meets the Monster scene in the classic 1931 Frankenstein? For years I could never get a straight answer. Some claimed it was shot on the Universal backlot along with the rest of the movie. But it’s clear from the size of the lake and the rugged mountains in the distance that this can’t be true.

Cox found that the scene was filmed at Malibou Lake and set off to find the exact location of the scene, despite the knowledge that it was now in private hands, and that after almost 80 years, it might not look the same. But he was surprised at what he found! Link -via Metafilter

Comment (3)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

10 Reasons Not to Bring Someone Back from the Dead

You can learn a lot from science fiction. For example, you should not try to bring someone back from the dead because they will try to kill you. Proof comes from seven different stories that send chills down our spines.

Pet Sematary: Any dead creature buried in the ancient Micmac burial ground comes back to life, just not quite the way you put it in. After losing his young son Gage, Louis buries his son in the graveyard. Sure enough, Gage comes back — and promptly murders his mother.

That’s only one of ten reasons not to resurrect dead bodies. Link -via Gorilla Mask

Comment (5)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Neatorama Shop » Ashleigh Brilliant T-Shirts
The Difference b/w Science & Magic	See more Ashleigh Brilliant T-Shirts »

---

Man Builds Batmobile Replica for $1 Million

Photo: Simon Måssebäck

Leif Garvin of Sweden spent about $1 million building his own Batmobile. It’s built onto the chassis of a 1973 Lincoln Continental and has a 700 hp engine. Like the, uh, real Batmobile, it’s loaded with all sorts of gadgetry:

There’s sat-nav to help you find the scene of the crime (and other helpful POIs), a plasma TV for video calls to Albert (and for distraction during Stockholm traffic jams), voice recognition to keep your fighting hands free (and avoid nasty fines), height-adjustable suspension for navigating dramatic obstacles in your path (and speed bumps), a rear-view camera to watch your back (and help with tight parking squeezes), and machine guns for, er, shooting stuff. Worryingly, there is no word on whether said firearms are real…

UPDATE 10/4/09: Simon Måssebäck emailed to correct a mistake. He didn’t make the Batmobile — a man named Leif Garvin did. Thanks, Simon, especially for allowing us to use your photo!

Link via DVICE

Comment (11)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

The Twilight Zone Turns 50

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the debut of The Twilight Zone. The first episode of Rod Serling’s classic horror/suspense television show aired on October 2, 1959. William Kates wrote for the AP about the origin of the series:

In a time on television when suburbia was idealized in popular shows such as “Ozzie and Harriet” and “Make Room for Daddy,” Serling offered a mixture of fantasy, science fiction, suspense, horror — and the show’s trademark macabre or unexpected twist.

Serling had already earned acclaim for his television writing (”Requiem for a Heavyweight,” “Patterns,”) but found himself fighting CBS to get “The Twilight Zone” on the air. Serling would have repeated conflicts with network censors throughout his career.

My favorite episode is “The Shelter.” What is yours?

Link via Alphecca | Image: CBS

UPDATE 10/2/09: Via GeekDad, free episodes online from CBS.

2nd UPDATE 10/2/09: io9 presents 6 Important Life Lessons from The Twilight Zone

Comment (23)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Personal Laws à la Star Trek

Remember the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode with Ashley Judd (rrrowr!) as Ensign Robin Lefler? That character has a set of 102 "personal laws" to live by.

"When I learn something essential," she explained, "I make up a law about it. That way, I never forget."

Neatoramanaut John Farrier of The Zeray Gazette was inspired to write his own personal laws, which he blogged about here:

In the past year, I’ve been intentional about formulating such life lessons. I keep a MS Word document on my hard drive listing these thoughts, and each one goes through a probationary period before being accepted as both true and important. Here are some of the results, including some probationary laws, with explanations:

Just because you’ve done stupid stuff doesn’t mean that you have to keep on doing stupid stuff in order to be consistent. This is a reflection of Harry Browne’s Previous Investment Trap. Consistency is a vastly overrated virtue, and it is better to admit that you were wrong and stop going in the wrong direction.

There is nothing inherently ennobling about hardship. My concept of masculinity long held that a man undertook great and challenging tasks and overcame obstacles. Suffering for a cause is noble. I now think otherwise.

Go where the cheese is. Taken from the book Who Moved My Cheese?, anticipate that shit will fall out of the sky, and be prepared to move as conditions change. Be on the lookout for change, have a backup plan for everything, and implement it immediately when the change occurs. That you do not like the change will not prevent it from taking place.

Link (with a very lively discussion in the comments)

If you were to write yourself personal laws, what would they be?

Comment (5)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

What Car Would Spock Drive?

What kind of car would Spock drive if Spock drives a car?

Well, you don’t have to wonder. The Drex Files blog has a rare photo of Leonard Nimoy in full costume as Spock posing in front of this car (his car?) on the Desilu backlot in 1966.

I wonder what car Kirk, Scotty and McCoy would drive …

Oh, and what kind of a car is it? Find out for yourself: Link – via The Litter Box

Comment (4)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Werner Herzog's Notes From The Amazon

In 1982, filmmaker Werner Herzog wrote and directed an epic movie called Fitzcarraldo, based on the life story of Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald.

In the movie, a man named Fitzcarraldo traveled to the heart of the Amazonian jungle to get to the last remaining rubber trees parcel in a steamboat. He has to navigate some of the most perilous river in the Amazon as well as transport the boat up a mountain on dry land (you’ll see).

Just as interesting as the movie is his newly published book Conquest of the Useless; Reflections on the Making of Fitzcarraldo, which is a transcript of Herzog’s notebooks from almost three decades ago. Minnesotastan of TYWKIWDBI blog has the excerpt:

What was interesting to me was to discover that Herzog didn’t live the life of a pampered director; he was on-site near the headwaters of the Amazon, living in squalor and coping with the incredible incompetence of local workers. Here are some of my jotted notes from the book to give the flavor of the contents:

12 – At the Indians’ request, we bring chain saws, machetes, and shotguns to the Rio Cenepa, as well as a large canister of poison for arrow tips. They no longer know how to make it themselves. Vivanco says they will pay for a spoonful with a gold nugget.

79 – The family who had given us a pot of hot water crowded around, and we fixed tuna for them and gave them tea; that is how it is done here – food is always shared, Cesar says, which is why there is no word for “thank you” in their language.

169 – The helicopter of the Bolivian president, Barrientos, flew into a power line and crashed from a low altitude. He had suitcases full of money with him, presumably from drug deals. The helicopter immediately caught fire, but although people were there and tried to rescue him from the blaze, no one could get close, because the heat made the submachine guns carried by the president and his entourage start firing wildly, and in the hail of bullets no one dared approach.

226 – Across from our headquarters overlooking the Nanay there was a huge explosion in a boiler, fortunately after the work day in the factory there as over. The one night watchman was blown to pieces and sent flying. A smallish bloody piece of him landed with a splat on our porch.

Link

But if readin’ ain’t your thing, you can just rent Burden of Dreams, a documentary by Les Blank about the making of the movie.

Comment (2)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Neatorama Shop » Toy & Games » Science Toys
	BuckyBalls Magnetic Toys are 216 rare earth magnet balls that can be shaped and molded into virtually any shape. Tear 'em apart and snap 'em back together in unlimited ways for hours of fun! Watch the video for a quick demo of what BuckyBalls can do. Remember to get two for twice the fun! Link
See more Science Toys »

---

Top Ten Great Movie Deaths

If ever there was a cause for a Spoiler Alert, this would rank.  The very nature of good films is the conflict factor, which will ultimately end with someone’s demise.  But who’s whose?  And how?  When it’s done memorably well, character death in a movie can have a lasting impression, and worthy of a top ten list.  David Frank’s offering at RopeOf Silicon is a pretty good one.

These are the death scenes we remember long after the actors have screamed, slobbered, cried, coughed, wheezed, or drawn out to William Shatner-esque lengths their final words. They are a perfect combination of acting, writing, filmmaking, image and idea. Some are shocking. Some are sad or bittersweet. Others funny. Some deaths you cheer on. All are memorable.

There are many more, of course.  Which ones did he leave out?

Link

Image from Psycho, Paramount Pictures.

Comment (2)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

The Anatomy of Japanese Monsters

See inside Godzilla, Gamera, and a couple of other movie monsters in poster form. If I could only read Japanese to find out where their weak spots are, then I, too, could save the world! Link -via Digg

Upodate: These are from the book An Anatomical Guide to Monsters by Shoji Otomo with illustrations by Shogo Endo, from 1967. More information can be found at Pink Tentacle, including partial translations. -Thanks, algomeysa!

Comment (6)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

HBO Imagine

I don’t have time to watch one TV, much less several all at once! HBO Imagine is a new website that aims to tell a story through interconnecting short clips as opposed to the linear format of today’s TV show as well as different angles. And I mean that literally – you can change the camera angle of the clip and see "hidden" parts of the story. The more clips you watch, the more you unlock clips and clues.

It’s a new way of watching a show – kind of edgy, I suppose. Maybe too edgy for old fuddy duddy like me, and therefore perfect for today’s teens with short attention span, but very entertaining nonetheless: Link – Thanks Nathalie!

*Be sure to "spin" the first clip, titled The Affair, to see what’s hiding behind the door…

Comment (6)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Cthulhu Baby Blanket

Photo: Fickle Pegasus

Wrap you your baby, safe and secure, in the tentacles of Cthulhu with this crocheted baby blanket. It was created by Craftster user Fickle Pegasus for her husband’s co-worker’s son. Velcro tabs at the end of the tentacles help secure baby toys or, I suppose, the child itself.

Link via GearFuse

Comment (8)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Two Cthulhu-Themed Songs

(YouTube Link)

“Hey There Cthulhu” is a love song by the The Eben Brooks Brand, from their 2007 album Karaoke Bash Vol. 3. It is about a man expressing his tender love for the Dark One and his yearning for annihilation.

(YouTube Link)

“I Saw Mommy Kissing Yog-Sothoth” is a take on the classic Christmas song “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” and is presented by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. It’s from their album A Very Scary Solstice. On that same album you can find “Oh Cthulhu“, which is a take on the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s “Messiah”, sung by the Dagon Tabernacle Choir.

Via The Corner

Comment (4)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Movie Plot Holes

Or as writer Matt Blum likes to call them, the Top 10 Unanswered Questions in Geeky Movies.   Yes, Wired’s Geekdad addresses the glaring computer virus issue in ID4, and the peculiarity of the Death Star emerging from hyperspace on the far side of Yavin.  But some others are worth pondering anew, like the Gremlins paradox:

3. Gremlins: Feeding after midnight – Don’t get them wet; OK, fine. Don’t expose them to sunlight; sure, why not? Don’t feed them after midnight; um, how’s that again? If you can’t feed them “after midnight,” at what point during the day does it cease to be “after midnight” so you can feed them again? For that matter, how does the mogwai know what time zone it’s in? Suppose I get my mogwai in New York and then take a vacation to San Francisco — should I not feed my mogwai after midnight Eastern Time or Pacific Time? And what about Daylight Saving Time? Considering the consequences, these details seem pretty important.

What are some of your favorite “unanswered questions” from otherwise entertaining movies?

Link

Comment (21)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Hacked Floppy Disk Drive Plays Star Wars Music

(YouTube Link)

This floppy disk drive has been altered to play the Darth Vader theme from Star Wars. I have no idea how, but here’s an explanation floating around the blogosphere:

I can’t find any documentation for this, nor can I help posting it. I assume it’s a hardware hack that manually controls the floppy drive’s stepper motor, but it’d make my day if this was done in software using standard I/O requests. Either way, the 3.5 inch FDD finally serves an important function again.

Link via Have You Seen This?

Comment (5)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Movie Poster Mash Ups

(L) B3ta user Mighty Nibus; (R) hYpe

Back in July, the B3ta community created some of the most creative movie poster mash-ups I’ve seen in a long while. As the two examples above show, sometimes the simplest ideas are the best (of course, it helps to be mad genius photoshoppers): Link – via The Litter Box by Johnny Cat

Then, of course, there’s this one called Gorn with the Wind …

Comment (0)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

The Breakfast Cats

For all fans of The Breakfast Club, and whether you love or hate cats, YTMND has a great post up, a video loop that further links humans and cats.  Presenting, The Breakfast Cats.

Looks like they’re crackin’ skulls.

Comment (6)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Terrible #1 Movies

Coed Magazine has a pretty accurate list of movies that opened at number one that, in retrospect, fell critically flat.  While I see their point about The Phantom Menace, I would have substituted it for The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008).

Here’s their scathing summary of Batman and Robin:

Or, the movie that destroyed the Batman franchise.  When you think about it positively,Batman Begins and The Dark Knight only ever happened thanks to the complete and utter creative failure of Batman and Robin.  But what a complete and utter creative failure it was.  It made it to #1 thanks to the success of the cheesy-but-entertaining Batman Forever, and ended up grossing about $60 million less.  Nipples on the Batsuit?  Weird gratuitous shots of Batman and Robin’s butts?  Random ice-skating scenes?  Batgirl?  I mean, they didn’t even get Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy right.

Link via BuzzFeed | Awesome Collage Photo: Coed Magazine

Comment (11)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Neatorama Shop » Science T-Shirts (Geektastic!)
I Survived the Large Hadron Collider	See more Science T-Shirts »

---

Cthulhu Perfume

Because this is what you want to smell like:

A creeping, wet, slithering scent, dripping with seaweed, oceanic plants and dark, unfathomable waters.

Available from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, the scent of Chtulhu is $15 for 5 milliliters or $25 for 10 milliliters. Link -via Simply Left Behind

Update 9/18/09 by Alex – The image on this post has been removed. It was a fan-made photoshop rendition without credit to the original artist. I’ve replaced it with a thumbnail of the original image of H.P. Lovecraft drawn by Bruce Timm, owned by Steven Gettis of Hey Oscar Wilde! blog – Thanks for the heads up, Steven!

Comment (8)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Tron Light Cycles in LEGO

LEGO MOC by 2×4 [Flickr] | Tron Photoset

Tron is one of my all time favorite Sci-Fi movies and it’s a pleasure to see that almost three decades later, it’s still inspiring its fans. Here’s a fantastic diorama of the Tron Light cycles scene by Flickr user 2×4 we first spotted over at The Brothers Brick blog.

Comment (3)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Stills

Not Coming To A Theater Near You is a film review website that assumes a bias towards older, often unpopular, and sometimes unknown films that merit a second look.

A new offshoot of that site is Stills, where one screenshot from a random movie is posted daily.  It’s fun to hit the arrows, then move your mouse aside as the next still loads, then try to guess what the movie is.  I knew this one (above) right away, but then again, I’ve seen that movie a hundred times!

Link

Comment (3)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1951) Trailer

(YouTube link)

YouTube member whoiseyevan, the creator of Ghost Busters 1954 puts together a trailer for the 1951 version of Raiders of the Lost Ark, featuring Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck, and Peter Lorre. -via Metafilter

Comment (2)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Spacebook

Remember, your boss can see what you put on your Facebook page! This t-shirt design by Hogboy was not selected for printing, but I got a laugh out of it! Link -via Gizmodo

Comment (11)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Living Mad Max

Adrian Bennett has been obsessed with the Mad Max movies since 1982 when he was a teenager in England. In 2001 he built his own Interceptor, the car Mel Gibson drove in the film. Three years ago, he moved his family from Yorkshire to Australia. Now he has settled in the remote Outback town of Silverton, where the first two movies were made. Silverton has a population of 51 (counting the five Bennetts), but draws 140,000 tourists a year and is also used often as a set for the film industry. Bennett plans to open a Mad Max museum in his new hometown. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

See more pictures of Bennett’s Interceptor.

Comment (8)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Things Mathematicians See at the Movies

Most moviegoers don’t notice the math in popular films, but it’s there if you know what to look for. For example, one mathematician compared the spread of zombies to that of infectious diseases.

The problem of zombies intrigued Philip Munz of Carleton University and his colleagues at the University of Ottawa, who recently wrote a scientific paper quantifying various properties of zombie epidemics. Standard modeling techniques for disease outbreaks weren’t quite sufficient, the authors found. “The key difference between the models presented here and other models of infectious disease,” they wrote, “is that the dead can come back to life.”

After a thorough, if tongue-in-cheek, analysis, the authors found that the optimal method for halting such epidemics involves killing zombies early and often – the rare scientific paper that satisfies both the splatter-film aficionado and the Centers for Disease Control.

Other math questions come up in The Dark Knight, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and other films you are familiar with. Link -via Buzzfeed

(image credit: Flickr user joelf)

Comment (4)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Sci-fi Corridors

Corridors in science fiction movies may seem like a strange subject for an article, but that’s just because you’ve never thought about them. Martin Anderson notices them, rates them, and brings them to you for consideration. You’ll be surprised at how many there are, and the many features they have in common. Link -via b3ta

Comment (14)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

The Ultimate Star Wars Collection

Photo: Cho Woong

I’ve always been impressed with some people’s ability to collect things – stamps, soda cans, comic books, what have you. My amazement over Cho Woong’s extensive collection of Star Wars figures is compounded by his ability to keep everything … so organized and neat! I betcha there’s a good amount of OCD (I’m kidding!) involved in this: Link [in Korean] – via Cribcandy

Comment (11)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

10 Amazingly Geeky Origami Models

Origami, the age-old discipline of folding paper into amazing figures, has its own masters, and as this post demonstrates, these geniuses can truly transform paper into any form they desire.

Origami – the traditional Japanese art of paper folding – is something that a geek could really get into. It’s all about visual math, and problem-solving, but with that artistic nuance as well. The origami artists below came up with some very cool designs, which we can definitely appreciate – so check them out!

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geeksaresexy.

Comment (1)    Permalink   Please share:  email this

---

Neatorama Shop » T-Shirts About The Economy
Good Marx, Bad Marx	Stock Market, The Ride
See more T-Shirts About The Economy »

---

Previous page · Next page

Bookmark | RSS | | Login or Register

Lijit Search

---

CATEGORIES

Advertising Animal Architecture Arts & Crafts Baby & Kids Blog & Internet Book & Lit Car & Vehicle Cartoon, Comic Crime Fashion Flash Games

Food & Drink Funny Gadgets Home & Garden Medicine Money & Finance Movie & SciFi Music Neatorama Only Paranormal Pictures Politics

Religion Science & Tech Sports Tattoo, Etc. Toy & Games Travel & Places Video Clips Weapon & War World Records Misc. Archives

COLLABORATIONS

Bizarro Comic Bathroom Reader

Caption Monkey mental_floss

VideoSift What is It?

---

BROWSE BY DATE


BROWSE BY TAGS
animals animation Arts & Crafts Arts & Crafts Cat cats China Christmas crafts Cute design diy dog dogs economic crisis Food Funny halloween History japan mental floss movies Music Photography Photoshop quiz robot science Space star trek Star Wars tv Video videos weird