Dec 25, 2009 0
Merry Christmas!
Dec 18, 2009 0
Dan O’Bannon dead at 63
Screenwriter, director and actor Dan O’Bannon has passed on at age 63.
He did the computer effects for Star Wars, wrote the screenplay for Alien, wrote the Soft Landing and B-17 segments for Heavy Metal, wrote Lifeforce, wrote and directed The Return of the Living Dead, and wrote the screenplay for Total Recall.
O’Bannon is the writer of the influential story “The Long Tomorrow”, illustrated by Jean Giraud, of which founding cyberpunk author William Gibson said of The Long Tomorrow:
So it’s entirely fair to say, and I’ve said it before, that the way Neuromancer-the-novel “looks” was influenced in large part by some of the artwork I saw in ‘Heavy Metal’. I assume that this must also be true of John Carpenter’s ‘Escape from New York’, Ridley Scott’s ‘Blade Runner’”, and all other artefacts of the style sometimes dubbed ‘cyberpunk’. Those French guys, they got their end in early.
It was also the main graphical influence on Blade Runner.
Nov 18, 2009 0
EPCOT’s Norway
As part of EPCOT Central’s What Works series, they posted today about Norway. I agree that it is underrated and possible undervalued attractions at EPCOT. When I took my daughters to Disney for the first time back in 2006, one of the first things that I planned was a Princess lunch at Restaurant Akershus in Norway and it was one the best things I could have done. The food was good, it wasn’t crowded and the individual attention was amazing. The almost 5 minute Maelstrom boat ride is still one of my favorites, it’s a dark ride that takes you on a journey from a mythological Norway’s Viking days all the way up to today. The big thrill of the ride comes after the boat enters an enchanted swamp and you’re forced backwards down a waterfall by angry trolls. The movie afterward is indeed dated but still interesting. The kid’s play area used to have a full-scale Viking ship but it was removed in December of 2008.
Princess kissing Princess
Feb 15, 2009 0
Goodbye Dubai
It didn’t make sense to me then so this doesn’t surprise me.
Found via Smashing Telly:
Short of opening a Radio Shack in an Amish town, Dubai is the world’s worst business idea, and there isn’t even any oil. Imagine proposing to build Vegas in a place where sex and drugs and rock and roll are illegal. That is effectively the proposition that created Dubai – it was a stupid idea before the crash, and now it is plain mad.
