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Conservatives who complain about liberal Hollywood may have a new film to champion: Dune: Part Two. The new science fiction epic is directed by Denis Villeneuve and adapted from the famous book by author Frank Herbert. Herbert was a brilliant thinker who could juggle several complex ideas at one time. Dune has themes of environmentalism, empire, religion, war, prophesy, and political conflict. At its heart, however, Dune, and especially its book sequels, form a massive argument against big government, high taxes, and superhero leaders and political messiahs who promise to save the world. The world and politics of Dune have...

What happened in the Russia-Ukraine war this week? Catch up with the must-read news and analysis Every week we wrap up essential coverage of the war in Ukraine, from news and features to analysis, and more. [Excerpt] ‘Music is to me the light’ For this piece Charlotte Higgins sets the scene at the National Philharmonic Hall in Warsaw, where the stakes are very high for everyone on stage. Violinist Joshua Bell and conductor Dalia Stasevska are on an intensely focused mission to get the opening bars of a concerto just right – and not just any concerto, but one by...

Often cited as the bestselling science fiction novel of all time, Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune features a unique blend of technology and human drama that has stood the test of time. This complex universe, and its even more complex ideas on time, space, and human consciousness, resulted in five follow up novels by Herbert himself, 16 additional books co-authored by his son Brian Herbert and sci-fi veteran author Kevin J Anderson, a 1984 movie, a pair of early 2000s TV miniseries, and more recently the box office crushing 2021 epic film adaptation. Hoping to find the overlap between science...

I am watching the show... I have watched some of the movies nominated for Best Picture...BELFAST...DUNE...WEST SIDE STORY... NO TIME TO DIE song was nominated...I want to see if that Bond song wins Oscars... BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS...Won by Ariana Debose...WEST SIDE STORY...She was fine in the movie...

An investigation into narcotics inside the Halawa prison revealed two deaths and at least 14 overdoses in the past eight months linked to the same designer drugAn investigation into narcotics inside the Halawa prison revealed two deaths and at least 14 overdoses in the past eight months linked to the same designer drug. Spice, also known as synthetic marijuana, hasn’t made too many headlines here lately. But officials at Halawa Correctional Facility say it’s a problem behind bars. Often sold in colorful pouches, spice can resemble marijuana. The psychoactive substance is also sold in a liquid form. Marketed in vials,...

Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog battles King Richard, West Side Story and more at this year's Academy Awards. The winners are anyone's guess, so here are mine... And the winner is... The 2022 Academy Awards will honor the best films of the year on March 27. The Power of The Dog has already swept a number of awards ceremonies, earning prestigious gongs for Benedict Cumberbatch, Netflix and writer-director Jane Campion. Maybe Campion will follow Chloe Zhao's success with Nomadland last year, but the Netflix film faces fierce competition from King Richard, West Side Story and Dune -- not...

In US theaters and streaming on HBO Max Thursday, Denis Villeneuve's epic star-studded adaptation is a sumptuous sci-fi experience. Timothee Chalamet cuts up in Dune. Warner Bros The best-selling books in the Dune series are as intriguing and ambiguous as a desert's shifting sands. So it makes sense a star-studded new movie adaptation from director Denis Villeneuve manages to be both hugely satisfying and incredibly frustrating. The 2021 Dune film is a tour de force of cinematic sci-fi, a star-studded yet deeply weird fantasy epic, and a thoughtful and thrilling movie experience. Then it stops right in the middle. Villeneuve's...

Anyone seen the new Dune? Is it Woke or otherwise polluted with leftism? Worth the money to see it in a theater?

Dune | Official Main Trailer 14,609,890 viewsJul 22, 2021 Warner Bros. Pictures 9.95M subscribers IT’S TIME. #DuneMovie coming October 22.

When Warner Bros. announced that “Wonder Woman 1984” would land on the streaming service HBO Max on Christmas, the same time it debuts in theaters, many expected it to be an isolated case in response to an unprecedented pandemic. Instead, the studio will deploy a similar release strategy for the next 12 months. In a surprising break from industry standards, Warner Bros.’ entire 2021 slate — a list of films that includes “The Matrix 4,” Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” remake, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical adaptation of “In the Heights,” “Sopranos” prequel “The Many Saints of Newark” and “The Suicide Squad” — will...

I heard the news of a “Dune” remake due out in 2020. I saw the endless comparisons to the disastrous movie that came out in 1984. Sting goes shirtless! Picard is a warrior! The ending nullifies the entire freaking point of the book by making the deliberately bred super-human and culturally manipulative character magically conjure rain. The interesting chasm I discovered was when I said in response to this news, “Another Dune remake?” To which others said, “What other Dune movie?” I know Syfy has made a number of B-list sci-fi movies, but their Dune remakes a decade ago were...

The official trailer for Dune.

Spice! Sandworms! Sting! What's not to like about this 1984 sci-fi bomb?Double the Dune, double the nightmare? Director Denis Villeneuve plans to release two films to fully encompass the knotty complexities of Frank Herbert’s epic 1965 sci-fi novel about the battle for control over production of ‘spice’ (essentially ultra-rare petrol, and just as mad to snort) on a desert planet called Arrakis infested with worms the size of tube trains. Much to the concern of anyone with any experience of previous efforts to bring the novel to screen. Alejandro Jodorowsky aborted his early ‘70s vision of a psychedelic 10-hour version...

Maybe it’s because of Amazon’s upcoming TV series, but lately we seem to be learning a lot of hitherto unknown facts about The Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien, or at least, some old facts are getting spread around anew. Just recently, author John M. Bowers posited that Tolkien may have written his genre-defining trilogy while procrastinating on his academic work. (Would that all our procrastinations were that fruitful.) Now, the @SecretsOfDune Twitter account has posted a page from Tolkien’s Library: An Annotated Checklist by Oronzo Chili, which seeks to understand this literary titan by perusing his bookshelf. And...

Dune is destined to be another crashing bore, because the actual characters in the story are not very relatable or likable.True story. Years ago, even before dudes wanted a Dell, a gaggle of Army generals gathered to ponder how to integrate computers into military operations. One prefaced his prognosticating by admitting to being a “Trekkie,” having grown up watching the 1960s TV-series. He went on to talk about the future of warfare as though they would all be Captain Kirks firing photon torpedoes from the command deck. Science fiction and the future have a messy relationship. Much science fiction either...

Dutch researchers claimed Thursday to have discovered the maximum age "ceiling" for human lifespan, despite growing life expectancy because of better nutrition, living conditions and medical care. Mining data from some 75,000 Dutch people whose exact ages were recorded at the time of death, statisticians at Tilburg and Rotterdam's Erasmus universities pinned the maximum ceiling for female lifespan at 115.7 years. Men came in slightly lower at 114.1 years in the samples taken from the data which spans the last 30 years, said Professor John Einmahl, one of three scientists conducting the study. "On average, people live longer, but the...

In the history of science fiction literature, few novel series have reached the upper echelon of belovedness quite the way Frank Herbert’s Dune has. The incredibly dense, richly populated space opera is considered by many to be the best science fiction novel ever written, winning all kinds of awards upon its release in 1965. There has to date been a single feature film of the work–David Lynch’s head-scratching, though undeniably visually arresting, 1984 effort–but save a Syfy miniseries in the early-2000s, Dune has remained nigh-unfilmable…until now! Deadline is reporting that Legendary Pictures has reached an agreement with the Herbert estate...

A robot escaped from a testing area in Perm, a city not far from the Urals, and made it on to a busy junction, baffling passersby, but also disturbing traffic. “The robot was learning automatic movement algorithms on the testing ground, these functions will feature in the latest version of the Promobot.” The co-founder of the robot’s maker, Oleg Kivokurtsev, told ura.ru news agency. “Our engineer drove onto the testing ground and forgot to close the gates. So the robot escaped and went on his little adventure.” Kivokurtsev explained.

Science fiction and fantasy offer a rich legacy of great books--but that abundant pile of reading material can also be daunting. So sometimes, it's easier to fake it. We asked some of our favorite writers, and they told us the 10 books that everyone pretends to have read. And why you should actually read them. From Asimov to Pynchon, science fiction contains some fantastic, ambitious works of genre fiction. But a lot of us get overwhelmed. And it's not that hard to fake a first-hand knowledge of these books, because they're everywhere, and we've heard people talk about them so...

Folio Society to publish 50th Anniversary copy of 'Dune'