geekosystem

I'm willing to admit that there's definitely some strange stuff going on in the latest James Bond film, Skyfall. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that there are a goodly number of oddities. The movie was still grand to watch, if only because Judi Dench is phenomenal. Still, Screen Junkies' latest Honest Trailer for the film is definitely firing on all cylinders and makes a bunch of fair points about Skyfall's overwhelming reliance on convenient plot developments.

Who hasn't wanted to be a secret agent at least once in their life. Look at James Bond: He always gets the toys, he always gets the girl, and he gets to wear an awesome-looking tuxedo more than anybody. (Also, he saves the world. That's pretty cool too.) The point is, if you could say... apply for that job online, you'd do it, right? Well guess what? You missed your shot. The British government actually posted a job listing for a new 00 agent on their recruitment website yesterday. After only a day or two, the listing has already been taken down; Possibly because of the overwhelming number applicants, or because it was a big joke.

Though its future was uncertain for a while, the 23rd film starring Britain's top secret agent James Bond is not only in the can, but already has a teaser trailer. The film, called Skyfall, still has Daniel Craig in the lead role and director Sam Mendes at the helm, but looks to be taking a bit of a different track from the last two films.

It never ceases to amaze me that some crafty folk found a modern day use for the old stalwart floppy drive. Granted, said use isn't the original intention of storage media, but playing songs by manipulating the inner workings of multiple floppy drives is a noble endeavor. This time around, we have eight floppy drives playing the James Bond theme song, which was built for display at Purdue University for the Association of Electrical Technologists club during their Technology Week. Super cool.

The James Bond theme is pretty well iconic, so it's not surprising that it's been subjected to nose flute covers, or mashed up in a video of all 22 James Bond film openings. Now the iconic song has hit another theme song milestone; it's been played by an army of quadcopters. This quadcopter symphony, performing the piece at the TED2012 Conference in California is quite good, and as amusing to watch as they are to hear. Unfortunately there is not, however, and army of humans with remote controls sitting in front of a conductor. This is all preprogrammed. None the less, it sure is noteworth accomplishment in, uh, music copter-sition.

I'm all for realistic graphics, but this fan-made GoldenEye 64 mod -- which is totally an actual GoldenEye 64 mod, for sure -- takes it too far. It's like it comes out of one uncanny valley and into the next. Maybe they should have but a little of that effort into improving Natalya's AI instead of making sure the bad guys look like real people as they awkwardly crumble. I think I'll just go play GoldenEye: Rogue Agent; that was way better than GoldenEye 64 anyways. I mean, at least it had an actual golden eye, right?

In the interest of science! YouTuber MJCJMJCJM created a composite video which shows the first minute of every James Bond film simultaneously in a handy little matrix. As you might expect, things don't line up perfectly, but it's still cool to see all those iconic shots go off. Now I just want to see someone redo this, but with all the shots synchronized. Surely someone out there has to be working on that.

There's always buzz about when the next PlayStation or Xbox is going to come out, or who's going to win the next presidential election, but have you ever thought about how many more PlayStations, Xboxes or presidential elections you're going to see before you bite the dust? Well, whether or not you have, this original Geekosystem infographic will tell you. By doing a little research, a couple of maths and ignoring a massive number of potential variables like premature death, bankruptcy, game-changing inventions, and the end of the world, I came up with 12 things that you will see before you die. Get ready to get pumped for the PlayStation 11.

John Barry, the film score composer best known for his work on the James Bond series, for which he composed eleven soundtracks, died in New York yesterday of a sudden heart attack. He was 77 years old. Felllow Bond composer David Arnold writes in tribute:

It's music that goes directly to your core. That's why you hear it at weddings, funerals, birthday parties. John Barry's work has affected us all - it's been on the radio since the 60s, on adverts, on the films we watch with our families at Christmas. He gets to your home, he gets to your heart, he gets to your head. ... He lived the life of a hundred men. Thank God we gave so much amazing music to remember him by. He was a real master, and he will go on influencing musicians for a long time. It's a profoundly sad loss.

Below, a few Barry-composed Bond scores:

Darren Aronofsky has been doing the rounds for his upcoming Black Swan, but once one commits to directing the next installment in a major superhero franchise, it's hard to escape. Which is why we now know a few new and interesting things about the next Wolverine movie.

With a burst of hopeful feeling for The Hobbit and the James Bond franchise, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer announced today that it has found new management and can finally tuck itself into the ugly chrysalis of bankruptcy proceedings and emerge as a bee-yutiful production company. Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum (founders of Spyglass Entertainment) will become its new CEOs, effective as soon as its bankruptcy proceedings have been worked through.

Ain't It Cool News, as usual, has quite a few big reveals for us from Bryan Singer, producer of X-Men: First Class, the X-Men prequel/reboot of which we've heard so much casting news lately. Reveals about the 60's. And James Bond. And the Hellfire Club. Well? Click through already!

MGM has been staving off bankruptcy and looking for a buyer for going on a year now, and the process has just been extended. The studio's new deadline to either pay off its creditors or go bankrupt is September 15th.

Why is this relevant to our interests? Well, because until MGM gets its act together, it's very unlikely that The Hobbit or the next James Bond movie will see production.

The Mirror reports that MGM Studios, as part of its continuing money struggles as it tries to find another studio to buy it, has axed plans and pre-production for the 23rd James Bond film.

A glum insider said: “Members of the production crew have been told the Bond film has been canned.

“There is a lot of bad feeling as a lot of time, money and hard work has already gone into this.”

Indeed, the movie already had Sam Mendes lined up to direct and Daniel Craig to star.

The odds of a GoldenEye remake are looking better and better. A while back we reported that Activision had laid claim on the domain of goldeneyegame.com. Now Eurogamer is reporting that, according to their sources, it is totally happening. They say the game will be officially announced in a couple of weeks at E3, and will be released in November.