August 7

Better Than News

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  Dial M for MI6 is a 1954 American spy thriller film about a former MI6 agent (Ray Milland) who wants to have his boss (Judy Dench) murdered so he can get his hands on her Russian contacts list. When he discovers her having an affair with Rudolph Abel (Robert Cummings), he comes up with the perfect plan to kill her.

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  Farewell Barbieland (full title: The Day After 2: Farewell Barbieland) is a fantasy comedy nuclear war film directed by Greta Gerwig and Nicholas Meyer, and starring Margot Robbie, Jason Robards, and Ryan Gosling.

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  Arrakishead is a 1983 surrealist science fiction horror allegory film about a dispossessed aristocrat who is left to care for his melange-addicted child in a barren desert landscape.

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  Apes With Car Keys is a short documentary film about human evolution.

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  Apocalypse Godfather is an epic war crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Marlon Brando.

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  Born Free 2049 is a science fiction animal rights film ab about a couple who raise an orphaned virtual lion cub to adulthood, and released it into the wilderness of the Internet.

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  Mission to Marzipan is a 2000 American science fiction confectionary adventure film.

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  Simply Slugs is a brand of beverages made primarily from slugs.

Are You Sure

... that The Man Who Replaced His Ears With Orchids is a 1975 floral industry training film about a brilliant but absent-minded surgeon whose obsession with orchids leads to frightening advances in medical botany?

On This Day in Fiction and Nonfiction

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  1834: Weaver and merchant Joseph Marie Jacquard dies. He invented the Jacquard loom, an early type of programmable machine.

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  1957: Stokes nuclear weapon test conducted by the United States.

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  1958: Cryptologist and author Herbert Yardley dies. Yardley founded and led the Black Chamber, a secret American government cryptographic organization which broke Japanese diplomatic codes, furnishing American negotiators with significant information during the Washington Naval Conference of 1921-1922.

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  1974: High-wire artist Philippe Petit performs a high wire act between the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

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  1975: Math photographer Cantor Parabola takes retro-temporal pictures of Philippe Petit's high wire act between the twin towers of the World Trade Center, revealing unexpected correspondences with other timelines.

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  1976: Viking program: Viking 2 inserted into a 1500 x 33,000 km, 24.6 h orbit around Mars.

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  2010: Mathematician and statistician John Nelder dies. He contributed to experimental design, analysis of variance, computational statistics, and statistical theory. He also was responsible, with Max Nicholson and James Ferguson-Lees, for debunking the Hastings Rarities.

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  2017: Dennis Paulson celebrates twenty-first anniversary of Viking 2 entering Mars orbit.

Topic of the Day

Dune

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  Sandfall is a science fiction spy film starring Daniel Craig as a British MI6 agent who must discover the source of Melange, a drug which facilitates interstellar travel.

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  My Dinner With Atreides is a 1981 science fiction comedy-drama film about a disbarred Spacing Guild navigator turned restauranteur (Wallace Shawn) and a wealthy investor (Leto Atreides). The film's dialogue covers topics such as experimental drugs, the nature of Arrakis, and contrasts Wally's modest humanism with Leto's dynastic ambitions.

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  Lawrence of Arrakis is an an epic historical drama science fiction film directed by David Lean and staring Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, and José Ferrer.

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  Spice-Lord is a 2021 science fiction comedy film about a zoologist (Chris Pratt) who discovers a new species of worm which excretes a hallucinogenic drug.

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  Dune: House Ferret is a 2021 science fiction animal adventure film based on the best-selling autobiography of animal trainer Frank Herbert.