Giant Freakin Robot

We here at Giant Freakin’ Robot aren’t immune to the calls of quackery, and we sometimes get stretched outside our regular comfort zone, reporting on such things as music on ice and debunking moon-crazed lunacy. And now we’re sharing the “news” that living entirely off of sunlight alone isn’t possible for human beings. Maybe Superman, but no mere mortals.

Case in point, a month and a half after Eastside, Washington’s Naveena Shine gained global notoriety by attempting to prove whether or not “breatharianism” — the New Age-y claim that sunshine can serve as a food substitute — was steeped in realism. After spending 45 days on a diet consisting solely of water and tea — with the Emergen-C vitamin supplement added in the most recent days — Shine is abandoning the experiment, partly due to a lack of funds and partly due to having received a decent percentage of the Internet’s most focused hatred.

“I was just asking a question, but there was just so much negative response that that means the question can’t even be asked,” Shine said. The 65-year-old dropped from 159 pounds to her current weight of 126 pounds, but was still spending her days dancing and cleaning the trailer she rented to conduct her experiment. She filled the trailer with cameras to record her actions 24/7 to prove she wasn’t cheating on her diet, and this was part of why she ran out of money. She hoped for charitable donations but raised only $425 through her website. People spend money on a lot of crazy shit, but I guess they drew the line here.

There’s an ancient Zen koan you may have heard, it goes like this:

One day a Student asked his Master, “Master, how do you interest the managing editor of Giant Freakin’ Robot in an unnecessary remake of Logan’s Run?”

The Master thought for a moment. Then he threw scalding hot tea into the Student’s face and screamed, “The Internet hasn’t even been invented yet, you idiot!”

It’s possible I may have made that all up. Either way, the answer the Master should have given is “Hire the guy who created BioShock to write the script.” Clearly Warner Bros. knows that truth, because they have indeed signed Ken Levine, the writer of the video game BioShock, to write a new script for the long-in-the-works remake of 1976’s Logan’s Run.

A Logan’s Run resurrection has been in the works for ages, with X-Men: Days of Future Past’s Bryan Singer keen to helm a reboot that never quite came together. He finally left the project in 2006, after years of trying to get it going. More recently the project had attracted director Nicolas Winding Refn and actor Ryan Gosling, but Gosling backed out last fall. Now it’s back to square one, but as far as foundations go, hiring Levine is pretty damn solid.

I guess it did sound too good to be true. Last Friday we told you about an exciting rumor that the BBC was negotiating for the return of a massive stash of thought-lost classic Doctor Who episodes, including possibly the complete run of First Doctor William Hartnell. That rumor initially came from the folks over at Bleeding Cool, who cited a couple of unnamed sources in claiming that this recovered Who material would likely get a fall 2013 release, just in time for the Who anniversary festivities. Sadly, only a few days later, it’s beginning to look like this rumor is the result of an outright hoax.

Bleeding Cool updated the story yesterday, revealing that one of the sources of the rumor was ex-Doctor Who producer Andrew Cartmel, who allegedly told some folks at a convention in Atlanta that some lost episodes had been found, and to expect news of them soon. Unfortunately, when asked about the rumor on Twitter, Cartmel’s reply dumped some water on the flames:

@DreadSinister Sorry, I don't have any special knowledge about this. I hope they find all of them, though.

— Andrew Cartmel (@andrewcartmel) June 15, 2013

There is something so exquisitely fitting about the darkly comedic sci-fi film The Zero Theorem being a Terry Gilliam movie. It mixes lofty story goals with oddball characters, which describes every single one of his previous works. At least, I think the movie has those things. The film has a plotline and little else to go on. Usually, a Gilliam film goes through at least a year of troubled production, the entirety of which is reported on. But there’s something different about this one. It’s already done.

Now that we’ve gotten our first look at Matt Damon, thanks to Bleeding Cool, there’s very little doubt that this could be the greatest movie ever to exist. Well, not really, but he looks quite amazing in that not-quite-zebra jacket and tie, sitting in a chair that is either made out of the same material or covered by it. Either way, it’s a black-and-white explosion, especially when you factor in his black glasses and short, bone-white hair.