Welcome to Fhloston Paradise! The hotel of a thousand and one follies, lollies, and lick ‘em lollies. A magic fountain flow of non stop wine, women and hootchie cootchie coo! Yeah, I did that straight from memory. The Fifth Element is my favorite film. I’m not sure if I’ve talked about my obsession with it on The Mary Sue before but let’s just say I have Leeloo’s tattoo and leave it at that. So when we were sent this fantastic LEGO creation from Matt De Lanoy I jumped with joy. The “Fhloston Paradise” set was created as part of a larger set up for a Northern Illinois LEGO Train Club show. This is just the empty set, as it were, click ahead to see what it looks like when all the “actors” are thrown in. And yes, there are Mangalores galore.

(Matt De Lanoy via Anonymous Tipster)

I’m just saying. If I hadn’t already cleaned out my fridge after losing power for four days during Hurricane Sandy, I’d be thinking about it. (That’s Nerdalicious!)

Not going to lie. If I had this cake I’d want to reenact the tower toppling scene. (That’s Nerdalicious!)

Just this morning we showed you a saint turned into various pop culture icons, well here are some sci-fi icons made saintly by artist Jska Priebe, for her series STELLAR: The Women of Science Fiction. I’d seen her version of Ripley before, but had no idea it was merely a single part of a series. Believe it or not, you can buy prints of all of them at Priebe’s store, and in the meantime, you can look at all of them right here.

Canadian artist Ïve Bastrash’s alternate movie posters are kind of creepy. In that I’m not sure how he got a look at my DVD collection, because that’s, like, in my apartment. I’m just saying, if he’d wanted to borrow a movie or two, he could have just asked.

Why would anyone willingly change their name to something really, really, really, really long? One hundred and sixty one words to be exact. No, this wasn’t the work of some terrible bet between friends, it’s all for charity. She was born Dawn Marie McManus but today she goes by, well, you’re going to have to see it to believe it. 

Last week I had to bring you the news of Star Wars conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie’s passing. Today, another huge blow for art lovers. Jean Giraud, known in the art world as Moebius, has died at the age of 73. Moebius was a French artist best known for his comic book work but also his work on films like Tron and Alien. Hit the jump for a look at his work. 

Every once in a while, popular films are re-released into theaters. Sometimes it’s with improved sound, effects etc. but sometimes it’s just because people love them so much. This past year we saw Disney’s The Lion King back in theaters in 3D and the original Back to the Future. Next year will find Star Wars back in theaters (again) with their 3D version. When movies like these are brought back to the big screen, they almost always prove extremely popular, not to mention profitable. So that begs the question – why do they ever leave?

The movie theater business isn’t an easy one. Most of their money is made through popcorn, candy and soda sales with a percentage of ticket sales going to the studios depending on how long the film is out. Special screenings, depending on who’s running them, have a different cost strategy, but pretty much, if people will keep coming to see it (and buying concessions) it stands to reason they’ll make money. Here are ten films that I think deserve to perpetually show on the big screen. Granted I don’t know everything about what a financial model for something like this would be and I’m not saying they have to show every day but theaters are guaranteed to have at least one butt in their seats for these.

On Towel Day, all of Douglas Adams’ fans are encouraged to carry a towel around with them, or to at least know where their towel is, following the great tradition of hitchhiking, traveling, managing, and adventuring laid out in his work. Naturally, this got us to thinking about all the hoopy (really together) froods (really amazingly together people) that we know in fiction that really know where their towels are. You know, the characters who you could drop off anywhere and anywhen in the space time continuum, and come back in an hour and they’d already be lounging in perfect confidence and opulence, and knocking back something highly alcoholic, on their towel (or towel equivalent). Because anyone who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where their towel is, is clearly a person to be reckoned with.

See? They’re just like us. (At Blastr)