I haven’t posted in a while, I think it’s because I have been caught up in all the Christmas shenanigans that tend to fill up your calendar at this time of year.
I’m up in Sheffield at the moment watching the Pigglet Movie on BBC 1, soon to be followed by the Tigger movie apparently. TV this year has been terrible, probably to do with the recession or something. So I thought I would waste sometime on a few kids movies.

One of my biggest grievances this year has been the lack of Scrooged (Bill Murray). That changed last night as it was on Film4. Now I’m not a scheduler but what the hell is that movie doing on the 29th December. There are three films that must be shown on Christmas eve: Scrooged, Elf and Cliff Hanger. It’s not rocket science, hopefully someone will pay attention and fix it for next year.

Anyway, I thought I would post some trailers that have got me excited for the coming year.

Kick–Ass

I got shown this yesterday by Greg. It looks VERY silly, but there is something refreshing about the young girl’s potty mouth.


Iron man 2

I loved the last movie and the sequel looks like more of the same. More drinking, more womanising and loads more flying suits with guns...oh and Mickey Rourke.


Mass Effect 2


Yes it’s a computer game, but the Mass Effect series is as close to a film as you can probably get. The next game stars Martin Sheen, Seth Green and loads of other famous people, good at being famous.

Is Carly Simon Famous? She’s singing at the end of the Pigglet movie. She must be a country singer of something. She definitely hasn’t made it big over in the UK.

Homeward bound 2 is after the Tigger Movie...oh why not, I’ve got nothing better to do.

It's been a hell of a long time since I posted anything on here, as Geeky Tom pointed out yesterday. Rubbish excuse, but I have been meaning to post for ages (I even started one on Pixar's UP a few months ago but got sidelined partway through and never finished). So to try and make amends, here's a bumper post on all the film and telly things recently viewed, in a not-very-concise-at-all manner.

First up - the latest Steven Soderbergh film, THE INFORMANT.


Based - loosely - on the story of real life corporate whistleblower Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon), who discovers his agro-chemical company are involved in international price fixing. He turns spy for the FBI, but it becomes apparent over time that Whitacre is a fantastist (perhaps even bi-polar) - and not the most trustworthy of informants...

Damon is excellent as the moustache-sporting, lumpenly egotistical Whitacre, demonstrating strong comedic chops after honing his action hero skills as Jason Bourne. Soderbergh's eye for detail and careful production design lovingly re-creates the look and feel of a midwestern US office in the early 90s, making it seem every bit as historic to us now as the 1960s and 70s. Unfortunately, the satirical schtick only goes so far to make this an entertaining dark comedy, and Whitacre's unreliability as a narator and constant evasiveness make it difficult to engage as a viewer. There's also too much repetition of the central conceit, causing the movie to lag in the middle. Ultimately, The Informant is an exercise in style over substance, lacking a much needed bite of meaty drama.

I was lucky enough to be invited to a preview screening of highly-anticipated Spike Jonze feature WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. Having read a couple of swooning reviews and an interesting feature on the genesis of the movie and the 8 foot tall puppets created by the Jim Henson Company, I was looking forward to this film a lot - perhaps too much. Hearing something's praises sung to the highest heavens does tend to create unrealistic expectations, and while I truly liked this undoubtedly bold, brave, singular movie, I didn't quite feel the sense of magic, of being transported and uplifted, that I secretly wished for.



Nonetheless, I don't have anything bad to say about this movie and it does achieve something really hard to come by in Hollywood movies - a true sense of originality and artistic vision. Max Records gives a wonderful, unreserved performance as 9 year old Max, riven with feelings, fears and impulses he can't fully express. The adult actors, from Catherine Keener as his harried single mother, to James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Forest Whitaker and Catherine O'Hara who voice the astonishing puppets are by turns endearing and scary. And a special mention must go to the beautifully atmospheric music created by, amongst others, musicians from the Yeah Yeah Yeah's, The Raconteurs and Queens of the Stone Age.

Some have said Where The Wild Things Are is about childhood but not for children, and it's hard to see what young viewers used to live action kids' movies and animated family films will make of this. But it does convey the tumultuous and volatile feelings of growing up in way that does justice to Maurice Sendak's bestselling book, with no Disney-fied sugar coating to sweeten the pill.
Go see - and in the right mood, you might really feel the magic Jonze has laboured to create on screen.

This post has run away from me, but in brief then, TV I have been watching recently that you too should be watching:
E4's Misfits - acerbic, dark, funny, self-deprecating and very British;
Sky's Modern Family - best new US sitcom this year;
Glee (coming to E4 next year) - a mix of comedy, drama and musical that is original and joyous;
Mad Men - 60s set ad-men drama continues to scintillate;
Vampire Diaries (ITV2 in Jan) - chiselled teen vamps with enough lust and angst to tide you over til True Blood returns;
Fringe - mind-boggling sci-fi drama brimful of inventiveness;
The Good Wife (More4/C4 next year) ER alumni Julianna Margulies plays a woman who stands by her adulterous US State Attorney husband in this finely-crafted drama;
Flash Forward - it aint Lost, but it's getting better all the time;
V - loved the pilot, not sure I've been convinced by the subsequent three but will persevere.
Finally - it's not current but I've just finished The West Wing and it's now in my all time top shows. If you've never seen it, it's sublime - invest in the box set.

That's it for now...over and out.

What makes a good kids show? How about one that you can still laugh at now. A show which includes spitting image style puppets, "Jim Jam Ya Ha" and the guy from "Men Behaving Badly" -  the one that isn't "Bob the Builder". Let me introduce you to "Roger and the Rotten Trolls". One of the funniest children's shows since "Maid Marian and Her Merry Men".

Written by Tim Firth who recently wrote the script for Blackball and Calendar Girls. The first series won the 1997 Bafta for "Best Children's Entertainment Show" - indecently beating the "Ant and Dec show". I bought the videos at university when VHS was still the in thing.  We really were spoiled for great TV back when I was a kid.

Anyway sit back, relax and enjoy the first episode.

I was recently having a chat with my mum about Children's television. I was basically watching some of the toss that kids these days get peddled, and I said that I didn't remember TV being this bad when I was young.

And it wasn't. So I went out and found the proof.

I'm now going to show you some you of the shows that got me in to Sci-fi and made me the man I am today.

The Finder, also known as Finder Keepers.

This was on Channel 4 really early on a Saturday...or was it a Sunday morning? I forget now. However I was very young but I remember getting up really early to watch it every weekend. I'm not sure if I quite grasped the concept because I would have been around 8 years old.

Anyway this kid gets invited to participate in a game show in another dimension - nice huh? He has to find objects from the parallel world that have been lost in ours - to be in with a chance of winning a million pounds.

He has to cross something called the time barrier which is the thing that separates their would with ours. Clocks weaken the barrier and allow people to cross over. The strange one in the shopping centre seems to have weakened it the most because that's where all this shit goes down.

If you read some of the comments on youtube, a lot of people thought that they had dreamt this show. I thought I had too, apparently not though as here is episode 1, it's worth a watch. It really is a great bit of Sci-fi.

(Part 1)

(Part 2)

The Girl From Tomorrow

This was a BBC program. Watching it now; the special effects are terrible, but that doesn't really matter as it was made in 1990 which would have made me 7 for the people that are bothered.

In the year 3000 the world is recovering from 'the great disaster'. To better understand it they are travelling back in time to find out what happened. However a Mad Max style Criminal from the 2500 steals a time capsule when they come to visit in order to try and take over the future. He travels to the year 3000 but fails miserably and escapes with Alana - the main character - to the year 1990...woah. Considering I was 7 I can't believe I got this.

Alana must steal back the time machine from the Mad Max guy before it automatically travels back to the future without her.






The Odyssey

This is a Good-un...in fact I think I 'm going to try and find this on DVD.

This was another Channel4 early morning special. I love the concept of the show. I really want it to be remade, it could even be a film. Ok - I have hyped it enough - lets go:

Jay, the main character falls from a tree house and lapses in to a coma.

In the coma, Jay finds himself in another world. A world where none of the kids ever reach the age of 16. There are no adults so the kids have shaped the world on their own. I seem to remember that it resembled a fascist police state for some reason.

All the people from Jays life appear in his dream even his dad who he has decided he has to find, and is the key for Jay to get home.

Mean while in the real world his mum and his friends try to help him regain consciousness which sometimes results in the merging of the two worlds.

I found the first episode on lovely lovely Youtube.

(Part 1) 

(Part 2)
(Part 3)

I have missed a good few more out of this list on purpose because I'm going to do another post when I have the time.

It’s dissatisfying watching Dragon’s Den on Dave Ja Vu all day for two crucial reasons. The first being that instead of having a job and earning some money myself, I’m wasting my time watching the most sour-faced turds on the face of this stupid planet scowling and grumbling despite the fact that if one of them developed a brain tumor the size of a watermelon and put all their money on Eddie Van Halen winning the Grand National, they’d still be in a far stronger financial situation than me by tea time thanks to a life time of clever investments.



The second reason it’s sad is that all the romance has gone from the world of invention. I’m sure when Dragon’s Den was developed and in pre-production, everyone imagined that the contestants would be eccentric, white bearded old men who stink of piss, waddling up to the dragons to pitch their idea for a lizard powered bicycle that will carry a team of astro-men to Proximus Centauri and back in seven seconds. Well that’s what I thought it would be like anyway and it’s not. Every time a proper old school inventor does make an appearance from his shed to pitch a rain-proof washing line or gadget made from cogs and pulley’s they invariably get told to piss off back to the stone age and die.



The only ideas that get taken seriously are those conceived by some greasy little computer programmes student in a shit shirt who’s built a micro chip that counts money taken by slot machines or a micro chip that prevents file sharing or a micro chip that stops helicopters exploding in a ball of hilarious flames. The problem is that this is progress. We need all these boring little chips and programmes and the probably make the world – certainly the one we’ve created – a better place. It’s progress and it’s ever so dull.

So let us salute the mad old inventors who achieve absolutely nothing in their sheds and basements for soon they shall be a thing of the past like penny-farthing’s and codpieces.

Oh and one more thing. Dragons live in a ‘lair’. Lions live in a "den" - Pricks.

The rule used to be that you couldn't die in a Lucasarts' game (this was before the onslaught of Star Wars games). After completing the latest installment of the Tales of Monkey Island I have come to the conclusion that maybe Telltale Games don't play be the same rules. You see in the latest chapter, our hero (Mr Threepwood) gets stabbed in the chest with a sword. Pretty dramatic huh? I know that me and half the Telltale forums were a bit surprised. Yes this episode has been another cracker. We are back on Flotsam Island and this time it's night time; or as I like to call it: Monkey Time as most of the best Monkey Island games had a great night section. Guybrush is on Trial, that crazy French guy is still around and Elaine has gone pox-mad.
                                                                              (oh yeah Stan is back)

Anyway it made me think back to the other Monkey games and how they dealt with Guybrush dying - because he did, in everyone I think. Here is an example from the Curse of Monkey Island. Never mix medicine and alcohol, except if you are a lovable computer game character that is.


Then this slightly older example from Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. I like this version because a lot of people forget that your just listening to a retelling of the story.


So proof that you can't die; well proof that you can find comedy ways out of it.

I would hazard a guess that Guybrush will be making a return and a miraculous recovery in the final chapter of what has been a really fantastic game. Because Monkey Island is still a Lucasarts franchise and I would doubt they would be pleased if one of their most popular non Star Wars character got nailed in the penultimate episode. However with a name like Tales of Monkey Island: Rise of the Pirate God; He may just be returning with some strange new powers.

Lastly, I would like to add that the episodic content format is working incredibly well for this genre of gaming. It really is something to look forward to every month. I hope it really kicks off, and a few more companies decide to start doing content like this. And maybe adventure games might have a revival; although some may argue that 2009 has been a very good year for the genre.

Which is has been, no argument here...for a change.

I don't know how, but someone has given Warren Spector permission to take Mickey Mouse and almost make it scary. I say almost because unfortunately there quite a bit of difference between the concept art:


and the screen shots from the actual game:


Which is a shame because I liked the idea of Mickey having to survive in a Fallout 3 inspired nuclear waste land.

The plot is bizarre to say the least:
"A long time ago, the sorcerer Yen Sid created a pen-and-paper world for his forgotten characters, held in an intricate model on a table, and accesible through a mirror. Mickey who finds himself inside Yen Sid's study, sees the model, and waits until Yen Sid is gone before going back to take another look at it, fiddling with it, Mickey accidentally trips through the mirror, spilling paint thinner and twisting the world. He managed to escape without Yen Sid knowing, returning to his world he went on to live years of success and fame, but his meddling had consequences. The paint and paint thinner have destroyed the world and created an evil being called the "Phantom Blot", who has usurped power from Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Yen Sid's first creation before Mickey, and sent the world into ruin. Years later, Mickey is kidnapped by the Phantom Blot and sent into the world. Oswald, his will lost, twisted by his jealousy of Mickey's rise to fame, has formulated a plan to destroy Mickey. The Mad Doctor works closely with the Blot, creating robotic "Beetleworx", which have the appearance of a Cartoon-style Car with a head protruding from the front bumper, made to intimidate and twist Mickey's vision of his friends. He also creates 'buddies' for Oswald, looking like Donald Duck and Goofy, as Oswald wants Mickey's life and popularity for himself. Mickey must stop the Phantom Blot, gain the trust of Oswald and save the forgotten world."
(Taken from Wikipedia)

For the people that haven't heard of Warren Spector: He is most famous for creating Deux Ex for the PC - A cyber-punk RPG/FPS - that was critically acclaimed for its multipath story.He is now adding some Deux Ex magic to Mickey Mouse which will probably created the strangest mashing of genres ever.

"The core of this game is the idea of choice and consequence, and how that defines both the character and the player,” says Spector. "By putting the mischievous Mickey in an unfamiliar place and asking him to make choices – to help other cartoon characters or choose his own path – the game forces players to deal with the consequences of their actions. Ultimately, players must ask themselves, ‘What kind of hero am I?’ Each player will come up with a different answer."

I have no idea which age range this game is being pitched to because I'm pretty sure that anyone under the age of ten, Mickey's biggest fan base, won't get the subtleties of cause and effect game play.

Anyway I'm pretty sure that if the confusing game doesn't get them, the horrific robot Donald Duck will!

I mean look at that! it's the stuff of nightmares, horrible cheese fueled nightmares.

"I want your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle"

Welcome to the year 2054. The world is now a very different place. The first robotic President has been elected in The United States of America, peanuts are now officially called 'freedom pellets', Fuel prices have rocketed due to mass conflicts in the Bosporus so now only the twenty richest men in the world can afford to drive a car, Joan Rivers, Oprah Winfrey and U2 are all now powered by steam and kill everything in their path, indiscriminately and with precious little regard for human life.

Everything is grey and it always rains. Everyone is very sad but things are about to get much worse.Capitalism has caused profit snowballing and the largest multinational corporations have now become so rich that they are set to change the face of the planet forever. Welcome to The Democratic Republic of Fruit Gums formally known as 'Chad', the first country to have it's name changed to a brand. Rowntrees bought the country in 2052 and are in the process of turning it into the world's largest bill board. Billions of pounds have been spent on digging a giant canal system spelling out such products as 'Fruit Pastilles', 'Jelly Tots' and 'Tooty Frooties' in 10 mile high lettering that can be seen clearly from space. 


Medicines and food are now contraband leading to mass starvation and illness. Millions more are expected to suffer. McDonalds has monopolised 50% of the worlds buildings and turned them in restaurants.However because cows have been put on the endangered species list Mcdonalds have developed a new kind of meat made from stars. Statistically every single person will live next to, above, below or in a McDonalds restaurant.

Pavements are now so greasy that Nike have had to develop a new kind of super high grip shoe to make it possible to walk. Leglislation has also been passed to make this footwear mandatory. The punishment for wearing any other footwear is aids. General Motors Company own the copyright to fruit, Coca Cola have cloned 3000 babies, tattooed them with the Coca Cola logo and sent them on a space ship in an attempt to sell the product in other dimensions to maximise profits. Virgin have bought the core of the earth and boasts the only holiday destination that reaches 25 000 degrees Celsius apart from the Sun with is now owned by the Sun newspaper and used to incinerate pedophiles after a weekly vote on the BBC which is still shit and has no money. 

This will happen.

(Some creative writing from Matt Haydock, our new blogger)

On the back of the Episodes From Liberty City manual (the lastest add-on back for GTA 4)  there is a wonderfully crypic image that has got the Internet in a stir.

It hints at the next location of the new GTA game due to be released in March 2010.

Predictably there has been much speculation. All the Americans are saying that it's somewhere in the USA, while all the British are saying it's somewhere in England.

Now Rock Star started in Scotland and the second GTA game on the PC was set in London. The most recent games have all been set in an America. I think that is could be quite possible that the new one could grace our British shores. Think about the date of release, it's very close to Olympics which is going to be in London. It would be good business to some how tie the two together. GTA 5: Olympic edition. The 100 meter sprint with the Met (Police) chasing after you...maybe not.


However the "Seagull" theater does point to somewhere in the South East of England...Brighton maybe. This would mean a very big game map. Unless the game was going to be set in Brighton, which unforunatly isn't one of the biggest crime hubs in the UK. Unless you count inferior jam with your cream tea a crime.

If it is set in America then the image with trees and the mountains could depict somewhere like Reno and the Rocky Mountains. New England has country side like that too. Anyway I'm sure the speculation with continue.

I hope it is set in the UK. We are definitely due some GTA love.

Lucasarts are finally doing things right. After years in the Star Wars wilderness, they have decided to concentrate on their often exceptional back-catalog.

This has brought us the new Monkey Island games and now some of their older classics that, thankfully, didn't have anything to do with Luke Skywalker or Lego.

Anyway ZAMN (See what I did there?) first reared it's rotting face on the Super Nintendo back in 1993. I think I was about 10, maybe 11 years old and I had just watched Arachnophobia on VHS round Jonathan Wood's house. He had bought an American version of the game that you needed a converter to get to work in his UK system.

Thinking back: I have no idea where he got all these American games from - I seem to remember him owning a lot more. The game was basically a piss-take on the B-Movie horror genre and was great fun to play with a mate. I might hazard a guess that the creators of Left 4 Dead may have even played this game at some point (you never know). You got to choose between 2 rather cool characters and you had to leg it around various themed levels trying to save your neighbors from a quick death; it was that simple. It's one of the first games I remember being REALLY hard. Maybe I was just too young and my hands were too small to work the controller properly. However that didn't seem to stop me being kick-ass at Super Mario Kart - yes Saltdog, far far better then you.

I think the Wii version is a straight conversion so I doubt much has changed. I did hear a rumor that Lucasarts could be working on a brand new installment, which would make sense with all the zombie love going around these days.

Here is some game play footage from the SNES version:



Unfortunately for the Wii, these old games are pretty much all it has going for it. Unless you like Yoga or flapping your arms around like a complete prick. It's a shame because even though Nintendo has been brought back from the brink with this console. I think it maybe secretly dying inside; wishing for games like Left 4 Dead and Bioshock to grace it's waggle stick.

Shed a tear with me for Parent friendly Nintendo. Hopefully it will grow-up in the next great console war. I doubt it though, they are making far too much money.

An annoying presenter, but a great trailer.

Wow, I think this is going to be a historic moment. I'm going to publicly slate Battlestar Galactica.

You see I have just seen their new straight to DVD movie: The Plan. And to be honest I didn't like it. Maybe I have rather high expectations after enjoying the show as much as I did but it really didn't excite me what-so-ever...blasphemy I know!

It follows all four series from the Cylons' perspective. unfortunately it adds nothing to the overall plot, except to fill in a few small gaps with little tit-bits that I think it was have been better left up to us to mull over.

It's more like a collection of deleted scenes left out of the real show, cut together in to a two hours of blah. Sorry I'm getting harsh now and don't mean to be because I did enjoy it, it's just expectations are so high when it comes to BSG. I guess I was hoping for some major revelations, some gigantic twist that would have blown our collective minds. But it was not to be.

I guess the problem they had was how to cram four seasons of a show in to a two hour film, I don't think it can be done, they shouldn't even have tried but unfortunately they know they are on to a good thing and legions of fans will go out and buy it or watch it on Scifi...oh wait it's Syfy now isn't it lol.

Ok there is a bit that sticks in my mind, you get to see a wicked view of the orignal attack on the twelve colonies which does look fantastic. The CGI is always one of the BSG's best features.

Anyway I hope this is the last of the Battlestar addons because it could get old real quick. Don't do a Lucas, don't do a Lucas, don't do a lucas.

I went and watched a rather interesting vampire film last night. Which makes me chuckle because I have made some quite strong claims recently that I would never see any the influx of the fanged-teen-angst-wank infecting our cinemas at the moment.

Luckily this was a film written and directed by Park Chan-wook, the guy that brought us the ultra violent Oldboy. So there was no over-quaffed-vampire-twats in sight, hurray.

The film is about a priest who goes to a Catholic sanctuary where they are trying to cure a fatal disease. He volunteers to be infected so they can find a cure. However for some reason that must of got lost in the subtitles, he gets a blood transfusion from a vampire donor.

He makes an astounding recovery but with some obvious side effects. From here on you would of thought you could of predicted the outcome and you probably could have done if the film wasn't from South Korea.

Now starts the craziness as he discovers sex, murder, Mahjong and a mental new girl friend and her soon to be paralysed mother. I won't spoil the plot, although in all honesty I'm finding it hard to remember a lot of what happened. Least to say it's not your everyday vampire movie. Although it is about love and there is a lot of blood drinking.

Sasha came along to and I think she enjoyed it, although she did miss some of the best bits, her coat had some how made it in to a position that completely obscured her view...not sure how. Later, after chatting over some paella. It turns out that bones snapping out of arms, people being burned alive and fingers being bent back until they break aren't some of her favorite things to watch.

All in all it's a great film, not AS good as Oldboy but worth a watch if you like listening to over exaggerated slurping noises...I know I do.

I had almost forgotten how much I enjoy point and click adventures. I have just completed the latest installment of the computer game sitcom that is The Tales of Monkey Island and if I may, I would like to add that it is the finest so far.

This month we find Guybrush trapped in the stomach of a gigantic Narwhale - cue laughs, silly faces, intestinal fluid, a missing inner. It also has one of the funniest mini games since insult sword fighting. It's called the "face off" and is based on those gurning competitions that rural England seem to love so much.



On a more intellectual note, I think Guybrush has evolved..as a character I mean. At first I thought it was his new 3D body and fancy beard, but I think it's his personality that has changed the most. No longer do you feel you are in control of a inept pirate wannabe, stumbling from dangerous situation to even more dangerous situation. It seems he has embraced his stupidity and has made the puzzle thing his preferred style of combat. Where he once seemed to escape most situations by the skin of his teeth, he always seem to have some underlying plan. I hate to say it but almost like Captain Jack Sparrow...argh.

Anyway bring on the next episode, I can barely contain my piratey excitement.

I watched the original film and I have absolutely no recollection of the plot.

This leads me to believe that there wasn't anything of any significance in that department and this sequel has no connection to the Ong Bak I watched apart from the "Legendary Tony Ja".

However I then remembered that it's a martial art's film and a plot can, and usually does just get in the way of the fighting.

Then I watched the trailer and smiled.



Tony Ja (the protagonist) has been likened to Bruce Lee. He does all his own stunts and knows how to use his fists, head, shoulders, Knees and toes.

If you're a fan of martial art's films then watch it, if you hate the sight of grown men fighting then go pick some flowers...hippy.

"If I kill you I am bound for hell. It is a price I am willing to pay."

With these immortal words I knew that this film was going to kick my ass raw.

SOLOMON KANE is a character created by Robert E. Howard of Conan fame and all the sword, sorcery and violent heroics that made me love that muscled bound idiot are present here, plus he has pistols and the devil wants him.

To sum up, Kane is 16th century viscous bastard who as a captain in his majesties armies leads a band of equally nasty gits into war for England. He takes great pleasure in killing and plundering, until him and his men raid a castle in Africa for treasure and are all killed (except for Kane of course) by demons. Kane comes face to face with a particularly nasty one who it seems has been sent by the devil himself to claim Kane's blackened soul, fancy that. Kane obviously takes great umbrage with this and decides against it.

Kane vows to follow a life of peace to save his soul, no violence, some nasty scarification and lots of hugging kittens etc. Of course a pious beardy bloke being nice wouldn't make much of a film so in come more demons and Kane goes to work in typical 80s style man driven to the edge, kind of like Popeye but with more blood.

Look


Now another reason I'm rather excited about this is because of Michael J. Bassett the director. He directed the much underrated Deathwatch(though looking at imdb it did win some awards so it must of been the idiotic public that underrated it), a great horror film set in WW1 trenches starring Billy Elliot and Gollum. Deathwatch had great atmosphere, real darkness and terror, not to mention the style which by the look of the trailer is really going to suit this film. Plus Solomon Kane has got Pete Postlethwaite in it.

Sweet.

Tai Chiem, an "Award winning, ambitious, passionate designer, self motivated with a great eye for design" has put together his take on what the next generation of consoles should look like.

PS4



Xbox 720


I think the designers are fantastic, especially the PS4. Give this man a job that's what I say. If you want to see more of his work then you can visit his site here:

Tai Chiem - Industrial Design

The first episode of Dollhouse series 2 is out for the people in the know...people who aren't me it seems. Not sure if there is one for slightly questionable download but it might be worth looking.

Luckily Joss has given as a quick catch up in the latest press release for the show:

To refresh, Echo has been rescued from ALPHA (who is still at large) after having all her former personas dumped into her brain all at once. PAUL BALLARD (Tahmoh Penikett) has agreed to work with the Dollhouse in exchange for NOVEMBER’s (Miracle Laurie) freedom. DR. SAUNDERS (Amy Acker) has discovered she is actually an Active, designate “Whiskey,” who was designed by TOPHER (Fran Kranz) to replace the doctor Alpha murdered. And ADELLE (Olivia Williams) has gotten a fabulous haircut.

We hope you enjoy our happy little tale. If you don’t: t-shirt...so soft...so sleepy...

If you haven't seen this show yet it is worth a look. It's a slow burner which will creep up on you until you are salivating for next the episode, nice huh?






Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day

My mate Rob showed me the original in my first year of uni. It was his favorite film and it soon became one of mine.

Here is the Trailer for the old one:



and here is the trailer for the new one:



Not sure about the lack of a William Dafoe, he was amazing in the original. I'm still going to watch it though.

As the recession bites, studios have started to turn to computer games for inspiration rather than just smashing out endless sequels. There are a couple of games, bright sparkles in an otherwise black abyss that I’m hoping will buck the trend of bad game to film translations.

Avatar


The game and the film are being released at the same time and it should be a real cinematic event, yes you guessed it, it’s James Carmon’s Avatar.

The 3D spectacular that will turn going to the Cinema in to an event again (the best way to fight the pirates) will also spawn an MMORPG (Massively multiplayer online role playing game).

Based in the same world as the film, you will be able to experience his vision first hand with another couple of thousand people. James was heavily involved in the creation of the game so it should be up to standard.


Prince of Persia



A Jerry Bruckheimer blockbusting extravaganza, featuring an extremely ripped Jake Gyllenhaal and Ben Kingsly doing his standard villain routine.

It has been in production for a while and apparently they are just finishing up the special effects so it should be out soon. The film follows the 2003 console reboot Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, with the hero (Gyllenhall) tasked with retrieving the Sands of time -an ancient relic that can control time itself...surprisingly.

I have a feeling it will have a similar tone to Transformers – huge explosions, stunning girls and great combat. It should be worth watching you want to turn your brain off.

Bioshock



I was excited about until it got put on hold due to budget concerns. It was going to be filmed on a green screen, think 300 but under the sea. It’s based around an underwater city called Rapture that a bunch of Scientists built to escape the aftermath of the Second World War.

They chose the best and the brightest to build the perfect society but things went a bit wrong. It was to be directed by Gore Verbinski of pirate Caribbean fame and written by John Logan who penned Gladiator and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. So it has potential and I really hope it gets made.

Halo



Peter Jackson and the Wheta workshop were working on this one. They got themselves a cult director from South Africa (Neil Blomkamp). They made some test footage that got the Internet very excited because Wheta had created a bunch of amazing props including a fully working Warthog, a type of army truck you can drive in the game.

However in 2007 the project got declared dead by Neil although Peter has said that the movie will be made. Neil and Peter have been working on another film - District 9.

It’s Sci-fi and you can see the potential of how good the Halo film could have been or may still be. Fast forward a few months and the Mighty Steven Spiel berg has been linked with the project as an executive producer...

The World Of Warcraft


Blizzard's unstoppable snow ball of a franchise has finally had a director linked with it. And in typical Blizzard style, they have the very best to turn their game in to a film - Mr Sam Raimi - The veteran of the Spiderman films and the Evil Dead series.

That is all we know so far but this is set to be a biggy, he has probably got the hardest task ever in film making history. He has to please 11 million internet geeks that will start an rampage if the film doesn't live up to expectations.

One of my all time favourite films is The Prophecy starring Christopher Walken and Viggo Mortensen as the best movie version of Lucifer ever (he gives the great line - "Little Tommy Daggett. How I loved listening to your sweet prayers. Then you would hop into bed, afraid that I was hiding under it. And I was!", ooh chills)

I love the atmosphere to that movie and the way it drags down the idea of angels into a gritty reality. Now we have LEGION, and though this may fall back on more modern action based nonsense (screw you Matrix for ruining so many films, screw you right in the arse, you make one good film and you end up with a life time of movie execs masturbating over its style, which they couldn't even match in the sequels for Christ sake!) it still has some of that grit and I just love the last stand in the desert thing. So yes it has slow-mo dual gun wielding which is a sure sign there's limited plot but boy does it look fun, plus I really like Paul Bettany and it'll be nice to see him kick some arse.




It's also quite interesting to note that the director Scott Stewart is also working on a film version of the manga Priest, which is a sort of western vampire thing about a priest (obviously) supposedly also starring Bettany.

Sweet.

Hey look it's me being made in to a zombie!



There is a reason for the zombification process - the world’s biggest mass participation zombie movie at The Big Chill.

Here is the gist of it from the official website.

It's 2018 - six years after a virus was released at the 2012 Olympics. Zombies dominate the earth and humankind has been mauled, torn and eaten to extinction.

The problem is there's not a lot to do now that there are no humans left to rip apart... cue the first post-apocalyptic music festival curated by the undead.

Film4 and Warp Films bring you I Spit On Your Rave, a mockumentary by director Chris Boyle about the first post-apocalypse zombie music festival, and we want YOUR living corpse to take part.

All the filming will take place at the Big Chill festival, and shooting starts on Thursday 6th of August. We want thousands of zombie-costumed ticket holders to join the cast numbers, and enter the Guinness Book of World Records for the "Most Amount of Zombies Captured on Camera".

A short promo of the film will be screened at the end of the festival before we release it online here for free.

If your off to the big chill this year then you should definitely take your zombie makeup. If being in a movie isn't motivation enough, how about being in a movie with Noel Fielding as your zombie king!

With Lost approaching its final season. I'm on a constant hunt for replacements. I stumbled on this today, a space drama with some rather horny astronauts.

Here are some bits from the press release:

It's a space thriller set in the very near future against the background of our solar system, in which eight astronauts from five countries (four women and four men) undertake a mysterious six-year international space mission covering eight billion miles.

Hurtling into the vast challenge of infinite space, the eight astronauts and the ground personnel who support them are on a mission that has a powerful and awesome mystery at its core. The intimate and interconnected relationships among the astronauts and the ground crew, as well as their past actions, have a strangely karmic effect on the present.

Episodes are divided between the present, as the Antares travels towards Venus, and the past, with flashbacks to earlier years when the astronauts were in the grueling selection and training process.

Flash backs you say, that sounds familiar. Anyway I will be checking this one out.



So the 2nd August it is then.

This really should've been hot off the press a couple of weeks ago, but work's gotten in the way (and I'm a bit lazy). So apologies to you all but better late than never, eh?

Flash Forward comes from the same US network studio that brought us Lost, and given that we have but one more series (a mere 18 hours *sniff*) of our favourite mind-bending, time-travelling, theory-spinning drama left, ABC have quite shrewdly surmised that now would be a good time to launch a brand new high concept, time-warping, theory-inducing drama to soak up all those Lost devotees soon to be bereft of their sci-fi fix. A canny move you say, as long as they make sure that new show is shit-hot.



It's far too early to guarantee the longer term quality and ingenuity of Flash Forward (and let's remember that even our beloved Abrams/Lindelof/Cuse creation has had its weak spots) but based on the 45 minute pilot, there's good reason to believe this will at least be the big Fall drama of 2009.
The concept is this: the entire population of the world simultaneously and inexplicably loses consciousness for precisely two minutes and seventeen seconds. During that time, everyone glimpses their own future at exactly six months from that point. They awake to chaos and begin the process of trying to figure out what happened, based on everyone's 'flash forwards'.

While clearly shaping up to be an ensemble drama following multiple character stories, the pilot's ostensible main figure is Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes, with a decent American accent), an FBI agent and recovering alcoholic. The disorientating, unsettling opening scene sees Benford come to in an upturned, crushed car, surrounded by shattered glass and twisted metal. Crawling out, he sees a street full of wounded, wailing people before a card flashes up with 'Four hours earlier'.

In contrast to the cold, eerie bluey-grey shades of the first scene, the flashback opens out onto a golden-hued vista of a Californian suburb in the warm morning sunshine. Mark awakes, kisses wife Olivia (Sonya Walger - Lost's Penny Widmore) good morning and feeds his daughter breakfast before heading out to an early morning AA meeting, at which friend and sponsor Aaron Stark (Brian O'Byrne) speaks of his pain at dealing with the death of his Marine daughter in Afghanistan.

Olivia, a surgeon, calls her colleague Bryce, leaving a voicemail asking where the hell he is and demanding he come in to the work and explain himself. Having muted the call, Bryce stands on a pier overlooking the sea, gun in hand, preparing to take his own life.

Mark and colleague Dominic (John Cho) stake out an attractive blonde, a suspected terrorist, while bantering about wedding dance songs. As a high speed chase ensues, Cho reacting with a convincing combination of fear and exhilaration, we intercut with Bryce readying the gun, Olivia scrubbing in for surgery and their daughter's babysitter making out with her boyfriend on the sofa. Suddenly, the screen cuts to a very fast, telescopic montage of images, before manifesting into a grainy, disjointed scene of Mark in his office, working on the case with a mosaic of images on the wall, before fleeing armed intruders.

We're then snap back to the opening scene, with Mark crawling out of his upside down car, briefly moving to snapshots of Bryce coming to lying on the pier, Olivia and her colleagues in theatre with the sound of a flatlining monitor, the babysitter waking up in her underwear...before returning to the street and seeing for the first time, the extent of the chaos – fires, wrecked vehicles, crushed bodies – pure pandemonium.

Having located Dominic and handcuffed the blonde possible-terrorist, Mark heads off to the hospital, past looters, the injured and in one surreal moment, a kangaroo. News footage demonstrates that this hasn’t just occurred in California, or even the USA, but across the entire planet. Back at the FBI office, the pieces are put together, with people comparing their visions and gradually realising that everyone flashed forward to the same time. Some flashes have been hopeful, some comic, some unexpected and some alarming. Aaron has seen his daughter, alive somewhere in Afghanistan, Olivia has seen the end of her marriage, Mark has seen himself drinking again and Dominic has seen nothing at all. And amongst all the footage captured on cameras across the world of those two minutes, 17 seconds, there is one particularly captivating image...

Raising questions about fate, destiny and what we may or may not have control over, Flash Forward looks set to explore some of the themes which Lost has so inventively delved into, while at the same time hopefully taking flight with its own brand of mind-bending science fiction and creating a group of characters we invest in and root for all the while. Plus it looks like there's going to be a fair bit of online activity, and quite possibly some kind of ARG - check this out
The Mosaic Collective

Unusually for the most buzzed about new show from the States this year, Flash Forward has yet to be officially snapped up by a UK broadcaster. Blame it on the credit crunch. However, you can guarantee it will be coming to a screen near you later on this year or early next – and I’d hazard a guess it'll be either Sky One or Channel 4 that do the honours.

Just realised that I've not yet posted (as promised) about new-for-Autumn American shows The Vampire Diaries and Human Target. Sorry. I will get to them soon, but so far the pilots have not inspired me to write paeans to their brilliance. Anyway, meantime I thought I'd do a quick one on a couple of films I've seen recently.

First up - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen In a nutshell, pretty disappointing. I thoroughly enjoyed the first film - great visual effects, plenty of humour and enough development for both human and machine to make you care what happened to these characters whilst still getting plenty of oohs and aahs out of cool shit being blown up/ cars etc morphing into robots. Sadly, with the second instalment in this sure to be long-running franchise, the only thing that got bigger and better is the budget. Sure, there are some pretty spectacular FX on display, and a new set of shiny robots (both Decepticons and Autobots) but it feels longer and somehow flatter.

There are some funny bits - Sam's parents (scene stealers Kevin Dunn and Julie White) are still as fabulously embarrassing as ever, and his mother accidentally getting stoned off a hash brownie when they drop him off at college is damn good, as is the scene where his hapless roommate Leo (Ramone Rodriguez from The Wire) manages to accidentally taser himself. One of the fight sequences, in which Optimus Prime takes on a resurrected Megatron (yep, of course he's back) as well as a few other Decepticons is exciting and engaging.

But much of the second half is just flabby - it takes way too long to get everyone to the Egyptian desert for the final showdown, which in itself never really awes in the way it should. Probably since it goes on way too long. Oh, and look out for the bit when Sam, Mikaela (Megan Fox, hot as ever) and a couple of others are basically teleported into the desert...one second Shia LaBoeuf is fine, next minute there's an inexplicably large bandage over one hand (THAT car accident he was in, remember?). Frankly, they could have done a little better in working that into the plot. Then again, the plot is almost non-existent (there's a hidden key called The Matrix which can switch on a hidden machine capable of draining the sun for the robots to use, thus destroying Earth yada yada), serving only to link the action set pieces.

But - if you're a diehard fan, there's probably just enough to entertain you for it to be worth the price of a cinema ticket. Probably. Just a bit of shame that what should have been a brilliant summer blockbuster leaves you - well, me anyway - feeling rather unsatisfied.

Thankfully, the opposite is true for excellent comedy The Hangover.



The premise is straightforward - four guys go to Las Vegas for a stag night. Waking up the next morning, they have no idea what happened the night before. And the groom's missing. Plus the wedding is in 24 hours...

It would be entirely unfair of me to give anything else away, suffice to say it's very, very funny and you should absolutely go and see it. Unless you're underage. Or offended easily. The great thing about this movie is that although there are certain jokes/ bits I didn't find all that hilarious, there are plenty of others I did, meaning that most people will undoubtedly be amused most, if not all of the time. There's only one misjudged moment as far as I'm concerned, and it's the Mike Tyson section which not only doesn't especially work on a comedic level, but also seems to wrap up with a pretty repellant insinuation. You'll see what I mean.

Anyway - that aside, this is hugely enjoyable and boasts some of the best ever end credits I've ever seen - totally in context and a brilliant pay off to what's come before. More than worth the price of a cinema ticket!

I've finally been getting to watch the pilots for a handful of the upcoming American series which will launch in the US later on this year/ early next year and so far, the best of the bunch (I'll come back and report on a few of the others) in my opinion is V, a contemporary update of the classis 80s miniseries of the same name. For those of you not familiar with the original, here's the Wikipedia entry on it, but frankly I think it's probably a whole lot more fun the less you know.

Check out the trailer for the new show here:


Following a brief but intense quake, a number of large spaceships appear all across the planet. After causing an initial disturbance, the beings on board, who refer to themselves as The Visitors, announce to everyone on Earth that they are peaceful, mean no harm and simply require some water in order to get back to their planet. In return for this, they will share their technological advancements with Earth, leaving it better off.

While many people are fascinated by Vs message of hope and peace, encouraged by their ability to heal, undoubted physical attractiveness and headturning spaceship tours, some are sceptical. Key amongst these are FBI agent Erica (Mitchell) and man of the cloth Father Jack Landry (Gretsch), who preaches caution. Even ambitious news anchor Chad Decker, at first delighted to secure an exclusive, career-advancing interview with the stunning V leader Anna begins to distrust them when realising he cannot ask anything which could portray the Vs negatively.

It is only through investigating an apparent terrorist sleeper cell that Erica and Father Jack uncover the truth behind the Visitors' arrival, and what that means for humankind...

I thought this was a gripping, atmospheric pilot with an excellent cast - Elizabeth Mitchell excels as a sceptical FBI agent, and Morena Baccarin is beautiful and creepy as the leader of the Vs. The slow build up of tension as to what is the Vs true agenda is just the right side of creepily intriguing, before the deftly handled reveal, with a great twist (one which I gather is new to this remake). Plus, as reportedly one of the more expensive pilots, V looks stunning on screen. I will definitely be watching this one - they're clearly hoping for a Battlestar Galactica-style success story from this reimagining, and based on what I've seen so far, this could be a potential winner. I'll be back in the next day or so to let you know what new teen drama The Vampire Diaries is like, as well as DC Comics-based Human Target too.

So we have a release name and I hear this is set as a sequel to Shadow of the Colossus, interesting.

The new trailer is pretty much the same as the last but with some better graphics and more gameplay stuff, which by the way looks rather fun.



Sweet.

Wow, I honestly didn’t think this would ever happen, well not for a long time anyway. One of my favorite games of all time is getting some serious loving. I think I was about 6 when the very first Monkey Island game came out, I don’t think I could quite comprehend what was going on at the time but I grew incredibly attached to it (like so many other fans). I think this is the game that sparked off my really unhealthily love of computer games.

So what is Monkey Island? It's a point and click adventure sent in the Caribbean.



You play a pirate wanna-be called Guybrush Threepwood who’s sole goal is to become a pirate...a mighty pirate.

There have been 4 games in the series each getting sillier and funnier as the franchise has developed (some may disagree). Until the late 90’s where Lucasarts decided to stop making the point and click adventure games and concentrate on Starwars.

Until now...

The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition

So after god knows how long Lucasarts has resurrected Guybrush and friends. Rather then me explaining what they have done, watch the video below for a great insight in to the process.



Ron Gilbert the creator of the game has also written a great blog post about this thoughts on the games, and has revealed some details of what was going through his mind when him and the 4 other members of the monkey team were making the original game.

One thing I will say is that there was also a second Monkey Island which I think was the EVEN better then the original (Monkey Island 2 LeChucks Revenge). Now I no expert on these things but if I was going to do a special edition of the original game, why not do the sequel at the same time. So I suspect that we may get a the second game sometime in the future.



Now I would have settled for just that announcement alone but wait there is far more...

Tales of Monkey Island

Telltale games who were started by some of the original Monkey Island team have licensed the franchise of Lucasarts have decided to create an episodic adventure of their own.



The game will consist of 5 chapters, with the first one being released on July 7th. The names of the chapters are as follows:
Chapter 1: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal
Chapter 2: The Siege of Spinner Cay
Chapter 3: Lair of the Leviathan
Chapter 4: The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood
Chapter 5: Rise of the Pirate God



I have already ordered this online, I can’t wait for this to get released... I’m going to have a whole summer of monkeys and I really can’t wait.

Here is an interview with Dave Grossman about the new game.



I recommend you all try these games if you are sick of the blood and guts shooters.

When I was a mere boy there was a game, this game rewrote what we thought of games. It showed us that games could be beautiful, simple yet tasking and filled with narrative depth without a convoluted plot. Put simply, PROJECT ICO was a work of genius, the closest to art a game has ever come.

Until SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS came along, with its amazing idea of 12 massive boss fights. All wrapped up in a story of a loved one lost.

And now, at long last we have the next piece of the puzzle. I understand that this is an early test video to demonstrate the game mechanics, which look nothing short of inspired. Other games designers will look at this and weep, Nintendo will look at this and weep as this is innovation they should be bringing. I look at this and weep, because I know that soon I will have the joy to play another game of this caliber.



Sweet

Bloody good ending to the season, I can’t wait until the next year. I have a feeling it’s going to be a very epic last series. I also have a feeling all of the cast will be back, and when I say all of the cast I mean ALL of them.

We are also up for a Broadcast Award (Best Use of Interactive) which is pretty cool. It would be nice to win one after 5 years of hard work ; )
This is who we are up against though. Tough competition.
Channel4.com/sexperienceuk
Chicken Out, C4
Current
The Lost Initiative, Sky 1
Proper Messy, BBC Switch

PS. All chocolate bars where consumed on the train back home. BONUS

I didn’t do very well at all. Quizzes are never my thing, my brain just doesn’t work that quick.

Seems like I may have been replaced, tune in next year to see if I’m still allowed on the show. Probably not to be honest, shes a lot better then me and will probably come up with some theories that aren't completely half baked lol

I'm making up for lost time and blogging like it's 1999, but when something like this comes along you just have to splash it all over the place like tits in a lads mag (wow that was gross).

GAMER is a new effort from the creators of CRANK. I love those films, they are immense and really capture that no holds barred action kind of feel I remember of films in my youth. GAMER follows on the tradition of RUNNING MAN and the recent DEATH RACE remake (which was actually quite enjoyable, I know I'm a bad man, so I like mindless violence, I also look at girls boobs (theme?) far too much when I talk to them, I do have testicles you know), man on death row fighting for his freedom. Only this time it's not him who is fighting, it's some spotty teenager...



I'm loving the all out action feel, was only a matter of time before this idea was really explored in a film. And if CRANK is anything to go by this film will kick the prerequisite amounts of arse required.

Sweet.

I don't know what to say, but I had to write something, you know the usual sycophantic "if you see any film this year" kind of stuff. No film is perfect, but truly great films (not the artsie classics chock full of mise en scene) the kind of film everyone can watch and enjoy, you love them too much to look for fault.

Maybe this film isn't perfect, but...look any film that can essentially erase the whole canon of a much loved legendary Sci-Fi series, begin to rewrite it and not only get away with it but do it well! How is that film not amazing?

Maybe I'll do like a proper review or something later, but now I'm going to roll around on my bed like a school girl with a crush. Yup, I'm gay for Star Trek.

Sweet.

Just run across this at my geek temple over on Aint It Cool News and it really got my geeky juices flowing. Always been a fan of Noir films, I think any film student has to be by law or they send you to a planet ruled by apes that you later discover is actually a future earth ruined by war.

However, this looks like they took noir and raped it to within an inch of its life using Arnold Schwarznegger as a prophylactic, which is the point I think.



Give Em Hell Malone looks like my kind of weird.

Sweet.

Check out this fan video that has blown the Half-Life-loving internet to pieces over the last few months.

Some of you might not have played these iconic series of games so things may not make a lot of sense.

Here is a VERY brief over view from Wikipedia:

Half-Life 2 takes place in a dystopian world in which the events of Half-Life (the first game) have fully come to bear on human society, which has been enslaved by the extraterrestrial civilization known as the Combine. The game takes place in and around the fictional City 17 and follows the adventures of scientist Gordon Freeman. Freeman must fight against increasingly unfavorable odds in order to survive.

These guys have a spent a lot of time and money so it only just that they introduce their master piece:

Directed by The Purchase Brothers. (David and Ian)

Filmed guerrilla style. No crew. First two episodes made on a $500 budget, not including previous capital. Valve flew the brothers out to Seattle last year. and mentioned they were 'blown away' by the project on Steam.

Part Two is on the way. Hopefully finished by the mid May. The episode has taken more time then expected as the David and Ian are working on their careers.

Wolverine and the X-men...

It always sounded like a blatant attempt to cash in on the Wolverine character and his current popularity. And well I was right, as usual, however these clever cartoon folk have done something very cool. They also made this new series kick ass.

For the premise watch the trailer here -


Wolverine And The X-Men - Official Trailer - The top video clips of the week are here

Love this trailer, gives you a great idea of the kind of ass kickery and fast talking Wolverine does best.

So its a world without Xavier, Wolverine's in charge and mutants are on the run, but that's just for starters. What is so bloody clever about this is the way they have squished 50 or so years of x-men history into the cartoon. And they've cherry picked some of the best stuff, but the little elves have done it with finesse so that plots from early x-men blend seamlessly with some of the newest material.

I don't want to go into much more detail because it could ruin some of the surprises, if your a big fan of the x-men you MUST watch this as it really is a treat. And if your not big fan then you MUST watch it also otherwise I will come to your house, sneak in while you sleep, a screw with your mp3 playlists.

Whats more the superbly written story arch leads perfectly into a second series which looks to be even more of an ass kicking fest. He really is the best at what he does.

Sweet.