Jun 24

Australia gets it’s first female Prime Minister – Julia Gillard

In quite a shocking turn of events over the last couple of days Kevin Rudd just stood down as the Australian Prime Minister and his deputy PM Julia Gillard is expected to take up the job. Kevin Rudd really demonstrated that saying, “a candle that burns twice as bright, burns half as long” as he was the most popular Australian Prime Minister in history when he was elected three years ago and now he leaves office as one of the most unpopular.

I’ll leave it to major news vendors to go into all the politics of the leadership change, I just wanted it out there on record that when Ms Gillard reshapes her cabinet and policies maybe she could fire Stephen Conroy and drop the Internet Censorship Filter policy. These two things would go a long way in fixing the bad blood I feel towards the Labour Party at the moment. I would feel even better if she dropped religion from the public school system, but that might be asking a little much.

Farewell Kevin Rudd, it were interesting for a little while, now let’s roll up our sleeves and prepare to do combat with the new government.

Jun 24

International Trailer: Predators

Okay I am just going to go on record and say that I am really worried about this film. The Predator franchise is held up in great esteem for some reason when in reality it was one really great film and lots of average to crap sequels and spin offs. I loved, let me say that again, I loved the first ‘Predator’ movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was a fantastic popcorn action film that had terrific pacing and a fun alien. The second film, ‘Predator 2’, was an average sequel that had good moments but overall I felt it just fell short of what the original achieved. I think this is in part to a great action director on the first, John McTiernan (‘Die Hard’, ‘The Hunt For Red October’, ‘Die Hard with a Vengeance’) and an okay director, Stephen Hopkins (‘Blown Away’, ‘Lost in Space’, ‘The Reaping’) for the second. This and a lack of Arnold didn’t help. Continue reading

Jun 22

Trailer: The Green Hornet

I have, for many months, been convinced that this film was never going to get finished, now that it is nearing completion, I really wish I had been right. I didn’t think much of this trailer at all. The Green Hornet was a great character and they have just made him and his adventures look silly and campy. When I heard that Seth Rogan was writing and starring in this project I had a fear that they were turning it into a comedy and now the trailer confirms that. If you enjoy the trailer, you can look forward to the film’s release in January 2011.

Updated 24/06/2010 with a new embed.

Jun 20

Geek Actually Episode 89 – It’s Kubrickian

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Hosts: David McVay and Josh Philpott

The Geek Actually Podcast, your weekly dose of ‘the week in geek’. This week David McVay and Josh Philpott fly solo in this special pre-recorded show. Why pre-recorded? This week David, Josh and Shane are off to the pop culture expo known as Supanova (thanks to Lionel for the media passes). This week we keep the news to a minimum because it was E3 and we have a lot of information about what was on show. We then review the film ‘Get Him to the Greek’. There is no after show this week but keep an eye on the site over the next week as we bring you our special Supanova coverage. Your show links follow:

Normally we go out live on geekactually.com/live at 12pm Saturdays (AEST UTC +10) Continue reading

Jun 16

Trailer: Zack Snyder’s Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole

From the studio that brought us ‘Happy Feet’ comes Zack Snyder’s new animated film ‘Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole’. Aside from having the biggest mouthful of a title in some time, this film looks visually stunning. I’m not sure about the story or the voice acting but Animal Logic knows how to animate and make it look photo real and that will at least get me into the cinema. I trusted Zack Snyder with ‘Watchmen’ and I still think he delivered the best ‘Watchmen’ film we will ever get, so I will trust that he knows what he is doing here. I just really dislike the music choices. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Jun 16

Deadpool directed by Robert Rodriguez – Hell Yes!

A few months ago we reported on The Geek Actually Podcast that the ‘Zombieland’ writers, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, had been hired to write a draft of the ‘Deadpool’ movie and I was pretty jazzed. I haven’t read a great deal of Deadpool comics but the one thing that I can say is that it has a terrific sense of humour and these writers are just right for the job. Fox, however, doesn’t have a great track record with superhero movies and I kinda feared what they would do with this film, especially after the rough treatment they gave this character in the abysmal ‘Wolverine’ movie. Continue reading