Jul 03

If you thought Asteroids The Movie Was a Bad Idea….

View-MasterJust this morning I posted the article about the Asteroids movie (if you didn’t read it yet, go read that first) and talked about what a dumb idea it was, well I was wrong, In the great scheme of things Asteroids seems perfectly rational compared to this. Hollywood has sunk even further, comingsoon.net has just reported that they are planning a View-Master movie!!!!!

Do you remember View-Master? It was kind of like a portable slide viewer. I had one, it was fun to look at the pretty pictures but I can’t see a movie about this.

Comingsoon.net says, “Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Fringe, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Star Trek) are behind the film and that it will be “like the old 80’s Amblin movies: Goonies, Young Sherlock… In that vein.” Are you shitting me?!? It is a freakin’ slide viewer! Is this a joke? Is it some kind of April Fool’s type of day today? What is wrong with the producers of Hollywood?

Read the original story here.

Looking for opinions. Drop your comments below.

Jul 03

Asteroids The Movie – WTF

AsteroidsWith Tomb Raider, Resident Evil as two of the better ones and Max Payne, Hitman and Doom as just a few of the awful ones, Computer game movie adaptations are not going away soon. Okay, I understand it, computer games are a hot item in Hollywood at the moment. They offer large detailed stories, immersive worlds, compelling characters and amazing cinematics for writers and filmmakers to plunder for that next, big holiday popcorn epic. I am also guilty of going to see many of them in the hopes that “Hollywood finally gets it right”.

This brings us to the WTF moment. Of all the great games, past and present, what does Hollywood go crazy for? Halo? Half-Life?? Grand Theft Auto??? Oh come on, it has to be the long planned World of Warcraft movie, doesn’t it???? Nope, how about Asteroids! Wait a minute! Asteroids? The Asteroids, the 1979 Atari arcade game that was basically just a vector graphic line drawing that was really just building on the Lunar Lander model? That Asteroids? Yes, indeed. No story, no plot, no characters and no compelling cinematics. You are a Triangle that shoots blocks from the centre of screen at roughly drawn circles which break apart and become smaller roughly drawn circles.

This is Hollywood madness at its finest. Not only do the studios want the make a film of Asteroids, The Hollywood Reporter reports that they just finished a four studio bidding war for the rights! Universal came out the winner and obtained the movie rights to this compelling property (that’s sarcasm people!) and Lorenzo di Bonaventura (Stardust, Doom, Constantine, Transformers 1 & 2) is producing. From a writers point of view I guess it could be alright, they have a blank slate to work from (more sarcasm!).

I think this can be summed up by Dave Itzkoff of The LA times, I quote, “Proving that there is no relic from our childhood that cannot be turned into an expensive event movie bearing almost no resemblance to the original artifact, The Hollywood Reporter says that Universal has acquired the movie rights to Asteroids, the bleeping, blooping 1979 video game in which crude line drawings were used to represent rocket ships and gigantic space rocks.”

I suppose none of this should come as a surprise though, Universal is the studio that is producing the board game movies Battleship, Candyland, Ouija, Monopoly and the remake of  Clue.

For the young ones out there, you might never have played the gripping (even more sarcasm) Asteroids, so as a public service just click below and enjoy. It is not the original, but it is pretty close.

Asteroids made by Neave Games

Jul 02

Resident Evil 4 Announced

I have to admit that the Resident Evil movies are a little guilty pleasure of mine. I can admit that they are not brilliant cinema, but I find them very entertaining in computer game action, gory, zombie kind of way.

Anyway, ShockTillYouDrop.com just announced that Resident Evil 4 is a go project and it is called Resident Evil: Afterlife. The Sony Screen Gems production will pick up from the ending of the third film and move the action to Tokyo. Paul W.S. Anderson is writing the script and the film should be released late 2010.

What do you guys feel about another Resident Evil film? Comments welcome.

Jul 01

Archive – The Old About Page

Hi, I’m just going around and cleaning the site up and changing this around. This was the old about page that Mirren wrote, I did’nt want to lose it so I have posted it here for historical purposes only. SOme of the formatting may not quite fit in this format but you get the general idea.

Enjoy,
David

The Two GeeksHOW TO IDENTIFY A GEEK …

I am David’s Mother and I could tell from an early age that he was a Geek. No mean feat since computers hadn’t been invented yet!

However, he exhibited the telltale signs of the Little Geek:

1. He didn’t like sports.

2. He liked to watch the great outdoors from INSIDE the car.

3. He collected Action Jacksons and G.I. Joes long before it was okay for boys to own “dolls”. (Today they are known as “Action Figures”.) He experimented with the “dolls” by seeing how long they could take living in the freezer and being set on fire. (Practicing for when they would invent video games.)

4. When he saw “Star Wars” he wanted to be a Jedi. (And he still has his original Star Wars blanket from 1977.)

5. He collected comic books.

6. He collected “girlie” magazines.

7. He spent his pocket money playing Pac Man.

8. He told me that MacDonald’s was the only “real” food.

9. He would rather watch television and movies than go outdoors.

Today, he is a photographer and filmmaker with certificates and diplomas in technology, he graduated from film school, he can build a computer from scratch, he designs websites, he is both PC and Mac proficient (but Mac is his real love), and he patiently puts up with my constant questions about how to use my computer.

He can also lay claim to having grown into a real Geek, Actually because he:

1. Is almost having a stroke waiting for his iPhone to arrive.

2. Subscribes to every Geek site on the Web.

3. Thinks that Leo LaPorte is God, and everyone on his netcasts are the Disciples.

4. Reads www.thinkgeek.com like some people read the newspaper.

5. Says, “I know”, whenever I try to tell him about some new technology.

6. Has a collection of Mr. Potato Heads.

7. Has built a Lego City that takes up an entire room.

8. Would rather live in “Second Life” than real life.

9. Has 4 computers on his desk.

10. Speaks Geek (other friends and family of Geeks know what I mean).

There are lots of other things that define a Geek, especially since there are subsets, e.g. those that like pirates vs. those who like ninjas, but I have given you the basics so that you can identify a Geek when you see one.

And ask him (or her) to fix your computer.

Jul 01

Geek News: Uncharted movie in development

This was really a no brainer..we had known it was just a matter of time till someone realised the games movie potential and exploited it.

Uncharted: Drakes Fortune as most ps3 users will tell you is one of gamings most cinematic experiences, the story follows Nathan Drake an explorer/adventurer (think John McClane meets Lara Croft) as he skips around the world causing general havoc, dropping witty one-liners and rescuing damsels in distress in the process of trying to find the lost gold of El Dorado. The game is a pure thrill ride and feels much like a movie anyway, which begs the question of why we even need an adaption? I know I’ve said this before but it seems like a pointless endeavour. Some games like Bioshock or Silent Hill win fans attention by exploring and showing viewers the directors vision of what a real life version would look like.. this is not the case with Uncharted,  1) they will follow the story and it will feel like replaying the game or 2) they go for a new story and we will be left with a “straight from the mould” summer blockbuster, sigh.. oh well, this will end up a lot like Tomb Raider did and I guess that had its moments.

/Film has reported that Kyle Ward has been drafted to pump out a script for this action adventure, with no movies of note on his belt he has two video game movies (this and a Hitman sequel *shudder*) in progress at the moment.

lets hope he does them justice.. Josh out.

Jun 29

The Ultimate Transformers Revenge of the Fallen Review

I want to thank our regular listener AtomicBetty for sending this review to me, it is quite possibly the best review of the new Transformers movie I have read yet. I was laughing out loud. Click the link below and prepare to have your mind expanded :-)

Let’s face it, this is what we are all thinking.

http://io9.com/5301898/michael-bay-finally-made-an-art-movie?skyline=true&s=i