Nov 24

Summit Greenlights Twilight Sequel – New Moon

This is interesting because I read an article about a month ago that said two sequels had already been greenlit. Well, this sounds nice and official.

Summit Entertainment announced today that the studio is officially moving forward with the production of New Moon , the second installment of its filmed franchise “Twilight,” the action-packed, modern day vampire love story. The movie will be based on the second novel in author Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” series titled, “New Moon.” The first movie in the “Twilight” franchise, the self-titled Twilight , arrived in theaters this weekend to sold-out showings.
Source: comingsoon.net
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Nov 24

SAG and AMPTP Talks Break Down Again

Oh God, are we heading for another major strike? Read on …

After 27 hours of round-the-clock meetings, talks between the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP) and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) have again broken down, and SAG will now seek a strike authorization from its members.
Source: comingsoon.net
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Nov 24

First Look at Two More Star Trek Posters

This is an external story. Fed from comingsoon.net…

Paramount Pictures has provided ComingSoon.net with new posters of Eric Bana as Nero and Zoe Saldana as Uhura in director J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek , opening in theaters on May 8, 2009. The newly-launched official website for the movie is also featuring wallpaper versions of these posters, so be sure to look for them.
Source: comingsoon.net
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Nov 24

Twilight Dominates with $70.5 Million

Have we found the next big thing? Read on …

Summit Entertainment’s Twilight , an adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s novel, dominated the box office earning an estimated $70.5 million from 3,419 theaters. The opening marks the fourth-biggest ever for the month of November, surpassing this month’s earlier releases Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa ($63.1 million) and Quantum of Solace ($67.5 million), plus 2004’s The Incredibles ($70.467 million), and trailing only the three “Harry Potter” movies that opened this month – “Chamber of Secrets” ($88.4 million), “Sorcerer’s Stone” ($90.3 million) and “Goblet of Fire” ($102.7 million). Directed by Catherine Hardwicke from a script by Melissa Rosenberg, the love story between a teenage girl and a vampire averaged an impressive $20,636 per location. The film, starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Cam Cigandet, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone and Ashley Greene, was made for just $37 million.
Source: comingsoon.net
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Nov 21

Baz Luhrmann made ‘big mistake’ picking Nicole Kidman for Australia

According to AAP (Australian Associated Press) and reported in the The Sydney Morning Herald and News.com.au, Baz Luhrmann’s (want to be) epic film “Australia” may suffer by the casting of Nicole Kidman.

The choice of actress has been savaged by British newspaper columnist Melanie Reid (The Times). She describes the casting of Kidman as a “big, big mistake.”

In the article, Reid goes on to say that Kidman is an immediate turn-off for female cinemagoers who feel she is “one of the most overrated actors” in the world and who has “been the kiss of death in practically every movie she has starred in”.

To quote Reid, “Kidman is exquisitely accomplished at being awful, she can’t act. Instead she drifts around films like a lost porcelain doll, looking frozen, brittle and vapid, staring at the camera with her oh-golly-look-how-I’m-looking-interesting blue eyes.”

Now, I love this article because I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I referred to Kidman as box office poison in the last podcast (episode 15 – Rumspringa). The woman hasn’t managed to really open a film in years and she is boring as batshit to watch. Now, I haven’t seen “Australia” yet, I will see it next week and I will review it on the next available podcast but my expectations are very low for this film.

Nov 21

New Google iPhone App Confused by Aussie Accent

News.com.au is reporting today that the new Google Voice Search app for the iPhone can’t handle the Australian Accent. The idea behind the app (short for application) is to allow hands free searching.

The app is a free download from the iTunes store but Australian customers might want to take note, the Australian accent is returning some bizarre search results.

According to the article in news.com.au, the number eight becomes a search for “ike”, seven turns into “Clinton”, and don’t even try searching for the number six.

Google admits the app works best with North American accents so I think we all need to get a dialect coach :-)

This is not just a local phenomenon, Roger Ellinson from Kent said, “I’ve got a traditional Kentish accent and the thing kept on spitting back ridiculous things, I asked it to find my nearest pizza take away and it came back with something about volcanoes.”

A News.com.au test found that the voice search tends to work best with multisyllabic words – it was able to understand “supercalafragilisticexpialadocious” in an Australian accent, yet still had trouble with simple words like fish, lunch, and news.

I will download this app and get a bunch of people to try it out for an official Geek Actually test run. I’ll report the results in the next podcast – episode 16.

Read the whole news.com.au story by clicking here.