COMPETITION: Win a Seat at a Super Exclusive Screening of “Red State”

Curious Film is offering 10 readers (5 in Sydney and 5 in Melbourne) of Geek Actually a ‘money can’t buy’ opportunity to attend a super exclusive private screening of Kevin Smith’s new film “Red State”. Screenings are in Sydney and Melbourne between September 13th and September 21st. Winners will be notified of exact time and place.

From cult writer/director KEVIN SMITH (“Clerks”, “Dogma” & “Chasing Amy”) comes his tenth film, the hotly anticipated “RED STATE”, an utterly unique, intense thriller hell-bent on leaving audiences feeling uncomfortable, tense, dazed and never knowing what’s going to happen next. And that’s just the first 10 minutes!

In Middle America, three horny teenagers travel to isolated Cooper’s Dell after responding to an older woman’s online invitation for sex. However, their schoolboy fantasies turn sinister as Christian extremists led by the twisted but charismatic preacher Abin Cooper (Michael Parks) holds them captive in his compound known as the Five Points Church. They hadn’t quite expected this kind of the devil’s business! As the Pastor and his congregation embark on a reign of unholy terror forcing the boys to witness executions before being prepared for their own death, they have to contend with the arrival of Federal Agent Joseph Keenan (John Goodman) and his team who are armed, dangerous and ready to do anything to bring them down. But will they get to the preacher’s disciples before the Apocalypse?

IF YOU WANT TO ENTER – CLICK HERE

The competition closes Tuesday the 13th of September 2011, so be quick! Five winners will be drawn at random from the Sydney submissions and five from the Melbourne submissions.

Film Actually Ep054 (146) – Final Destination 5 and Chalet Girl

Hosts: David McVay, Josh Philpott & Richard Gray

This week the podcast continues the re-numbering, this is now episode 54 or 146 in old money. David and Josh are re-joined by Richard Gray for a pair of reviews. First up the new horror film “Final Destination 5” and then the new romantic comedy “Chalet Girl”. They also take a look at the changes that George Lucas is making to the Blu-Ray releases of the Star Wars films and the clever little shorts from Marvel Pictures. All this and they still have time for a new Lists of Five: Five Sequels That Didn’t Suck As Much As We Thought They Would. Film Actually is the official movie podcast of geekactually.com.

If you are an iTunes user, please leave a review. Your comments help us improve the show. This show carries an explicit tag due to infrequent coarse language.

*Note* The Film Actually show is taking a short break from live shows as we are currently moving the studio. The audio podcast will come out as normal during this time.

Listen or download it here or subscribe to it on iTunes

Make sure you check out our other fine podcast Geek Actually for all your tech and geek culture needs.

Normally you could watch us record Film actually live every Saturday starting at approximately 1.30pm (AEST UTC+10) at geekactually.com/live but not for the next couple of weeks.

What We’ve Been Watching:

A collection of other things we’ve been watching this week. We watch more than we can review so we use this time to catch up.

Feature Film Review

‘Final Destination 5’ directed by Steven Quale and written by Eric Heisserer. It stars Nicholas D’Agosto, Emma Bell, Miles Fisher, Ellen Wroe, Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, P.J. Byrne, Arlen Escarpeta, David Koechner, Courtney B. Vance and Tony Todd.

In Final Destination 5, Death is just as omnipresent as ever, and is unleashed after one man’s premonition saves a group of coworkers from a terrifying suspension bridge collapse. But this group of unsuspecting souls was never supposed to survive, and, in a terrifying race against time, the ill-fated group frantically tries to discover a way to escape Death’s sinister agenda. Source: Warner Bros.

Our Verdict: Far better than the fourth instalment. This was a lot of fun and well worth visiting for Final Destination veterans or newbies.

Watch the trailer here: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/finaldestination5/

Mini Feature Film Review

‘Chalet Girl’ directed by Phil Traill and written by Tom Williams. It stars Felicity Jones, Ed Westwick, Bill Nighy, Brooke Shields, Tamsin Egerton and Bill Bailey.

Pretty tomboy Kim Matthews, 19, used to be a champion skateboarder – but now she’s stuck in a dead end job trying to support her Dad. Opportunity comes knocking in the form of a catering job in the one of the most exclusive chalets in the Alps. At first, Kim’s baffled by this bizarre new world of posh people, champagne and skiing – but then she discovers snowboarding, and the chance to win some much-needed prize money at the big end-of-season competition. But before she can become a champion again, Kim’s going to have to dig deep to overcome her fears. Hard enough, without the complicating factor of Jonny, her handsome – though spoken for – boss. Source: Official Site.

Our Verdict: A surprisingly fun and quirky british rom-com. The first half is stronger than the predictable finale but enjoyable throughout. Felicity Jones is charming and deserves the hype she is receiving.

Watch the trailer here: https://geekactually.com/2011/08/06/trailer-chalet-girl/

Entertainment Buzz

Changes to Star Wars for Blu-Ray. Some welcome, some not so much.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/31/lucasfilm-confirms-change-to-blu-ray-release-of-return-of-the-jedi/ interesting considering…
http://savestarwars.com/lucasspeechagainstspecialedition.html

Marvel One Shot “The Consultant” hits the web and “Thor” Blu-Ray.
http://www.slashfilm.com/watch-marvel-short-film-the-consultant-linking-the-incredible-hulk-agent-coulsons-short-thor-dvd/

Lists of Five

This week our Lists of Five: Five Sequels That Didn’t Suck As Much As We Thought They Would. There are times when you hear about a sequel coming out and you just die a little inside but then when you see the film you are pleasantly surprised that it didn’t kill a small part of your soul. Here are five of those.

Just a reminder, because we never like to just make things easy on ourselves, our lists are not necessarily top five lists, they are more or a less a list of film recommendations within the theme of the list.

Feedback

We run through the week’s listener feedback.

The Rest…

David’s “My Year With Movies” blog is on Tumbr

Join us on our Facebook Fan Page: facebook.com/GeekActually or follow Geek Actually on Twitter @geekactually

Make sure you check out our new range of Geek Actually swag at cafepress.com.au/geekactually

The Reel Junkies podcast can be found at weekendronin.com

Brad and Charlie (formerly of “Movie Fan House”) are back, their new site is ReboundRadio.com and their new podcast is “Good Day Sir!”

Rachelle is over at The Funky Film Show, Thursdays on Radio Freemantle 107.9 FM or radiofreemantle.com

Find out about Josh’s other site and to listen to his other show “DLC Live” go to RawDLC.com or follow him on Twitter @DoGM3At

Find more by Richard Gray by visiting theReelBits.com or follow him on Twitter @DVDbits

Our show logo is by Josh Spencer over at Spencer Cartoons at  http://attackninja.blogspot.com

Our opening clip this week is from “Final Destination 5”.

We close the show with a track from the “Final Destination” score by Shirley Walker.

Trailer: The Rum Diary

On last week’s Film Actually episode (episode 53) we ran and discussed the trailer for “The Rum Diary” and I felt we should post it up here just so it is a little easier to find.

Although not as insane looking as Terry Gilliam’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”, it is always a joy to watch Johnny Depp enter the world of Hunter S. Thompson. I’m looking forward to this film.

Another Visual Effects Breakdown for Game of Thrones

Okay I admit it, “Game of Thrones” is a personal favourite of mine and I will do anything in my power to make every person on the planet watch it. There, I got that out.

A couple of weeks ago we published a showreel from a special effects company that worked on the show (watch it here) and it was amazing how many seamless effects are in this show. Now, another one of the effects companies has released their showreel and we get an even greater appreciation for the work that has gone into this amazing HBO TV series.

Bring on season two, I can’t wait.

Fan Film – Portal: No Escape

We here at Geek Actually do love a well made fan film and “Portal: No Escape” is one of the best I’ve seen. We listed 10 of our favourites some time ago (look here) and I think this one has just shot to the top of the list. Dan Trachtenberg, one of the hosts of the Totally Rad Show and filmmaker, has produced a damn fine film based on the “Portal” video game. Watch the film below, you won’t be sorry.

Review: Horrible Bosses

Everyone has had a bad boss, that boss that seemed to take a extra bit of enjoyment about making your life a living hell. If not, good for you. The rest of us however will find the concept of daydreaming about the death of their boss a little to close to home. “Horrible Bosses” takes three friends and decides to see what would happen if you were to go through with those daydreams.

Each friend has a different problem, Dale (Charlie Day) has a boss obsessed with conquering him sexually, Nick (Jason Bateman) has spent too much time trying to climb the corperate ladder and is being held back by a manipulating psychopath and Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) has lost his boss and has been lumped with a raging self obsessed coke head. All three agree that life would be better if these bosses ceased to exist. One night over a few too many drinks the decision is made and they set in motion the plan to commit three murders, killing each other’s bosses, thus giving them their lives back. Continue reading