Rally's Dead...

Mere days after Rally legend Colin McRae dies in a helicopter accident and the GPStore puts up a headline proclaiming Rally's Dead, long live SEGA Rally.

Is it me, or is that totally thoughtless and verging on bad taste?

Pause.

Ok, so I've been way too busy with FilmGuide and watching DVDs, playing on my 360, going to movies and being a family man, that this blog has suffered. In fact some might claim that this blog has died. I'd prefer the term Paused. Just like when you need to go to the toilet during a DVD, you hit the pause button and go and do your thing. Well I'm doing my thing elsewhere and I'm pausing this blog, but don't despair, you can still read all my reviews, and some reviews by other people over at www.filmguide.co.nz... it's not the best looking site at the moment, but I'm working with a great guy (whose wife is due to give birth any day now) to make the site a little more pleasing on the eye.

And if you want some light relief, head over to my mate Mike's new blog, What's Up Mike?

Hope For Kids

Check out her blog here.

Summer is Terminator

It was just a little under a month ago that there was news from The Terminator TV spin-off The Sarah Connor Chronicles. At the time, fans were asking what part Serenity's Summer Glau had signed on for. Sci Fi Wire recently spoke with Lena Headey (300), who plays the Terminator "matriarch" Sarah Connor and she confirmed that Glau was hired to play one of the Terminators for the show.

That's right, there's not one but two Terminators. Headey told Sci Fi Wire that Glau is playing one and Owain Yeoman will be playing the other. Sci Fi Wire also reported that during their chat with Headey she also told them "One is good and one is bad; she didn't say which is which."

The show picks up where the film Terminator 2: Judgment Day left off. Headey described the pilot, saying, "it's them basically running, hiding, trying to live, trying to carve out a normal life for themselves, but always being watched and trying to locate Skynet, trying to stop [it]. But there are many, many issues in their way." The pilot was scheduled for 2007, so since shooting has wrapped it won't be long before fans get to find out just what kind of Terminator Summer Glau is going to be.

Another Reason To Hate The Oscars...

I was surfing the net just now, looking through some of my favourite blogs, when I came across a post titled The Funniest Bit Of The Oscars 07, and best of all, it was in YouTube format.

Unfortunately however, when I clicked play the image changed to the one above, This video is no longer available.

Not to be deterred, I clicked through to the YouTube page.

This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

What the?

I know plenty of videos get pulled everyday, and I can understand TV channels not wanting the latest episode of Lost posted on YouTube, purely from a profit point of view.

But a 4 min clip of the Oscars? It's not like the Oscars ever get released on to DVD (do they?) or if they did, it's not like anyone would buy a DVD of Oscar Night 07 (would they?).

So what's the harm in a funny video clip making the rounds a couple of days after the live broadcast? I mean hell, it might make more people interested in watching next years Oscars, goodness knows you'd need a pretty good reason to want to endure a couple of hours of Hollywood self congratulation, and a funny clip on YouTube might just do that.

If it's not the whole show, why can't big corporations just let these things be, and see them for what they are, a little bit of free promotion.

You Can Never Have Too Many Zombies...

Although a lot of recent flicks featuring the shambling undead deserved to be shot in the head and returned to the grave, the cinematic corpses will inevitably rise to consume a bit of raw human flesh. And people like Brad Pitt and BABYLON 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski will help tell the story of mankind’s full-blown chaotic conflict against deadly meat.

Paramount is getting the hungry horrors in gear (assisted by Pitt’s Plan B production company) with WORLD WAR Z. The superb novel (and even better audiobook) from Max Brooks (yes, son of Mel) is set in the aftermath of a war fought between humanity and a legion of flesh-eating zombies, and is told anthology-style through a series of “interviews” with survivors. Straczynski, a prolific comic writer, told the still-living masses at this past weekend’s New York Comic Con that he was adapting the book (subtitled An Oral History of the Zombie War), and faces the challenge of “creating” a main character – which may be played by Pitt himself. Bring on the zombie apocalypse!

Brooks has previous knowledge and devotion to the mobile deceased – he wrote “The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead”, an exhaustive reference manual on what to do in case of an infestation, from weapon and combat techniques to how to live in a world overrun by undead, plus a nifty summary on the myths and realities surround the living dead and a listing of zombie sightings throughout history.

SOURCE | Joblo

Oscar, The Chosen Few

Best Picture:
The Departed
Babel
Letters From Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen

Director:
Martin Scorsese, The Departed
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Babel
Clint Eastwood, Letters From Iwo Jima
Stephen Frears, The Queen
Paul Greengrass, United 93

Actor:
Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond
Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson
Peter O'Toole, Venus
Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness

Actress
Helen Mirren, The Queen
Penelope Cruz, Volver
Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal
Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada
Kate Winslet, Little Children

Film Editing:
The Departed
Babel
Blood Diamond
Children of Men
United 93

Original Song:
I Need to Wake Up from An Inconvenient Truth, Melissa Etheridge
Listen from Dreamgirls, Henry Krieger, Scott Cutler and Anne Preven
Love You I Do from Dreamgirls, Henry Krieger and Siedah Garrett
Our Town from Cars, Randy Newman
Patience from Dreamgirls, Henry Krieger and Willie Reale

Original Screenplay:
Michael Arndt, Little Miss Sunshine
Guillermo Arriaga, Babel
Iris Yamashita and Paul Haggis, Letters From Iwo Jima
Guillermo del Toro, Pan's Labyrinth
Peter Morgan, The Queen

Original Score:
Babel, Gustavo Santaolalla
The Good German, Thomas Newman
Notes on a Scandal, Philip Glass
Pan's Labyrinth, Javier Navarrete
The Queen, Alexandre Desplat

Documentary Feature:
An Inconvenient Truth
Deliver Us From Evil
Iraq in Fragments
Jesus Camp
My Country, My Country

Documentary (short subject):
The Blood of Yingzhou District
Recycled Life
Rehearsing a Dream
Two Hands

Supporting Actress:
Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
Adriana Barraza, Babel
Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal
Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine
Rinko Kikuchi, Babel

Foreign Language Film:
The Lives of Others, Germany
After the Wedding, Denmark
Days of Glory (Indigenes), Algeria
Pan's Labyrinth, Mexico
Water, Canada

Visual Effects:
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Poseidon
Superman Returns

Cinematography:
Pan's Labyrinth
The Black Dahlia
Children of Men
The Illusionist
The Prestige

Costume:
Marie Antoinette
Curse of the Golden Flower
The Devil Wears Prada
Dreamgirls
The Queen

Adapted Screenplay:
William Monahan, The Departed
Sacha Baron Cohen and Anthony Hines and Peter Baynham and Dan Mazer and Todd Phillips, Borat Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Alfonso Cuaron and Timothy J Sexton and David Arata and Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, Children of Men
Todd Field and Tom Perrotta, Little Children
Patrick Marber, Notes on a Scandal

Animated Feature Film:
Happy Feet
Cars
Monster House

Supporting Actor:
Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine
Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children
Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond
Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls
Mark Wahlberg, The Departed

Sound Mixing:
Dreamgirls
Apocalypto
Blood Diamond
Flags of Our Fathers
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Sound Editing:
Letters From Iwo Jima
Apocalypto
Blood Diamond
Flags of Our Fathers
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Live Action Short Film:
West Bank Story
Binta and the Great Idea (Binta Y La Gran Idea)
Eramos Pocos (One Too Many)
Helmer & Son
The Saviour

Animated Short Film:
The Danish Poet
Lifted
The Little Matchgirl
Maestro
No Time for Nuts

Makeup:
Pan's Labyrinth
Apocalypto
Click

Art Direction:
Pan's Labyrinth
Dreamgirls
The Good Shepherd
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
The Prestige

Oscar, Apparently...

The stars have started to trickle down the red carpet at the Kodak Theater, and pretty soon the awards will start to be given out, followed by big, boring speeches.

I'll try and keep y'all updated, but don't hold your breath, I'll probably go home before any of the big ones are announced and forget all about Oscar until I read about it tomorrow...

Happy Feet: Best Animated Feature Film.

Pan's Labyrinth: Best Art Direction and Best Make-up.

Alan Arkin: Best Supporting Actor for Little Miss Sunshine.

Letters from Iwo Jima: Best Sound Editing.

Dreamgirls: Best Sound Mixing.

West Bank Story: Best Live Action Short Film.

The Danish Poet: Best Animated Short Film.

And that's all folks, as I'm heading off home!

Video Games Don't Make You Violent!

According to a new study by a researcher at Texas A&M International University, studies that see a connection between video games and violent behavior usually suffer from shoddy research techniques. Dr. Christopher Ferguson studied the results of a number of recent studies linking violent video games to aggressive behavior with an eye not just to individual results, but also to overall trends in the studies as a whole.

Ferguson found that the connection between violence and gaming had more to do with publication bias than it did with any actual correlation. In other words, journals were more likely to publish studies that supported the hypothesis that playing violent games made a subject more prone to violent behavior. Nothing like scientific stacking the deck, eh? Ferguson sums it up nicely:

Thus it was concluded that there is little evidence from the current body of literature on violent video games that playing violent video games is either causally or correlationally associated with increases in aggressive behavior.

Wow, so playing violent video games isn't bad anymore?

SOURCE | Wired

Lost Boys 2 Gets Greenlight?

Ever since Buffy The Vampire Slayer went off the air and Joss Whedon decided to turn his attention to space westerns and female superheroes, people just haven’t had a reliable source to get their vampire fix from anymore. Clearly there are a lot of fanboys jonesin’ for more from this genre, which explains why Warner Bros have just greenlit a sequel to the 1987 Joel Schumacher classic The Lost Boys.

But don't got getting exited just yet, this sequel will go direct to DVD, and will likely have no involvement from Schumacher or any of the original cast members. It won’t even move forward with any of the long-rumoured sequel concepts like “The Lost Girls”, or the Frog Brothers spin-off. Instead, it will take place in Southern California and focus on surfing vampires!

I wonder what the fanboys will think of that! Sure, Warner's will probably break even, or make a profit, but at what cost to the original or the goodwill of the fans?

Coca-Cola Blak

A carbonated beverage that fuses Coke effervescence with coffee essence?

What the heck? Only in France and the good old US of A at the mo, but seriously, how much of a caffeine hit would this be?

Of course to a non-coffee drinker like me, it probably tastes like crap...

The iPod is Dead...

Well, maybe not quite, but with the announcement of the new iPhone, there seems little point in innovating the iPod, besides making the shuffle small enough that it can be worn as an ear-ring.

So once again Apple revolutionises the computer world, and removes the word computer from it's name, essentially saying that they're not just a computer company anymore.

So the iPhone is an iPod looking telecommunications device with a 2 megapixle camera, up to 8GB of RAM, all the features of the latest video iPod, revolutionary web browsing that has a touch sensitive multi format screen.

WOW.

I want one. Trouble is, will it work on the current New Zealand networks?

DeNiro To Do 36 Remake

In a recent interview with MTV Robert DeNiro mentioned that he is co-producing and starring in an English language remake of French police thriller 36 Quai des Orfèvres. Also known in most English speaking territories as 36, the film was released in the UK about a year ago and was hailed as 'The French version of Heat'.

My question is, why do we need yet another French movie re-done by the Yanks? And no, despite my recent anti-American comments on 28 Weeks Later, I have nothing against Americans, I just don't see the point of re-making a good movie that has only just been made... if that makes sense!

28 Weeks Later

So I'm a bit of a Zombie fan, and 28 Days Later was one of my favourite. What didn't get me excited however was plans to make a sequel. This is especially so, as according to joblo, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, the director and writer (respectively) of 28 DAYS LATER, served only as executive producers of this film. Oh dear.

However because the people over at blackfilm have scored themselves some pics, I figured I may as well put some up here and give you all a brief rundown...

Six months after the rage virus has annihilated the British Isles, the US Army declares that the war against infection has been won, and that the reconstruction of the country can begin. Under the strict supervision of the U.S. Military, the first wave of refugees is allowed back into the city. Among them are Don (Robert Carlyle), his new girlfriend Scarlett (Rose Byrne), and Don’s two children. Don lost his wife during the original infection, while Scarlett lost her entire family. All seems under control until a new carrier of the virus makes his way within the quarantined area. As the only known live specimen, he becomes a vital tool to the scientists who hope to learn from their discovery. Call it carelessness or call it bad luck, but the virus eventually spreads once again and now may be even more difficult to contain than the first time around. Jeremy Renner plays Sgt. Doyle who is part of the American Special Forces team working on restoring order in London. Harold Perrineau will co-star as Flynn, an upbeat Special Forces pilot who leads the families returning to London to their safety, while documenting the ordeal with his camera. Elba plays General Stone is the guy overseeing district 1 in London.


Hhhmmm, here comes the Yanks to save the Brits... that's never gonna float, oh well, might be fun...

The Fourth Digital Decade...

The world of desktop computing is finally going mobile, according to The New York Times John Markoff, and the shift can be seen in the explosive growth of wireless data for cellular carriers.

To handle functions from text and instant messaging to mobile MySpace and ESPN, computer users are increasingly turning to the cellphone.

“We are seeing the emergence of a fourth screen,” said Jerry Panagrossi, vice president for operations at Symbian, a developer of advanced cellphone operating systems, citing a historical progression of “movie, television, computer and now the smart-phone screen.”

The newest screen is evolving to adopt more and more characteristics of a personal computer. And many believe that the next big shift will be the convergence of many forms of communication encompassing voice, e-mail, instant messaging and video telephony.

That shift may well be underscored tomorrow when Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple Computer, is expected to unveil an Apple phone representing his company’s new mobile communications strategy — highlighted by a device that may include Jobsian refinements such as a sleek ceramic case and a transparent touch screen.

Hhhmmmm, the iPhone… not something to get me all happy clappy, but no doubt it will be a technological marvel that will have me lusting after it, despite the fact that it won’t be supported in New Zealand for the next four years…

Of course Apple is distinctly late in entering the world of Internet-connected digital hand-helds. Arrayed against it are giants including Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and Microsoft, in addition to entrenched hand-held companies like Palm and Research in Motion.

Also waiting to enter the fray are powerful Internet companies like Google, who cannot afford to be cut off from users who now rely on them in the desktop computing world.

“Apple is about to touch off a nuclear war,” said Paul Mercer, a software designer and president of Iventor, a designer of software for hand-helds based in Palo Alto, Calif. “The Nokias and the Motorolas will have to respond.”

Oh yeah baby, bring it on. Nuclear war baby…

Read the full article here.

Bill Gates hails 'digital decade'

Microsoft boss Bill Gates has outlined his vision of the connected future, telling experts in Las Vegas: "The digital decade is happening."

Wow, really? The digital decade? So what was the last ten years about?

Bill also told delegates that "connected experiences" were now the most important part of new technologies.

Hhhmmmm, he's sounding more and more like Steve Jobs every day. Only sounding mind you.

Apparently Bill realises that people want to do things with their content across multiple platforms... does that mean that Bill realises that there's more to life than Windows?

Better check, but I think Hell is staring to freeze.

In a speech with few concrete announcements, Mr Gates outlined how his firm's latest operating system Vista would be the tool to connect people.

Ah, so there is only windows, but nothing concrete, yet.

Justin Hutchinson, group product manager, demonstrated a range of new features in Vista, many of which seemed designed to counter arguments from some observers that Apple was the home of creative computing.

Seemed designed to counter arguments.... seemed. So in other words, Apple is still the creative center of the universe. Maybe hell still has some warmth left.

Robbie Bach, president of entertainment devices at Microsoft, revealed that the company had sold more than 10.4m Xbox 360s by the end of 2006.

Ah yes, game consoles, something that Microsoft is good at. If only they focussed totally on gaming and left the computer business to people who know what they're doing...

A range of new PCs from third-party companies using Vista were unveiled at the show, including a white, round media centre PC from Sony designed for watching of movies and music playback in the living room and a touch screen PC from HP.

Ah, a Mac rip off maybe?

Mr Gates also confirmed that next year would see his last keynote speech at CES as he steps down as head of Microsoft.

He said he had offered to come back the following year but that he might "talk more about infectious diseases than software", referring to his philanthropic work.

Whoah, hold up there, maybe there is hope for Microsoft after all, all they have to do is encourage Steve Jobs to sell his soul and go take control of Microsoft.

And yes, I'm an Apple guy, could you tell?

300 Character Posters

It’s 2007, and 300 still isn’t out, and frankly we’re getting antsy. But to tide us over as we wait for this epic tale of abs and biceps – er, Greeks and Persians – we’ve found some spiffy new one-sheet posters for the film, exclusively for you on Empire.

Well, the Poms might be getting antsy, but I'm still amped about 300, and am still 100% confident that this movie will blow everyone away, I mean take a look at the visual comparison or the trailer would ya!

Pixar on a Downward Sprial?

The guys over at filmjunk have posted a story claiming that the Big Boys at Disney think that Ratatouille is going to sink at the box office.

When I first saw the trailer, I was thinking the same thing. It looks just like a classic Disney cartoon, done in the 3D CGI format. Nothing really ground breaking about it.

But having another look at the trailer, this time with less cynical eyes, I can see the genius of it. It's back to the bare basics of slapstick comedy - the stuff that made Disney great in the first place. It's also the kind of humour that made Ice Age great.

It's in-your-face humour, and if they do it right, it'll work big time.

Not convinced? Well, think back to the day Pixar announced they were doing Finding Nemo, a story about fish. Yeah, thats right, we all thought that was going to sink (pun intended) but it turned out to be their biggest hit.

Top Grossing Movies of 2006 (US)

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest — $423,315,812
2. Cars – $244,082,982
3. X-Men: The Last Stand — $234,362,462
4. The Da Vinci Code — $217,536,138
5. Superman Returns — $200,081,192
6. Ice Age: The Meltdown — $195,330,621
7. Happy Feet — $178,017,000
8. Casino Royale — $155,415,000
9. Over the Hedge — $155,019,340
10. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby — $148,213,377

Apple Gives Movies A Face Lift

Deep inside an industrial building in Burbank, California, stands the Great Wall of Macintosh - a humming barrier of 700 Apple Power Mac G5s, all meticulously stacked, one atop the other, in a U shape 8 feet high and 100 feet long. Alongside sits an equally imposing server bay, which stores a staggering 700 terabytes of data. Upstairs in a hypersanitized, temperature-controlled chamber, a technician wearing white silk scrubs hovers over two mammoth, $300,000 digital film scanners.
Wired Test

This monumental collection of gear provides the mathematical brawn behind DTS Digital Images, the world's premier image-processing and -restoration house. This is where Hollywood films come for a face lift - where torn, faded, dirty or otherwise imperfect footage gets surgically enhanced, whether for the archives, a DVD release or a blockbuster opening weekend.

The human brain behind the operation is John Lowry, a bespectacled, auburn-haired man who, at 74, doesn't look a day older than 60. Over the years, Lowry has become known as the film industry's Mr. Fix-It. The movies he has rescued range from the 1933 Boris Karloff vehicle The Ghoul (in which nitrate film base decay had caused excessive flicker and image distortion) to Michael Mann's recent adaptation of Miami Vice (in which a few shots suffered from low light). Even George Lucas sought out Lowry's expertise for the re-release of the Star Wars trilogy ("Lucas hates grain," Lowry says). And MGM hired Lowry to restore all 20 James Bond films for its new set of DVDs.

Many specialists go about restoration manually, cleaning each frame by hand. But as those 700 G5s suggest, Lowry works with computers, faster and more accurately.

"We started out as software developers, but with a very clear direction: to make pictures better," Lowry says as he clicks around the desktop of a Linux machine, picking and choosing from the 50 or so examples stored on his hard drive to show off the technology. "Since each film has its own unique set of problems, it took us about 60 movies to get comfortable."

Today, DTS is a well-oiled machine. As Lowry whirls through a series of before-and-after clips, the differences are obvious. While Sean Connery looks youthfully limber in You Only Live Twice, the 1967 film stock has been ravaged by time, resulting in dirty, jaundiced footage. After a run through Lowry's digital rehab, however, the images are artifact-free: Colors are deeper, detail is better and the images look as fresh as anything shot today.

While Lowry isn't inclined to give up his trade secrets, he admits: "Most of what we do, in the broad sense, is track frame-to-frame differences." Essentially, technicians scan the original film stock onto the server, then proprietary algorithms figure out what shouldn't be onscreen - scratches, discolorations, dirt, mold - and digitally remove it, frame by frame. Think of it as an automatic, high-speed Photoshop retoucher.

But Lowry was doing this long before Photoshop came along. He pioneered image enhancement in the '70s when he processed the Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 moon footage. "Because we'd taken the noise out of the pictures," he says, "the geologists were seeing stuff in the rocks that they'd never seen before."

That sounds like a slightly higher calling than Miami Vice. When asked how he landed here, Lowry's expression turns serious. "I have dyslexia," he says. "I didn't read my first book until I was 30." He pauses, and then smiles. "I'm a picture person."

Source Wired