Episode 135: “Putting money back into people’s pockets”

I’m not really sure what to think of this campaign from TalkTalk:

[Watch on MissGeeky]

I’m loving this cute photo spread from French magazine Amusement, picturing the actual way video games are manufactured. Here’s what they have to say about Tetris:

When Alexei Pajitnov first ordered a load of bricks from Karpov Abramtsevo’s workshop, workers there were wondering who could be interested in all those right-angled blocks. No one in 1985 could have imagined those concrete Tetriminos would become world famous and constitute Russia’s deadliest weapon against Reagan’s America.

And Mario:

In 1995, the collaboration between Oita’s mushroom farms and Nissin Foods Co. in Sapporo revolutionised the conditioning techniques of the time, also bringing biochemistry out of labs and onto a global stage. Without Shigeru Miyamoto’s 750 billion colored (shiitake) mushrooms, the Japanese food processing industry wouldn’t have cruised through the 1990s with the same optimism.

Besides these two they’ve also got images of Arkanoid, Pong and Sonic.

When this post goes live at 13:30, I’ll be sitting in the BFI IMAX watching 15 minutes of footage of Avatar. In 3D. I’m psyched. And a little nervous. I’ve heard so much about this movie, I can’t help but think I’ll be disappointed by whatever I see. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll be blown away. Maybe I won’t.

I saw this trailer yesterday, and I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe I should have waited for the big screen. For the IMAX. For the 3D. Cause that’s what’s going to make this movie work, I think. It’s the movie that will convince us that 3D is the future for cinema. That these are movies you can’t watch on your computer screen or even your big ass plasma screen at home. No matter how big those screens are nowadays they won’t do this film justice. That’s what I expect at least. I think this will be a movie most remembered for its advancements in technology, not for its story or plot. And I’m curious to see if everything I’ve heard and been promised is true.

I’ll report back this evening on what I thought about the trailer and footage. For now, my opinion is: wait to see the trailer in the cinema. I just don’t think a small computer screen will do it justice. I’ll go ahead and post the trailer here anyway, cause I know most of you are dying to see it (no matter what I say). I do think it looks amazing; I just think the impact will be so much larger, if you see it on a huge screen in 3D for the first time. Anyhow here it is:

[Watch on MissGeeky]

Avatar – Release Date: 18 December 2009 (US, UK)

I love How I Met Your Mother; it’s I think my favourite sitcom at the moment. It’s got some of the best quotes; most all coming from Barney: “It’s gonna be legen… wait for it… dary!”, “Haaaaave you met Ted?”, “Suit up!”.

Last season ended (SPOILER ALERT for season 4) with a couple of long awaited revelations: Barney declared his love for Robin (yay!) and as Ted began teaching Coumbia University, it was revealed that the Mother is in his class room. I love the Barney-Robin relationship and can’t wait to see more of it.

The TV addict has a bunch of photos from the season premiere of How I Met Your Other up on his blog, and I just had to share them with you. Here’s one of them:

To see the other ones, just head on over to The TV Addict.

How I Met Your Mother – Season 5 Premiere: 21 September 2009 on CBS

Law Abiding Citizen: An everyday guy (Gerard Butler) decides to take justice into his own hands after a plea bargain sets his family’s killers free. His target: The district attorney (Jamie Foxx) who orchestrated the entire deal. Okay, wow! Hearing the description I just thought “another revenge movie”, won’t be much special. But this looks great! Release Date: October 2009 (US), November 2009 (UK)

When In Rome: Beth Harper (Kristen Bell) is a young, successful real estate agent… but she’s completely unlucky in love. However, when the New Yorker travels to Rome to see her newlywed sister, she impulsively steals some coins from a reputed fountain of love, and is then aggressively pursued by a band of wannabe lovers. I’m curious to see both Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel as romantic leads, but I’m not convinced by this trailer. Release Date: January 2010 (US), April 2010 (UK)

Gentleman Broncos: Benjamin (Michael Angarano), home-schooled by his eccentric mother (Jennifer Coolidge), is a loveable loner whose passion for writing leads him on a hilarious journey as his story first gets ripped off by the legendary fantasy novelist, Ronald Chevalier (Jemaine Clement). It’s directed by the same guy who did Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre; I wasn’t much a fan of those movies, but I know some of you will find this hilarious. Release Date: Unknown

The Fourth Kind: In 1972, a scale of measurement was established for alien encounters. When a UFO is sighted, it is called an encounter of the first kind. When evidence is collected, it is known as an encounter of the second kind. When contact is made with extraterrestrials, it is the third kind. The next level, abduction, is the fourth kind. This encounter has been the most difficult to document…until now. Okay, this just looks booooring. Release Date: November 2009 (US)

Untitled: A fashionable contemporary art gallerist in Chelsea, New York falls for a brooding new music composer in this satire on the state of contemporary art. Further complicating the affair is the composer’s brother. A little bit on the quirky side, but it still looks funny. Release Date: October 2009 (US)

The Ghost: Very short teaser trailer, but I think it looks interesting. Directed by Roman Polanski, it’s about a ghostwriter (Ewan McGregor) hired to complete the memoirs of a former British prime minister (Pierce Brosnan). He uncovers secrets that put his own life in jeopardy. Release Date: 2010 (US, UK)

Episode 134: “It’s shiinny! So pwetty!”

Twitter followers of mine might have noticed me tweeting last week that I was offered a Flip Video for the weekend to record a swede. It was for a Cisco competition (plus screening with Urban Screen) that was held yesterday evening, but I’ll write more about that entire event later. For now I’d just like to show the swede we made:

[Watch on MissGeeky]

I know it’s a bit silly, but it was great fun making it, and isn’t that the point of a swede? Making these type of “movies” though makes me only realize more how difficult it is to create an actual full-blown movie. There is just so much you have to consider while filming!

So anybody up for helping out on another one?

This review has two parts. First my normal review without any spoilers. Then, after a warning, my thoughts about this movie with spoilers.

I remember seeing the trailer for Passengers a long time ago, and thinking “huh, Anne Hathaway in a creepy thriller. Seems interesting.” And then I never heard anything about it.

Passengers is about Claire Summers (Anne Hathaway), a grief counselor working with the five sole survivors of a plane crash. Despite her better judgment, she develops a relationship with Eric (Patrick Wilson), the most mysterious of the survivors. But then, one by one, the survivors begin to disappear mysteriously, and Claire uncovers what might be a conspiracy…

There’s a reason I didn’t hear anything about this movie. The first two-thirds of the movie are boooring. The underlying plot is kind of intriguing, but everything else about the first hour is just bad. Everything unfolds way too slow, and there’s never any real tension or suspense. For a movie that’s being marketed as a thriller, Passengers doesn’t thrill at all. You never have the feeling that Claire is actually concerned that her patients are disappearing; she’s off fooling around with one of them. The threat of why they’re vanishing never feels real, and the conspiracy angle seems cliched.

But then that last half an hour happens (it could also be only the last quarter of an hour; I didn’t keep track when the ‘interesting’ part started). It’s not enough to save the movie, but I was semi-pleasantly surprised by it.

Another problem with this movie is the marketing. I’ve put the poster after the spoiler warning, cause anybody with a brain could figure it out just by seeing that poster. The DVD cover and tagline is even worse; don’t they want people to watch their movies?

If you catch this movie on TV, I’d say give it a go. You might turn it off halfway though, cause there’s not a lot going for it. If you’re able to watch beyond that (kudos to you!), I’m curious to hear what you thought about it. Don’t get this on DVD; it’s completely not worth it.

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Argh! Here be spoilers

So if you’ve come this far, you’ve already seen the movie or you want to be spoilt. The big twist of the movie is that Claire is actually one of the passengers from the plane crash and that she’s dead and in some kind of in-between limbo world. Everybody she comes across in the movie is dead; either they’re one of the other plane crashees or they are ‘sent’ to help them deal with death.

The idea is pretty cool, even though it’s just a rehash of The Sixth Sense. And it could have worked, if it had been one of those ‘figure it out’ movies. But there just wasn’t enough clues in the first part of Passengers for this. The twist comes completely unexpected (although I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have; because it was so boring, so I was reading blog posts at the same time) and then it goes all gooey “we’re dead, but we’re in love”. Add to that a tedious first part, and I wonder how many people were actually able to watch the entire movie without turning it off halfway.

By the way: I hadn’t seen that poster before the movie. I’m wondering if I would have been able to guess the twist, cause it seems pretty obvious with that poster!

Fringe was one of the most interesting new series of last year, so I’m pretty curious to see how their second season will be. There was a big revelation at the end of last season’s finale, and I really want to know how that will affect everyone involved.

Fox has released a couple of different ads to promote the upcoming season, which will be airing on Thursday September 17th. The first is a short promo showing, some scenes from the new season:

Besides that, they’ve also released a season 2 poster, with a couple of cryptic clues hidden within:

I can’t find a high res version of this, making it a bit tricky to see the cryptic clues. So far I’ve spotted the six-finger handprint, the white bunny, the butterfly and something like a tarot card on the ground. Anybody found anything else?

Episode 133: “Grab your mouse and stroke the keys”

I saw this video yesterday afternoon when it came out, but since then this song has been in my head the entire time!

[Watch on MissGeeky]

It’s written and performed by Felicia Day, featuring the rest of the cast of The Guild. Besides that it’s directed by Jed Whedon (brother of), who also wrote the music. If you still haven’t seen The Guild, go and watch it; it’s hilarious!

I’m adoring some of these dresses from Lipsy! I’m thinking of maybe getting one of them, but I can’t decide. I know I’ll have to go and actually try them on first before making any decisions, but which of them do you like best?

Left: Bow Sleeve Tea Dress for £25.00, Right: Belted Cocoon Dress for £25.00

Left: Asymmetric Zip Shift Dress for £55, Right: Fluted Sleeve Jersey Dress for £25.00

My preference at the moment is for the top left Bow Sleeve Tea Dress, but I’m not too sure whether it might look too cutesy. My second favourite is the Zip dress, but the higher price tag (£55 instead £25) might sway me from getting it.

Check out more dresses on Lipsy.com