This trailer look just weird. Here’s the description from FilmSchoolRejects:

In the near future (stop me if you’ve heard it), the world is experiencing a crisis in the form of oil shortage, and has taken safeguards by connecting all the cities of the world through underground tunnels. When Roger, a lower-level worker, finds out that he’s not in control of his own life, he tries to escape the system with the help of a beautiful woman.

Basically, it’s 1984 with subways. Plus, Roger might be crazy because he hears voices all the time.

I really like the sound of it, but the visual style creeps me out:

[Watch the trailer on MissGeeky.com]

Metropia – Release Date: November 2009

Last Thursday I got to participate in a conference call with Ron D Moore (Battlestar Galactica, Carnivale, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) about his latest show Virtuality. So far that might be one of the highlights of my blogging career (that and the press conference with Stephen Fry, which btw I still have to blog about), I even managed to ask a question! I haven’t written up that interview yet, but I thought I’d first do a quick introduction post on what Virtuality is about.

Virtuality is a 2 hour long TV movie airing on Friday 26th June, which will serve as (hopefully, if it’s any good) a pilot to an actual series. Fox hasn’t picked it up yet, but I’m guessing they’re waiting to see how the pilot does before taking any action. Here’s the press release from Fox:

Aboard Earth’s first starship, the Phaeton, a crew of 12 astronauts is on the verge of embarking on an epic 10-year journey crucial to the survival of life on Earth. They have reached the “go” or “no go” point, the critical part of the journey where the crew must commit to traveling to a distant solar system millions of miles away. If they “go,” they cannot turn back.

To give the crew a measure of privacy as well as a vital recreational outlet on the long journey, the ship has been equipped with revolutionary virtual reality modules. Each crew member can assume adventurous, avatar-like identities as they explore self-created worlds and scenarios, or simply spend quality down time as themselves in the ultra-life-like simulators. From a war hero to a rock star to secret lovers on an island, these are their psychological lifelines, and each module’s unique setting was chosen by the crew member before departing Earth.

But there is a bug in the system.

As crew members go in and out of reality, they realize that a virus has entered their private world. Questions are raised, and suspicions fanned: Is someone on the crew responsible? When the interloper’s intrusions cross a violent and disturbing line, the ship’s commander makes a difficult decision to shut down the modules. But before he can, a tragic event threatens the mission. Is it an accident or a crime? Real or virtual? Whatever the case, it’s too late to turn back, so the group ventures forth into space, fearing that they may be harboring a person or presence determined to derail their vital mission. Meanwhile, tensions are heightened even further as surveillance cameras capture their every move for a reality series back on Earth.

From what I’ve heard the reality show aspect to it, sounds like a lot of fun. It will also keep the viewer (as in us, not the viewers in the show on that Earth) wondering the entire time whether or not the information the crew get is real, or just a means to make the reality show more interesting.

I love the concept of Virtuality, but because it’s Fox I’m not too sure whether or not to even keep my hopes up that it might be picked up (although they did renew Dollhouse). They’ve put Virtuality in a Friday death slot, and so far I haven’t seen that much marketing for it. There’s not even a trailer out yet and it’s being aired in two weeks time! 

Later this week I’ll post the interview with Ron D Moore here on my blog, plus another blog post introducing all the different characters. What do you think so far of Virtuality?

Ooh, I love these type of posters! Subscribers to Edge (gaming magazine) each received a poster with their latest issue, portraying a city rendered in pixels. Created by illustrator Gary Lucken, it contains tons of references to videogames. Unlike the movie Cryptic Canvas from yesterday though, the references are pretty straightforward (not cryptic). Still there are a lot of references that I don’t get. 

[Click on the image to get a larger version]

It reminds me a lot of the eBoy posters (we’ve got the FooBar poster, although we haven’t found a frame to hang it in our new place), it’s a poster you can stare for at ages and still not have found all the things hidden in it. I wish there was a higher resolution online version available though; there are some references I think I get, but it just too tiny to be sure. 

Via Wonderland

Interesting links for May 14th through June 11th:

• "The Heart of the Female Warrior" – Cool interview with Mary McDonnell about Battlerstar Galactica.
• April 1, 2009: Theodore Wilson’s Last Ride – Funny April Fools prank from one of the writers of Stargate.
• How to Win at Boggle – Great illustration with tips on how to win Boggle. (makes me want to play Boggle now)
• 25 logos with hidden messages – Hmm, some of these aren't really "hidden", but still a nice list to go through.

I’m not exactly a Martin Scorsese fan; I still have to see a lot of his older films and I fell asleep during both The Aviator and The Departed. This trailer of Shutter Island seems great though and much more my type of movie than what he has previously made. 

Shutter Island is based on the like-wise named book by Dennis Lehane, who also wrote the books Gone Baby Gone and Mystic River. It features Leonardo DiCaprio as a federal marshall investigating the mysterious disappearance of a murderess who escaped from the island’s hospital for the criminally insane. Also stars Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Jackie Earle Haley.

[Watch on MissGeeky]

I really like the look of this movie, even though most of the time I can’t stand Leonardo DiCaprio. But it looks like there’s more to the story than just a “find the bad guy” plot, and my mind is already coming up with possible explanations, twists and theories.

Shutter Island – Release Date: October 2009

I should have blogged about this two weeks ago when it came out, but I was in the Netherlands then and since I’ve been back it just slipped my mind completely. Maybe you’ve seen it already, but if you haven’t it’s a lot of fun (especially if you’re into movies). Empire has created this wicked Cryptic Canvas, a painting that contains references to 50 movies.

My brother showed the game to me, challenging me to find as many movies as I could. He and a friend of his had solved all the clues, so of course I had to try and do that too. Some of them are pretty easy to figure out. Just mentioning the object alone already gives you the answer. Some are slightly trickier; it helps saying out loud what you see. And some are just plain evil. 

I think I got to about 30 when I started struggling, so my brother started giving little tips. Not so much tips as in clues about the movies, but more where in the canvas you had to look and what belongs together. For instance, the bird and the flower in the top right corner? Two separate movies. The family with kids (in front of the huge baby)? Also two separate movies (the three mini kids are 1 movie, the rest another). And did you see there are four movies in the bottom right hand corner?

I really struggled with a couple of the obvious ones, especially “CCC”; I am truly kicking myself over that one (also because in the end I didn’t figure that one out, my mum did). There are a couple that I love though: the gravestone with the little flag, the two musical instruments, the towers with the hanging guy, and the guy near the train.

In the end I had to give up at 45, the final 5 I just couldn’t figure out (the family with kids, the flower in the top right, the man on the red line, the fighting cheerleaders, and the book destroyer). Looking at those though, I should have at least figured two of them out; one I hadn’t heard of and the other two were just a bit too difficult.

So how many movie references can you figure out?

I can get pretty addicted to online flash games, and this latest one promoting Ice Age 3 is pretty cute:

I just suck at it horribly though! The highest score I got was 6100 🙁

From AddictingGames.com

Episode 115: “Argh!”

Cute little animation:

[Watch on MissGeeky.com]

Via /Film

I wouldn’t actually buy these myself, but they do look pretty:

They are part of a series of paintings from Christian Waggoner, featuring close-ups of famous helmets in the Star Wars universe. Don’t you just love the reflections?

The paintings are all available in limited edition paper and canvas prints on the Acme Archives website.

Via /Film

Some shows just look awful from the start. Here’s the description from ABC:

Sometimes scaling back is the best way to get ahead. Wall Street legend Hank Pryor (Kelsey Grammer) and his wife Tilly have been living the high life in New York City. That is until Hank is forced out of his CEO job and has to move his family back home to the small town of River Bend.

A self-made man, Hank is used to running the show, but now that he’s lost almost everything, can he learn how to hang with his family? The Pryors have had to seriously downsize their lives — even their king-sized bed won’t fit in their modest new home. Tilly’s not too pleased to be back in the same zip code as her family — especially her badgering brother Grady. Hank’s offbeat son Henry worries about fitting in with a new crowd and his daughter Maddie would rather talk on her cell phone than be anywhere near her Dad. But every great businessman knows that the key to success is to turn setbacks into opportunities. Hank has big plans to get ahead in business… and to reconnect with his family. It may take a while for an industrial giant to figure out how to mingle with the little people — like his family — but Hank’s up for the challenge. Like that smaller bed… Turns out that wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

And the trailer:

[Watch on MissGeeky.com]