After a long time of blogging on here it's come to a point where I think I should share the contents of my 'Man-Cave' or as I like to call it 'Kryptonian Warrior's Fortress of Solitude'.
I've created a Flickr account which I may add to in the future but for now you can view all the pics I took today featuring almost every collectable I have in this one room in my home. You can view it HERE. The pics are relatively hi-res (even though I had to reduce them to be inside the 100mb monthly Flickr limit) so you should be able to get a good view at all the stuff. Just click on 'All Sizes' icon above each individual pic and you can zoom in.
If you have any questions about anything, by all means please ask in the comments and I'll try to help out. If for some reason you can't view the Flickr page please let me know as I might have set it up incorrectly!
I happened upon a site tonight advertising a Syfy original movie called 'Beyond Sherwood Forest'.
That in itself wasn't what caught my eye (I'm not exactly a Robin Hood fan y'know, although I liked the Costner version *CRINGE*), it was actually who was in it and what it was about that got my attention.
First off the director is Peter Deluise, known to many a sci-fi fan as the director and producer of StargateSG-1 and many other sci-fi related shows. Robin Hood himself is played by Sanctuary's very own Will Zimmerman -Robin Dunne, Maid Marion is played by Smallville's Lois Lane - Erica Durance, Prince John is played by V's rebel human Georgie Sutton - David Richmond-Peck and then sci-fi royalty is present in the form of Julian Sands who plays the Sheriff of Notingham/ Malcolm. There are a few other actors and actresses that you'd know from other cult shows but the 4 above are the most well known, to me at least.
The story is completely crazy with a retelling of the old story we know having a sci-fi edge given to it. The Sheriff has control of a girl called Alina who has been cursed into the form of a dragon and he sends her off to kill Robin. Robin is then forced to battle all sorts of nasties and all kinds of supernatural weapons and wonderment then take center stage, along with the rescue of the feisty and kick-ass Maid Marion (could Erica be anything but 'feisty and kick-ass'?).
I haven't seen this t.v. movie, and I don't really intend to, but the reviews haven't been overly kind. Maybe it's because casting the fragile and hardly-passable-leading-action-man Dunne in the lead role was a huge mistake (my own pre-judgement of course) or maybe it's because the small budget and weak story just don't cut it in a world where Avatar has emerged and raised the bar into the stratosphere. Either way I thought I'd bring it to everyone's attention, just in case there are those of you that actually are interested. You poor souls... ;P
Having just checked I can tell you that the whole film is watchable in numerous short parts via Youtube, but the trailer is below should you want to see a little bit first.
The comic book that started off my obsession (or I should say restarted) with comic books and all things 'geek' was a little Marvel release called "What if Silver Surfer had betrayed Galactus". I bought it in some cheapo store in Great Yarmouth when I was younger and my world was never the same again.
Due to the "what if" part of the above I recently found the below information about 10 actors who almost played the lead parts in some of the biggest movies we've had in the past few decades. Use those old gray cells to conjure up in your mind just what these films would have been like should these original choices actually got the parts... WEIRD.
#10 Will Smith (Neo In The Matrix) - Will Smith passed on the role of Neo saying that The Matrix was a "difficult concept to pitch." Then the Fresh Prince added a little insult to injury and decided to star in I, Robot instead.
#9 Jim Carrey (Dr. Evil In Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery) - According to IMDB, Carrey was originally cast as Dr. Evil but had to leave the film because of a scheduling conflict with Liar Liar.
#8 Kevin Costner (Bill In Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2) - K-Cos supposedly turned down the role of Bill in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and Kill Bill: Vol. 2 opting to direct Open Range instead. I think we should all take the time to write Kevin a letter and personally thank him for making such a horrible career decision.
#7 Sean Connery (Gandalf In The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy) - Connery reportedly turned down the role of Gandalf due to the rigorous 18-month filming schedule. Connery and his mentally challenged agent also turned down the role of Morpheus in The Matrix.
#6 Robert DeNiro (Josh Baskin In Big) - Penny Marshall originally offered the lead role in Big to DeNiro instead of Tom Hanks. Poor Bobby was rejected because his six million dollar salary demand was too high and the world was spared from ever having to see DeNiro and Robert Loggia dance on a giant piano together.
#5 Jean Claude Van Damme (Predator In Predator) - JCVD was originally cast as the Predator creature. Once the director compared him to Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers and Jessie Ventura it became apparent that a "taller" man was needed to make the creature appear more threatening. Van Damme also allegedly complained on numerous occasions that he would not appear on camera without the suit in the film.
#4 Nick Nolte (Han Solo In The Star Wars Trilogy) - Nolte was one of four finalists (Christopher Walken, Burt Reynolds and Harrison Ford were the others) for the role of Han Solo and he apparently lost the role at the last minute. Thankfully Harrison Ford was offered the part instead and Nolte went on to do 48 Hours.
#3 Tom Selleck (Indiana Jones In Raiders Of The Lost Ark) - Selleck was originally cast as Indiana Jones, but was unable to take the role because he already committed to Magnum P.I. Selleck eventually did an episode that parodied Raiders of the Lost Ark complete with hat, whip and booby traps.
#2 Bill Murray (Bruce Wayne In Batman) - Murray was one of the front runners to play the Caped Crusader when the studio originally wanted to create a big screen replica of the 1960s TV version starring Adam West. Bill was eventually removed from consideration once director Tim Burton took the helm of the movie and brought Beetlejuice with him.
#1 OJ Simpson (The Terminator) - "The Juice" was originally considered for the role of the Terminator, but James Cameron and the producers finally decided that Simpson was "too nice" to be taken seriously as a cold-blooded killer. I think they call that irony.
On Valentines day last Sunday I took the missus out for a slap up Chinese at the same place we've been going for V-day for the past 12 years... My parents babysat the kids and when we went to pick them up my Mum handed me a couple of pop-out sheets of a few Marvel Top Trumps that her newspaper was giving away for free.
I'm 32 years old and my Mum is giving me Marvel Top Trumps...
Which of course is very cool of my Mum because she knows just how much of a geek I still am and even a random stranger that caught a glimpse of my 'man-geek-play-room' in my house would be able to tell straight away... Or ask if we had a 10 year old son... Which has happened a few times.
Aaaaanyway my point is that the paper my Mum must have got the cards from was the Daily Record (have I even heard of that UK paper? Why doesn't it sound familiar?) and the video below is the advertisement for them. Put a smile on my face anyway, reminds me of the numerous times I'd pretend I was a superhero in my room as a kid, running around with a mask, a makeshift cape or a stick standing in for a lightsaber etc... Ahhh the golden days of yore...
OK so this is probably old news to some of you, but I've only just come across these awesome new(ish) Star Wars themed Adidas trainers, each based around a certain original trilogy concept.
I know a friend who would die to own all of these and he'd probably never wear them, just store them in his bulging cupboard full of special edition Nike, Reebok and Adidas shoes! Scratch that, if I know him well enough he had these in his collection on the day they were released and each pair was encased in its own perspex box, or frozen in Carbonite (as I'm sure he's got a Carbonite freezer somewhere in his house!)...
Anyway below are each set of these awesome shoes with the theme for each one in the background.
Yesterday I posted up a video of a bunch of Brits staging a mass lightsaber fight in public... now I've just come across a video of a bunch of Brits staging a costumed Star Trek record attempt in London.
This time however it was all planned and coordinated by NamcoBandai to celebrate the launch of the new Star Trek Online PC MMORPG game being released very soon. Roughly 100 people actually turned up for the record attempt so I doubt very much that they actually went into the Guinness records with that minor turn out, but it does show that us Brits will turn up to the opening of a cardboard box if we're invited to do it geekily!
The sad thing for me is that I actually recognised a few of the fans that turned up (especially the Jean LucPicard guy who has been at a number of UK cons I've attended) and if you watch the video you'll also notice a certain little red head hottie who just so happens to be a popular UK glamour model, Radio 1 gaming advisor, Front magazine gaming columnist and a newly appointed columnist and blogger for Rising Star Games' Hoshi Club... Yep that's right the stunning and highly intellectual uber-geek 'Alex Sim-Wise' turned up of her own accord, every fanboys fantasy right there in one Dr. Crusher themed package! (even though she says she wanted to go as Dax, that's my kind of girl!)
Oh and the game looks cool too! Here's the trailer:
As such there's a whole bunch of budding artists out there who obviously own photoshop and want to turn the world blue with Na'vi DNA inspired colouring.
You can visit a whole Flickr page dedicated to the art HERE but my favourites have to be both Christina Hendricks and Avril Levine who both still look very hot as Na'vi natives... Sad I know.
Never really been a fan of David Blaine or the massive public stunts he does all over the world, I can't stand his drugged up voice and his appearances on live tv (especially in the UK) have been excruciatingly painful to watch, but you can't deny that after watching this 20 minute video below that you're not impressed with the guys dedication to his field. And this wasn't even magic...
I'm always impressed with a human being's ability to amaze and this guy definitely does just that.
You don't have to watch the entire 5 minutes and 49 seconds of this vid to see that this in one talented street drummer, making very good use of his buckets and broken air con unit etc.
25 years ago when I was only 7 years old the original 'We are the world' song was released. It's a song and a video that has been ingrained into my mind ever since I first saw it and for some reason it always evoked an emotional response from me.
Now we have a new version by all of today's big music and movie stars (yes there's Jeff Bridges, Vince Vaughn and many others in there if you look hard enough, along with Heroe's Haitian too!) and even though the rap part about 75% of the way through throws you off quite a bit it's a striking song to behold yet again. Even having bits where Michael Jackson joins in from old footage is sad.
If you can bare to watch the whole thing then please do, it's strange yet truly awesome to see all these new people, 25 years after the original, singing for charity once again.
Yet another clip from the new Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths animated movie coming to US stores on Feb 26th.
This time we get more battle action as the JLA face off against the Crime Syndicate. Really looking forward to this, even if there are a few cringe worthy bits just in this scene alone! Body popping after zapping Supes? No, no, no!
Vin Diesel recently confirmed that not only would the 5th Fast and Furious ("Fast Five") movie be heading our way very soon (good cos I really like the others) but also a new Riddick film is also in the works.
Fast Five is set for release in 2011 and will star both Vin Diesel and Paul Walker reprising their roles as Dominic Toretto and Brian O''Conner respectively in yet another return to the ongoing, popular franchise. The only news so far is that Dom and Brian will be on the run after the events at the end of the last movie, which is kind of a given seeing as Brian broke Dom out of a prison bus with his car gang!
The new Riddick movie will once again be directed by David Twohy, the writer and director for both Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick and the new screenplay will be closer in tone to the cult Pitch Black original film. Riddick will return after Fast Five completes production so look for it in 2012 or after.
DC and Marvel are the two biggest comic companies in the world today. Even though I love Image comics more at times it's undeniable that characters such as Superman & Batman and Spider-Man & The Hulk are ingrained into the human consciousness and their subsequent movies have ruled the box office for decades, even more so over the last couple of years.
There has been a renaissance period recently where all the comic book movies of old have been blown out of the water by a new breed of Superhero film.
For DC the new wave began with the amazing Batman Begins and the even more amazing Dark Knight. For Marvel it was Iron-Man (and in the future it will be Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America and The Avengers).
Why were they so popular and why did they re-write the book on comic book movie adaptations? Reality... Just the thought that these heroes could actually exist in the real world we live in was enough to make us scramble for more. OK so there were also exemplary performances by all the actors involved and by the directors who made the films, but the 'reality' part of these new movies has paved the way for new films to be made in the same way and draw even bigger audiences, populated by even the non-comic-fans, destroying the way old movies were made in the past.
Because of this fact the big-wigs at Warner Bros have finally realised that Chris Nolan is now a master in this regard (primarily due to the fact that he doesn't read comics which gave him a new perspective on the whole thing) and they've granted him the honorary status of "Godfather" to any new DC live action movie that heads our way, and that means the Superman reboot. Nolan won't necessarily direct or produce the new Superman film but he will have massive creative input on the whole thing and will guide the new breed of DC movie down the right path so it coincides with his Batman franchise and hopefully ends up in a darker and more believable Justice League movie in the future (here's hoping!).
For Marvel it seems all the they're already heading down the right path with all the different directors having meetings and creative input on all their movies to ensure they all interconnect and flow between each other until the big payoff with Avengers in 2012... And beyond even that.
The nearest I got to D&D as a kid was playing a Heroquest board game I once got for X-mas and reading a few game books loosely related to it when I was in secondary school. Oh and that cool arcade game that I play on MAME from time to time...
Anyway D&D is a huge phenomenon with fans of all ages and in every town I've ever visited in the UK I've always come across a Games Workshop filled with spotty, bespeckled, prepubescent, younglings whose eyes are glistening with geeky joy when they throw a six on their red and white dice... OK so that's a bit nasty... They don't all have spots...
Anyhoo D&D has progressed over the years and now with the startling advancement in technology our generation is experiencing a brand new breed of D&D gaming is nigh. 'Microsoft Surface' technology now allows players to game using virtual or physical figure based pieces and dice which interact with the surface adding that extra layer of immersion and interactivity.
Watch the video below which shows you a little of what is capable during a standard game.
As if the fact that another Pirates of the Caribbean movie was heading our way wasn't bad enough (don't get me wrong, loved the first one, felt sick watching the other two), now we hear that the Rob Marshall directed fourth installment has snagged Penelope Cruz to play Jack's 'foil and equal'.
'On Stranger Tides', as it's been titled, has supposedly done away with both KeiraKnightley and Orlando Bloom in favour of solely following Sparrow's shady shenanigans with a whole bunch of new characters who are all looking for the fountain of youth, almost like a reboot of the franchise.
I don't mind Ms Cruz at all but from what little screen time I've seen of her I can't say she's a strong actress to put in a big budget sequel to one of Disney's biggest movie franchises of all time. For me this movie seems to be going the wrong way about getting its fans back, or maybe that's the point. It's doing away with them in favour of a new bunch who weren't sullied by the 2nd and 3rd films in the franchise...
Either way shooting starts this summer in Hawaii and until I see a trailer I'm going to automatically dislike this before it even gets made!
A whole new bunch of posters have gone up online last week for the upcoming big budget myth-fest that is Clash of the Titans.
Can't wait for this movie!
Oh and did you know that Bubo the mechanical owl from the original movie is also going to be in the remake? How cool is that? He'll only have a cameo rather than the larger more influential part he played in the 1981 movie, but he's there nonetheless. Very cool!
OK I'm liking this a hell of a lot more than I did when I saw the original teaser trailer last year. It certainly has an epic feel to it and certain bits look reminiscent of Lord of the Rings.
M. Night Shyamalan's work has been extremely hit and miss and his last few movies have been downright boring... I'm hoping that this licensed movie gets him out of that rut and shows the world what he's really capable of as just the director, using someone else's story lines!
I'm a huge fan of both the Marvel and DC animated movies that have been released over the last few years and Green Lantern: First Flight has been my own personal highlight so far.
The next straight to DVD release is Justice League: Crisis of Two Earths (which I can't wait for) but after that DC and Warner Home Video will be releasing Batman: Under the Red Hood based on the Judd Winick written 2005 comic storyline. Red Hood, who turns out to be... Well that would ruin it for the people who don't know, is another vigilante who doesn't mind cleaning up Gotham by leaving dead bodies in his wake. Animated guru Bruce Timm exec produces this pretty violent look into crime on the streets, and it's directed by "Superman Doomsday" co-director Brandon Vietti, with a cavalcade of stars as voice talent. It all starts with Bruce Greenwood ("Star Trek") as Batman, then continues with "Supernatural" star Jensen Ackles as Red Hood, Neil Patrick Harris ("How I Met Your Mother") as Nightwing, John DiMaggio ("Futurama") as the Joker and Jason Isaacs (the Harry Potter films) as Ra's Al Ghul.
The comic version of Red Hood.
After Red Hood DC will be looking to start production on a Green Arrow animated movie (probably due to the delay on the Supermax Green Arrow movie, and due to the success of the character both in the Justice League: Unlimited cartoon and on Smallville) and should feature at least Black Canary as a cameo, which is enough to look forward to in itself!
Green Arrow as he was depicted in Justice League: Unlimited.
How much do we love Toy Story movies? A whole hell of a lot I can tell you.
Here for your viewing pleasure is yet another Toy Story 3 movie trailer and this one shows a lot more of the new characters we're going to be introduced to when the film is released this June.
I think we're all getting a little overwhelmed by the amount of movie pics and posters getting released recently but that doesn't stop me from posting up here for all to see.
Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland has had a few more images pop up online so here they are. Enjoy!
