November 2008 Archives

A remake of Terry Nation's cult hit from 1975, SURVIVORS has been given a fresh lick of paint courtesy of Primeval creator Adrian Hodges. The cast are an eclectic mix of familiar faces, many from other BBC genre series: there's Bonekickers' Julie Graham as the matriarchal lead Abby; Hotel Babylon's Max Beesley as Tom, a prison escapee with uncertain morals; Zoe Tapper as reluctant Dr. Anya Raczynski; Torchwood guest-star Nikki Amuka-Bird as an MP (she played that alien with the dagger-shaped arm); Jekyll's Paterson Joseph as pragmatic Greg; Phillip Rhys as a playboy millionaire; Chahak Patel as a Muslim boy; and Doctor Who's Freema Agyeman and Shaun Dingwall round out the cast.

It's Thanksgiving weekend in the United States, one of our most popular holidays as we get to eat food until we drop, get drunk, watch football and get four days off in a row. 

We also have to socialize with family, which is not always a good thing. I’m in Los Angeles right now, busily watching as many movies as I can.

Three new movies come out this week, looking to compete with James Bond, Bolt and Twilight.

Baz Luhrman, the mind behind Moulin Rouge, a film that singlehandedly reinvented the musical genre, is back, this time with Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman to direct the originally titled Australia, an epic about, I think, India or Bangladesh or Switzerland or something. 

When I was told to check out “iFrogz” I wasn’t sure what to expect.

I certainly didn’t expect headphones!

These look pretty funky and they set themselves apart from the rest by offering a stupid amount of optional designs.

Of course, until getting some of these cans over my lug-holes I can’t say how good the audio is - but as far as having something personalised to pipe your grooves through these might make plenty of sense.

Now the nights have drawn in for winter, ITV's flagship reality series I'M A CELEBRITY… GET ME OUT OF HERE! returns like a ray of sunshine for its eighth series. Yes, another eclectic mix of celebrity bottom-feeders have been thrown into the Aussie rainforest, as a form of career resuscitation therapy. I'm A Celebrity is one of the few reality shows it's not embarrassing to admit you enjoy, or even a particularly bad idea to participate in.

I live in Washington State – Seattle, specifically – and just over three hours away from Forks, WA. I can’t say that I’ve ever been to Forks, though I probably have, and next time I pass through there, it’s unlikely I’ll recall it ten years later. Then again, it is home to blood-sucking vampires and Kristen Bell, so if I do visit, I may never leave.

Forget the iPhone and say hello iCEphone!

The in Case of Emergency Phone is aiming to be the “Swiss Army knife of mobiles” and dubbed as a micro-notebook by its manufacturer.

Ok, this thing doesn't have a bunch of blades, a tool for removing scouts from horses hooves or even a toothpick but it does pack quite a few helpful things in its three-tiered shell.

For starters the iCEphone has software that can not only walk you through common medical emergencies like administering CPR, but it can one-touch dial your doctor, the nearest hospital and 911 at the same time.  Hopefully they'll change that to 999 if it comes here – although 911 actually will work in the UK; you knew that, right?

Having earned his horror stripes with 1998's vampire hit Ultraviolet, before directing some Doctor Who episodes in its comeback year, writer-director Joe Ahearne returns with his own series -- supernatural chiller APPARITIONS, starring Martin Shaw as an exorcist. So, will eyes roll, or heads revolve...?

Despite a shaky start (priests tell jokes), several silly moments (mild swearing in a pub), and some dumb dialogue ("the demon spoke Albanian"), this was an effective and captivating mix of '90s fantasy drama and '70s spookery, with a few twists of Kubrickian weirdness and some Hellraiser-inspired bloodshed in its final sequence inside a steam room.

It's 2:13 a.m., which means Quantum of Solace, the new James Bond film, concluded just fourteen minutes ago. Used to going to sleep by 11 on weeknights, I am extremely tired, fearing my alarm in just a few hours and must warn of typos. My eyes certainly closed a few times throughout the movie, and whether that's a symptom of or a cause for, Quantum of Solace left me desiring more.

Quantum of Solace is not a bad movie. It has a good amount of action, some beautiful women, a car chase, a plane chase and some witty Bond humor. It's entertaining by every essence of the word, and those looking for a slick thrill ride should be entertained. 

Pure Digital’s Flip Mino was pretty good for the money and the Ultra even more so - but now it’s all gone Flippin HD!

Ok, so the High Def version is going to cost you $230 – but hey.

For the extra cash you get about an hour’s worth of fixed zoom, 720p, MPEG-4 video recorded to 4GB of built-in flash memory.

Shove the handy go-anywhere USB cam into your PC or Mac to launch the built-in FlipShare editing software for fine-tuning your videos before sharing your flicks via MySpace, YouTube or direct over email.

Are there any more haunted houses left for Yvette Fielding and her paranormal investigators to spend the night in? Yes, MOST HAUNTED is back for an incredible tenth series, proving every bit as formulaic and unintentionally laughable as usual.

To be honest, this was once a very entertaining spookfest, but it's gradually been exposed as a sham. The dismissal of "spiritual medium" Derek Acorah in series 6 (caught cheating by parapsychologist Dr. Ciarán O'Keeffe) destroyed its credibility, and lost the show its most iconic, entertaining star. Undaunted, the show continued, albeit with a more relaxed attitude about itself. Kind of like when the WWF admitted wrestling was staged, and started putting the emphasis on entertainment instead of sport, to evolve into the WWE.

So… last week, I messed up. I wrote a glorious article (perhaps the best article ever written in the history of man) about the week’s new releases… unfortunately, I was a week off. So if you want to hear about this week’s U.S. releases, click here. If you want to hear me talk about random things to pass the time, read on.

OK, it won’t be completely random. One movie I didn’t mention last week was JCVD, a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie about himself. Sort of. I had heard of the movie, but that was about it – at least, until I went and saw Zack and Miri Make a Porno – which was hilarious, by the way – and saw the preview for this crazy movie. JCVD, as I found out stood for the actor’s name, is about an actor named – yes, you guessed it – Jean-Claude Van Damme – who has watched his lucrative career as an action star fade into obscurity. 

If you’re looking for something that’s like an iPod Touch but would rather not join the masses of Appleites (if that be a word) then you could do a lot worse than to check this little beauty out!

The  Cowon O2 portable media player is coming to the UK and it is more than adequate to pull the iPod's pig-tails and blow raspberries at the best of the rest.

Room for all your media ranges from 16GB to a lovely 32GB of flash storage.

It's often claimed the viewers of Big Brother are like zombies; vegetating in front of their televisions, watching a live-feed of sleeping strangers at 2 a.m. Little wonder that Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker chose to make his TV writing debut with DEAD SET (E4, MON-FRI 10PM), a five-part horror that threw zombies into the Big Brother experience. Well, someone had to do it...