March 2009 Archives

By Erik Samdahl

It’s a scary week for movies – and audiences. This weekend, American audiences are treated to ghosts, monsters, aliens and John Cena, and all I know is that The Haunting in Connecticut is not the scariest of the group.

Yes, I happened upon The Haunting in Connecticut the other day, and it is not scary. It’s not well-acted, well-written or well-directed, either. A ghost story almost identical to The Amityville Horror – only not scary – the movie stars Virginia Madsen as a mother whose son seems to be channeling the meany ghosts in and old house in the state of Connecticut. I know you Brits shiver every time one of the thirteen rebellious colonies is mentioned, but if you want true ghostly horror, look elsewhere.

By Dan Owen

One half of '90s double-act Lee & Herring (alongside Richard Herring), Stewart Lee has gone on to make a name for himself on the comedy circuit and a gifted stand-up and co-creator of Jerry Springer: The Opera. He has a smug, squinty, caustic, deliberate style that some will find aloof and tedious, while others will be charmed by the incisive wit his laid-back delivery hides.

STEWART LEE'S COMEDY VEHICLE is essentially one-man stand-up, televised from a comedy club setting. There are brief interludes for home viewers (a Kevin Eldon sketch, most notably), but most of the trimmings are only there to comically illustrate something Lee mentions (a faux Amazon recommendations widgets, Radio 4 comedy writers speaking in oscillating voices.)

By Erik Samdahl

Three major releases open this weekend, each with potential to be hits. After the previous weekend which offered little in the way of mainstream appeal, the studios release simultaneous films that all could be good if done right.

Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage, is about a man who discovers a piece of paper that predicts every major disaster over the last 50 years. The question is, what happens when the numbers run out? Cage’s career choices are unpredictable, though Knowing looks to be on par with Next, a similarly themed movie that was surprisingly decent but forgettable. If it has enough suspense and is halfway plausible, it may be worthwhile.

By Jay Garrett

Hello my gadget loving people and happy Thursday to y'all!

A quick round up of gadgety stuff that's happened since last we met:

I suppose the biggest news, for iPhone owners at least, this week is the 3.0 OS update that will finally bring us MMS and Cut/Copy and Paste amongst other things!

More interestingly is the possibility that this is all in preparation for a hardware update in Summer – iPhone 2.1 anyone?

Righty – what's been happening? 

By Erik Samdahl

Watchmen, based on one of the most acclaimed graphic novels ever made, finally makes its way to theaters after decades of development hell with just as much buzz as the most anticipated summer sequel. But it’s only March, so Warner Brothers enlisted Dawn of the Dead director Zack Snyder to do a 300 repeat and bring this challenging piece of work to life.

And Snyder, as if there were ever any question, was the perfect choice for doing such a film. His work on 300 was incredible, proving that he has an eye for visuals and special effects that stretch our perception of reality without betraying it. 

By Jay Garrett

Hello there gadget lovers!

Another great week for tech.

Microsoft have released their Surface touchscreen table in the UK albeit for £10,000, Apple have unleashed updates of their Mac Mini, Pro's, iMac and there's a little number-padless keyboard.  

Asus have brought their HD powered EeeBox 206 to these shores as well as unveiling their Lamborghini badged VX5 laptops that have 1TB of SSD storage.

Today I bring you the  Touch Book by a company called ‘Always Innovating’. Although it looks like an everyday netbook: 8.9-inch screen with a 1024×600 res, thin, light, blah, blah, blah.

By Dan Owen

The surviving half of a clever but badly-handled TV experiment last year, MOVING WALLPAPER (the mockumentary set behind the scenes of Cornish soap Echo Beach) returns without its host series -- which was axed following dismal ratings, both in reality and fiction. As megalomaniac producer Jonathan Pope (Ben Miller) so eloquently puts it: "it was shit and no one watched it." Now, Pope's championing a zombie thriller called "Renaissance" to his writing team, after its creator dies of a heart-attack during a pitch in his office, and it became the closest thing Pope could lay his hands on when a network boss demanded he come up with a pilot idea in 60 seconds.