Friday 31 October 2008

Halloween Flashback

This weekend's Friday flashback is inevitably spooky, creepy and ooky - and brings you scary movie trailers, things which go bump in the day (the night is for amateurs) and Unimaginable Horrors From The Beyond...or You Tube, to give the Realm of the Scary its actual name.

Aceness from 1935's "The Bride Of Frankenstein".  Loving the warning for those with weak hearts to leave the cinema - such showmanship!

The justly celebrated teaser trailer for Alfred Hitchcock's seminal slice of transgressive terror, "Psycho" - you can't imagine the likes of Brett Ratner pitching up to give you an on-screen tour of their latest major studio bobbins, can you?

The trailer for George A. Romero's 1978 "Dawn of the Dead" - though I'm plenty fond of Zach Snyder's 2004 remake, this is the real deal. Loving the 1970's Synth Terror - is that one of the things which makes the 70's horror flicks still so palatable to me.

Dario Argento's "Suspiria" gets a trailer which is none-more-1970's - and as gloriously incomprehensible as the classic horror film that it's trailing.

And a trailer for one of my favourite movies - "The Hitcher". Talk about completely underselling one of the best B-Movies ever made.  Still, at least they've used one of my favourite elements of the film - Mark Isham's amazing ambient score - to underscore the action.

Coming more up to date - the trailer for one of the more controversial and audience-dividing movies of the 90's - "The Blair Witch Project".

The awesome genius of Pegg, Wright and Frost - "Shaun of the Dead".

"Evil Dead 2" - for the win, ne c'est pas?

And, due to the wonderfully all-over-the-spot nature of You Tube, here's the French trailer for seminal Japanese fright-fest, "Ringu".

A little something for everyone there, wouldn't you agree?  Enjoy today's spooktivities and see you back here next week - when electoral events may have made all of us slightly more hopeful about the future.





Spooky audio goings-on (It's Halloween, you know?)


Via the splendid Whitney Matheson at Pop Candy - Orson Welles' pioneering radio broadcast of HG Wells' "War of the Worlds" is available to listen to online via the miracle of the Inter-Stream.

Friday's Moment of Gaming Zen


Why, it's almost worth dropping the rental cash in November just to run about in "Mercenaries 2" and take some names as Sarah Palin who will, merciful Allah/Buddah/Jeebus be praised, be sinking back into the richly-deserved regional obscurity that she deserves.

More of this kind of thing please, big video game publishers.  Who wouldn't love to play a level of "Gears of War 2" whilst distinctively skinned as a pissed-off and blood-hungry Gordon Brown?  Laying waste to Liberty City whilst attired with a virtual avatar of Anne Widdecombe?

Yes, yes and - thrice - yes.

(Via your friends and mine at Kotaku)


Tuesday 28 October 2008

New "Trek" pics up at Empire Online


Via the nice people at Empire Online, new pics from J.J. Abrams' 2009 "Star Trek" reboot - and more on the new issue, with a "Trek" cover which apes Kirk/Spock imagery from the classic TV series.

The Most Interesting Thing I've Read Today...


From the New Yorker, and via Joystiq, a fascinating profile on Cliff Bleszinski as Microsoft and Epic Games begin to swing the "Gears of War 2" hype hammer.

Monday 27 October 2008

Whilst on the subject of Marcus Fenix

I should have posted this excellent "Gears 2" trailer when it showed up online at the end of last week - it more than lives up to the "Mad World"-scored ad for the original game and pulls off the same trick of undercutting the absurd machismo and "Guns-R-Great!" BS which are writ large in the actual game.

Xbox 360 games out this week - scary, post-apocalyptic RPG edition


We'll be able to enjoy the normal and collector's editions (lunchboxes of joy!) of "Fallout 3", "Guitar Hero World Tour" (shipping as a game disc, a boxed game with the new guitar and the full band game if you're feeling spectacularly flush - and fulsome with living space), a dancemat-enabled "High School Musical 3" game, "MotoGP 08", "Baja 1000" and "Scene It? Box Office Smash" this week on 360 - though my spidey-sense tells me that the "HSM3" game is due to slip in the UK - Game list it as out in November 2008.

Yep, I suspect that officially counts as "Gears of War 2" counter-programming...

PS3 games out this week - LBP edition


The lovely folks over at PS3 Fanboy have their weekly list of new releases for your perusal - whilst LBP has made it past the enforced week or so delay to patch the controversial Qu'ran-quoting music track out of the game, and is ready for release in the US and Asia, for a European audience, the ever-present spectre of localisation has raised it's head and we get to see the game next week.

As ever, whilst games are not region-locked on the PS3 and you can import the title, it really isn't the best idea, as any downloadable content is region-locked to the various PSN stores - if you buy the US game, you have to download stuff from the US store.

Good luck with that.

Other stuff out this week in the US - the previously-discussed "MotorStorm - Pacific Rift", "Fallout 3 - Collector's Edition", "MotoGP 08" & "Guitar Hero - World Tour".  

"Quantum of Solace", "Fallout 3 - CE", "Siren - "Blood Curse", "Valkyria Chronicles", "To End All Wars", "Buzz! Quiz TV - special edition" and "Hail To The Chimp", meanwhile, are out in the UK - note that we're getting the latest 007 game a good couple of weeks before the US, to coincide with the movie's release here this weekend.

Even though I'm not good at shooters, I guess that I'd be opting for "Quantum of Solace" as my purchase this week...it's that "COD4" engine, don't you know.

 

Bored yet? Too bad.


(Via our friends at The Steampunk Workshop)

Words fail me

I'm all for connectivity and tech which makes your life easier, but this kind of stuff is just utterly beyond my ken.

(Via the nice, and entirely loopy people at AVS Forums)

Tuesday 21 October 2008

Obama - the mixtape


Get your Obama on - and grab some quality tunes at the same time...

MotorStorm - Jumping Out Of A Plane Edition

Via our friends at PS3 Fanboy, a new US ad for the upcoming "Motor Storm - Pacific Rift" game, which does a very good job of disguising the fact that the new sequel is essentially a very slightly tweaked update - we're not talking 'Paradise City' and Criterion here.

Fun, yes - check out the demo on the PS store if you have a PS3 - but not a game which will change the world.  The original 'Motor Storm' is now a Platinum title, and the demo doesn't really do much to indicate that you need to drop £50 on it - especially in these financially challenging times that we find ourselves in.

Mashed-Up

With thanks to the You Tubes, a splendid collision between The US version of The Office (i.e., the one with 100%-less Gervais, which can only be a good thing) and Battlestar.

Sweetness ensues.

Sunday 19 October 2008

And in related Obama news...

Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama's presidential bid.

Crivens.  I know there's such a thing as unstoppable momentum, and this blog has already pronounced on the matter, but you know in your heart of hearts that the G.O.P. has any number of percieved slurs and would-be scandals ready to drop in the run-up to November 4th.

Fingers crossed, the American electorate can see though such blatant charades as that 'Joe the Plumber' nonsense that McCain/Palin resorted to last week.

Meanwhile, the other side of the campaign attempted to show that they (A) are human (the jury's out) and B) have a sense of humour.

Pfft. Tina Fey's still way hotter...

In case you were wondering...


...you would be doing the world a rather large favour if you cast your vote for this gentleman.  

Friday 17 October 2008

I Heart John Cusack

Proof that good stuff comes from all over the map with this interview with John Cusack, taken  from The Independent - a paper I generally dislike so much that I'd rather buy the Daily Mail (and I regard the Mail as the kind of thing that Hitler would have read and enjoyed).

Friday Flashback - It's BACK...

...and it has a Jones for great movie trailers from the 1980's.

To wit - 

"The Last Starfighter" - which I need on HD, like, yesterday.  The news that people want to remake this makes me sad and/or moderately homicidal (not really - but seriously skeptical that it won't be a charmless rehash with rebooted CG eye-candy).

"Enemy Mine"- Wolfgang Petersen's Ebony and Ivory tale of a stranded Earthman struggling to survive on a hostile planet with an Alien enemy combatant - your man Louis Gossett Jnr managing to act somehow under seventeen bazillion layers of latex.

"Labyrinth"did anybody see this movie in 1986 and not have a huge crush on Jennifer Connelly?  Or David Bowie (love the frightwig, Jared)?  Wouldn't it be cool to see more epic, puppety goodness of this ilk in cinemas again?  I guess that "The Spiderwick Chronicles" were a move in the right direction, and director Mark Waters admitted his debt to Amblin's 80's catalogue in that flick's publicity tour.

"Back To The Future" rules your ass.  That is all.

"Ghostbusters" - "They catch the ghosts that won't stay dead" - oh, 80's trailer voice artists (feel the joy).

And, inevitably enough, my favourite movie trailer of all time - James Cameron's "The Abyss".

Thursday 16 October 2008

15 minutes with one of my heroes

Or, to cut a long story short - James Cameron talks "Avatar", amongst other things...

Sunday 12 October 2008

What I'm looking forward to watching via the Blu-Rays..











Best warn the neighbours, then...

Like Napster, you mean?

From CNN/Money's blog - Lime Wire seeks to shrug off any accusations that they harbour dodgy MP3's and MP4's.

Yep, really.

Lord British blasts off

I knew that I wasn't hallucinating this when half-viewing it on BBC Breakfast news this morning - Lord British has only gone and buggered off into space (for the bargain price of $30 million).

Richard Garriott, the creator of the "Ultima" series and, more recently,  "Tabula Rasa" has stumped up the readies and headed for the Great Beyond.

And, yes, as a card-carrying geek, I'm properly jealous of him.

Best of luck, Lord B - enjoy the ride.

Sam & Herman's Big Adventure


Instead of flailing on your wireless Gibson guitar controller, why not see how the pros do it?

The Evil League of Evil is watching, so beware...


Via our friends at Hijinks Ensue - the Recluse strikes...

Friday 10 October 2008

And on an entirely different note...


Cinematical has a report on a edible Death Star.

I haven't posted in so long

My darling Fluffrick keeps telling me I need to post more, I don't know if this is what he had in mind, but I just need to vent.



I'm probably getting my knickers in a twist about something I really shouldn't be stressing over, but I can't help it. My darling has been asked by his brother to be the Godfather to his children. They now have three boys and the oldest (5 years old) goes to a Catholic school, but as yet none of them have been christened. I don't know the motivation for getting the boys christened, but it does strike me as having more to do with wanting to keeps their boys in what they deem to be a "good" school, as apposed to an over-riding faith in the Catholic Church.


My darling and his brother attended a Catholic school, but since the age of about fourteen, my darling stopped attending church and is now atheist. He has agreed to be their Godfather, not in a religious sense, but as an Uncle and hopefully a positive example in their lives. However, I think he has been asked to be Godfather because he is "Catholic" and it is my understanding the other 3 Godparents are not.


Okay, so ego does come into it somewhere. I have not been asked to be one of the 3 other Godparents, my services are most definitely not required. I hope to think, had I been asked I would have respectfully declined, as I couldn't personally reconcile it with my own atheism, I don't know. I am a Godmother to my best friend's child, but in my defence back then I was merely agnostic, not atheist.


I don't know what to do, if I protest and don't go to the christening, am I going to cause a major family rift, that will probably not have a significant impact on me and my darling, but could on my lovely mother in law. Or do I go and support my husband and just play happy families and no one is any the wiser of my contempt for the whole charade.


It is not my intention or desire to hurt anyone I love, but I don't know how to reconcile my beliefs and my actions.

Tuesday 7 October 2008

For the terminally lazy and unimaginative...


...comes a splendid way to sort out those difficult to resolve Christmas present issues.

Paramount are offering pre-gift-wrapped copies of their Chrimble biggies - "Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull", "Kung-Fu Panda" and "Iron Man".

(With thanks to the ever-vigilant peeps over at DVD Active)

At last - a politician you can believe in...

Via Joystiq, a slice of local US politics which made me chuckle - I, too, would gladly hand my vote to a dude who can melee attack n00bs and wield a gravity hammer with aplomb.

An update...

Things have been quiet on Rolling Eyeballs, of late.  A sad state of affairs, to be sure, and one that I attribute entirely to those unexpected Outside Factors.

Outside Factor Part The First?

Bonnie, our new dog.  She needs the attention, you know.

Outside Factor Part The Second?

Our new Playstation 3.  Which is a fully kick-bottom BD player, has a clutch of games worth looking at and multimedia functionality which makes it a real competitor to the 360 (is it just snide elitism on my part to infer that I don't really regard the Wii as being next gen?).

Outside Factor Part The Third?

That new college course I began last week - thinking about contemporary English novels doesn't leave much time for pottering around the Interwebs and sharing a grab-bag of content for you to behold.

Normal service hopefully resumed?