Monday, September 19, 2011

The Darkest Hour trailer

I saw this trailer before Rise of the Planet of the Apes (which might be my favourite film of the year), and thoguth it looked pretty cool. Hadn't heard a thing about it before. The characters don't seem that interesting, but the concept for the aliens is great. The Darkest Hour:



Super 8 bluray and DVD cover

The cover for the bluray and DVD releases of Super 8 (which if you haven't seen it, is rather brilliant) have been released. They're based on the old super 8 film packets, and while the extra blue bars of the bluray cases rather butcher the design, it looks quite nice on the DVD:

 

Source Code TV series on the way

According to Hollywood Reporter, ABC is working on a TV adaption of one of this year's best films; Source Code. Each week the Source Code team will jump into the minds of victims of tragic events. Should be good.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Primeval spinoff on the way

Digital Spy reports that the North American Primeval spinoff has been officially commissioned as a thirteen part series, Primeval: New Order, for Canadian channel Space. The new series will be "older, darker and scarier" and have a "younger, sexier" cast (because the current Primeval gang are really getting on...). Which I guess make it the Primeval equivalent of Torchwood or Stargate Universe.

Disappointingly it seems it might not be in the same continuity, as Impossible Picture's Jonathan Drake has commented: "This will be a bigger, better, badder re-imagining of the show, rather than a continuation." I rather hope that's just not the clearest word choice and it will all fit together. But any new Primeval is good news! The series is to film this winter in Vancouver, for release next autumn.

Tape is mesmerising

Stop motion with sticky-tape, watch, it’s amazing:

Tape Generations from johan rijpma on Vimeo.

Brilliant new Muppets trailer

The latest trailer for the new Muppets movie has been released, and it's a hilarious spoof of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's trailer:



Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Jurassic Park: Dangerous Games #1 preview

The first issue of IDW's next Jurassic Park comic series, Dangerous Games, is out this week, and Comics Continuum have a five-page-preview. Here's the dramatic start:


You can see the rest, here.

Friday, September 9, 2011

The most useful goo ever invented?

Ever heard of Sugru? I hadn't until a few minutes ago, and after perusing their website I'm now pretty convinced it's the most useful stuff ever made! What is this stuff I hear you ask: Well, it's a type of silicon which comes in little packets and can be moulded like modelling clay, then left to dry for a day and it into lovely tough flexible stuff. It's heat-proof and water-proof, and sticks to nearly everything. Here's one of sugro's funky diagrams which illustrates some of its usefulness:


And a video too:



My favourite mouse is just a few threads of wire away from being broken forever, I'm excited at the potential for fixing it! Sugru have a whole gallery of things you can use it for. My favourite so far is this funky bicycle grip:


Friday, September 2, 2011

BBC's dinosaur season

The BBC have released a trailer for their latest dinosaur documentary series, Planet Dinosaur, which starts in a couple of weeks:



The six part series is one part of a whole season of dinosaur programing on the BBC, here's how they describe what's coming:

Planet Dinosaur
The last decade has been a golden age of discoveries for palaeontologists around the world: more dinosaurs have been discovered in the past 10 years than the previous 200 years. But the next generation of children won't be talking about Tyrannosaurus Rex or Diplodocus because bigger, badder and altogether more bizarre dinosaurs have been uncovered across the globe.

In an astonishing six-part series, BBC One brings to life the most incredible creatures that viewers never knew existed. From Spinosaurus, the biggest killer to ever walk the Earth, to the immense sea-monster Predator X, and the deadly cannibalistic Majunasaurus – dinosaurs were more monstrous, more horrific and bizarre than ever before imagined. Combining a 3D graphic world, incredible CGI and stunning photo-real fight scenes, this is a whole new perspective on dinosaurs.

How To Build A Dinosaur
Dinosaur skeletons are some of the most popular exhibitions in the world – each year, hundreds of thousands of children flock to the Natural History Museum to see the world famous diplodocus, Dippy. But how do these skeletons get from the ground to the museum hall, traversing millions of years in history to educate and entertain? For every museum, reconstructing a dinosaur skeleton is a fine balance between science and art.

Science presenter and anatomist Dr Alice Roberts guides viewers through the entire reconstruction of a museum's new dinosaur exhibition from the raw bones to the final skeleton.

Survivors
It is estimated that 99 per cent of Earth's species have become extinct. Professor Richard Fortey of the Natural History Museum discovers what allows the very few that survive to carry on going – perhaps not for ever, but certainly far beyond normal species life-expectancy. What makes a survivor when other species drop like flies?

From the jellyfish to the crocodile this series focuses on the survivors whose biographies stretch back millions of years and who can teach humans how it is possible to survive a mass extinction event.

Dinosaurs, Myths And Monsters
Prehistoric bones posed an enormous conundrum in the past. What were they? What did they signify? And what were the implications of those findings? How could they be reconciled to beliefs and myths about the origins of humans and indeed, the planet? For centuries, dinosaur and other fossilised bone remains have perplexed, challenged and amazed humans.

This film tells the story of the impact of the gradual discovery of dinosaurs. It's a story which explains how ideas, explanations and philosophies altered and evolved through time and how humans developed theories to explain the mysteries of the bones.

Mondo: Jurassic Park

Mondo (who I regularly follow to update my Star Trek blog on their latest releases) have launched a new poster license. The first in the series was released exclusively with a screening of Jurassic Park at the Alamo Drafthouse, and a second poster will be available when the trilogythe trilogy is released on bluray next month (if they're anything like the Trek posters you'll have a couple of minutes to try and get one of the small editions of prints before they sell out). Here is the first poster:


And its blue variant:


Sources: Movies.com, /Film.

Jurassic Park returning to cinemas!

Jurassic Park is possibly my favourite film, so I am very excited to hear (from Empire) that it will be shown once more in cinemas at the end of this month (in the UK at least), ahead of the trilogy's bluray release.



Great scott!

Back to the Future is back! For a rather odd Argentinian viral advert at least:



Indiana Jones and the Adventure of Archaeology

Indiana Jones is on his way to a city near you, in a world touring exhibition that recently began in Montreal and is soon its way to Europe. The exhibition is a mixture of artefacts from the films, and from real life, including:

• A vast and exclusive collection of Indiana Jones film props, models, concept art, and set designs from the Lucasfilm Archives

• An interactive tour of legendary sites that sheds light on historical myths such as the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail

• A rare chance to see some of the world’s most impressive material remains and real-world artefacts from ancient societies from the collections of the world-renowned Penn Museum and the National Geographic Society archives

It also has an awesome poster:


And a trailer for good measure:



You can find out more on the exhibition's website, or Facebook page (the latter seems more useful as it's actually indicating where its going next).

Lion King 3D trailer

I'm pretty sceptical about post-production 3D conversion. But, I am really excited about Disney's forthcoming 3D re-release of The Lion King, on both bluray and in cinemas - Because with animation at least I find it easy to conceive how you could take a film apart a recompose it in 3D. And also because, as this awesome trailer demonstrates, The Lion King is just packed full of 3Dness!:


Futurama monopoly on the way, and there's a dinosaur one too!

While browsing USAoply's website I see they have a Futurama edition of Monopoly on the way, currently on pre-order for November release. I love the replacements for "chance" and "community chest": "Attention Puny Humans!" and "Good News Everyone!"

 

Pre-orders come with a Leela's boot and golden Bender token, with the boot not to be included in later releases and Bender de-goldened!



I also spotted a Dinosaur edition of Monopoly, with one of the taxes being a meteorite impact!