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I never thought I would see the day when I would be writing about the Toy Show and not getting paid for it. But this year, I just had to.

My oh my, what a mess. Dont get me wrong, the toys were great as usual and the kiddies were all entertaining. Especially the 2 rapper kids. The kids were great. There was some dodgy acts, guitars out of tune. But you got to love the eyes wide openness of the kids. The stars of the show, and they didn’t get paid!

But for feck sake RTE, did you pass out too much mulled wine before the show to the crew? Wobbly camera work, missing WII remotes, no chair for former royalty, toys with flat batteries and kids with their back to the camera.

Where do I start? I missed Gaybo’s fatherlike figure banter. I used to enjoy his annual spiel prior to the segment on books. Not even the surprisingly pleasant Duchess of York saved the segment.

Was the show entertaining? Of course! I must have posted 100 tweets on Twitter about it during the broadcast as did many other Irish Twitters.

I had stocked up on munchies, cheap finger food, wine and hot whiskey and RTE did not disappoint, albeit for the wrong reasons.

And that sketch with Chris Rock and Ben Stiller, WTF? Hmmm. Money passed hands perhaps.

So we need someone to blame. I could only find one man ultimately responsible.

Clarke Kent.

Oh and no, Barbara wasn’t there. No doubt she was reading Wuthering Heights from the comfort of her lovely Morrison Hotel room.

Given the latest excitement (or non excitement depending on your tastes), I thought it would share this clip with you. Its a fan made clip of what would happen if Star Trek met Star Wars.

Enjoy!

Yes we need a theme! And I’m ridiculously indecisive! I have used a few themes but some were not so compatible.

So I need your suggestions on a WordPress theme that will work for me!

So who will admit to seeing the Late Late Show last Friday? You will remember this scene:

Did Barbara get one up on Pat? Or did Pat make a stand on live telly? Or could you give a toss? Maybe Pat doesnt like Langers?!?

You may have noticed that ad in the top right corner of the page for the boards.ie Photography yearbook which is on sale on blurb.com. (Click the link for a preview)

You can see from the original thread here that part of the cost of the book will be donated to the boards.ie annual charity, Santa Strike Force. With SSF, basically boards.ie users, mods and admins collect as much dosh as they can by organising charity events, and the proceeds are used to buy presents for less fortunate kids in hospital over Christmas. More details on the SSF can be found here.

My book arrived during the week and I have to say some of the photos are fantastic. As I understand it all photo contributors are amateur photographers. Well done to all concerned!

Um ok, so it looks like I was on holiday the past week or so. But Im back. Although I wasnt on holiday. I was busy in a non bloggie way. Um indeed, anyway back on topic….

So some of you have probably seen the new Star Trek trailer. (see trailer below)

Wow says the trekkies out there. Or are you called Trekkers now? After the nut bar? Hmmm. Yes it does look interesting. I was never a big Trek fan. My brother was into it growing up. He bought Technical Manuals, pretend communicator badges and phaser rifles. Yet he never built a warp engine or even a door that went “schwooosh”. Now he fixes photocopiers. Spooky.

I will admit to enjoying some of Star Trek The Next Generation, and it is credited to one man.

Patrick Stewart. His performance brought an heir of credibility to it. A token mention to John DeLancie who played “Q” from time to time.

Then we had Deep Space 9, which only gained credibility when Sisko (not the rapper) became a captain, shaved his head and grew a goatee. It really took on its own when the Dominion war kicked off, which kicks the pants of the modern Battlestar Galactica nonsense people rave about it. (please, human cylons?)

Star Trek movies on the other hand suffered with “every second one is shite” syndrome until recently when they all went to the dogs. Then along came J.J. Abrams again. He took the reins and decided to inject new life into the series. When he first announce he would focus on the original crew, Kirk, Spock etc, we began to wonder if he had gone mad until it became clear he was going to do a prequel to the original series. Plot details and still very tight we have seen crew photos of who is playing who.

Something still didn’t sit right me over this whole rethink of the series. I can accept younger actors taking on roles that in many ways are bigger than them. So on watching the trailer again last night it dawned on me. It all makes no sense.

Not in a men in jumpsuits fighting aliens in space kind of way, but in a they all look like teenagers yet they captain and command starships.

Look Im not getting geeky. Films don’t have to be based in reality. But in order for them to be believable, they must maintain faithful to the physics of the reality of which they create.

Therefore having a crew that look no older than 21 commanding a starship just doesnt sit right with me.

I guess I will reserve judgement until the movie comes out. Chris Pine as Kirk, hmmmm, we’ll see…

Any idea who that is in the picture? Go on have a guess…
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Its no other than Brendan Gleeson. I kid you not. Gleeson plays Winston Churchill in the upcoming movie, Into the Storm which is currently in post production. It seems Gleeson may have taken a few leafs out of Lee Strasburg’s school of acting as he seems to have really gotten into the part. The film is directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan.

Thanks to vincenzo1975 from boards.ie who first posted the story here.

Unless you in a coma for the last a few years or dead, the whole planet knows that the man who succeeding in becoming the new president of the U. S. and A, is black. In the run up to the election, the only thing that took away from that point was that one of his competitors was a woman. (And as far as I know she still is)

Politics and economic viewpoints aside, no one can deny that it was deemed to be a show of the advancing of maturity, a knock of the head for racism or sexism (or any ism’s you want to throw in) in that a woman and a black man could run for President in the US and as we know, Obama won. Yay for him. That aside, Ireland has had 2 female presidents, Pakistan has had a female leader and well, Maggie Thatcher led the UK for many years and her Spitting Image dummy entertained us throughout.

So while its good for the US, its not the first demonstration that people around the world can park their prejudices when it comes to important matters.

But then I picked up a news article here during the week about Obama’s meeting with Bush in the white house. The article in its second paragraph read:

“It was the first time that Mr Obama, the first black US president-elect in history, has set foot inside the Oval Office”.

Its been how long since Obama’s campaign started? Its been how long since he was announced victor? The article was about Obama first official meeting as President Elect with the outgoing President. I doubt that one of the items on the agenda was that Obama was black. So why do the media still feel a need to describe Obama as the first black president elect, particulary in articles that have nothing to do with race?

I dont believe the colour of someone’s skins is a political trait, maybe Im wrong? Robert Mugabe is black, yet he shares no other political qualities with Obama. Why dont the media describe Ireland’s current Minister for Health as “badly dressed and overweight minister for health” when posting articles about her?

Maybe Im being pedantic. Or maybe I’m naive. Or maybe I’m just ranting.

On a lighter note, I always found this clip from South Park episode on racism (Chef goes Nanners) to be very relevent. (Not the “Im attracted to Cartman bit”!)

Fanboys erupted during the week, and Alan Moore rolled his eyes as 2009′s “Watchmen” director, Zack Snyder confirmed that the ending of the movie is different from the novel. You may recall my origina article linked here, where there rumours abound, well those rumours have been confirmed by Snyder.

Synder in an interview claims that the ending had always been different from the novel in every draft of the script he read. He also debunked rumours that a number of endings were films and tested. He went on to say that he “embraced” the revised ending. Which of course he would, with the paycheck he’s getting to direct!

My own personal view on it is mixed. I’m not a purist when it comes to these things. Despite many discussions when Transformers was being released about the robots looking more like Lego Bionicles and exo-skeletons, I was of the belief that it was the best template given we dont live in 1980 something anymore.

However, when I read the graphic novel, there were themes and the pirate sub plot which I felt did carry great meaning when reviewed in context of the ending. Sure the ending is a bit of the wall and one of the arguments for the side who welcome the change is that its not a realistic/believable ending in the vein of the realism in the story up that point. My counter argument is that superhero blue men making themselves big and small at random, who take holidays on Mars, is no less realistic than the novel’s ending!

OK nerdyisms aside, Im not put off by a revised ending. I’m not the type to picket the cinemas with Fr. Ted “down with this sort of thing” banners. I do hope though, that one of the rumoured endings surrounding Dr. Manhattan does not come to fruition.

Maybe I am a nerd afterall?

So its all about the sequels and remakes this week!
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“Wonder Woman” to hit the big screen with Beyonce?

Beyonce Knowles has revealed that she has been approached by DC Comics and Warner Bros to don the sexy outfit and whip to fulfill many fanboy fantasies. Yes and I know, that’s not Beyonce but having seen the picture above created by some fanboy somewhere, there is only one woman for the role if you ask me, hence why there is no picture of Beyonce in this article…

28 Months Later

Danny Boyle was interviewed during a promotion for his latest flick, “Slumdog Millionaire” and indicated he would like to direct the ‘threequel’ to the successful series. He went on to say “”I feel the idea is quite a strong idea, and it could well involve directing it. Yeah, absolutely.”

“Conan” – to be remade?

Well, yes actually. Its been in the news in recent months that iconic ‘Conan’ would be remade. Now it has a director. (sit down please) X-Men 3 direct Brett Ratner is close to signing. However Ratner is going to produce Beverly Hills Cop 4 first… Love him or hate him, its going to be shite in my opinion! More here.

“Oldboy” to be remade by Spielberg

According to Irish movie site, movies.ie, Steven Spielberg and Will Smith are eager to remake Korea’s Chan Wook-Park’s excellent 2003 film. Check out the trailer for the original below.

Read more…