Major Q&A Session with Transformers producer

Spent about three hours shooting the breeze with the Transformers movie producer, Don Murphy, where he was kind enough to answer an absolute raft of questions.

Here's the highlights, and even that's a lot.

Lots of news on the cast, progress in the movie and just what characters we can expect to see..

Don: When I was a kid I'd be watching Abbott and Costello or Bowery Boys films back on Ch 5 or 11 in NY.
Now my beautiful wife is awfully ill and needs taking care of.
Hey guess what- we have started to work on cool ComiCon stuff for TF- I will announce when I can.
Hey ya know, you hard core guys, I love ya, and think you are all great.
We have started some pre-visualization on the film- preliminary- looks fab.
Hasbro needs to start the toy line in the next month to make the deadline to have toys out a month before our film.

( Read more... )

Aliens of London - It's Who time

After the sublime delight that was Mark Gattiss' "The Unquiet Dead" it's back to Earth (literally) with a bang with the Russell T Davies penned two parter.

The premise is a good one ... The Doctor has agreed to take Rose back home and assures her that she will return a mere twelve hours after she left. Unfortunately after missing the mark again, Rose is returned not twelve hours after she left but twelve months.

The episode featured a lot of emotional drama, frank exchanges and even had the Doctor warning Rose not to defile the TARDIS with domestic issues. He "doesn't do domestic" apparently. Bringing us back to the world of Rose was a good idea, and you certainly felt the human impact on Rose when she has to face opting out of her own life in a way that clearly had massive consequences for others.

These "domestics" are interrupted by the spectacular crash-landing of a UFO in central London, apparent "first contact" with an alien lifeform and the suspicious disappearance of the Prime Minister just as the crisis hits. It's good to see Navin Chowdhry pop up as the Prime Minister's aide and Penelope Wilton as an MP who gets caught up in the action - both putting in credible performances. Nice too that UNIT gets a nod, even though it's a shame they aren't more central to the story. I even enjoyed the Beatrix Potter moment and Mickey's reappearance after the first episode.

But I'm sorry, this was the weakest episode of the run so far.

The cast is stellar ... the flatulant Slitheen are not. The effects top notch ... until we get men in rubber suits with LITERALLY zips on their foreheads. The first news presenter was so ridiculously over the top, he sounded like he was reading some dramatic ancient prophesy - he sensationalised the space ship in a cringeingly amateur tone of voice such that it was completely unbelievable.

Instead of a race of merciless invading aliens we are treated to alien invaders giggling hysterically like schoolboys after breaking wind to "comic effect". Seriously, did we REALLY need fart jokes? Not just one but a whole swathe of them that overwhelms the rest of the episode. It reduces any impact that an alien invasion might have had to an uncomfortable embarrassment. When you have farting monsters, it makes it kind of easier to understand why a serious film actor like Christopher Eccleston probably decided to walk away from the role - it is hardly going to be one of your glowing achievements on your acting C.V.

However, the first cliffhanger of the series and a promise of a more serious episode next week, hopefully things will improve. The Slitheen do look great, but the blend between CGI and ungainly rubber suits perhaps a little too clumsy. Still, it still wasn't a dreadful episode, just disappointingly obsessed with infantile humour.

Screaming good taste - The Titanic Water Slide?

This giant inflatable waterslide from China Inflatables is in the shape of a sinking Titanic with a looming iceberg, and sports several flumes for your sliding pleasure.

http://www.china-inflatables.com.cn/products/slides/T8-136.htm

Woman beats off burglar with gnome

LONDON, England (AP) -- A grandmother stopped an intruder from entering her home by lobbing a heavy garden gnome at him, police said Friday.

Jean Collop was woken early on Tuesday morning by the sound of an intruder on the roof of her home in Wadebridge, southwest England.

"I grabbed the first thing that came to hand -- one of my garden gnomes -- and hurled it at him, and hit him," she recalled.

"He lay there and I began to scream. I went back into the kitchen and found a rolling pin in case he came down. I didn't want to break another gnome."

A neighbor alerted police who arrived shortly afterward and arrested the intruder.

He added: "Our usual advice would be not to get involved, but to contact the police straight away," said a spokesman for the Devon and Cornwall Police.

"We do appreciate that in the heat of the moment people react to that situation, and if it results in a happy outcome that's great."

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/04/15/britain.gnome.ap/index.html

Um...

If you're feeling low, depressed, hated or ignored, you can cheer youself up with the thought that whoever you are, at least you're not this poor kid:

http://www.newbabynews.net/hospitals/stf33/public/stf33birthannouncement.pl?babyID=h33-440

Yes, it's work safe.