Sunday night, not since the TV experiment in 1983 has an Australian TV show done 3D on TV before.

Talkin’ ’bout Your Generation Season 2 came back on Sunday with the “Era Error” segment being in 3D.

Was it corny? Yes. I even had to buy TV Week to obtain the glasses.

The result is below.

Long term visitors of the site would know that I ran this site via blogger.com. Unfortunately, Google have now pull out the support for blog sites that ran off the FTP system – pulling the plug in March. So I thought I’d switch over to Wordpress.

I’m still experimenting with the layout design, as I had stayed with the one orange layout originally since the start. There may be a few broken links and the RSS feed may be down if you use that, but please bare with me until I correct the kinks.

Thanks for staying with this corner of the web!!

Let me get some things out of the way.

* This is a movie adaption of the critically acclaimed 1985 BBC series of the same name, which lasted one year.
* This is meant to be Mel Gibson’s ‘comeback’ movie, after a 7 year hiatus from acting. His last movie he acted in was The Singing Detective.

Gibson plays Thomas Craven, a homicide detective who lives by himself, who cherishes and loves his daughter Emma, played by Aussie star Bojana Novakovic (Tippi from Satisfaction). He picks her up from the airport, reminisce and catch up in the car on the way home on a gloomy rainy night. Everything seems fine but Emma appears to become a little distant on certain topics. As they arrive home, Emma becomes violently ill. As Thomas prepares her to take her to the hospital, Emma is about to confess something terribly important when a masked gunman confronts them at the door and kills Emma with a sawn off shotgun. Dying in his arms, Emma breathes her final breath, and with very little clues, Thomas vowels to seek revenge and find her killer, while trying to discover what Emma was about to secretly reveal.

As Thomas tries to deal with Emma’s death, he has dreams and illusions where Emma can only be heard by voice, or has flashbacks of her when she was a child. With these images, it makes Thomas feel stronger and pushes him to surge on and fight back.

Throw in Ray Winstone, playing a CIA Agent to cover up the operation, Winstone’s character has the hallmarks similar to his “double Agent” theme in Indiana Jones 4, which does get confusing. Danny Huston plays one of the bad guys, who runs and operates Northmoor – a company that specialises in ‘nuclear weaponry’, in which Emma was an employee of. This company is all part of her secret.

With a few twists, turns, and bibs & bobs, Gibson could’ve picked a more energetic and more action packed movie for a comeback. However, the action sequences show that he’s human and doesn’t have extra powers. Plus you end up knowing someone is about to get killed or injured when they utter the phrase “I have to tell you something…” This is more of a drama than an action film, but it will keep you in suspense in some areas.

See it if you have nothing better to do. It’s not good, but it’s not bad either. Your mum will still think that Gibson is a bit of a hunk though.

7 / 10

Thanks to many sources (mainly TV Tonight), make sure you look around before you open your e-mails, just to see there’s not a TV camera crew around.

This incident happened at Macquarie Bank HQ, where Channel 7 News were doing a live cross about Interest Rate rises.

Check out the guy looking at his e-mail in the background.

At last: a TV promo that has made excellent usage of of their talent line-up, without trying to make them prance around in front of a blue screen and interacting with a logo.

Brilliant work Channel 10.

Today (26 January) is/was Australia Day. The day where all average Aussies hit the pub for a schooner of VB or XXXX, or hit the BBQ with a steak, shrimp, prawn, and wash it down with a keg of VB or XXXX. Noticed how I haven’t mentioned Fosters? Overseas – you can keep that stuff.

Let me help celebrate by tantalising your musical tastes with some true-blue Aussie Musicians that make us proud.

Max Sharam – Coma

Frente – Accidentally Kelly Street

Indecent Obsession – Say Goodbye

Peter Andre – Funky Junky

Rai – Give A Smile To The Planet (The amusing thing with Rai, is that this is the lead singer of Thirsty Merc, in his youthful days.)

Teen Queens – be My Baby (spot Kellie Hoggart aka Kellie from Hi-5 and Pizza Hut ads)

If you haven’t spotted the sarcasm by now, you’ve been in the sun for too long.

One of my favourite things to do during ‘down-time’ is to research various movies and actors, checking out the history of the film or the cast. Similar to a manual version of the ‘extras’ menu option on a DVD. This is when i discover that what I thought was a stand-alone movie, there were sequels, prequels, or spin-offs that were direct to dvd or tv made only.

Here’s just a handful of what I’ve discovered so far, that’s knocked me for six.

The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle.

Starting off as a childrens cartoon in 1959 (ask your parents, kiddies), it got the Hollywood treatment in 2000 with Rene Russo, Jason Alexander, Robert DeNiro, and ‘introducing’ Piper Perabo. To make it more up-to-date, they took a page from Who Framed Roger Rabbit and made Rocky & Bullwinkle turn into a CGI live-action movie.

Not surprisingly, it was a big flop.

Here’s the zinger – there was a Rocky & Bullwinkle movie already made. A TV movie to be exact. However, it was based on the bad characters Boris & Natasha. Boris & Natasha: The Movie – made in 1992, it starred Sally Kellerman and Dave Thomas. Unfortunately neither Rocky nor Bullwinkle appeared in it, due to copyright permissions. They were only referenced by wording.

How cringeworthy.

No, really. Lucky Dave Thomas starred in the TV show ‘Grace Under Fire‘. He kinda got his credibility back after that. Kinda.

The Amityville Horror.

This one I had only discovered recently. I love my real crime documentaries and just recently watched an episode of Great Crimes & Trials of the 20th Century, which was based on the shocking murders at Amityville house, in the US. The Amityville Horror movie was made in 1979, starring  Superman star Margot Kidder and James Brolin. It was one of the most successful films of its time as it was an independently produced movie.

This was the start of what would be a valuable but dodgy franchise. Amityville II: The Possession, was released in 1982, but despite negative reviews, it was a commercial success. Not bad for a prequel. To cash in on the fad that was 3D movies around the 1980s, Amityville 3-D (or Amityville III: The Demon) was made and released in 1983. This is technically not a direct sequel due to a lawsuit with the Lutz family, and was a flop. Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes, bursts onto the scene in 1989, but only as a TV movie. Number 5 in the series is 1990’s The Amityville Curse. The odd thing is with this movie is that there is no connection with the original house, family, nor the Amityville murders. The only slight reference is that it was based in Amityville.

Still on the same lines of direct-to-video, signs of exhausting the franchise were starting to show in the highly original titles for the movies – such as the 6th movie in the series – Amityville 1992: It’s About Time. Released, well, in 1992, it really didn’t have much to do with the basis of what The Amityville Horror was all about, except for a possessed clock. It was released on DVD in 2005, but the year 1992 was removed from the title. All you had to do was wait a few months and in 1993, the 7th sequel was released as direct-to-video: Amityville: A New Generation. This time, instead of a possessed clock, it was a possessed mirror.

However, as the general public can’t get enough direct-to-video sequels, the 8th movie is delivered in 1996, as Amityville Dollhouse. Just when you run out of ideas, instead of using the original house, how about a dollhouse that’s a replica of the Amityville home? It must be the style and frame of the house that makes it so evil. It’s definitely the 1/4 moon windows that somewhat act like eyes. Throw Barbie and Ken in, they’ll come alive and act like Chucky from Childs Play. Evil I tells ya! EEEEVVVVVIIIIILLLLLLL! SPOILER The amusing thing is the way they destroy the dollhouse is they throw it in the fire of the house they live in (which isn’t Amityville), which then leads to burning down the main house. All the evil spirits float away… or do they?

After stretching as much juice as you could out of a family that was tragically murdered in the 1970s, things laid dormant in Hollywood – until 2005 when a decent remake was … remade. The Amityville Horror, starring Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George saddled up to play the Lutzes. Naturally it was a reboot, making it more modern. It was a major success, despite, once again, negative reviews. George Lutz thought the movie was crap and full of lies, and tried to sue the studios in 2006 over its story.

Lutz died of heart disease later that year.

There’s also a rumour that there may be ANOTHER sequel, due for release in 2010.

American Pie.

We’re all aware of the teen cumming-of-sexual-age comedy, where Jim fucks the apple pie because he’s a horny virgin and hopes to pop his cherry after prom night. It also coined the term MILF (Mum I’d Like to Fuck – I wonder now how many Google searches I’m going to get from that?) In 1999, the first American Pie created a new chapter in teen sex comedies for Generation Y and beyond. The 2001 sequel, American Pie 2, contained the original cast from the first, and experience ‘the real world’ of working for a damn living, reminising on their popped cherries, hoping to score some more.

The studios saw this as an awesome cash cow for teens with disposable income, and pushed through with the next stage in life – 2003’s American Pie: The Wedding (or in some areas of the world, American Wedding). 3/4 of the cast returned, with 1/4 of the cast being written out because they couldn’t stretch any more links in with the main cast. One of the main cast though, Chris Klein, who played Oz, didn’t return due to scheduling conflicts while filming The Farrelly Brothers family inbred movie Say It Isn’t So. Smart idea??? American Pie: The Wedding wasn’t as successful, but it did tie up loose ends with the characters we grew up loving.

But alas, movie executives need to line their pockets with direct-to-dvd movies that destroy the franchise. Jim’s Dad and The Sherminator make their paid appearances in the 4th movie, 2005’s American Pie Presents: Band Camp. Based around a running joke throughout the first 3 movies, Stifler’s younger brother, Matt, goes to band camp to get laid. Little Stifler only appeared in the first 2, but in the 4th movie, he is portrayed by a different actor. I unfortunately fell for the trick of hiring it out, just to see if it was as sexually disgusting as the first 3. Nup. Shite. But hey, it made enough money to drag out the 5th one in the lot – 2006’s American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile. Now they’ve run out of characters from the original, the only way to link it up is to follow the Stifler gene pool with Steve’s excessive cousins, aunts and uncles. Plus, throw in the only person to have starred in all 5 movies so far – Jim’s Dad. Just as a cameo. Have the girl bump into him at the gym, and get Jim’s Dad to give us a quick catch up on what he’s been up to. Easily linked. Smart writing.

After some drunk writing, someone on the team manages to spit out a script for the 6th film in 2007. American Pie Presents: Beta House. I’ve brought it up here before. I can’t explain how dirty I feel talking about it, so I’ll say Jim’s Dad is in it again. That is all. It’s like a National Lampoon brand name where they’ll throw in any story, but as long as you add American Pie to the start of the title, it’ll ’sell’.

Now this is where someone on the studio lot thought they might watch the first one again, just to remind themselves how funny the American Pie series was, and create a link to the first one. Remember ‘The Book’ that Kevin turned to that was hidden away in the library, so he could learn how to go all cunning lingus on the once cute Vicky? Well let’s fast forward 10 years to the day since the first one came out, and have a few pages missing, only to discover that one of the people who was a major contributor to the book was… yes yes… Jim’s Dad. Allow me to present to you – American Pie Presents: The Book Of Love. Eugene Levy, you suck.

Badly.

Having a trip down memory lane, I had a brainwave. There was a tune that had been stuck in my head for years, which I wanted so badly.
I finally found it. It’s the Rocket Clock theme from Play School.
The song is actually called Portrait D’Un Robot by Janko Nilovic, from the album – Jouets Musicaux. Produced in 1974.
Want it as a ringtone?


mp3: http://tinyurl.com/y9e6wkk
iphone: http://tinyurl.com/yddrtb8


Now here’s an intro to a 90’s episode for no reason.

With the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in full swing in Las Vegas, companies are showing their wares. From pencil thin LCDs/Plasmas, to hover fans that can be controlled with an iphone, as well as 3D TV.

I noticed this picture though. I straight away thought that the last thing you see before you crash is the Blue Screen of Death.

After a delightful break, here’s to 2010!

Let me begin the year with a poor quality update that’ll give you a smile / giggle.