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Interview: Michael Winterbottom

October 31, 2007 1 comment

Director Michael Winterbottom praised the dedication of his leading actress, Angelina Jolie, for her honest, moving portrayal of Mariane Pearl in A Mighty Heart.

Winterbottom’s distinctive way of working – long scenes shot in chronological order where the actors are encouraged to improvise – was embraced by Ms Jolie and indeed all the cast who included Dan Futterman as Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal bureau chief who was kidnapped and murdered by extremists whilst on assignment in Karachi.

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Interview: Irrfan Khan

October 31, 2007 Reply

It all began with a call out of the blue. “And you know what?” says Irfan Khan. “All of the films that have meant a lot to me, like A Mighty Heart which means an awful lot to me, came the same way. And I’m very, very grateful.”

The call was from director Michael Winterbottom asking if he could meet with the actor – now rightly regarded as one of India’s finest – to discuss playing a “strong man” in a film he was about to embark on.

Khan, as he usually is, was busy filming, but was very keen to meet with the highly regarded English director and understandably intrigued. When they finally did sit down for that chat, he was hooked immediately.

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Interview: Dan Futterman

October 31, 2007 Reply

Dan Futterman took on one of his toughest, and ultimately most rewarding, roles of his career playing Daniel Pearl in A Mighty Heart.

Daniel Pearl was the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered by Islamic extremists in 2002. A Mighty Heart is the story of his wife Mariane’s efforts to discover who had taken him and her bid to bring him home.

As Futterman points out, A Mighty Heart is also a very uplifting love story and a tribute to a man who sought the truth in his work as a journalist and valued honesty and diligence above all else.

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Lucasarts and Bioware in cahoots!

October 31, 2007 5 comments

As if Bioware haven’t been whoring themselves around enough recently. In the wake of their recent Electronic Arts buyout, today it was known that the RPG veterans will be combining efforts with Lucasarts to produce a new game.

This collaboration is set to combine the proven talent in both story and immersion of the two powerhouses, for what will surely be an impressive experience. There’s no details to date on what could emerge from this so we’ll just have to stick by the new site made in light of the joining.

Lucasarts seem to be quite single-minded on the Star Wars track these days, chances of a new world to explore are quite slim. Some are predicting a new Star Wars MMO. Personally I feel the last thing the world needs is not only another MMO, but a Star Wars one. Despite that, considering the force behind whatever this title is, concerns should be slim.

ATOMIC LIVE! Held Sunday 21st October.

October 28, 2007 3 comments

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One word: Cosplay. I didn’t even know what it was before setting foot into the hallowed tent that is the annual Atomic Live show, held at the Sydney Showgrounds at Olympic Park on Sunday 21st October, but I have been trying to erase it ever since as though it were only a psychotic Episode, Total Recall style. I think the moment I realised that these costumes should be banished to the Live Action Role Playing from which they emerged was when a guy walked past in cammo pants and a blue beret, and I didn’t even think that he might be dressed as Guile from Street Fighter… More frightening was the fact that I KNOW that he didn’t have to purchase a single extra piece to complete the outfit. It was all made from regular daily clothing. Add to that the compulsory Jedi, Chewbacca (“I went to the trouble of buying this costume, so it’s coming out every time!”) and a few others that I didn’t recognise and just gave the benefit of the doubt too, and it spelled BFI (Bad First Impression).

Once past that though, the event had many interesting booths. Atomic Live is based around the high end PC magazine Atomic, published in Australia for Australians, which is reflected in the events and information on the day. There was an impressive amount of activity happening across a broad range of companies such as Asus, NVidia, Auran and Ubisoft. Plenty of prizes were given away and most of the attendees seemed pleased with the day as a whole.

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Canned Geek Podcast – Episode 3

October 26, 2007 3 comments

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CannedGeek.com has another podcast up this week and once again I am the all important guest. I had a lot of fun on this one, this time making the trip over to Will’s place so we wouldn’t have to use skype and could improve the audio quality. We discuss Dumbledoor being gay, Okami on the Wii, Brutal Legend, the first Futurama: Bender’s Big Score! trailer, the various cool games coming out next month, we go off topic several times, and interview Richard Horvitz (Invader Zim).

Harold & Kumar 2 poster & teaser trailer

October 24, 2007 Reply

Fun “Fact”: Despite playing drunken womanizers in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and How I met your Mother, Neil Patrick Harris is actually gay.

Armageddon Expo: Richard Horvitz Interview

October 23, 2007 3 comments

Space Meat and Canned Geek present an interview with animation and video game voice actor Richard Horvitz (Invader Zim, Psychonauts). Filmed live at the 2007 Armageddon Expo in Melbourne on Sunday 14th October. Interview by Kyle Evans. Cinematography by Will Owen.

Armageddon Expo: Neil Kaplan Interview

October 23, 2007 1 comment

Space Meat and Canned Geek present an interview with animation and video game voice actor Neil Kaplan (Digimon, Transformers: Robots in Disguise). Filmed live at the 2007 Armageddon Expo in Melbourne on Sunday 14th October. Interviewers are Kyle Evans and Will Owen, cinematography by Liam Marcon.

Armageddon Expo: Neil Kaplan Interview – Part 1 (YouTube) | Part 2 (YouTube)

High Quality Stage6 Video:

X-Men Spin-off Shooting in Australia

October 20, 2007 1 comment

A spin off to the X-Men film franchise, Wolverine will be starting shooting in Australia and New Zealand this December. Over a six to eight week shooing period from December to January, the film will be shot in Queenstown and Central Otago in New Zealand was well as the Fox Studios in Sydney. Afterwards shooting will move up to New Orleans in America.

Originally, the film was going to be shot in Canada instead of Australia and New Zealand. However, this was changed to make things easier for lead actor Hugh Jackman (who reprises his role as the title character) in the event of a re-shoot. Presently, Hugh Jackman is filming on Baz Lurhmann’s war epic, Australia. There has been some fan concern that the switch from Canada will mean that the Weapon X Project won’t be a part of the films plot. The Weapon X Project was a storyline in the comics about the Canadian Government experimenting on people and turning them into living weapons; Wolverine was one of these people. The Weapon X Project is a staggeringly huge story within X-Men comic universe and fans can rest easy that Weapon X is confirmed to be a large part of the plot in the film.

The New Orleans location also hints that the card flinging mutant Gambit will be a part of the film as New Orleans’ was the characters hometown. Not to mention that Gambit sported a thick New Orleans’ accent in the animated cartoons. This is good news, as Gambit was sorely lacking in all three of the previous X-Men films.

On another note, director Gavin Hood and writer David Benioff are completely new to the X-Men series, so it will interesting to see what these people do with the film. Wolverine has a planned release date of May 1st in 2009 in America.

Liam’s Notes:

In other Wolverine news it has been announced that the full title of the film will be X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which probably means the upcoming Magneto film will follow suit with X-Men Origins: Magneto.

Also in a very mild spoiler it has been confirmed Weapon X creator William Stryker will be the baddie in the film. Previously the villain in X-Men 2 played by Brian Cox, this Stryker will be a much younger, Liev Schrieber.

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