The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy DVD

Saw the DVD of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy last night, as we will have a full review onsite soon I will not go into much detail.
But if you did like the film you might be interested to know that there will be an oppertunity for the public to see cast members Martin Freeman and Warwick Davis at
Virgin Megastore in Oxford Street on Monday 5th September. Martin and Warwick will be signing copies on the day. Not only that but the first 42 intergalactic fans will receive 'Arthur Dent' dressing gowns.

Just thought those in London would want to know. If your not in London you can console yourselves with the DVD which contains UK exclusive bonus features.

A word to Adams 'purists' the film is differnet to the radio/tv series and book, but is good to know that the changes were made by Adams himself.

Some of My Favourite Films From When I Was Younger

I will start with a little mention of Split Second aUK scifi film that I used to love in the mid 90s. Long lost to me as I have become a bit of a DVD prude (ie I have not touched a VHS in ages as they smell) and this film that I loved has't been available on DVD in the UK at all. I checked out region 1 DVD(ie American format) and it was only available on rental (a copy of the rental DVD would cost over $100) so that was a dead end. In the end I finally found that the film was available in Denmark. Some searching later and a lot of pratting about with various translation programs I managed to secure acopy for 65 Krona - about £8 IIRC.
Well that was a sucess and worth every second in searching.
My second sucess story comes by complete fluke. I used to love the Tom Selleck film Runaway (yes him from Magnum PI) with where Tom Selleck's character goes round tracking down robots that have gone out of control. The film will be shown of the Scifi Channel on the 12th of October. I am sure that I will be dissapointed as some films are best of remembered than rewatched. I will jot my views on that fim inthis blog once I have seen it.

Cursed Movie

I saw this last night (as I had been meaning to for a while if you have been reading my other posts) and after the initial shock of being charget £4 for a DVD rental I sat down a nd watched the film. As this is not a movie review (we will have one soon in our reviews section) I will not go into too much detail about the content. But I will say a couple of things. The werewolf transformations in Cursed are not a patch on American Werewolf in London - which was made (over) 20 years ago! Also what is it in 'horror'movies now where the monster - whether it be a Werewolf in this, a Mummy in The Mummy or whatever, that these creathers are now able to climb along walls and ceilings? this all adds to dispell my suspension of disbelief.
Anyway I liked the film - as I try to do with every film I see

New Stuff and Stuff

Well I am falling behind. Sahara (which I loved) was out on DVD yeaterday, along with Cursed which I really want to see. I haven't been able to get to the video shop due to work. Indeed I have only just got round to watching the first episode of Revelation of the Daleks - admittedly working on the laptop at the same time.
I have also learnt that Dr Who: The 5 Doctors will be available on yet another format, little memory cards that fit in mobile phones - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4173466.stm. I don't think I will be shelling cash out on them - but if someone is overly impressed with the idea please let me know.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince AUDIOBOOK - OUT TODAY!!

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
Read by Stephen Fry
Published by Bloomsbury and HNP as an unabridged audiobook
Monday 22nd August 2005

Just in time for the long journeys on the bank holiday and the last treat of the summer holiday, Bloomsbury and HNP are releasing their hugely popular 6th installment of the Harry Potter series as an audiobook. The Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince audiobook is read by Stephen Fry and is released on Monday 22nd August.

Audiobooks have seen a huge increase in popularity following the introduction of the ipod and other MP3 players. In the words of iTunes ‘the iPod lets you read a page-turner without turning a page’.

In the previous book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the last chapter, titled 'The Second War Begins,' started:

'In a brief statement on Friday night, Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge confirmed that He Who Must Not Be Named has returned to this country and is once more active.

'It is with great regret that I must confirm that the wizard styling himself Lord — well, you know who I mean — is alive and among us again,' said Fudge.'

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince takes up the story of Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at this point as Voldemort's power and followers are increasing day by day, in the midst of this battle of good and evil.

Interesting Harry Potter Facts and Figures!

• If all Harry Potter books ever sold were placed end to end, they would go around the equator 1.4 times.
• If all the Harry Potter books ever sold were laid flat, they would cover the area of about 1000 football pitches. Or they could be used to carpet Monaco 3.7 times.
• On its first day of sale in the UK, Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix sold at a rate of 21 books per second. If all those books sold in the UK in the first day were stacked up the pile would be 12 times higher than Mount Everest.
• If one person were to read every Harry Potter book ever sold - at a rate of one per day - it would take them over 700,000 years to do so.
• The total number of Harry Potter books ever sold is more than the populations of Britain, France, Germany and Italy combined.

Note: all dimensions are based on the Bloomsbury editions and sales figures are based on worldwide sales of the series except where stated.

Casting A Team The Movie

Just driving down to the shops today to spend some hard earned and we were passed by a familiar looking car. It was the Red and White car from Starsky and Hutch. What has this to do with the ATeam you may ask, well the sight or this car (as well as being something VERY cool) prompted us to renew an old discussion namely who would be in the A Team if it were recast for a movie.
To summise the conversation we agreed on:
Hannibal being played by 'Gil Grissom' from CSI - William Petersen.
BA being played by Ice Cube
Face was more tricky, the missus suggested Brad Pitt, I thought Ben Affleck.

Murdock. Seann William Scott. We immediatly dismissed Jim Carrey as being too obvious.

Amy - or other female sidekick - thoughts of Jessicas Alba and Biel. But it migt be cool seeing Tia Carrere, as at the end of season 2 she was set up to be the female 'member' for season 3, but the format change in the last season put pay to that.

Col Decker, not sure on this one at all but would be nice to see Lance DeGault cameo as an aging officer (he is 70 now).

Any thoughts on this - or other virtual castig calls would be welcome.

Cheers

Brian

Sam The Monster

As promised here is a copy of my daughters Dr Who monster entry.
Unfortunatly she didn't win, but the standard was very high.
She named the monster SAM.

Evil Dead Regeneration Hmmm Mindless Carnage

Just seen an ad for Evil Dead Regeneration video game on the back cover of fortean times, cool. The other games have been cool and I love the films. This is even more money I will be shelling out before christmas, what with the Dr Who toys - er sorry should that be collectables as I am of a certain age now where the buying of toys is frowned upon, Red Dwarf 7, Revenge of the Sith on DVD and all of the cool films at the cinema (esp Wallace and Gromit)

Ah well. Hopefully I will have an Evil Dead review on site once it is released on the 23 sept 2005

More from the gaming world, Amazon.co.uk are taking orders for the XBox 360 which will be available from 29 of November 2006.

Makes you want to win the lottery as the PSP is coming out in the next few days

Serenity Screening news

Just heard this - should be of interest for all those awaiting the FireFly movie Serenity

The Edinburgh International Film Festival confirms that Serenity cast
members are joining creator Joss Whedon on the red carpet for the World
Premiere at Cineworld (formerly UGC) on Monday 22nd August:

Nathan Fillion, Summer Glau, Gina Torres, Sean Maher, Morena Baccarin
and Jewel State, Chiweta Ejiofor and Executive Producer, Christopher
Buchanan will be attending the event.

EIFF Programme Producer, Clea Tammes said: "We're delighted to announce
such a great turn-out, which adds to the already considerable
anticipation for this World Premiere. We're hoping that the many
SERENITY fans out there will take this opportunity to give Joss and his
cast a warm welcome to Edinburgh."

Best of the Fest goes on sale at noon the same day (22nd), which
includes a screening of Serenity.

Go to www.edfilmfest.org.uk for online bookings.

BY PHONE Booking line 0131 623 8030

Just watched the DOOM Movie Trailer

DOOM Movie Trailer Now Online - Doom - UK Science Fiction News
I watched this trailer last night - and after the silly technobabble about unlocking the last 10% of the human genome I was actually quite impressed by the idea of this movie. Not that it will win any oscars and will probably be panned to high heaven BUT as I love the oldie shoooter and the basic shoot the monster movie I think i will really enjoy this. then I did enjoy Resident Evil!
Please post your comments on the trailer. I will be interested to hear them

Doctor Who Monster Competition

I watched the Doctor Who monster competition on Blue Peter last night, basically as my three year old daughter, Mary, designed a monster for the competition (called Sam) I might post a image of the monster online if anyone is interested. (once I have figured out images on this new fangled blogger thingy).
This was the first time I had seen Blue Peter in about 7 years, I am amazed how little has changed in the basic format, this is a boon for the quality of childrens TV.
Also looking forward to David Tennant as the Doctor. After the Luthar Arkright audio play from Big Finish I am really geared up for the Christmas special. Bit dissapointed it is only going to be a 1 hour special, a feature length special would be cool.

Welcome to my blog

Well it is the 21st century after all, so I thought I would start a blog.
This is acutally a great oppertunity to add extra - more informal content to Scifind.co.uk and I hope that this will be both informative and amusing.
We will keep the news section and the reviews sections where they are but the blog section wil be filled with links, rumors and starnge ideas that I get from time to time.