Arnie Is The Terminator (Again)

With all the rumours bouncing around about Arnie's involvement in the new Terminator: Salvation film it's good to hear that the man himself has spoken up (with his instantly recognisable Austrian accent) and confirmed those rumours.

Yes, Arnie's ugly mug will be digitally scanned in 3D and plonked on top of Austrian body builder Roland Kickinger's body in post production. Not sure whose (if anybody's) voice will be used but if the big bucks are being thrown in Arnie's direction he could at least give us a few sound bites. "Cahm aaahn!"

I laughed out loud reading Arnie's following quote, not from the content but from my inability to not hear it in his voice, "I hope they do well, and I hope it is a huge hit. I do hope it creates a spectacle on the screen. That is what James Cameron created. With those big movies, there's a certain expectation and if you don't live up to it, if the movie is not a 10, then the business will be soft. If Terminator Salvation is pushing it forward, it will be breaking records all the time. If director McG has the T4 and the kind of shots that has the audience thinking, 'Now how did he do that?' -- then it is "The Terminator" and you can blow everyone away and every record at the box office."

Translated: "With those big moofies, there's a cyertain eggspectation and if you doen't life ahp to it, if the moofie is naht a 10, then the business will be sawft."

Man, what would Hollywood do without Arnie... *sigh*

Who's Going To Watch The Watchmen? ME!

Some cool new posters for the upcoming Watchmen movie which is being directed by 300's Zack Snyder have surfaced on the internets today. To the left we have Sally Jupiter (played by Carla Gugino) in a very cool 1930s S&M-ish poster claiming it doesn't rain on the good guys in California. You can check the rest of the posters out at Movieweb.

After seeing the super cool teaser trailer the other week I keep hoping this won't be a recurrence of the 300 Trailer super hype. Man, I loved that 300 trailer and no film on earth could meet my expectations after that.

Watchmen is based on the amazing graphic novel of the same name written by Alan Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons.

To quote Wikipedia:

"To date, Watchmen remains the only graphic novel to win a Hugo Award, and is also the only graphic novel to appear on Time Magazine's 2005 list of "the 100 best English-language novels" published since the founding of the magazine in 1923.

Watchmen is set in 1985, in an alternate history United States where costumed adventurers are real and the country is edging closer to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union; throughout the books, the Doomsday Clock is shown gradually ticking towards midnight. It tells the story of a group of past and present superheroes and the events surrounding the mysterious murder of one of their own. Watchmen depicts superheroes as real people who must confront ethical and personal issues, who struggle with neuroses and failings, and who—with one notable exception—lack anything recognizable as super powers. Watchmen's deconstruction of the conventional superhero archetype, combined with its innovative adaptation of cinematic techniques and heavy use of symbolism, multi-layered dialogue, and metafiction, has influenced both comics and film."

The film is going for a global release of the 5th/6th of March 2009.

2009 BMW 7 Series: Electronic Back Seat Driver

A little write up over at CarAdvice.com.au talks about one of the coolest features in a new car since sliced bread (huh?). We've had trip computers and speed monitoring computers in cars for ages but this new feature called Speed Limit Display will, well, display the speed limit.

The system uses a little camera mounted near the passenger side rear-vision mirror which watches the side of the road for any speed limit signs (including those funky LED-based electronic ones they like to use around construction zones) and pops up a little alert on the car's HUD if you're going over it.

However, before alerting the driver the new system chats with the car's nav system to see if the speed matches the speed in the GPS data so maybe it's not exactly like a back seat driver.

Oh, and BMW really wants to make sure you understand that the system won't try to slow you down, we wouldn't want THAT now would we!?

Read more about the 2009 BMW 7-series.

Batman Still Kicking Butt

For its third week running The Dark Knight has come out on top in the US Box Office beating out the newly released The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor by a cool $1.4M USD to gross $43.8M. The new X-Files movie (The X-Files: I Want To Believe) comparatively bombed by making a measly $3.4M giving 20th Century Fox another financial failure in the wake of the terrible Meet Dave.

Anyone taking bets for TDK being the fourth film ever to reach the golden $1 billion USD mark worldwide? Currently Titanic is sitting pretty after grossing $1.84B USD worldwide back in 1997, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King is in second place with $1.13B USD and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest just scraped it in with $1.06B USD. Of course none of those figures have been adjusted for inflation... Google it if you really want to know.