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Arty Movies Video Clips

Sharlto Copley is a Robot Reject in Neill Blomkamp’s “Chappie”

He was your boet in a film shot entirely as an FPS game, and now Sharlto Copley is teaming up with Neill Blomkamp for yet another sci-fi adventure. In Chappie, Copley voices a robot who has been gifted the ability to think and feel for himself. The coming-of-age story has our protagonist going from watching cartoons and looking cool to experiencing first-hand how the world rejects things that it doesn’t understand. Check out the trailer below.

Chappie was shot in Johannesburg and you would have undoubtedly recognized oddballs Ninja and Yo-Landi Vi$$er playing a parental role. Dev Patel is the young creator and mullet-ed Hugh Jackman finds A.I. too unpredictable. Chappie is set for release in March 2015.

chappie-poster

[via SA Gamer]

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Movie Reviews Movies

Film Review: Guardians of the Galaxy

Hands up those of you who had never heard of the Guardians of the Galaxy before this year. That’s a lot of hands, but not as many as I’d expected. Those who follow Marvel’s comic universe—and the Avengers in particular—will be more than a little aware of the Guardians, but those who know Marvel for simply Spider-Man or The Avengers have something wonderful in store. Come, let me tell you about it.

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Arty TV Video Clips

Don’t Blink in This Terrifying Doctor Who Short Film

In this short film by Whovian John Smith, the viewer is placed in a spooky rain-soaked maze with nothing more than a dinky flash light. Around a few corners, and we are suddenly faced with one of those psychopathic hunters, the Weeping Angels. What happens next — do we heed any of the Doctor’s advice or does this cat-and-mouse game end badly for us? Find out in STONE.

[via io9]

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Game Reviews

We Review: Star Trek: The Video Game

Like a certain sexually transmitted disease, it seems that we’ll never be rid of shameless game tie-ins. Just a few weeks ago, The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct was met with some disdain from gamers and critics alike for being dead boring. And now, Star Trek the video game comes under fire. Despite the (best?) intentions of the developers, by the time the last credit has rolled, Star Trek does nothing to stem the tide of tired tie-ins. A terrible movie may be finished in an hour or two but game tie-ins often need to be endured for much longer. Several hours later and I’ve concluded the captain’s log on Star Trek, a video game that does not reach warp speed but sputters into mediocrity.

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Cautionary Tales Entertainment Featured Video Clips Weirdness

H+: Adventures in Transhumanism

Transhumanism (which my spell checker insists is the misspelling of transvestitism) is a movement that seeks to improve the mental and physical characteristics of humans through the liberal use of technology. It is the main subject of a new sci-fi web series that premièred just the other day.

Aptly titled H+, the digital series produced Bryan Singer (X-Men, The Usual Suspects) advances ideas like Project Glass into a future world where human beings are connected to the Internet 24 hours a day via a device planted in their bodies. While some are more than happy to accept the H+ computer into their lives, others are opposed to the technology for the fear of breaches in privacy and the ever looming threat of hackers. It’s not long before a virus outbreak kills millions of users, leaving the remaining humans to fend for themselves in an offline world.

The first two episodes were flighted on August 8th on YouTube, with a new episode due to be added every Wednesday. Have a look at these two H+ episodes after the jump.

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Entertainment Featured Movies Video Clips

A Modern Day Trailer for “2001: A Space Odyssey”

The theatrical release of Stanley Kubrick’s 161-minute space opera, 2001: A Space Odyssey, must have hypnotized audiences in 1968, especially the ones who were already on drugs at the time.

Fast forward 40 odd years and you wonder whether modern audiences would be able to sit through all those the extended lunar landing scenes. Film School Rejects tries to imagine what the trailer to 2001: A Space Odyssey would look like if it were to be marketed to audiences today. The recut trailer is complete with loads of flashing imagery and a bombastic soundtrack designed to excite those limited attention spans. Michael Bay would have been proud although Stanley Kubrick might just have been rolled over in his grave. Have a look at the blockbuster trailer below.

[via @JoeyHiFi]

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Featured Game Reviews

We Review: Mass Effect 3

Mass Effect 3 is the conclusion to the brilliant sci-fi RPG series detailing Commander Shepard’s efforts to save the galaxy from total destruction. Or at least partial destruction—you can never trust a bad guy to do this sort of thing right. You’ve probably already heard and read many dissenting opinions about the game, so I imagine you’re asking why you should read mine. Because I’m entertaining, that’s why. Also, I have some good, common-person common-sense opinions. So read on.

Categories
Game Reviews

We Review: Syndicate

When I first heard the Syndicate announcement I was filled with nostalgia harking back to the 90s. Those were the good old days of PC gaming. Before Windows became the centre of the universe, where running MS-DOS was the norm, and you needed to edit config.sys and autoexec.bat files just to make things work properly. When Peter Molyneux was still Bullfrog, before EA took over and he ran off to Microsoft. That being said, let’s find out what the new Syndicate game is all about.

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Awesomeness Entertainment Featured Movies Video Clips

RUIN

From the high-speed pursuit to the slo-mo big air jump to the classic train escape, the chase scene is an integral part of movies.

In his short film, Wes Ball of Oddball Animation studio creates the thrilling post-apocalyptic chase sequence in which an unnamed protagonist is invariably spotted by a flying sentry and must take to his trusty Yamaha motorcycle to escape. Check out RUIN below.

Ball’s short film leaves off where all good teasers should—with you eager to know more. To see behind-the-scenes work on RUIN, be sure to check out Oddball Animation’s concepts page.

[via io9]

Categories
Arty Entertainment Movies Video Clips

No Budget Sci-Fi: “Archetype” by Aaron Sims

You may recall Jesús Orellana’s ROSA and wonder who else may have made amazing, no-budget short films. In his labour of love, conceptual artist Aaron Sims explores the trope of ridiculously human robots. His 7-minute sci-fi short, Archetype, mixes CGI and live action to tell the story of RL7, a bi-pedal battle machine that starts acting outside the parameters of its programming.

RL7 is an eight-foot tall combat robot that goes on the run after malfunctioning with vivid memories of once being human. As its creators and the military close in, RL7 battles its way to uncovering the shocking truth behind its mysterious visions and past.

I’m sure that was the creator’s intention, but Archetype certainly leaves me wanting more. Here’s hoping Sims can find the funding he needs to complete the project.

[via Live for Films]