AT some point, somebody involved with the romantic comedy Love’s Kitchen must have thought that it was a recipe for success, but box office figures out yesterday told a very different story.

The UK film, starring Dougray Scott (who previously appeared in Desperate Housewives as Teri Hatcher’s love interest), Four Weddings and a Funeral actor Simon Callow and Gordon Ramsay (as himself), had indeed achieved one of the most remarkable opening weekends in cinema history, though not quite in the sense that the producers were hoping for.

Love’s Kitchen grossed precisely £121 ($181) nationwide, The (London) Times reported.

The entire UK takings would cover the cost for one person of the cheapest available dinner with two small glasses of house wine, coffee and chocolates at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, the Michelin-starred chef’s eatery in Royal Hospital Road, West London.

The record UK box office taking for an opening weekend belongs to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, which grossed £18.32 million $27.4 million) last November.

Love’s Kitchen, by contrast, appears to have been seen by more reviewers than paying punters. You would hope that they enjoyed writer and director James Hacking’s debut film more than the critics.

Wendy Ide, of the Times, awarded it no stars, describing it as “cack-handed, cloth-eared” and featuring “exchanges so painful to watch that you would be better off rubbing Scotch bonnet peppers in your eyes.”

Charles Gant, a box office analyst, said that the film’s opening weekend was “one of the worst performances ever” in the UK. “My guess would be 20 people saw this film,” he said.

In February, the citizens of Detroit successfully lobbied for a giant statue of RoboCop to keep its crims in line.

In the same week, news broke that a three-metre tall Arnold Schwarzenegger statue will stand guard outside the Governator’s former home in Thal, Austria.

Both of which kick Robertson’s giant poo-tato and Ballina’s prawn to the kerb when it comes to cool icons for your country.

And now you can add — possibly, unless George Lucas hears of it — a lifesize, fully-functioning replica of a Galactic Empire AT-AT walker to the countryside somewhere in Oklahoma, if Mike Koehler gets his way.

Note fully-functioning — not like that static tat at Disneyland’s Hollywood theme park.

The 16m tall (some nerds experts put them at 23m) All Terrain Armoured Transports featured most famously in the attack on the Rebel forces’ secret base on Hoth in Empire Strikes Back, where one tripped over a bit of rope and exploded.

Another one makes a cameo in Return of the Jedi after a smaller version — an AT-ST — gets smashed by monkeys with logs.

But they look fearsome enough and Mr Koehler has been given the green light by online fundraiser Kickstarter to begin collecting cash to realise his dream.

It’s called AT-AT for America and Mr Koehler’s welcoming any offers of help or donations.

We chatted to him about why his country needs it…

Why did you choose a symbol of the Empire’s destructive capabilities to represent the US?

The AT-AT is not so much a representation of the US as it is a monument to what geek culture and its know-how has done for people in the country and, as I am quickly learning, folks all over the world. The can-do and cooperative spirit that nerdy pop culture has inspired can’t be overlooked in the past 30, 40, 50 years.

I wanted to make something that was: A) Doable. Fast-than-light and force field technology made many options unrealistic. B) Big enough to be awe-inspiring. Many people have made R2 units and Back to the Future Deloreans. The AT-AT is 50-feet tall.

If it proves too difficult, do you have any smaller scale Star Wars projects in mind?

I guess we could do one of the smaller scout walkers, but that seems like copping out.

If it proves easy, would you consider building a Death Star?

The Death Star would involve too much red tape I’m afraid, unless I could get Richard Branson on board.

The original AT-ATs had some notable design flaws. How will you Ewok-proof it?

No Ewoks will be allowed around the build sites. Sharpened logs will also be strictly prohibited. We are working towards some strong anti-log technology.

Have you had any interest from Mythbusters et al?

No word yet from the Mythbusters, though I hope as we continue to build momentum that we will get a lot of help from some of our geek heroes. When I first thought of this, my ideal project managers were Adam and Jamie.

If Detroit can get a RoboCop statue, maybe you should pitch your AT-AT for a permanent public space…

Once we’re done, I would like for the AT-AT to find some place nice to be housed and admired as a monument. Since it will be fully operational, people will be able to ride it. It would be an art piece on par with the Statue of Liberty, but with the ability to mosey around the block.

Have you had any cease and desist orders from George Lucas yet?

We have not heard from Lucasfilm yet, though there is that expectation. All I can say is that we won’t be making any money off this project, we consider it a public work of art and we would gladly locate it where ever Mr Lucas would like us to. This is a testament to how many dreams his work and other work like his has inspired in people my age and younger.

Will you live in it once it’s finished?

No, I won’t live in it.

Can I?

You can’t live inside it, though you are welcome to string a hammock between its knees.

Is there ever a chance that such a monolithic, relentless corporate machine could ever be seen in Australia?

Given enough support and volunteers, the AT-AT, like Oprah, would be happy to visit Australia.

Related Coverage

Most recently, moviegoers complained about the near-realistic depiction of humans in Disney’s 3D flick Mars Needs Moms, which bombed at the box office despite costing hundreds of millions of dollars.

A theory called the “uncanny valley” says we tend to feel attracted to inanimate objects with human traits, the way a teddy bear or a rag doll seems cute.

Our affection grows as an object looks more human. But if it looks too human, we suddenly become repulsed.

Instead of seeing what’s similar, we notice the flaws — and the motionless eyes or awkward movements suddenly make us uncomfortable.

Mars may have plunged to the bottom of this valley of fear.

“People always comment on things feeling strangely dead around the eyes,” said Chuck Sheetz, an animation director of The Simpsons and a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“If it gets too literal, it starts to feel false or has a strange effect.”

Skin texture that is slightly off can especially leave people feeling unsettled, said Patrick Markey, a psychologist and director of Villanova University’s Interpersonal Research Laboratory.

The near-realistic animation style championed by producer Robert Zemeckis uses motion-capture technology, where actors are covered with dots and skin suits and have their performances captured on computer. The dots provide the frame, and the rest is filled in with computerised graphics.

Mars creates humans that are more realistic and detailed than Zemeckis’ earlier attempts in such movies as Beowulf and The Polar Express — which were also criticised for inviting this discomfort. The greater detail might have made things worse.

Doug McGoldrick, who took his two daughters to see the movie, said the faces of the main characters “were just wrong”.

Their foreheads were lifeless and plastic-looking, “like they used way too much botox or something”, said the 41-year-old photographer in Chicago, Illinois.

Marc Kelley, a 32-year-old pastor in Allegan, Michigan, who went with his two young children, said he found the renditions of characters “all annoying in their own way”.

Indeed, when the mother of the main character Milo mentioned the word “zombies” at the start of the movie, it conjured up a feeling that the characters were themselves undead.

Animation experts say the key to success is to be only authentic enough to tug at our heart strings.

The best example of this was Avatar, the 2009 blockbuster that made $US2.8 billion in theatres around the world.

The humanoid, but blue-bodied Na’vi were alien enough not to trigger our inner rejection mechanism.

“My own personal opinion is try to stay away from photo-real with a human,” said Greg Philyaw, the business development director at Giant Studios, which captured the performance of human actors for their digital re-creation in Avatar.

“Subconsciously you know what you’re looking at isn’t quite right.”

Disney, by its actions, has already voted against the super-real animation format.

Last March, it said it would shut down the Zemeckis-run company ImageMovers Digital, which made Mars, to cut costs.

Several months ago, Disney also nixed a plan to fund and distribute Zemeckis’ Yellow Submarine, a half-finished work he is now free to shop to other studios.

Disney declined to comment for this story, and Zemeckis declined interview requests through an agent.

Mars had an estimated $US150 million production budget, but has brought in just $US34 million globally since its March 11 opening.

To be fair, there were other problems besides being visually unnerving.

For one, it appeared to be marketed at young boys who are interested in science fiction but also are closely attached to their mothers. That’s a small group to begin with, and neglects dads and daughters.

Some young children also got scared about the plot involving mommy abduction.

Mars also came just a week after Paramount’s 2D animated movie Rango, starring Johnny Depp.

And instead of appealing to fans because of the increasingly popular 3D format, Mars may have annoyed theatregoers faced with higher 3D ticket prices.

“If a movie’s unappealing and you’re trying to charge a higher ticket price for it, it makes it even less appealing,” said Brandon Gray, president of tracking company Box Office Mojo.

Mr Gray noted that Mars had the lowest opening weekend for a wide-release 3D movie ever.

Maija Burnett, associate director of character animation at California Institute of the Arts, took a broader view, even though the school teaches about the pitfalls of the “uncanny valley” in class.

“There’s a continuing attempt to explore what the boundaries are within (computer generated) animation,” she said.

“Every film that uses this is one important step along the way.”

In the “uncanny valley” theory, the valley isn’t bottomless. As things grow more realistically human, our affection starts increasing again, climbing out of the valley on the other side.

In other words, increasingly sophisticated animation might stop creeping us out and start fooling us.

In the beginning of the series, Rick and partner Shane are in a firefight and Rick is shot and enters a coma. Upon waking in a hospital, he discovers the undead are in the building and town. Rick returns home and shortly decides to go to Atlanta, where the survivors were told to await help, to find his wife Lori and son Carl. He discovers the city is crowded with zombies and bumps into Glenn, a scavenger for a band of survivors. Following Glenn, Rick discovers Lori and Carl are okay along with Shane, who is less than happy that his former partner has returned. He also meets new survivors.

The group search for a place to call home, settling in several temporary camps, including a prison, which comes to the attention of an insane man calling himself the Governor. The Governor runs his local city, Woodbury, Georgia, like a dictator and tortures Rick and other members of his group, culminating in an assault. After the prison is made unsecure by an attack, Rick and the surviving members encounter cannibals and a township that is enclosed and safe, but holds a secret.

It has recently gone into production as a movie, with option of a later serials, read on for news on casting and stuffs.

• Ain’t It Cool News visits the set of The Walking Dead. “To be frank,” writer Quint says of a particular scene, “this looked f—— terrifying.”

• ScreenCrave points to two new production photos from The Walking Dead set, remarking, “AMC has a grade-A line up of original programming and The Walking Dead should be no different.” 411Mania and MovieWeb also spotlight the images.

• MTV reports that The Blind Side‘s Robert “IronE” Singleton will be joining the cast of The Walking Dead as a character named T-Dog, while DreadCentral notes that Adrian Kali Turner has been cast as Duane Jones.

• UGO references AMCtv.com’s interview with Robert Kirkman, in which The Walking Dead comic author describes Andrew Lincoln as “a man who eats, drinks and sleeps Rick Grimes.”

The obvious sequel to the successful game-to-film adaptation is in the works, with Davis Films aiming to shoot the movie in 2010 after Resident Evil 4, which it’s now prepping. Sadly, given that Resident Evil has always been an absolute crap franchise, even for zombie-related material, we’ll probably see 50,000 lurkers coming out of a shoe box big enough to fit 0.17 of them. It’s said that if Christophe Gans doesn’t return as director that they’ll possible seek another foreign director although he’s expressed interest in staying with the franchise, but if he is unable to, he’ll remain close to production and feels that the visual style and tone of the first film should be kept in tact. Roger Avary (Silent Hill, Beowulf) will return and has signed on the dotted line.

Rec 2 is out and finished, it won’t be in cinema’s in Australia until the end of the world (see: 2012?) but is available at Pirate Bay as a torrent download with hard coded English subs, it follows the storyline of Rec, but sadly because they’ve again opted not to use English the subtitles really do detract from something visceral like a body-horror as the Rec franchise has come to be seen. This means that there’ll be a Quarantine 2 (Quarantine was the English language variant, American shot version of Rec) which means more tardy American B-grade actors aplenty and a quality overall dimished yet still superior to the non-English version due to no distracting subs and better production elements bad actors aside.

Pioneer One is the latest project from Josh Bernhard and Bracey Smith whose previous indie feature The Lionshare, became VODO’s biggest success to date with over 450,000 downloads since its release. The success of the project inspired the writer/director duo to develop this quality drama in collaboration with VODO and its distribution partners. With a successful distribution of the pilot they’re hunting for the donors and sponsors that will make the continuation of the show possible.

The show’s pilot was shot for just $6000, raised through the micro-funding platform Kickstarter. “This production was possible due in no small part to the willingness of talented, professional people working for free,” explains Bernhard. “From actors to composers, they did this because they believed in the project and wanted to see it happen.The production was a journey in and of itself. Check out the video blogs that were posted to the web that tell the story from script to finished episode”: vimeo.com/channels/pioneerone.

The initial pilot is very short, and you really don’t see where they dropped the $6k in donations, aside from knowing they’re operating one camera. Or someone, rather, is operating one camera, who is clearly not qualified to be doing so based on the very amateur film studentish angles used and the inability to smoothly frame a shot. It feels as though the entire thing was shot in one take day with no reshooting scenes that didn’t play out well, especially during a lot of the two person conversations where the camera is trying to stick to the rule of thirds but the persons are so close to each other they’re basically cutting a person out each time the opposite speaks and vice versa.

I don’t mean to overly criticise it, it’s a good attempt, but it just lacks a lot, and doesn’t seem to be worth the $6k spent. They better bust into zombie apocalypse and bunker survival soon because they can drop their costs dramatically if they went the route of true survival horror. Oh well, here’s hoping.

A few years back after the remake of Dawn of the Dead, George A. Romero, a hack director who got lucky with one semi good zombie film then a series of really cliche splattercore lameness managed to con some producers into giving him some cash to make Diary of the Dead, to compliment Night, Day, Dawn, Dusk, Teatime of the Dead et al.

Diary of the Dead was really hack. Low quality. Bad actors, bad storyline, bad .. everything.

Well, he did it again. He’s like that old rocker who didn’t age gracefully and really needs to get the fuck off stage and not try and relive his glory days.

Survival of the Dead is the biggest let down. It brings back the soldiers who were featured as highway men in Diary of the Dead, the opening scene alone tells us that film production hasn’t improved over the years past the laughable nearly comic splattercore lameness of the 70′s and 80′s as Romero is still just as tacky and lame.

Corny one liners, really bad effects, uneccesary gore for the sake of gore, and the old school cliche freak outs that became far too predictable in the 80′s.

I just wish people would stop giving Romero money to make this shit. He’s ruining my impression of him with every film he releases. All in all, Survival of the Dead is terrible. It’s below B-grade, and feels so unfinished, more like a first year film production project. What’s worse is he still has his moral preachy soapboxy portions that really made me disregard him as a real director from the get go.

1/10. And the 1 is for zombies, nothing more.

I’ve always said if they don’t give us what we want when we want it we’ll pirate it. Screw going to the movies, my plasma is higher def than your projector and my sound quality is vastly superior. Screw waiting years to see 20 minute shows stretched to 1.5 hours of adverts, I’ll download my shows and watch them nao kthx. :P Below are the results of News Ltd’s survey, please note a lot of their inferences are based on the assumption that all persons answered honestly (ie: ‘rich get stingy’, more like people lie about their income, etc) so evaluate it with critical thought: -

WHY do people turn to the web to get TV shows, movies and music without paying for them when they know they should?

We asked more than 7000 illegal downloaders to tell us just that. Here’s the breakdown of their answers.

Overview

The online survey was completed by 7324 respondents who said they had illegally downloaded or streamed TV shows, movies or music in the past 12 months.

Respondents were asked to choose the most applicable reasons for illegally downloading or streaming media from a list of about 12 possible choices, for each type of media — TV shows, movies and music.

They were also asked how much they would be prepared to pay for a similar legal and convenient service if it existed.

Some of the key findings were:

CONVENIENCE was as much of a motivating factor as money for people who illegally downloaded or streamed media.

MORE than two-thirds of respondents say they would be prepared to pay for a similar legal service if it existed.

GEN Y is prepared to pay more for legal downloads of TV shows and movies than any other age group, while people between 31 and 50 are more likely to pay top dollar for music.

THE young (under 20) and elderly (61 and over) are least likely to say they would pay for legal content.

TV shows are illegally downloaded more regularly, and by more people, than movies or music.

Click here to read the original story

Read on for more results on each type of media.

TV shows

6694 respondents said they had illegally downloaded or streamed a TV show in the past 12 months. Of these, 86.8 per cent said they did so regularly.

When given multiple choices to explain why they illegally downloaded or streamed TV shows, most respondents chose:

1) I’ll have to wait too long to see it on TV (50.7 per cent)
2) I want to be able to watch it whenever I want (41.5 per cent)
3) It doesn’t have ads (38.9 per cent)
4) It isn’t shown on TV at all (35.9 per cent)
5) It’s convenient (35.6 per cent)

When asked how much they would pay for a convenient legal option, respondents chose:

1) $1 per episode (39.2 per cent)
2) Nothing (33.6 per cent)
3) $2 per episode (18.7 per cent)
4) $3 per episode (8.4 per cent)

Shows not so social: Less than 1 per cent of respondents said they downloaded TV shows to share them with friends.

Movies

5902 respondents said they had illegally downloaded or streamed a movie in the past 12 months. Of these, 72.7 per cent said they did so regularly.

When given multiple choices to explain why they illegally downloaded or streamed movies, most respondents chose:

1) Going to the cinema is too expensive (43.5 per cent)
2) It’s convenient (42.4 per cent)
3) I want to be able to watch it whenever I want (42.4 per cent)
4) It’s free (28.7 per cent)
5) It’s an old movie I can’t find on DVD or Blu-ray (25.8 per cent)

When asked how much they would pay for a convenient legal option, respondents chose:

1) $2 per episode (45.6 per cent)
2) $5 per episode (28.3 per cent)
3) Nothing (21.6 per cent)
4) $10 per episode (4.4 per cent)

Paying promise: More pirates said they would pay $5 per film through a convenient legal service than those who wouldn’t pay anything. The most popular choice was $2.

Rebel retirees?: Respondents aged 61 or above were the most likely of all age groups to say they illegally downloaded movies once a week or more.

Music

5712 respondents said they had illegally downloaded or streamed music in the past 12 months. Of these, 69.5 per cent said they did so regularly.

When given multiple choices to explain why they illegally downloaded or streamed music, most respondents chose:

1) I want it in MP3 format without copy protection (43.2 per cent)
2) It’s convenient (37.0 per cent)
3) CDs are too expensive (36.5 per cent)
4) It’s free (33.2 per cent)
5) I want to know if I like it before I decide whether to buy it (28.2 per cent)

When asked how much they would pay for a convenient legal option, respondents chose:

1) 50c per song (48.8 per cent)
2) Nothing (33.6 per cent)
3) $1 per song (14.7 per cent)
4) $2 per song (2.8 per cent)

The rich get stingy: Respondents with an annual household salary of more than $350,000 were more likely than other income groups to admit illegally downloading music on a regular basis.

The news.com.au illegal downloads survey was carried out between April 16 and April 22 in conjunction with market research firm CoreData.

This information is disemmination of news data as per the Copyright Act.

10. Knowing

Kicking off the list of 2009′s most pirated movies is sci-fi thriller Knowing. The blockbuster, starring Nicholas Cage, made $200 million worldwide. It was illegally downloaded 6.93 million times / Summit Entertainment

9. X-Men Origins: Wolverine

X-Men Origins: Wolverine, starring Australia’s Hugh Jackman, was leaked online one month before its scheduled release in May last year.

The leak received widespread media attention when Fox News entertainment columnist Roger Friedman was fired for downloading the illegal version to review it. The film clawed in $406 million and was downloaded 7.2 million times / Fox

8. State of play

Kevin Macdonald’s political thriller about a journalist’s fight to solve the mystery behind a congressman’s murdered mistress made just under $95.6 million worldwide. It was downloaded 7.44 million times / Universal

7. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince came in third for the highest grossing film of 2009, raking in more than $1 billion worldwide. The movie was illegally downloaded 7.93 million times / Warner Bros.

6. District 9

Sci-fi film District 9 did well at the box office, making over $223 million. It was downloaded 8.28 million times / Tristar

5. Twilight

The film adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s popular novel earned more than $419 million worldwide when it was released in 2008. Despite its success the year before, the film was still illegally downloaded 8.72 million times in 2009 / Summit Entertainment

4. The Hangover

Todd Phillips’ misadventure comedy The Hangover came sixth in worldwide box office results in 2009, raking in $509 million. It was downloaded 9.18 million times / Warner Bros

3. RocknRolla

Although it premiered in late 2008, Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla was the third most illegally downloaded movie of 2009. The movie made just over $28 million at the box office and was downloaded 9.43 million times / Warner Bros.

2. Transformers: Rise of the Fallen

Michael Bay’s sequel Transformers: Rise of the Fallen proved more successful than its predecessor at the box office. The movie grossed over $900 million worldwide $120 million more than the first film. It was illegally downloaded 10.6 million times / Paramount

1. Star Trek

JJ Abrams’ Star Trek was popular at the box office, raking in more than $416 million, but it was also popular with pirates. According to TorrentFreak the movie was illegally downloaded 10.96 million times – making it the most pirated movie of 2009 / Paramount

Leonardo Di Caprio’s acting is–as always–a mood ruiner, guy can’t even speak English, ‘ex-caped prison-uh’ my arse. The big old evil realm of psychiatry again used as a deus ex machina for an already cliche pushing film.

Great concept, poor execution, bad acting, surprisingly good cinematography. Very House on Haunted Hill, although I’d give that film a high 9.

Overall 7/10.

Post-script: Somehow they managed to tie nazi’s into it. Nazi psychiatrists! The über-badguy for any lackluster narrative! :P

Edgy when the Ring first came out, the Grudge 3 just flogs the dead horse of cliche spirits, creepy kids, and long black hair which is about as frightening as a sock.

Set after the events of the second, this one actually has a lot of Japanese and is subtitled for many bits; nice given that most of the Americanised J-horror out there combines the worst of both world.

Nothing too scary, don’t know why it doesn’t have a PG rating. It does however have Marina Sirtis in it, who played Deanna Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

4/10, 3 of which are for having a Trekkie on cast.

3/10.

My aim is to tell you what I’m watching, whether it’s good, and give it my regular rating out of 10 (a 10 only attainable if there’s zombies, thus 9 being the highest, albeit nothing has scored an 8 yet); if you choose to watch it, I hope my snippet reviews help. :)

Now, on with the first blogged review! I’ve finally gotten around to watching Saw V, whilst I followed it’s production closely. The Saw franchise was the brainstorm of a couple of unknown Australians (IIRC), it started out visceral and horrific, in a true body horror sense. Then it did the obvious, sold out and became tactless splattercore.

Saw V doesn’t disappoint if gore is your thing, the plot is rather obvious from the get go. The games are often unfair and pointless with allegorical implications of some morality behind each act.

The initial narrative is very similar to the key elements of The Cube (remake), which is friggen awesome i might add! All up I’m glad I didn’t waste my cash to see it at the cinemas, horribly predictable. Nothing will top the needle pit IMHO. :/

6/10.

Digging around a glassware cabinet that came into my possession from my family, and never really investigated, I found a heap of 150-200 year old books and documents of kith and kin, as well as letters from various armed services, telegrams, notes, you name it. It adds to the confusing mass of family and ancestry related stuff I already have in my study and decking out countless book cases through the house.

How does one file such? Do I sort it or leave it as I found it, with most documents tucked into pages of ancient books? Do I get them restored where they’ve been shoddily mended with cellotape as old as the 3M manufacturing plants in Europe? How do I store them? I need somewhere to put them rather than scattered across a residence as these things had enough meaning to my ancestors for them to hang onto and pass them all the way down to me.

Do I return documents to people mentioned on them who probably would have no interest or care for them as of my surviving family? Do I assemble a package of whacky crap tucked into a bible or book of poetry or a journal from my time period and pass that down? I really am at a loss.

Had an otherwise uneventful day, still being screwed around by TPG, my out of pocket so far is nuts. Telstra made me a good offer but haven’t contacted me back to seal the deal even though I’ve prodded them on Twitter. K-Mart AU don’t have a Twitter account, how backwards? Maybe I should offer my services as a new media consultant to get them engaged with their customer base?

I’m sitting on the end of my bed with my mind going a million miles an hour, watching Baz Lurhman’s Australia. It’s Red River set in Australia mixed with corny attempts at iconicism and liberal dashings of racial stereotyping and the anachronistic ‘noble savage’ take on Australian aboriginies. All up it is as disappointing as the originality of the title suggests it would be.

Wow, what a vent. It’s been a while since I’ve blogged for the pleasure of blogging, I should keep that up again. Goodnight folks.

For fellow Australians, you really don’t appreciate how loud adverts are until you download and listen to an American broadcast with adverts intact. You think our ads are loud? The US ones are screamingly loud, I’m talking at least twice the volume of the show that’s being aired!

“One of the biggest complaints consumers have had is volume inconsistencies,” Mr Eggers said. “We solved that problem. Dolby Volume gives us the capability to choose our favourite volume level for all media then set aside the remote and never touch it again.”

The technology is being built into Toshiba televisions and car audio products this year, according to Dolby.

The company recently showed off Dolby True HD, which is being built into Blu-ray high definition video players and disks to deliver sound tracks as immersive as the imagery. “A person with a Blu-ray player can literally hear the same quality heard in the studio when they were mixing the audio; the same quality as is on the master tapes,” Mr Eggers said.

Dolby also developed a Digital Plus audio technology to bring “surround-sound” to online films and other content delivered to televisions that are being built with “widgets” linking them to online services. France, Italy and Poland have adopted Dolby Digital Plus as a standard for high-definition audio in televisions, according to the company.

Dolby also has put technology in headphones that provide stereo surround-sound experiences to people playing films or music on computers, MP3 players or mobile telephones. Dolby Axon in headsets for videogame lovers gives positional feedback to people talking to each other while playing together online by making voices sound as though they are coming from where virtual characters happen to be.

Voices get louder as gamers approach one another, and fainter with distance, according to Dolby. Like in life, sounds made by on-screen characters are obstructed by objects in the game.

“As a gamer, I can tell you it comes in pretty handy to be able to hear your enemies footsteps coming up behind you,” Mr Eggers said.

Great synopsis, but not a great film. First thing that struck me was that the main character is sleazy as hell, and awkward in his role, the opening scene leaves a lot to be desired with poor camera work and very uncomfortably drawn out scenes. Every ‘walk’ scene is horrific, especially attempts at artistic shots of their feet; they’ve obviously been instructed to ‘walk slow’ and their interpretation of that request is to take oscenely small lurching steps, giving an overall effect that they bombed out an audition as zombies and are re-using shot footage.

The film is shot with hogh quality gear and the the editing is adequate, but the cinematography and entire plot / script is a let down. It really is cumbersome to watch how unprofessional the two male leads are in their acting. The female lead, the ‘deadgirl’ is made out to be a super ‘babe’ yet is .. well, rather unfortunate looking, with an ugly face and hideously fake tits with malformed ‘cookie cutter’ nipples from botched surgery.

The ‘nut house’ as they affectionately call it is actually a run down hospital, which they proceed to trash and vandalize eventually leading in to discussion about ‘tunnels’ and the loons that were kept there. The effect of building the place up is wrecked by the fact the tunnels ‘used so the real crazies aren’t at cause of risk being moved between cells’ are filled with old humidicribs, something one wouldn’t find at a mental asylum and are actually one small hallway, redecorated (minimally) for two shots to imply twice the length, with the actors shambling at such an abominable pace you want to fast forward it so they’re at least 50% normal speed. Their slow walking doesn’t make the small set seem bigger, however.

I’m tempted to add more detail, but none of it would be positive, and it’d merely spoil the (piss weak) plot.

3/10, and only because there’s zombies, nudity and a gnarly scene where a guy gets his wang bitten off.

Like its predecessors, George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead takes place in a desperate, nightmarish world where the dead walk the earth, relentlessly attacking the living. It is the story of Plum Island – a beautiful refuge whose isolation allows two powerful families to maintain a semblance of order in the wake of the zombie holocaust. But as the inhabitants slowly die off, the two clans become sharply divided: the O’Flynns believe that the undead must be destroyed without exception, while the Muldoons insist that afflicted loved ones be kept “alive” until a cure is found. The result is an escalating showdown with echoes of a classic Western stand-off that erupts in brutality and violence.

“George A. Romero is an undisputed cinematic legend, and we’re honored to be bringing another installment of this incredible series of films to horror fans,” said Magnolia President Eamonn Bowles. “Survival… is smart, extremely fun and a worthy addition to the …of the Dead franchise.”

Says Romero, “I’m a big admirer of the team at Magnolia. They’re creative and passionate, and I’m excited to put Survival… in their hands.”
Other related zombie news: -

The Gift of the Zombi at 19 Nocturne Boulevard – http://tinyurl.com/giftofthezombi

Mail Order Zombie feed – http://feeds.feedburner.com/MailOrderZombie

Mail Order Zombie forums – http://www.popsyndicate.com/forums/viewforum/86/

Email us at MailOrderZombie@gmail.com or call us at 206-202-2505!

Vote for us at Podcast Alley at http://tinyurl.com/mozvote/

Eric D. Knapp, author of Cluck: Murder Most Fowl – http://www.ericdknapp.com/
Mutter Museam – http://www.collphyphil.org/MUTTER.ASP
13 Visions Art + Design – http://www.13visions.com/

Demon Resurrection – http://www.demonresurrection.com

Left 4 Dead 2 “The Passing ” add-on – http://tinyurl.com/lfd2passing
Natalie Portman in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – http://tinyurl.com/ppzportman
David O. Russell to direct Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – http://tinyurl.com/ppzrussell
Pentagon creates zombie pigs – http://tinyurl.com/zombiepigs
Zombie Roadkill – http://tinyurl.com/zedroadkill
Survival of the Dead on Region 2 DVD – http://tinyurl.com/survivaldvd
Survival of the Dead on Blu-ray – http://tinyurl.com/survivalblu

The Most Bachelor Thing You’ve Done and this wonderful little parody of Tik Tok by Kesha that I’m surprised isn’t viral yet: -