Oh, it’s been too long now since we’ve had any Battlestar Galactica goodness. The Writers Strike forced a break in Season 4, which debuted in April 2008, leaving us waiting til today to begin seeing the second half of the season.

Forget what happened in Season 4.0? Hell, forgot what happened in the show all together? Well, then, check out the “Catch The Frak Up” video the SCI FI Channel put out to help us all get up to speed. You can watch the over 13-minute video right here below.

After you catch up, be sure to check out the 10-part “The Face of the Enemy,” Webisode series, which bridges the gap between the break in Season 4. You can watch them all over at Hulu.

Season 4 will be the final one for the series, which will contain several episodes that will run over the standard hour-long time. The series finale will air on March 20, 2009 and its been rumored that it could possibly be up to three hours long [...]

It’s been a long, dirty, despicable road, but it looks now like the hard-fought battle between Fox and Warner Brothers over the rights to Zack Snyder‘s Watchmen has finally been settled.

If you’ve just re-surfaced after a lengthy stay under a large pile of Rosie O’Donnel’s laundry, then you can catch up with what’s gone by just searching “Watchmen” on our site — you’ll find much coverage of the trial. For those who have followed, just a summary: Basically, Fox realized that they f’d up hard by passing on Watchmen; then they decided to sue Warner Bros. because they technically still had some form of legal right to distribute it; and then it seemed a judge agreed and was going to give them the rights. Then, just when it looked like it was going to get really nasty and the movie was likely going to have to be delayed from its March 6, 2009 release date, the two parties got together and had a little alone time to figure something out.

Now, finally, it’s being reported that a settlement was reached and given to overseeing Judge Gary Feess with a request for the lawsuit to be thrown away.

No word on the actual details of the settlement, but word is that Fox will be getting the expected huge amount of money as well as a percentage of the theatrical take. It’s also being said that Fox won’t be a co-distributor, like it was looking like might happen, so there’s a minor win for Warner Bros. to look at [...]

Wild Country, from Lionsgate, starts off like your typical horror film. The story begins with teenager Kelly Ann (Samantha Shields) giving birth to a child. Too young to care for it herself, she is told by her single mother and a priest (Martin Compston) to give up her child to another family. Sadden by this, she decides to go on a hike with a group of friends and her ex in the Scotland forest known as a Wild Country hike. It is on this hike that something goes bump in the night and threatens the lives of all the teenager.

The film, a low budget import from Scotland, overall shows a lot of promise. The script by Craig Strachan, is enjoyable enough. I thought the story, though really predictable toward the end, was satisfying and the young actors are decent but like any low budget horror film, it hits a financial snag.

Because of the lack of funds, certain aspects of the film, like lighting and special effects, suffer — a huge blow to any horror film. The lighting, or lack thereof, was so distracting that I found it hard to figure out what exactly was happening on the screen because the film was mostly set in the dark. I understand that the movie is a horror flick and the director wanted to create a specific mood but making sure that the viewer cannot see any of the action on the screen will not fill the seats [...]

The Gold Box spotlight deal of the day over at Amazon is Everybody Loves Raymond – The Complete Series DVD box set for only $64.99 (down 68% from the regular price $199.99).

The DVD set includes all 9 seasons of the popular sitcom on 44 discs — that’s all 210 episodes — and comes in a collectible house structure. There’s also a bunch of bonus features like audio commentary, deleted scenes, gag reel, and much more, along with a 40-page script of the series finale autographed by all 10 of the episode’s writers.

Everybody Loves Raymond stars stand-up comic Ray Romano as Ray Barone, a sportswriter from Long Island. Ray lives with his wife Debra (Patricia Heaton) and their three children in a house across the street from Ray’s overbearing, intrusive family — parents Marie (Doris Roberts) and Frank (Peter Boyle), and older brother Robert (Brad Garrett) — which is what makes for all the comedy.

Like Ray, I too am an Italian-American Roman-Catholic with a big family on Long Island, so believe me when I say that the way the show depicts the life of the extended Barone clan really isn’t too much of an exaggeration [...]

Today, the action-packed film Wanted, starring James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie as badass assassins, makes its Video On Demand (VOD) debut and in conjunction with this event, we here at Geeks of Doom have a really cool prize pack to give away to one (1) lucky reader!

One (1) winner will receive:

- Wanted noise cancellation headphones
- a Wanted t-shirt
- a Wanted pen with holder

Check out the About section for information about Video On Demand, as well as pics and video from Wanted.

TO ENTER: Fill out the form below and submit. Entry form is HERE.

RULES: One entry per person. All entries must be in by Thursday, January 22, 2009 at 9pm EST [...]

As I kid in the late 1970s, I religiously watched the TV double shot of Love Boat and Fantasy Island. Though both series were created by Aaron Spelling and had the biggest celebrities at the time as weekly guest stars, the two hour-long shows were really nothing alike — although they were often lumped together. Love Boat was more of a campy eye-roll-inducing rom-com (though, I did love that episode when Kristy McNichol and Scott Baio hook up!), while Fantasy Island usually had a serious story to tell and a lesson to be learned.

On Fantasy Island, Ricardo Montalban, who passed away this morning at age 88, starred as the suave Mr. Roarke, the white-suit-wearing host of the tropical paradise Fantasy Island. Together with his sidekick Tattoo (diminutive actor Hervé Villechaize), each week, the duo would welcome the visitors to the island who were there to have a specific fantasy fulfilled. As the guests arrive at the mysterious island, Mr. Roarke would introduce himself and tell them all, “Smiles everyone, Smiles!”

Unfortunately, hardly anyone ended up smiling, because there was always a “careful what you wish for” consequence to pay, but at least they all learned valuable lessons and were thankful to Mr. Roarke for helping them.

This month, Amazon has Fantasy Island – The Complete First Season as part of their Buy 1 Get 1 Free TV on DVD sale [...]

A man who has been on the screen, large and small alike — Ricardo Montalban passed away today at his home in Los Angeles. He was 88.

One only need to look through his 160-plus acting listings on IMDb to see the vast amount of contributions and endless entertainment that he offered to countless fans. But what the Mexican-born actor is probably best known for is his role as the white-suit-wearing wish-fulfiller Mr. Roarke on the classic TV show Fantasy Island from 1978 to 1984. Though for us in the world of Geek, he is and always shall be known simply as Khan, Captain James T. Kirk’s most formidable foe. Montalban first portrayed the genetically engineered Khan Noonien Singh in an episode of the original Star Trek television series in 1967 called “Space Seed.” He triumphantly returned to the role 15 years later in the 1982 film Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, making the villain legendary. As Khan, Montalbon not only had some of the best dialogue in the Trek sequel, but his character also incited one of most famous lines in all Trek canon when Kirk screams Khan’s name in desperation (read about our love of this scene in our 12 Of The Best Payback Moments in Film) [...]

iTunes has launched the Monty Python iTunes Store, which now has five of the comedy troupe’s films as well as all 45 episodes of their comedy sketch show Monty Python’s Flying Circus, available for purchase.

To celebrate this most glorious event, the folks from Sony Pictures have given Geeks of Doom a $50 iTunes Gift Card to give to one (1) lucky winner!

One (1) winner will receive:
- a $50 iTunes Gift Card

For more information about the Monty Collection on iTunes, as well as the free movie Why I Love Monty Python available now on iTunes, see the About section.

TO ENTER: Fill out the form below and submit. Entry form is HERE.

RULES: One entry per person. All entries must be in by Wednesday, January 21, 2009 at 9pm EST [...]

Wall-E director Andrew Stanton was able to speak to MTV about his much-talked about Disney (not Pixar) project, John Carter of Mars.

He confirmed that the movie was still happening and that it was past the writing stages and into pre-production and is even casting at the moment, though no official names yet.

John Carter of Mars is more about a character than a story, spanning nearly a century and appearing in many books stories and comics. Because of this, Stanton was able to work with the characters and mythology to work his own story. While this gave him a lot of freedom, it was also a big complication, as they had no idea where to go with it at first.

Stanton was able to explain the situation in detail [...]

Ghost Town Blu-ray Edition
Starring Ricky Gervais, Tea Leoni, Greg Kinnear
Directed by David Koepp
Paramount Home Entertainment
Release Date: December 27, 2008

When I first saw the trailer for Dreamworks’ film Ghost Town on television, I immediately assumed it as another example of a popular TV star making a crappy movie for a big paycheck. I don’t know about you but watching Ricky Gervais gag because of a smelly dog is not funny to me, but maybe I was the wrong target audience for the film. Having just been released on DVD and Blu-ray, I thought I’d give it a try and it turns out the movie’s only mistake was hiring whoever created those terrible trailers.

Ghost Town centers around dentist Bertram Pincus (Ricky Gervais). Pincus is not the nicest nor the most social guy around and it shows in his lack of friends and loved ones. After Pincus unexpectedly dies for a brief moment during a routine surgery, he begins to see dead people. News of someone alive being able to see the dead passes quickly through the ghost community, resulting in ghosts showing up at Pincus’ doorstep. One of the ghosts, Frank (Greg Kinnear), makes Pincus a promise. If Pincus helps Frank’s widow, Gwen (Tea Leoni), Frank will make all the ghosts stop bothering him. Things, of course, go south and Pincus ends up questioning his past, present, and future [...]

Metalocalypse Season 2: Black Fire Upon Us
Starring Tommy Blacha, Brendon Small, Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell
Created by Tommy Blacha and Brendon Small
Turner Home Entertainment
Release Date: December 2, 2008

Adult Swim is known for its off the wall and sometimes head-scratching humor in its cartoons and Metalocalypse has plenty of that to go around. Soon to be entering its third season, the popular cartoon just recently released their latest season, Season 2: Black Fire Upon Us, on DVD.

Now I myself have not been aware of the series until I received this DVD so I am completely unaware as to the events that happened in Season 1. Thankfully, the series is not continuity driven and newcomers and fans of the first season can jump right on board.

Here are some important tidbits you need to know about the show: it focuses on the every day life of metal group Dethklok. Dethklok is extremely popular, so much so that their fans would kill themselves or blow off the sides of their faces with shotguns to see them. The band members consist of Nathan (band leader), Murderface (bass), Pickles (drummer), and duo guitar masters Tolkie and Skwisgaar. Despite being extremely popular, the band is socially awkward and overall just big jerks, leaving their manager as the only sane member of this group [...]

Silver: My Own Tale with a Goodly Amount of Murder
By Edward Chupack
Paperback
St. Martin’s Griffin
Release Date: January 6, 2009

Best known for striking a cutthroat figure in the classic Treasure Island, Long John Silver takes up the plume in Silver to recount with no regret how he became the lovable blaggard pirate fans have know him to be. And it’s not pretty. Silver has a way of making fast friends and killing them just as quickly, all while on a decades-old quest to find a mysterious treasure.

If you’re fearing a fanfic retread of classic waters, then you can rest easy. The pretense of the novel is a defeated post-Treasure Island Silver, who has been imprisoned on his own ship by an unnamed former hearty (shipmate). His only way of tormenting his captor — because what other scheme would the Long John Silver cook up? — is to write to him daily about the seafaring way of life and his life in particular.

Villainy doesn’t come easy, we see in this fictional autobiography. It takes a certain amount of moral bankruptcy, plenty of lies, and — if you’re doing it right — a significant body count. It’s the kind of career plan that necessitates an evil laugh or two, but Edward Chupack‘s Silver stays true to the psychopathic roots of its main character and narrator with a playful lyricism that’s all about piratry in the name of practicality. You’re hungry? Steal. Did that guy just insult you? Stab the bastard. For once, we have a main character who’s clear on what he wants and who he needs to kill to get it. There’s no moral compass in this book — and if there is one, it’s constantly pointing to kill [...]

Well, the Golden Globes were back after taking a year off because of the WGA strike, and they didn’t disappoint. Most people know the Globes aren’t that important and that the Hollywood Foreign Press doesn’t always vote for skill over bang, but they did a decent job tonight.

Instead of going through and listing off everything that won, here’s the movie categories, some of which may or may not have some Oscar implications in the near future.

In music: Best Song went to Bruce Springsteen for his song The Wrestler from Darren Aranofsky‘s The Wrestler. It was great to see Springsteen take home the award and even more amusing to hear his line “This is probably the only time I’ll be up against Clint Eastwood for something. And to be honest, I kinda like it!” Also in music, Slumdog Millionaire continued its torrent awards season pace and began its Golden Globes evening with a win for Best Score by A.R. Rahman.

Best Screenplay was another strike for Slumdog Millionaire, with Simon Beaufoy beating out the rest of the pack to take home the prize [...]

From writer/director David S. Goyer (The Dark Knight) comes a new supernatural horror film, The Unborn, which stars Gary Oldman (Harry Potter), Cloverfield‘s Odette Yustman, and Twilight‘s Cam Gigandet. In the film, which opened this weekend, a possessed child whispers, “Some people are doorways.”

Typically, the children in horror movies are either the unwilling messengers of doom or are evil themselves. Either way, the dialogue these kids have to spout is usually pretty eerie and often not something you’d want to hear coming out of the mouths of babes.

In honor of the release of The Unborn, here’s a look at 9 chilling quotes spoken by children in some of our favorite horror/thriller films [...]

Jet Li’s Fearless
Blu-ray Edition
Directed by Ronny Yu
Starring Jet Li, Nakamura Shidou, Sun Li, Dong Yong, Nathan Jones
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Release Date: December 9, 2008

Jet Li was planning to stop making martial art movies after the filming of Fearless. He didn’t stick to that plan, but had he done so he would have gone out on an extremely high note.

Fearless tells the story of the life of Huo Yuanjia (played by Li), though it takes some major liberties for dramatic effect. In real life, Huo had many children and grandchildren, not a single daughter, and he was not the only person responsible for the forming of the Chin Woo Athletic Association. Also, humorously, the film greatly embellishes the facts around the fight between Huo and a boxer named O’Brien (Nathan Jones). In reality, there was never any fight, O’Brien simply left town after a dispute over the rules of the match. I don’t imagine that would make a great sequence in a martial art film though, so it’s safe to say the film was “inspired by” Huo’s life rather than a factual account of it.

The Blu-Ray edition holds three versions of the film: theatrical, unrated, and director’s cut. I can count on one hand the number of director’s cuts that are significantly different from the original film. Fearless is one of those films and the director’s cut is a significant improvement over the theatrical version [...]

A while back it was reported that Guillermo del Toro was working on a new set of vampire novels with author Chuck Hogan. Now del Toro spoke a little more in depth on the approach to the series and the plot of the first book, which is apparently much further along than we thought. In fact, they’re already written.

This works perfectly, as we see all of these Guillermo del Toro stories what seems like every day of the week and we just are boggled at the time the man has. Well, he himself explained exactly how that is humanly possible.

It looks incredibly busy and baroque, but everything has its own place. These things seem to happen simultaneously, but the reality is they are announced simultaneously. The novels – it’s been written already. Chuck Hogan and I have been collaborating for over a year. I wrote the outline for that novel almost two years ago.

Eagle Eye
2-Disc Special Edition
Directed by D.J. Caruso
Starring Shia Labeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Rosario Dawson, Michael Chiklis, Billy Bob Thornton
Paramount Home Entertainment
Released Date: December 27, 2008

Eagle Eye is the next adventure in technological thriller genre, following Jerry Shaw (Shia Labeouf) who after the death of his twin brother Ethan finds a bunch of money in his bank account and an apartment full of military gear and weaponry. Almost immediately, he’s contacted by a mysterious woman’s voice who tells him to leave immediately, the FBI is coming to arrest him. He, of course, think she’s insane and ignores the warning, only to be quickly arrested and interrogated thoroughly by Agent Tom Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton). After this, he’s contacted again by the mysterious voice and this time, not surprisingly, he’s a little more believing, although still very skeptical. She leads him on a daring and dangerous escape where he ultimately meets up with Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan), who is also being directed by the voice, who is threatening that if Rachel doesn’t do what she’s told, her son will be murdered. From then on out, the two follow the voice’s instructions, while trying to figure out what it wants and what’s going on, as well as how it ties to Jerry’s deceased twin brother.

Eagle Eye is the embodiment of what a modern day action movie is. The incredible amount of technology used as the framing for the story sets the table perfectly for that sort of sub-genre [...]

Not even a day after Watchmen producer Lloyd Levin shared his very specific thoughts on this whole lawsuit situation with Fox (see An Inside Perspective At The ‘Watchmen’ Trial), producer Larry Gordon also decided to try and chime in.

Gordon’s letter was written and sent directly to Judge Gary Feess, who — citing that Gordon refused to answer certain questions — had already decided that Gordon would have no say in the trial at all. This put him in an unfortunate position, as the entire trial is hinged on the fact that Larry Gordon did not take the proper steps to secure the rights before going to Warner Bros. with them.

The letter supposedly threw blame at both Fox and Mr. Gordon’s lawyers at the time, stating that he took the precautions necessary, but was not aware of another, older document that still gave Fox distribution rights. Gordon’s logic of thinking here, is that his lawyers should have been aware of this and that it also should have been taken care of [...]

I don’t usually care for stuff that makes the gossip headlines, but I do enjoy reading about celebrity hook ups — but not enough to write about it here. But this latest celebrity wedding had me giggling so much, I just had to share the news.

You guys know the ShowTime series Dexter, right? Yeah, sure you do, it’s awesome. Well, the actor who plays the title role, Michael C. Hall , secretly eloped in California on New Year’s Eve with his co-star Jennifer Carpenter — who plays his sister, Debra, on the show.

What makes this news even cooler is that the couple was able to keep their year and a half long relationship under wraps while portraying the Morgan siblings on the SHO series for three seasons. Ok, maybe not totally under wraps, as the tabloids did try to out them back in September, saying that they’d moved in together and that their TV bosses were pissed. But the news really didn’t spread or even make a splash, so you gotta admit, for a Hollywood couple on a hit show, pulling off this relationship AND a secret wedding — that’s pretty crafty.

Look out for the newlyweds this Sunday when they walk the red carpet together at the Golden Globe Awards, which will be their first public outing as a couple [...]

Monty Python fans rejoice!

iTunes has launched the Monty Python iTunes Store [link launches iTunes application], which has five of the comedy troupe’s films — including Monty Python and the Holy Grail — as well as all 45 episodes of their comedy sketch show Monty Python’s Flying Circus, available for purchase.

Along with Holy Grail are other classics film Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life and Monty Python’s Life of Brian, plus their 1982 live performance Monty Python: Live At The Hollywood Bowl as well as Terry Gilliam’s medieval satire Jabberwocky.

The Flying Circus television series is available in several variations: by episode, by season (Series 1-4), by “Personal Best” from each cast member (Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, John Cleese, Michael Palin), or by the best of compilation Parrot Sketch Not Included: 20 Years of Monty Python; there’s also two pre-Python collections: Do Not Adjust Your Set, and At Last The 1948 Show.

Also available as a free download exclusively through iTunes is the Why I Love Monty Python, a short documentary featuring interviews with today’s top American comedy creators like Judd Apatow, Paul Rudd, as well as South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, about their love of Python and how the British sketch comedy show influenced their lives and creations [...]