In celebration of Earth Day today, Amazon’s spotlight Gold Box deal of the day today is the The BBC Natural History Collection featuring Planet Earth DVD box set for $69.99 (that’s 65% off the list price of $199.92).

The 17-disc DVD box set includes four BBC nature series from award-winning documentarian David Attenborough: Planet Earth, The Blue Planet: Seas of Life Special Edition, Life of Mammals, Life of Birds.

Also in honor of Earth Day, the site is running a special Earth Day Sale where you can save up to 50% on DVDs and Blu-rays like An Inconvenient Truth, Prehistoric Earth, and many more documentaries.

Considering the site separately sells Planet Earth (by far my favorite of the four and probably the most popular too) for $47.49 and The Blue Planet (second favorite) for $32.49, if you get the DVD box set, you’ll already be paying less for these two, plus, you’ll be getting two more series –Life of Mammals alone is $71.99, while Life of Birds is $32.49, you do the math (but yeah, HUGE savings) [...]

The good folks over at Paramount Pictures, who probably didn’t even know I existed until I started writing about Star Trek and how much I love it, were good enough to include me when sending out “exclusive” content and goodies for the upcoming film. For this Doom Delivery, I was one of 100 people to receive a limited edition Star Trek USB cards containing exclusive themed wallpapers to share with my readers.

Apparently, this is a 20-card set and I received #17 with the image of baby Spock on it. Inside were Wallpapers 2, 7, and 9, which I was told were exclusive, but as I browse the net, I see #7 and #9 on some other sites. Links to download the wallpapers are here below.

Along with the USB card and wallpaper files, I was given 10 cards from the Star Trek Rittenhouse trading card set! See the crappy picture below of the cards on my kitchen counter. I love getting trading cards, I still have ones from when I was a kid, so getting these were a real treat [...]

Slaughter High
Directed by George Dugdale
Starring Caroline Munro, Simon Scuddamore, Carmine Iannaccone, Donna Yeager, Gary Martin, Billy Hartman, Michael Saffran
Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Release Date: April 14, 2009

I take back every bad thing I ever said about every bad movie I have ever seen from Manos the Hands of Fate to Tommy Wiseau’s The Room because none of them could ever compare to the unimaginable horror I witnessed last night when I put the Slaughter High DVD in my player. This is officially the worst movie I have ever seen my friends, and I’ve seen the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. I’ve always had a soft spot in my black heart for the slasher horror movies of the late 1970′s and early 1980′s (the subgenre’s golden age in my professional opinion). The best ones are like taking a ride on the scariest rollercoasters in the world from the comfort of your sofa or bean bag chair or strolling through those spooktacular haunted houses at the state fair. The worse ones however are ordeals more grueling that your average hostage situation to endure, and such is the case with Slaughter High despite a running time of 91 minutes. Not only did this movie test my patience and grate my nerves, it also insulted my intelligence to the point where I wanted to go up to my television and smack it across the room.

Starting off as most slashers did with a moronic prank gone wild, high school nerd Marty Rantzen (Simon Scuddamore) gets lured into the girls’ locker room with the promise of wild sex with school sexpot Carol (Caroline Munro, who was actually 36 years old at the time she played a “teenager” in this “movie”) and ends up getting pranked on big time by Carol and a bunch of her bozo friends. The poor schmuck gets stripped to only what the Lord gave him, dunked in a toilet, and given a mild electrical shock [...]

Fans of the show know it and its group very well, but others may not even know it exists. In any case, MTV‘s cult sketch comedy show, The State, will be finally coming to DVD on July 14, 2009. The set is expected to include five discs with every episode, as well as special features including: the pilot episode, outtakes, and over 90 minutes worth of un-aired sketches.

The show was known for its incredibly odd and random humor, which may or may not have cause an awkward feeling in the room once in a while, but always made you laugh hysterically. Some of their best work included things like Muppets, bearded men in space, and one messed up version of The Last Supper. I’m a big fan of the bearded men skit…classic.

After The State, many of its cast went on to shine. A bunch of them write and star as the main characters in Comedy Central’s Reno 911!; Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, and David Wain went on to star in another sketch comedy show called Stella; Wain also wrote and directed the recent hit, Role Models; and most of the gang reunited to make one f’d up and hilarious little movie called The Ten. [...]

Earlier today, I wrote about the latest issue of Wired magazine, which is loaded with all kinds of Star Trek goodness and how I had to search all over town for it (and by the way, I realized that a 1-year, 12-issue subscription is a mere $10, so I think I might just go for it).

At the time of my posting, Wired didn’t have any content from the printed issue up on their site yet, though now, I see that they have the feature on master creature creator Neville Page, “Star Trek’s Beast Master Reveals How to Create a Monster,” which I briefly mentioned in my post. The story includes artwork and photos of Page’s previous projects and gives us a look at his concept art for the ice creature from the new Star Trek film, which Page nicknamed “Big Red.”

In Slide #6, Page talks about coming up with the design for Big Red, and seriously, it wasn’t a pleasant task [...]

Those clever folks over at Google have done it again! Did you know that you could search Google in Klingon?

Now you can find out for yourself if Shakespeare is truly better in the original Klingon.

Don’t know Klingon? Then learn Klingon now.

It has been topic of much discussion and much debate, and after many curious hints, it’s simply time to lay back and accept the fact that Terminator Salvation will indeed be rated PG-13.

The first painfully depressing hint came in the form of a special Terminator Pizza Hut website that listed the movie as PG-13. Then, an ad for an upcoming extended look trailer to be aired on Fox also pinned the movie as being presented in teen-friendly fashion. Though these hints were really disheartening to see, the PG-13 rating was not being shown during TV spots for the movie, nor was it shown on the movie’s official website, which still slated the movie as “This Film Is Not Yet Rated.” For these reasons, hope remained that maybe someone had made a mistake and that the movie would earn its medal-of-honor R-rating. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Today, I finally saw an actual TV spot which visually and audibly declared the movie as being rated PG-13. The movie’s official site is still unchanged, but this is just too much evidence ignore, and I’m not that stubborn, sadly. [...]

I spent a lot of time this weekend driving around Brooklyn, searching for the recent issue of Wired. Apparently, unless you’re looking for guns and ammo, fishing, or nudie rags, you won’t have much luck finding a magazine like Wired in this town. (This is still New York City, right? Could have fooled me.)

So, into Manhattan I went to a magazine megastore and found the issue, called “The Mystery Issue,” which was guest-edited by Star Trek director JJ Abrams. Inside is Abrams wrote an essay, “The Magic of Mystery,” about enjoying mysteries and solving puzzles in our “Age of Immediacy” and how spoilers ruin the intended experience for people. Abrams also picks the items for the monthly feature “What’s Wired” and there’s a small feature on “Big Red,” the nickname for the monster seen on the ice planet in the upcoming Star Trek.

But the item that really made search the borough and beyond was the 6-page mini-comic book, When Worlds Collide, which finds a marooned elder Spock reflecting on obstacles he overcame in his youth and challenges faced as a crewmember of the USS Enterprise, all of which are flash-backed to. This short, but highly interesting little story ties in to the upcoming film, which see Leonard Nimoy returning to the franchise in his memorable role as Spock [...]

USA Today has received the first image of Russell Crowe as the title character in Ridely Scott‘s Robin Hood. The image isn’t the most exciting of pictures, but being the first look, it’s pretty exciting to finally see what Crowe will look like in the movie. As you can see, he’s got his bow all set and ready, and he appears to be cautiously approaching some kind of prey — maybe a nice deer for the merry men. Click the image at right to see more.

Producer Brian Grazer also spoke to USA Today and had this to say about the new, more realistic Robin:

He doesn’t have the old Robin Hood tights. He’s got armor. He’s very medieval. He looks, if anything, more like he did in Gladiator than anything we’re used to seeing with Robin Hood.

He also spoke on the importance of the movie being made now:

Oddly, it’s a metaphor for today. He’s trying to create equality in a world where there are a lot of injustices. He’s a crusader for the people, trying to reclaim some of the ill-gotten gains of the wealthy. That’s a universal theme.

Iron Maiden: Flight 666, the documentary following the band Iron Maiden on tour in early 2008, will be screened for one day only on Tuesday, April 21, 2009 in more than 450 special digital movie theaters in 42 countries.

For a list of theaters showing the film, visit: ironmaiden.com/flight666.

Iron Maiden: Flight 666 will then be released on extended Blu-ray and DVD formats, alongside a double-CD soundtrack album and limited edition double-vinyl picture disc which will be available Tuesday, June 9.

Directed by Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen, the film provides an intimate behind-the-scenes look at the band during the first leg of their Somewhere Back In Time tour, which spanned 23 shows and 13 countries in 45 days back in February/March 2008. The tour took them 50,000 miles round the planet playing 23 concerts on five continents in just 45 days. One of the stars of the movie is the band’s customized Boeing 757, Ed Force One, which carried the band, all their crew, and 12 tons of stage equipment and was piloted by Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson, a fully qualified and active Airline Captain with Astraeus Airlines [...]

MichaelBay.com has decided to release some new footage for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen that was originally seen at the ShoWest film festival. The footage is kind of a mixture of trailer and clip: it opens with a clip from what’s most likely the beginning of the movie where Sam (Shia Labeouf) breaks the news to Bumblebee that he’s going off to college alone; and then finishes off with a bunch of quick-fire shots from the movie.

This is must-see stuff here, folks. The beginning clip is nothing mind-blowing, but all fans have to see the collection of clips that follows — in particular, pay close attention at around the 2:06 mark of this video and I guarantee your jaw drops like mine did.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen follows Sam Witwicky and his discovery of the ancient origins of the Transformers. Because of this discovery, the Decepticons go all-out in an attempt to capture him while Optimus Prime joins forces with multiple armies to fight and save all humans. [...]

Slowly but surely, we’re moving toward the half-year delayed release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It was initially set for a November release, but got the big push back to July 17 much to the furious backlash of fans. Now — after a tiny scoot forward — the movie is set to raise curtain on July 15, 2009, and fans are buzzing for it.

To help this excitement along, Warner Brothers has again released a brand new trailer for the movie, as well as four new posters. The posters a decent, but the shining star is definitely the trailer. As each trailer before it, it raises the level of excitement and expectation up one more level.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince stars Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter; Emma Watson as Hermione Granger; Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley; Michael Gambon as Albus Dumbledore; Alan Rickman as Severus Snape; Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange; Jim Broadbent as Horace Slughorn; and Robbie Coltrane as Rubeus Hagrid, along with all of your other favorite returning cast members. [...]

In celebration of their 20th anniversary, it appears that Empire Magazine is out to score some massive scoops, and massive scoops they hath scored indeed.

The publication spoke exclusively to both Peter Jackson and Guillermo Del Toro — the producing/directing duo behind the planned The Hobbit movie, as well as a second original movie bridging the 60-year gap between Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

Shockingly, the men had a big announcement to share with us. After much discussion, they decided that it would be in the best interest of all parties to make The Hobbit into two movies instead of trying to put it all into one film.

We’ve decided to have The Hobbit span the two movies, including the White Council and the comings and goings of Gandalf to Dol Guldur.

We decided it would be a mistake to try to cram everything into one movie. The essential brief was to do The Hobbit, and it allows us to make The Hobbit in a little more style, if you like, of the [LOTR] trilogy. [...]

Anvil: The Story of Anvil
Directed by Sacha Gervasi
Starring Robb Reiner, Steve “Lips” Kudlow
Not rated
Release date: April 10, 2009 (limited)

Keep on pounding
Keep on pounding
Join the heavy metal fight

Ah, now that’s a mantra I can easily adopt.

Earlier this month, veteran metal band Anvil brought their heavy metal fight to New York City’s Blender Theater, where they played a short set of four songs in support of the film Anvil! The Story of Anvil, a documentary about the two founding members of the band and their decades-long struggle to recapture the glory of their early years in the 1980s.

Since its debut at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2008, the Anvil film has been a surprise hit with critics, nearly all of whom likened the documentary to director Rob Reiner’s 1984 musical mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap. As with the fictional Spinal Tap, Anvil had their 15 minutes of fame back in the early 1980s — before bands like Metallica made their way to the top of the speed metal pile — then spent the subsequent years in obscurity with low record sales and poor concert attendance. Anvil director Sacha Gervasi (best known for his script for Steven Spielberg’s The Terminal) was smart to hone in on the similarities between the bands by showing us an amp that goes to 11 (plus, Anvil’s drummer’s name is Robb Reiner), because it gave viewers, most of whom never even heard of Anvil, a reference point. But while Spinal Tap kept us laughing with their stupidity and their attempts to constantly reinvent themselves with current music trends, Anvil tugs at our heartstrings by staying true to themselves and to their heavy metal roots.

Anvil! begins by showing us one of the band’s live performances in the early 1980s at a massive outdoor venue, where thousands of fans are headbanging to the band’s most popular tune “Metal On Metal.” We see right away that, yes, Anvil did have its day [...]

Developers of Rock Band, Harmonix, released details of their previously announced Fab four premium bundle titled The Beatles: Rock Band which will retail for $249.99 when it makes its debut in September to Xbox 360, PS3, and the Wii.

The price might be high for Beatles fans under the age of 30 who have owned and played video games religiously since the days of 8-bit Mario, but there’s a whole generation of aging hipsters who never learned how to play an instrument. This generation of non-gamers, if they play anything else other than Rock Band and Guitar Hero, will likely be happy to fork over the $250 duckets.

The Limited Edition Premium Bundle includes:
– The Beatles: Rock Band software
– Höfner Bass controller: Large scale replica of the Bass famously used by Sir Paul McCartney
– Beatles-inspired and Ludwig-branded Rock Band 2 drums with classic pearl finish and vintage replica Beatles kick drum head
– Microphone
– Microphone Stand
– Additional special content [Our guess is its a voucher that brings a Ringo Star impersonator over to your house to bob his head whilst you butcher the songs that brought nations together.] [...]

So, as always, the face of World of Warcraft is ever changing. With this most recent patch we see some interesting ideas being implemented, some new areas opening up and as always, huge changes to every class within at least one talent specialization.

I’m not going over the changes to classes or professions or any of that (even though I would like to know which was the profession that got a 32 slot herb bags and how you obtain the right to make them)–You can find all those things on Wowhead, including up-to-date talent calculators. Instead, what I am going to go over is some of the Epicness of Ulduar, who exactly is Yogg-Saron is and why you should care & probably some other stuff as well…

The Gold Box spotlight deal of the day over at Amazon today is the Planet of the Apes 40th Anniversary Collection Blu-ray for $57.95 (down 55% from the list price of $129.99).

This 5-disc Blu-ray set includes all five Planet Of The Apes movies — Planet Of The Apes (the original 1968 version starring Charlton Heston and those damn dirty apes), Beneath The Planet Of The Apes, Escape From The Planet Of The Apes, Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes, and Battle For The Planet Of The Apes, along with a host of bonus features with new features in high definition and a 200-page hardbound oversized book [...]

Universal Pictures has provided us Geeks of Doom two movie posters for the new Russell Crowe thriller State of Play, as well as a $25 Fandango gift card for us to give away to our readers.

One (1) Grand Prize Winner will receive:
One (1) State of Play Movie Poster
One (1) $25 Fandango Gift Card

One (1) First Prize Winner will receive:
One (1) State of Play Movie Poster

State of Play opens in theaters on Friday, April 17, 2009!

Oscar winner Russell Crowe leads an all-star cast in a blistering thriller about a rising congressman and an investigative journalist embroiled in an case of seemingly unrelated, brutal murders. Crowe plays D.C. reporter Cal McCaffrey, whose street smarts lead him to untangle a mystery of murder and collusion among some of the nation’s most promising political and corporate figures in State of Play, from acclaimed director Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland).

Handsome, unflappable U.S. Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) is the future of his political party: an honorable appointee who serves as the chairman of a committee overseeing defense spending. All eyes are upon the rising star to be his party’s contender for the upcoming presidential race. Until his research assistant/mistress is brutally murdered and buried secrets come tumbling out [...]

An audio preview of several clips from Michael Giacchino‘s Star Trek movie soundtrack is now online at colosseum.de.

You can hear snippets of four of the tracks from the soundtrack, which is now available for pre-order. Of the four tracks, one of them is the “End Credits,” which notably includes the theme from the original television series!

The track I’m actually most curiously about is “Does It Still McFly?” What could that sequence be about? Can’t wait to find out! Star Trek: Music From The Motion Picture will be released on May 5, 2009, just days prior to the film’s theatrical release in conventional and IMAX theaters on May 8.

Full track listing for the soundtrack with runtimes is here [...]

It’s been a fair amount of time since gore-master Eli Roth‘s Hostel 2. He last did an acting gig in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, but Roth looks to be preparing to get back into the fold with a pair of movies in-hand that he’s hoping to complete together.

Eli’s master plan is to finish up the script for his big science fiction blockbuster, which will look to be the biggest budget movie he’s done so far. Once that script is finished, he’ll shop it around along with Thanksgiving — the movie based on the trailer that he made specifically for Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse — for around $85 Million. His hope is to use about $80 Million for the big movie, and then add three weeks to the end of filming and do Thanksgiving for around $5 Million. Pretty ingenious little plan if it all works out, if I do say.

The blockbuster (which has a title, but can’t be shared yet) will apparently have to do with some kind of monster of sorts. Here’s what Roth has to say about his big project: [...]