Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire
Starring Sean Maguire, Roger Allam, Matt Lucas, India de Beaufort
Comedy Central

If only Comedy Central knew how to spend their money a little better. Every time the network I so dearly love scores a hit and is suddenly flush with revenue, they race out and greenlight a few more new series that often prove to look better on paper than on the high-definition television screen (remember The Naked Trucker and T-Bone?). Their newest effort, Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire, is no ill-advised exception. A vain attempt to satirize the beloved sword-and-sorcery genre much like Monty Python and the Holy Grail took on the legend of King Arthur and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the books and the BBC radio and television adaptations I mean of course; the 2005 movie blew chunks that not even Amy Winehouse could top) turned a jaundiced eye on science fiction, Krod is a noble effort that misses a great deal more than it hits. For a fan of great epics such as Conan the Barbarian, Excalibur, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy that celebrate the awesome beauty of worlds where magic and clashing steel are as commonplace as traffic and acid reflux are here, watching this show is like watching a mediocre stand-up comedian: you may chuckle occasionally, and you may be shocked when you do, but don’t expect any big laughs.

As a narrator ominously (as best he can) intones, Krod Mandoon (Sean Maguire of the oh so delightful Meet the Spartans), the “son of a blacksmith and a stay at home mom,” leads a small band of heroic warriors on a quest to free the great General Arcadius (Roger Allam), leader of the People’s Resistance, from the clutches of the evil, eccentric, and somewhat effeminate Chancellor Dongalor (Matt Lucas) [...]

After a burst of images and news from Guy Ritchie‘s upcoming take on Sherlock Holmes, it had been quiet for a while. So as to remind us that the production is still alive, well, and coming straight at us, USA Today paid a little visit to the set and brought back a bunch of images. Some of the images we’ve seen, but most of them are shiny new.

The movie, set for release on Christmas day, will start at the beginning of Sherlock Holmes lore, taking pages from the iconic character’s creator, Arthur Conan Doyle. The hope is, with a successful first offering, this can and will become the next big franchise taking the classic Holmes‘ tricks with a lot more action and fights.

The addition of martial arts, bare-knuckle fist-slapping, and overall aggressiveness isn’t going over so well in the good ol’ U.K., where many people seem to think this is a mockery of Doyle’s classic works. [...]

As the Star Trek franchise is about to get a much-needed re-boot later this week, I’ve been thinking a lot about the series and the role its played in my life. Being born during the run of The Original Series, I represent what I suppose could be called the “second generation” of Trekkies (there was no stigma associated with that term 30 years ago.) I got acquainted with Star Trek through endless re-runs on syndicated TV in the 1970s, The Animated Series on Saturday mornings, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Once I was hooked, love of Trek stayed with me for a solid 25 years — as I have previously discussed. There have been many changes during all that time, from movie to movie, series to series, and cast to cast. I’ve weathered nearly all of them, but I find myself wondering if I am ready to fall in love again.

Part of this has to do with the “origin” concept of J.J. Abrams‘ new film. I’ve never felt that an origin story for The Original Series crew has ever been particularly necessary. I can look at the first scene where William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy appear together in “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” and that holds up as well as their last scene together in The Undiscovered Country, twenty five years later. That’s an amazing thing to my mind, and a testament to the writing skills of Samuel Peeples and the production skills of Gene Roddenberry. Since Star Trek appeared nearly fully formed right at the beginning, why mess with that? [...]

It became very obvious this weekend: leaked copies of movies help you to insane opening weekends! OK, maybe not every time — don’t try it.

In any case, X-Men Origins: Wolverine jumped out to a massive opening weekend take of $85 Million, even after that massive leak a month ago — a very impressive feat. As you’ll see with most movies that do this well, a sequel was immediately discussed. Now it’s been confirmed that Hugh Jackman is in fact developing a new movie for the immensely-popular character.

As most rumors had covered, it appears that all signs point toward the sequel following Wolverine’s adventure with samurai in Japan. I’m not personally familiar with the Japan storyline, but from what I gather, Wolverine went there during WWII and studied the ways of the samurai as well as methods for calming his intense anger issues.

No word yet on supporting cast and crew, nor is there any word on release bubbles. Considering the new one is still freshly released, it should be a while before this one comes around. [...]

Oh, yes, ladies and gentlemen — it’s that time of the year again!

Summer is now knocking at our doors, and with Summer, comes one of the most exciting times to be a movie fan: the Summer movie season!

Every year, we here at Geeks of Doom like to gather up as many of the movies slated for release this season that you the readers want to see, or may not be aware of yet. We then do our best fill in the cast and crew, a bit about the movie and what to expect. We’ll set you up from May 1 when the season began, all the way into September.

While most of the films listed here are the gigantic money-makers that are custom built for the Summer season, browse carefully — there are a few smaller movies and indie-types listed in here that could offer up a refreshing change of pace during your movie-viewing rampage.

So without further adieu, we invite you to come along and enjoy the ride with us..

This is your ultimate guide to Summer movie viewing!

This is the third annual Geeks of Doom: Summer Movie Mayhem ’09! [...]

The cameras of The Shatner Project were rolling again last month, capturing the official first meeting between the original James T. Kirk, William Shatner, and Chris Pine, who plays Kirk in the upcoming JJ Abrams prequel/reboot Star Trek.

The historic meeting took place on April 25, 2009 at Priceline’s Charity Horse Show Dinner, where many of the cast and crew from the upcoming film came out to support this charity that Shatner is very involved with. Shatner was the host of the dinner. The momentous meeting is quick, but definitely worth watching. Check it out here below.

Also, Pine and his co-star Zachary Quinto did an Artist On Artist feature on MySpace where the two actors interviewed each other about working with JJ Abrams and the cast of the new Star Trek. The 5-minute video includes clips from the upcoming film, along with some behind-the-scenes footage [...]

Ever wonder what the new Star Trek would be like if it was a teen comedy from the 1980s/90s? Well, wonder no more, because Dan Meth has created quite the humorous video of said version, titled “Trek Yourself,” for Comedy Central.

Watch the John Hughes-inspired animated short here below and see young Kirk on his first day at a new high school where Khan is the school bully dating the cheerleader Uhura and Spock is, well, the nerd [...]

The large and lovably energetic actor of stage, screen, and television — Dom DeLuise has passed away at the age of 75. He died quietly in his sleep after a long battle with illness.

The very best thing about Dom DeLuise is that he was completely generational. He first showed up in the ’50s and by the ’60s, he was often a guest on Dean Martin’s legendary variety show and roasts. The ’70s saw his perfect chemistry with Mel Brooks’ style of movies skyrocket as he appeared in Blazing Saddles and Silent Movie — he also appeared in The Muppet Movie that decade. The ’80s were epic for Mr. DeLuise. He continued on his torrent pace of appearing in great movies and comedies like Smokey and the Bandit II, both Cannonball Run movies, History of the World: Part 1, Haunted Honeymoon, and Spaceballs. He also really shined as the perfect voice for animated feature films with work on The Secret of NIMH, An American Tale, Oliver & Company, and All Dogs Go to Heaven. [...]

Those silly folks over at The Onion have a video news report on the fan reaction to the new Star Trek.

The Onion News Network reports that Trekkies are “bashing” the film for being fun and enjoyable. One of the fans interview said of the new film that they were “really disappointed that the storyline made sense,” while another wondered “Where was the stiff acting?”

The news report comes complete with in-studio analysis of the fan backlash from their entertainment reporter.

Check out the full video here below and be ready for a little giggle [...]

Inspired by the Lord of the Rings series, Tolkien fan Chris Bouchard wrote and directed The Hunt For Gollum, a fan film which was released online on May 3.

Check out the trailers for the film here below and watch the entire film online for free at Daily Motion: The Hunt For Gollum.

Bouchard, who reportedly created this 40-minute fan film on a mere $3,000 budget, incorporated elements from the appendices of The Lord of the Rings into this story, depicts events leading up to The Fellowship of the Ring. The film follows the Heir of Isildur, as he sets out to find the creature Gollum, who has lost the ring of power to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins. The creature must be found before he falls into enemy hands and reveals the location of the magic ring. Production on the film, which was a not-for-profit project by Independent Online Cinema, begin in 2007 on location in North Wales.

Let me stress, this unofficial flick is not your average fan film. Although it was not sponsored by New Line or the Tolkien estate, The Hunt For Gollum fits perfectly into Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings film trilogy. If you’re a fan of LOTR, you owe it to yourself to watch this film. You’ll love revisiting Middle Earth and all of its inhabitants [...]

When we began to approach the subject of movie curses our first thoughts went to the misfortunate occurrences of the cast and crew of films like Poltergeist and The Twilight Zone (go ahead, google it). But that’s not the kind of curses we want to talk about here today. Next, our thoughts went to the likes of Pulp Fiction and Goodfellas. Yaknow, ‘Atomic mushroom-cloud laying Mother**bleep**!’ …also not the kind of curse we want to talk about here today.

What we here are talking about is the Maloika, the Kavorka, Voodoo juju, Hexes, Katadesmoi, Bill Buckner, and Whammys (no whammys.. Stop!). After some grue filled head-knocking sessions, what we Geeks of Doom all came to realize is that both horror moves and children’s movies seem to have a lot in common. So many of them revolve around a simple curse. Think about it, my festering fleshlings. Sleeping Beauty and Serpent and the Rainbow — both main characters are put to ‘sleep’ by someone who’s pretty darn unhappy with their intrusions. The Wizard of Oz and Thinner — both characters have a pretty limited amount of time before their ‘curse’ kills them. Snow White and The Hulk — both characters are poisoned; one by an apple, one by gamma radiation. The unifying factor is that all of these films have someone cursing the daylights out of someone else, for reasons both right and wrong. So to honor the cursers and cursed alike, we gathered our doom crew together and came up with a list of a few films that we think exemplify the use of the woe-begotten whammy. [...]

Paramount has released another new clip called “Ice Planet” from JJ Abrams‘ upcoming Star Trek. In the film, we know that Kirk (Chris Pine) ends up on an ice planet and is attacked by a massive creature, but we’ve only seen split seconds of it in the previously released trailers and TV spots.

After watching this new 1-minute clip, you can clearly see that on the ice planet Kirk is saved by the Cloverfield monster from an attack by the Wamba ice creature, then escapes down to the Fortress of Solitude where he awaits rescue by one Mr. “See you in Hell” Spock riding a frozen-before-it-hits-the-first-marker Tauntaun before he’s taken over by The Thing.

Just kidding. Seriously, if you like ice and monsters, you’ll like this new clip, which you can watch below.

Also, there’s a 6-minute video of the movie’s LA Premiere which will make you loath Hollywood photographers forever. But, at least you’ll get to see the stars’ arrivals and pre-premiere interviews on the red carpet [...]

There is magic in the world, my people. You know how I know this? Because magical people keep giving us magical stuff to give away to our magical readers. For example, we’ve given away Celestron telescopes, Playstation 2s and Playstation 3s, hundreds of DVDs, video games, movie posters, music CDs, and more random coolness than can rightly fit in one geeky head. Well, we’s just gots ourselves another magical package to give away to one of our readers.

So, who among you wants to win an XBOX 360, hmmmm?

That’s right!! Thanks to the kindly ones who live in the place where awesome things spontaneously happen (and believe it or not, they’re huge fans of Geeks of Doom), one of you is gonna get your hands on an Xbox 360 AND a copy of Sacred 2: Fallen Angel.

What do you have to do to get me a chance win? Glad you asked ’cause it’s really easy. Just make sure you’re a subscriber to our email digest, and then go ahead and fill out the handy dandy form below. Done…

Let me preface this reaction by saying I am not a huge Star Trek fan. I have not seen every episode of any of the television series although I have watched and enjoyed quite a few. I’ve also never read a Star Trek novel in my entire life, but I’m pretty sure my uncle has written at least one. That being said, I’ve had several discussions about the Prime Directive over the dinner table but I’m not an Über Trek geek. It’s that same geekdom that kept the majority of intelligent people from experiencing Star Trek for the good part of a decade despite a strong interest in science fiction. JJ Abrams‘ new film took Star Trek back and made it accessible again.

Whenever I’ve watched an episode of Star Trek [pick a crew, any crew] on television, it was almost never because I intended to do so. I’d be flipping through the channels, waiting on the commercials to end on another program I was watching. This casual practice usually ended in me not changing the channel back. Therefore I’ve consumed about two-thirds of all Trek entertainment in syndication because initially, there was never anything pulling me into it the way Battlestar Galactica did.

To put it in simpler terms, there was always a humanity element lacking from the Trek fiction. That’s crucial for most people to connect with the characters and thus, enhance the storytelling.

Honestly, hiring JJ Abrams to direct the “revamped” Star Trek movie was probably the greatest move anyone could have ever hoped for. I know that going into production there were criticisms that he had never done a large special effects oriented movie, but it just goes to show you that if you understand how to tell a story, everything else will fall into place.

This movie is not based on a tyrannical “villain” or a logically sound explanation of science intertwining with a story, although both of those elements are present [...]

A fan of Douglas Adams’ A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy will attempt to thumb his way from his village in Germany to the late author’s gravesite in London with nothing but his coat, a copy of the Hitchhiker’s Guide, and of course, a towel.

Mathias-Emanuel Hartmann wrote last week on his blog, Me and My Towel, that he will embark on May 5 from his hometown of Rambin, a small village in the north of Germany, to the London Highgate Cemetery, where Adams is buried. The author died on May 11, 2001.

According to Hartmann, his only provisions on this hitchhiking journey will be his morning coat, a copy of the guide, and his trusted towel. He plans on blogging and posting pictures of his experience, which will take him across about 750 miles (1207 km), whenever he’s able to find an internet connection.

Any good samaritans along the route, be sure to give a fellow geek a hand on his lofty quest [...]

To honor Cinco de Mayo tomorrow, the official Star Wars site is currently streaming Spanish-language versions of several episodes of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series.

Five full episodes of the animated TV series — Ambush, Trespass, Dooku Captured, The Gungan General and Hostage Crisis — are available for viewing online right now through May 7. This is the first time ever that a non-English version of the series is available online.

Also to commemorate the holiday — which celebrates the Mexican army’s 1862 defeat of invading French forces — StarWars.com is hosting an assortment of related content highlighting the Mexican Star Wars fan experience, as well as kid-friendly cultural activities, crafts, Spanish-language multimedia, and more [...]

On May 5, Twilight is coming to Blu-ray, but that’s not all; Amazon also has an exclusive Twilight Ultimate Blu-ray Collector’s Set on sale the same day. Both editions are available for pre-order now.

The Collector’s Edition, priced at $79.99, comes with the special edition blu-ray edition of Twilight, the film’s soundtrack CD, an individually numbered jewelry box, an exclusive watch, limited edition charm bracelet, bookmark, 6 glossy photo cards, and a certificate of authenticity.

With the purchase of the Twilight blu-ray or ultimate collector’s blu-ray, Amazon will send a code to watch the digital version instantly from Amazon Video On Demand starting tomorrow on the release day. That means you don’t have to wait for your order to arrive to watch the film, you can do so right after your purchase [...]

In an interview with Lucasfilm editor Bonnie Burton, our new pals over at the massive Star Wars site Galactic Binder unearthed a gem in fanboy crafting — an adorable crocheted R2-D2 plush toy!

This fan-made Amigurumi R2-D2 doll was first picked up by the official Star Wars blog from a feature at CodeRetard, which contains several photos of the little R2.

This is a one-of-a-kind creation, unfortunately, because I know I want one. Bravo to the craftspeople on this one! [...]

X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Directed by Gavin Hood
Starring Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Ryan Reynolds
Rated PG-13
Release date: May 1, 2009

When X-Men Origins: Wolverine was leaked onto the internet and the flood of angry fanboys littered the interwebs forums with negative reactions, I was one of the many fanboys that were hesitant to go see the film in the theater. But mulling it over, I realized that many of the comic book films that I actually like are ones no fanboy will admit to liking (e.g., Watchmen, Daredevil, Fantastic Four), so I decided to jump feet first into the movie.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine explains the film in a nutshell. The movie tells the tale of how the mutant James Logan (Hugh Jackman) became Wolverine, the Adamantium-laced killing machine we all know and love. Want to see Wolvie as a small child with bone claws? Fall in love with a Canadian hottie? Fight in various World Wars and battle his brother turned nemesis Sabertooth (Liev Schreiber)? It is all here in the movie filled with action, surprises, and a tale of a man who has loved, lost, and killed along the way.

While not on par with other comic movies like The Dark Knight or X-Men, Wolverine is certainly not a boring movie [...]

Soon after the major internet leak of an unfinished version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the film’s director Gavin Hood announced that the movie would have alternate post-credits endings, with different prints of the film containing a one of the endings. I don’t know how many endings there are in total, but so far two have been talked about online.

Since this is a SPOILER article, here’s your warning: SPOILER, this article discusses the ending of Wolverine and other aspects of the film and includes spoiler video [...]