Freyburg

Yep, to the surprise of no-one, injecting yourself with botulism toxin to fight wrinkles turns out to be a bad idea. Scientists have discovered that the beauty cocktail, much favored by aging cougars and Hollywood royalty, can even result in death. Ah, vanity, thou art a treacherous harpy.

The BBC threw us a nice softball by releasing a “cinema-exclusive” season 4 trailer on February 1st, which someone promptly uploaded to Youtube. The RFS crew took much delight in analyzing and dissecting this tasty morsel, speculating wildly on what are likely innocuous shots of no real relevance. We also discussed the newest episode of Torchwood, hashed over Russell T Davies declaration that he keeps fans at arm’s length, and of course went our trademark off-topic ramblings as per usual. (feed, web, direct download)

The BBC released a trailer for Series 4 of Doctor Who today in England…but only in movie theatres. Presumably this thing will hit the net in a day or two and look much better than this version shot on someone’s camcorder (or even their phone)…but me wantee now! And so do you, so watch it.

According to a recent article in Slate, movies appearing at the Sundance film festival by and large don’t get pirated, and instead wallow in obscurity. The author’s contention is that pirates only pay attention to big releases, but I think it may have more to do with the fact that the average Sundance filmmaker probably isn’t tech-savvy enough to get their film onto torrent sites in the first place. After all, 90 percent of the films at Sundance and other film festivals go on to virtually no distribution, so why not at least try to get some eyeballs on all that hard work?

So last night we went to see Cloverfield, the much-vaunted “Blair Witch meets Godzilla” mishmash of home video and huge effects. I’ll start with the good…the effects are top notch and the monster is pretty cool. Where the film falls apart is in dialogue, plot and character. The alleged protagonists are all self-absorbed hipster douchebags, and not nearly enough of them get eaten or otherwise butchered for my liking. I don’t think I was supposed to laugh at this film or cheer on the monster, but I did anyway. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it, because it was cool to see Manhattan get menaced by a giant whatsit…but I wish they’d picked somewhat less retarded individuals for me to root for.

After scheduling snafus and real life intruded to keep us from recording last week, the RFS crew returned to discuss the first two episodes of Torchwood (verdict: pretty decent), speculate on the latest round of rumours, and digress as always into realms nonsensical. And for once we actually came in at under an hour. Enjoy!(feed, web, direct download)

With an unending writer’s strike and web video nipping at its heels, the tradition of spending millions on pilot episodes of series that usually never get made is slowly winding down into oblivion NewTeeVee explains how the web model of cheaply building an audience organically is the way of the future. Kent Nichols of “Ask a Ninja” fame has further thoughts on the democratization of series development.

Due to my crazy post-Macworld schedule and other circumstances, Radio Free Skaro #67 has hit a bit of a delay…..but by garr, we’re trying to get it out as soon as possible. So patience, faithful listeners, it’ll be here soon!

Somehow, despite an almost complete lack of news, the RFS crew managed to pack together almost an hour of action-packed banter, hilarity and mumblesuch into the latest podcast. Enjoy our digressions and debate, and stay tuned for next week when we’ll have the premiere of the second season of Torchwood to mull over and…well, another 40-odd minutes of banter. (feed, web, direct download)

The Justice League catapults back to the Victorian Age, in action figure form. What’s not to like? It’s pretty much nerdvana. (courtesy of this post at Boing Boing)