My Geeky Trivia

By Geeky Gem

For this week trivia I am taking back in time again to a movie I loved as a child and had for Christmas on Blu-Ray. Flight of the Navigator was just one movie that as a kid I watched over and over again.

When David’s parents pull up to their house in the beginning of the movie, the song playing on the car radio is “You’re The One That I Want” from “Grease”, also directed by Randal Kleiser.

In his room in Nasa base, David asks when “Starsky and Hutch” is broadcast. Director Randal Kleiser also directed Starsky and Hutch.

The ship used in the movie can be found in a boneyard at the Disney MGM Studios Theme Park at Walt Disney World in Florida. It can be seen on the studio tour.   (Which I have seen and have a picture of.)

The tee-shirt worn by the girl at the restroom is for EPCOT Center, the then-new Disney theme park in Florida. Her brother is wearing a Miami Vice tee-shirt.

When MAX, the ship computer, is describing the animals he has on board, he said “That is a Feenastarus from the Pixar Elliptic”. This was five years before Pixar, a fledgling special effects computer group at the time, teamed up with Disney, who produced this film.

The second film released under the Disney banner to contain profanities (the first being 1981’s The Devil and Max Devlin). The word “shit” is said twice.

When escaping the NASA facility, MAX and David travel “precisely 20 miles from point of origin” in approximately 35 seconds. This is equivalent to a speed of 2,057 miles per hour.

One of the prop hulls was refurbished and is now used as the topper to a drink station in Tomorrowland at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom.

The music video playing in the scene where David meets Carolyn McAdams is Blancmange’s “Lose Your Love.”

There we have it, Flight of Navigator was an awesome movie and has all the things I love in it, Aliens, adventure and a talking ship what more could you want.

WEDNESDAY WHIMSY

By @hmsbeefnuts

This weeks Wednesday Whimsy will be an ode to holidays. Not the kind of holiday where you board a plane and jet off to exotic places for a week or two, and certainly not a celebration of some religious event (for that is where holiday gets its origin, holiday/holy-day, your welcome fact fans). This year I have a week off, one whole week away from work, where I get to do exactly what I want for a whole week, exciting huh? Well it is for me. So far, we are a day in, and I have slept in and gone to the cinema and made some nice food, and taken my dog for long walks. Pretty good so far. But I thought I’d let you know about what else I have planned for the week, at least in a geek context, let the Summer of Jon commence!

As I mentioned above, I saw Brave yesterday. A lot of people are hating on this film, but for me, Brave is one of, if not the, best Pixar film. The animation is obviously stunning, as usual, but the theme of the film is right up my alley. The ancient Scottish wilderness is simply beautiful, stunning hills and mountains, picturesque forests and castles and brilliantly rendered characters, many of which are memorable. The protagonist herself, Merida, is a strong female role model, and one of the most likeable animated characters in a while. Sure, the story is pretty basic, we all learn a valuable lesson in the end, but then it must be remembered that this is a kids film, and although it doesn’t stray far from typical fairytale plot points, including a witch, although, not all that wicked, this is no bad thing. Sometimes the simplest stories are the best.

Perhaps the most ‘Disney’ of the Pixar films, Merida should fit nicely into the Disney Princess Sorority, even if she is very ballsy and would destroy Katniss Everdeen in an archery competition. I’m a fan of fairy stories, myths and legends, and Brave defiantly feels like it belongs in such illustrious company. I saw Brave in a room full of excited kids and not so excited parents, but everyone left the theatre smiling. The film had good action scenes, was scary enough just to put an edge on proceedings, and I’ll admit it, quite heart warming at times. I went to see this with my Mum, and there is not a better person you could take with you to see this, go take your Mum now. I’ll admit it, I’m not a fawning Pixar fan, I like The Incredibles, Nemo and Monster Inc. but hate Toy Story, Cars, Wall-E and Ratatouille. Brave however, did it for me, top marks Pixar.

Today I returned to the Cinema, this time for The Bourne Legacy. I had enjoyed all The Bourne films thus far, and am happy to say this continued with this new direction for the franchise. Taking place during the events of the previous films, The Bourne Legacy widens and enhances the Bourne Universe, revealing that the secret goings on of Treadstone etc. go way beyond Mr. Bourne. Hawkeye himself, Jeremy Renner is our hero and he handles himself superbly, even coming close to a certain Mr Neeson in one specific wolf fighting scene. It seems that wolves are the go to animal for putting main characters in danger. As is usual in these kind of spy films, characters all talk very quickly about secret organisations with amazing names and codewords, I love all that stuff. Ed Norton is the man charged with bad guy duties, and he does a reasonable job of trying to track Renner down. The beautiful and amazing Rachel Weisz is on hand to scream a bit, then lend a hand, and maybe become a bit of a love interest at the end. The action is typical of The Bourne Franchise, all parkour running about, bike chases and slick taking people down with no fuss.

The film is perfectly watch-able and enjoyable, but I do think that I should have perhaps re-watched the previous films, just to keep things fresh in my mind, however, if this is your first Bourne film, it wouldn’t be too confusing, although you may wonder why Matt Damon is reduced to a few black and white picture cameos. By no means a great film, but I enjoyed it and would watch a further sequel, and isn’t that all a film really needs to accomplish. Worth my time and money.

Later on this week I plan on seeing The Expendables 2, and that should be enough cinema for anyone in one holiday. Anyway, that’s enough chatter about me, I would also like to comment on All Geek To Me as a whole. Geeky Gem and I would like to extend our sincerest thanks to everyone who has read, commented or licked a link to All Geek To Me over the past 8 months. On Sunday we hit a huge landmark of 25,000 views, we broke our weekly view record with a very respectable 1,921 views and also beat our previous daily record of views with a fantastic 368 in one day. So a massive thank you once again. I really don’t think either Geeky Gem or I ever thought we would get 1,000 views, let alone 25,000 so we are very grateful to you all. I’ll catch you next week with some more rubbish about something I haven’t thought of yet, catch you guys later.

 

Avenging April: The Incredibles

By Geeky Gem

 We here at All Geek just love our Super Heroes, you may have noticed this from our pick for movie of the month or my obsession with Batman. However Batman is not the only Super Hero I like, there are loads, and a few too many to mention here, besides this article isn’t about those heroes.

 This article is about The Incredibles. Back in 2004, Pixar was starting to make a big splash in a small pond. With films such as Toy Story and A Bug’s Life under its belt, they came out with a movie about a family of Super Heroes forced to try and live a nomal life.

Now at the helm of this movie was none other than Bard Bird, a former director and executive consultant of The Simpsons. With such actors as Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Jason Lee and Samuel L. Jackson providing the voices what could go wrong with this movie.

Turn’s out nothing, it was a huge hit for Pixar and Disney. The reason I like this movie so much, is due to the simple but entertaining story. Super heroes where once much loved people of the world but a few law suits and continuous rebuilding of said cities, has led the heroes to take refuge in their mild manered alter ego’s. Here they must stay or risk being up routed and moved to a new city if people find out who they are. Bob yearns to help people, and in his alter ego’s day job he tires to do just that. This however is not enough for Bob and he wants more, so when he is offered the chance to be a hero in secret he jumps at the chance.

 

When Bob/Mr Incredible gets in to trouble on a secret mission, it is up to his family, and their friend Frozone, to save him from the evil Syndrome and his Robot, Omnidroid. Syndrome was once Mr Incredibles biggest fan, shund by the hero, Buddy, now called Syndrome, has vowed to distory him and his family. I guess I should tell you what powers The Incredibles posses, Mr Incredible is very strong, Mrs Incredible/ Elastigirl, can streach her body to great lengths, thier daugther Violet can turn her self Invisible and create force fields. Dash their eldest son, can run at break neck speeds and Jack-Jack well thats a secret. As the family re-groups and Frozone joins them they try to down Syndrome and his evil robot. Now if you havent seen it I will not spoil the end for you, as it very good.

The Incredibles is a feel good family movie, and brings not just super hero’s into the mix but a very strong feeling of family. The animation is fantastic and is of the quality you expect from Pixar, as is the music. The whole thing just comes together nicely. If you havent seen and you like super hero’s and Pixar animation then you have to see this.