Legion of Geek

We tore ourselves away from Spore long enough to check out these links for you.

Games

• Video diary: Game producer talks Star Wars: Unleashed on the Wii

TV

• Vampire dating service: “True Blood” continues its ARG tactics
• iTunes in HD: Download free shows while they last
• Whedon writes: “Dollhouse” shuts down for more script doctoring

Books

• Listmania: SciFi/Fantasy best selling books of the week

Comics

• Because good stories never die: “Angel: After the Fall” #12 reviewed

Gear

• Android imminent: Google’s new iPhone competitor may be arriving in weeks

Productivity

• Incoming apps: Top 10 lifehacking programs not yet released

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We only recently had the great fortune of being introduced to the Reel Geezers, an acerbic duo of octagenarian movie industry vets who film short movie reviews and distribute them on YouTube. They recently took on Wanted, the summer blockbuster Mark Millar comic-inspired action flick — check out the review, embedded above.

Legion of Geek had a chance to see the film this weekend after having been psyched up for it from a sneak preview at WonderCon. We were expecting a breakneck-paced thrill ride packed with slo-mo and Angelina eye candy and we went home completely satisfied in that mission. Action scenes were inventively filmed and constructed, the cast was tight, and there were some poignant and even touching moments amidst all the explosive gun and car chase pr0n. Overall, we feel confident in awarding this film a place in the hallowed halls of Legion of Geek recommended films.

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Culling useful links for geeks from around the intarwebs since July 2, 2008:

• Get stuff: 30+ places to download free music
• GTD FTW: How to set Gmail as your default email client in Firefox 3
• Lunar eyecandy: Man on the Moon, Future and Past
• The digital living room: The Roku box to expand beyond Netflix. Living room Trojan horse?
• Drunken superheroes: Cinematical’s Hancock review
• Keep that 2g iPhone? Original iPhones can be deactivated and used as WiFi iPods

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Being fans of both the excellent series of TED talks as well as of J.J. Abrams, the creator of Lost and Alias, we were happy to re-stumble on this inspirational and entertaining 2007 presentation about the concept of the “mystery box.”

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Legion of Geek recommendations:

• Alias [in the Geek Guide to TV]
• Mutant Storm Empire [in Best XBLA Games]
• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow [in the Film Library]

First time director Kerry Conran spent four years filming against a bluescreen in his living room to produce a black and white teaser trailer for Sky Captain with his Macintosh IIci. Along with Sin City, it is one of the first major motion pictures to be shot entirely on a digital backlot. Sky Captain grossed $57.9M USD worldwide.

* It takes a village to raise a wiki. Legion of Geek warmly invites you to contribute!

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[UPDATED: Moved the embedded trailer after the break to avoid the nasty auto-play on the front page.]

Having been fortunate enough to catch a scene from the forthcoming badass supervillain assassin flick, Wanted, at WonderCon earlier this year, it’s fairly safe to say we’re looking forward to its upcoming June 27 release. Starring James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman, the film is based on the comic book miniseries of the same name by Mark Millar. io9 has a good writeup of the WonderCon preview.

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The new Star Wars: The Clone Wars trailer is out and it looks great. Well, not great in the YouTube embed above, but the Yahoo HD trailer isn’t embeddable (note to Yahoo: pull head out of ass, make videos embeddable, k thx). Or you can see it (and others) on the official Clone Wars site (note to LucasFilms: make embeddable videos with variable widths so it doesn’t break standard blog columns.)

The movie takes place between Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones and III :Revenge of the Sith. Anakin and Obi Wan are sent to investigate the kidnapping of Jabba the Hut’s son set against the Clone Wars between the Republic and the Confederacy. And it has a female Jedi apprentice, which we will gladly add to our master list of Women We Love Who Kick Ass.

The movie is due for release August 15th and sets up a new animated series debuting this Fall on the Cartoon Network. We expect a few merchandising items may make it to the store shelves around that time as well.

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What do we love more than the Hellboy II trailer? Why, the Hellboy II trailer in Russian! It holds up surprisingly well in translation, but the narrator could have put a little more growl in it. If watching your favorite trailer in different languages is your idea of a good time, the official Hellboy II site has it in German, Italian, French, Spanish and, uh, British.

Hellboy II premieres in America on July 11th.

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Andrew Stanton, he of many voices and many talents, has confirmed to Pixar Blog that he is writing the animation house’s next film, John Carter of Mars. Title ring a bell?

It’s a set of serialized action novels by Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs. It’s been through development hell for years, but Pixar (through Disney) has the rights now and is pushing forward with it.

Not Pixar’s usual family fare (see Franzetta book cover to the right), but with concept art like that to draw from, who’s arguing?

[via /Film]

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The Hulk is coming to theaters this Friday and the SciFi Channel has the exclusive look. On Wednesday’s episode of Ghost Hunters, viewers will be treated to a three minute exclusive clip of Edward Norton transforming into the angry green guy.

We’re sure they’re clinking glasses at SciFi corporate headquarters. Promotional stunts like this are geared to not only get you to watch their programming, but to also sit through their commercials. Sorry to tell them that we will be using our TiVo to do what it does best: fast-forwarding through Ghost Hunters and the commercials just to watch the Hulk preview, then deleting the entire recorded program after we’re done with the good stuff. Welcome to the age of the DVR, SciFi suits.

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