A new Iron Man trailer has turned up on MySpace. We see a lot more of Stark in this one than the superbowl spot, and he gets some excellent lines

Hmmm, not put up any new posts for a while.

The other weekend, I decided to finally do something with the spare partition on my Linux drive.

Since getting the new drive, the intention had always been to have a main Ubuntu setup, and a couple of other distros to play with. Since I’d been impressed with SuSE, it was the 2nd distro, but until recently the third spot had been free.

After some deliberation, I decided to install PCLinuxOS. According to Linux Format, its flavour of the month, and is fast rivalling Ubuntu’s popularity as an easy-to-use distro.

Sadly, it proved to be too much grief for me. There was something about my hardware it really didn’t like.

On booting up after the install:

Strike 1 - no sound. Well, in fairness Ubuntu has issues in that area as well (although seems fixed in the Hardy Alpha4 liveCD I tried - and in Ubuntu at least, its quickly sorted).

Strike 2 - no NVidia drivers. Well, some distros are funny about carrying them, so maybe I’ve just been spoiled by Ubuntu automatically detecting the card and asking me if I wanted to install them.

Strike 3 - No ethernet. This broke the camel’s back for me. Every other distro and live CD I’ve tried has had no problems detecting my Ethernet. Just two of these problems and I might’ve stuck with it, but no ethernet was really a killer. I didn’t see why I should spend time trying to fix something so vital when I had other distros sitting there.

So, I went back to the Linux Format distro heaven DVD and looked to see what else there was. Then Mandriva caught my eye.

When I was last into Linux. Mandrake was the distro of choice for many users, and that included myself. Having fond memories of it, I thought I’d give this latest incarnation a spin.

What a difference.

Everything just worked from the outset. On rebooting after the install, I was greeted with the NVidia logo with no prompting (although I appreciate that not automatically installing their drivers is a matter of principle with other distros like Ubuntu). My ethernet was up and running no bother, and my sound was clear as a bell (score one over Ubuntu).

While Mandriva may not be the big name it used to be, I must admit, from my first impressions its still an incredibly good desktop distribution. Its been the easiest to install and get up and running from the ones I’ve tried so far, and KDE’s as easy to use as you’d expect (although I’m still a GNOME man).

Definitely worth a try if you’re looking for an easy distro.

I do still find the PCLinuxOS thing a bit strange though. Given its glowing reviews, and the fact that its actually based on Mandriva, I’m really at a loss to explain the problems I had. I’m sure other people have had more luck than me with it, but as I say, first impressions - especially with a system that was for mucking about - didn’t give me much reason to stick with it.

Well, the Guardian is carrying the story that Knight Rider pulled in nearly 13 million viewers, and looks likely to be picked up for a series:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/feb/19/tvratings.tvnews

Good news indeed. As I said, the pilot had its rough spots, but if the creative team look at all the positive and negative reviews objectively, there’s no reason to suspect it won’t do well. Certainly, they have to keep in mind what kept kids tuning in during the 80s, so lots of KITT and stunts will be the order of the day.

I suspect it won’t be long before we see a bidding war between Sky and Virgin for this one…

Well, last night was the much anticipated (by me anyway) premier of the new Knight Rider movie/backdoor pilot.

In a nutshell, I liked it.

Like most pilots though, there were a good few rough edges. The first hour or so, the creators stuck with what everyone was tuning in for. KITT was very much centre stage, and there was an awful lot of beauty shots of the car. Which is good. This is Knight Rider, and ultimately we’re all there for the cool car.

The movie ultimately relied a lot on car chase sequences, with few big stunts or gizmos from KITT thrown in (no turbo boost here). However I felt the movie still did a good job of showcasing the Knight 3000’s abilities, with its camoflage, and constant hacking of security systems to aid Mike and Sarah, even when KITT wasn’t physically with them.

Kilmer’s voice clicked well as KITT, although at times I did find the odd line a bit flat, and, given the trailer footage, did find myself wondering what seeing Will Arnett’s take for the full pilot would’ve been like.

But, as I said, it had some rough edges. While the writer’s (wisely) cited last year’s Transformers as an influence, with its relationship between Sam and Bumblebee, this missed the mark in the pilot. Mike is left as a background figure a bit too long, and doesn’t really get much chance to build a relationship with KITT. Instead, Sarah is given far more focus for the first half hour or so, which was understandable for the setup, but still, it was to the detriment of Mike’s character.

The big issue for me though, was that after having centre stage for the first hour, KITT then vanishes for the final 20 minutes after his system is hacked, only cropping up again at the very end. Sadly, the plot had had an awful lot of KITT, Sarah and Mike driving through the mountains for the first hour, and so the supercar had to be shoved out of the way to make room for some rapid characterisation in the final 20 minutes.

This was also done to add a sense of danger, and make the car vunerable, but I can’t help but feel this could’ve still been accomplished while still having KITT as a prescence in the final scenes. It was established that his system had been hacked, so it would’ve been an easy explanation that this had affected his self-regeneration properties.

However, on balance I still enjoyed it. Pilots invariably have rough edges, and there’s definitely scope for this to have some legs if it makes it to a full series. The scene with Michael Knight at the end promises a return for the character, and the final scene sets us up with a more classic Knight Rider feel: the support crew (this time on a plane instead of a semi), and Mike and KITT, driving out solo. Mike’s best friend being present screams “dodgy comedy sidekick” though, and is something they should be wary of should this get picked up for a full season. Likewise, they need to bring the humour out a bit more. Some funny lines and scenes were there, but they could do with being more prominent.

I leave you with the new opening credits with the new theme. A nice touch, as most pilots don’t bother making up a proper set of opening credits.

The last episode of Journeyman aired last week. The announcer told us it’d be back next season, but clearly someone at Sky hasn’t been doing their research, since the show was axed in the states due to poor ratings.

I’m actually pretty gutted it was axed. Its been quite a strong season for Sci-Fi programmes this year from the States, but sadly, be it low-ratings or the writer’s strike, a lot of them have either been axed (Journeyman, Bionic Woman) or have an uncertain future (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles).

Journeyman was a great show. Although initially seeming like a modern day version of Quantum Leap, the show really broke away from this by focusing on events on the present day. While the main character Dan travelled back in time to fix people’s lives, the writers cleverly kept focussed on the effect this would have on his life in the present day. We see his wife struggling to adapt to the new situation, with Dan disappearing back in time, his brother becoming suspicious that Dan’s gambling addiction has resurfaced, and we also get Dan’s attempts to discover what is happening to him and why.

The show certainly seemed to lay a lot of groundwork that presumably would’ve been picked up in a second season. Its a shame now that we’ll never discover who the rogue FBI agent was working for, or see if my pet theory about Dan’s father being a time traveller would be confirmed.

For anyone that didn’t catch the show on its first airing, its definitely worth checking out.

I read about this yesterday, but I thought the BBC story bared linking to:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7246641.stm

Largely for the great quote about Star Trek being in the same league as Transformers. As a long-time Transformers geek, it warms my heart to hear it mentioned in that way

As for the movie delay? Well, when I heard about it, I hoped that it meant some post-writers-strike reshoots. JJ Abrahams has been quoted saying that there were scenes whose dialogue he would’ve liked to have changed, but couldn’t because of the strike, so delaying the film by 5/6 months would’ve seemed like a good idea to go back and tweak it. However, from the studio quote, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Personally, I don’t quite get the summer-blockbuster excuse. Christmas seems perfectly acceptable as a release time for such minor franchises as Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and James Bond.

Bet James Bond wishes he was in the same league as Transformers.

This week’s Green Lantern Corps #21 takes us to one side from the main action in Green Lantern Corps. While the title is meant to be the “Guy and Kyle” book, this issue doesn’t actually feature either (although the clock is surely ticking down to Guy’s first run in with the Alphas). However, with the story tying in heavily to current events in Green Lantern, I didn’t actually miss them.

Not to mention, as the name of the book is “Green Lantern Corps”, I think it’d be remiss if it didn’t take time to highligh other members of the Corps. Perhaps this idea of side-stepping the usual cast to allow for a couple of fill-ins featuring other Corps members is something that could happen more often?

While I’ve been enjoying Peter Tomasi’s run so far (to the point that I picked up his first 2 issues of Nightwing the other week, both of which I really enjoyed), the fill in team of Sterling Gates and Nelson do a great job on the writing and art duties. Boodikka’s never been a character I’ve been that bothered about, but I enjoyed the focus on her as an Alpha Lantern, to give us more of a glimpse into their lives. I’m looking forward to part 2 of this.

However, while the Alpha Lanterns are big news, Booster Gold once again delivered the goods. While its maybe not DC’s highest profile book, its still consistently excellent, providing a great mix of laughs and superhero drama.

Fresh from rescuing Ted Koord from his untimely demise (something you just *know* is going to backfire) Booster and the Blue Beetles are travelling back through the time stream when they suddenly pass by Extant and Parallax, who are in the middle of Zero Hour. Its a great scene, with both parties just staring at each other, before Parallax and Extant snap out of it and go on the offensive. They end up back in Booster’s hometime of the 25th century, and Johns and Katz use this as a great time to have a look at what drives Booster as a character. His relationship with his father (key to the unvieling of Supernova’s identity) is further explored, and Booster’s guilt over his sister’s death is brought up. A really nice set of scenes, which worked really well, especially when you consider the comedy a few pages earlier of bumping into Parallax.

Time for another, rare non-Knight Rider post

Last night gave us a cracking double bill of Torchwood. I’ve mentioned before just how much stronger I’m finding season 2, but these episodes underlined it nicely.

Adam was a great episode. You really felt for Rhys when Gwen couldn’t remember him and pulled a gun on him, and Jack’s backstory was great. Some of the stuff regarding his memories seemed a bit confusing though. Did Adam permanently change his memory of his family?

And it has to be said, I loved Owen in this episode. Burn Gorman did a cracking job of turning his character around, stripping him of his confidence. It really gave him a chance to show off his acting skills. Another good week for Naoko Mori as well, as she got to play Toshiko as a more confident character.

And then, just to cap things off, the announcement over the credits that the next episode was on BBC3. Brilliant!

Cracking to have Martha back. I was never a huge fan of Rose, and was really gutted when Martha left the TARDIS after only one season. Her and Jack were on good form, and I loved the idea that the Doctor had pulled some strings (phoned the Brig?) to get Martha the UNIT job.

And the ending! Forget how good Adam was. Forget Martha coming back. Owen dying came as a huge shock. Granted, this being the genre it is, there’s a good chance he’ll get better next week, but there’s a side of me that hopes this is permanent. It was a brilliant shock, and it’d be a shame to undermine it by undoing it a week later.

However, saying that, I’ve been enjoying Owen a lot more this season, and I loved his turn as “geeky Owen” in Adam, so there’s a side of me that hopes he does recover via some alien gizmo-of-the-week.

Well, its a rare non-Knight Rider post from me tonight

I was out catching new Glasgow band playing at Barfly tonight. It was the first Glasgow gig for The Riechoes, my brother’s new band.

It was an excellent gig, and they’ve got some excellent numbers. Personal bias aside, I definitely recommend any readers check them out live at their next gig.

You can hear some of their stuff, and follow their news at their myspace page:

http://www.myspace.com/theriechoes

Well, with the premier of the new Knight Rider imminent, the publicity has really stepped up. We seem to be getting something new pretty much every day

This time its a full one minute trailer. Love the intro with Sarah getting a call from a caller that turns out to be KITT