Remember yesterday when I said Kylo Ren and Poe Dameron sound like Indie Bands. Well, it got me thinking about the fact that both Adam Driver and Oscar Issac star in the brilliant Coen Brothers Inside Llewyn Davis

And here they both are singing about going into space. Hmmm.... does this mean Snoke is actually Justin Timberlake?

(And yes lots of these posts are about Star Wars. How can do a blog about geeky stuff without mentioned the biggest geek thing of the year, and the decade?)

Shouting Into The Void

(Star Wars VII - The Force Awakens, seen 17/12/2015 at Kino Kosmos, Tallinn)

WARNING - THIS IS FULL OF SPOILERS!!!!!

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

OK?

*So, Han and Leia's son has turned to the Dark Side, a new evil shimmers over the galaxy after the demise of the Empire and Luke Skywalker seems to have run away at the first sign of trouble. Welcome to Star Wars Episode VII - Everyone in the Original Movies you loved turns out to be a bit shit

*This is a mirror of the original film. Whether you want to go for 'this is a testament to the power of the first one' or 'can't anyone do anything original' is up to you

*Gets straight into the action. You can really tell the fact that there's a lot of physical effects as opposed to CGI

*My they're going to sell a lot of BB8 toys. 

*Rey is a great character. Watch for the constant "She's a breath of a fresh air in a male dominated mythology' / 'No she isn't' type back and forth that the internet loves. 

*Look, I am not suprised you know who was offed (considering their actor had asked for them to be killed off before). But you could hear the childhood dreams of a generation breaking when that scene occured

*Snoke - bet he turns out to be tiny and the 'Anti-Yoda'

*Millennium Falcon was cool, is cool and will remain cool 

*Bad guys in the Star Wars Universe. Next time you plan a large killing machine ask the designers 'Is there a flaw that someone can exploit'. If they say 'Yes' then defend the fucking thing you idiots.

*Stop this 'ooh, they're looking a bit old and not like I remember them' about the actors from the original. People get older and look different. Get over it.

*Just how did Kylo get his grandfather's skull? Scouring the galaxy, stolen from an Ewok trader or a weird Xmas present?

*Kylo Ren - an indie band if ever I heard one

​*Actually, so is Poe Dameron

*Mark Hamill's agent deserves a medal. "So Mark. You'll stand around in what appears to be an Enya video for two minutes and get paid a shitload of money". "I'm good with that."

*This does feel 'proper' Star Wars and one that appeals to fanboys and a new generation. Though it's a shame it does end on a vague cliffhanger and not have proper 'closure' like the original. Though welcome to the world of franchises 

*I liked it a lot though. Yes it's Hollywood franchise excess. But it's pretty good Hollywood franchise excess.

One of my favourite short films of this year. Look, it's got a cop called Triceracop, a song by David Hasselhoff and Hitler - "The worst criminal of all time". 

It's just enormous, enormous fun....

Not sure if this counts as nerdy or not, but I love this old documentary. I think Lee Titt is one of the great lost British filmmakers. Don't you?

There's a little known film coming out soon called STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS, which you should go watch to support independent cinema.

To get ready, why not watch the genius short Vader Sessions which takes dialogue from other James Earl Jones films to create a whole new back story for Darth Vader in A New Hope...

Having already talked about my love of my redesigned movie posters. I am also a big fan of book covers, especially Penguin Books. So I love these classic Video Games re-imagined as book covers from the great illustrator Olly Moss

When I was a young slip of a lad, there was plenty of sci-fi TV shows. Babylon 5. The various iterations of Star Trek. X-Files. Millennium. And hands up who remember the likes of Dark Skies, Ultraviolet (a curious British vampire show) and loads of others in the ealry to mid 90s when sci-fi was the 'in' thing.

Then there was a dip. Reality TV became king and the sci-fi/genre show became something of a rare thing.

But now sci-fi and genre are back. The Flash. Gotham. Daredevil. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Even The X-Files. 

And I haven't seen any of them. It's hard to make the commitment to one show let alone plenty. But in 2015 I aim to try and get through some of them. A little bird makes it known that I have season 1 of Gotham in my Xmas Stocking (and to be fair, season one of True Detective as well..... I hope the winter is cold to justify spending all my time indoors....)

If there are two things I would want more of, it would be time and more wall space. I love posters - and especially film poster - and I love alternative designs for films but have no space to put them...

It all started with me when I started going to Poland more than a decade ago and discovered their history of poster art and how they did posters completely differently from the norm (often the artist only had the synopsis for the film). Things such as 8 1/2 and The Birds  (pictured in this article) were stunning to me.

Now alternative posters are a big thing all over the world and I can;t help but marvel over many.

But until I decide to put things up in the cold corridor there's not much room....

I have a son.

He has a soft Batman toy/teddy. A Batmobile. Various Batman onesies and T-Shirts. And the Batduck, pictured above.

Why do I think he'll like Superman just to spite me?