New Iron Man 2 trailer is out. More Whiplash. More Sam Rockwell (which is always a good thing), and more Iron Man suits! Looking like it’s going to be a great sequel!

Andrew Koenig

As many of you will have heard, after having been missing for 2 week, the body of Andrew Koenig, son of Walter Koenig (Pavel Chekov in Star Trek), was recently found in Stanley Park in Vancouver. Sadly, it appears that he took his own life having been suffering from depression.

When twitter first starting going into overdrive with tweets of his disappearance, the name Andrew Koenig sounded familiar, so I did a bit of googling, and realised where I’d first heard it. Sandy Collora’s brilliant 2003 fan film ‘Batman: Dead End‘, where Andrew put in a superb performance as Joker. As much as i loved Ledger and Nicholson’s versions of Joker in the movie versions, Andrew’s portrayal in Dead End is, by far, the truest to the actual comic books.

Batman: Dead End was made for $30,000, and shot in 4 days on 35mm as a director’s demonstration reel for Collora. He followed it up in 2004 with ‘World’s Finest‘, using most of the same cast and crew.

Batman: Dead End pre-dates Nolan’s ‘Batman Begins’ by 2 years, and at the time, the last thing we’d seen of Batman on screen was Clooney and O’Donnell haming it up in ‘Batman & Robin’. Collora was the first person to give us a gimse of the tone the movie franchise should have been taking.

Click the clip below to see Batman: Dead End in full.

It’s a brand new week and we have a brand new competition for you! This time we have 3 copies of the new Iron Man: Virus novel to give away!

Synopsis

Iron Man Virus

In the clear blue skies above Long Island, two airplanes collide. Tony Stark watches the scene in horror and wishes he had the technology that is almost within his reach—a new hyperintelligent instant control system that could have given the aircraft advance warning. But Stark, an obsessive, increasingly troubled recluse, doesn’t know that his invention has been compromised.

In fact, the collision was a carefully crafted hit on Madame Hydra, the final stage in Arnim Zola’s plan to seize control of HYDRA and get rid of Iron Man once and for all. The cunning adversary has already infiltrated Stark Industries security to develop a version of the instant control mechanism that will take over the armored suit and turn it against Stark and S.H.I.E.L.D. While Tony races to track down the source of the intrusion, Zola unleashes direly ingenious computer viruses and the ultimate secret weapon: a murderous clone army based on Stark’s most trusted friend. A puppet master of self-replicating terror, Zola is plunging a city into a war that threatens to consume all in its wake.

This brand new, original novel goes beyond the movie story to continue the adventures of Tony Stark!

How to enter

Competition is now closed!

In the UK? Want to win an Iron Man: Virus novel? Just follow @geektown and RT this tweet! Details at http://bit.ly/bjWYg3

The competition closes on 15th Feb 2010 and is open to UK residents aged 18 or over. There will be 3 winners picked from twitter . By entering this competition, you are agreeing to the rules of this competition. Full rules can be read here.

2009 was a pretty good year for the sci-fi film. Not only did it produce the movie that’s well on the way to becoming the highest grossing movie of all time, but also some great little sci-fi gems that you may have overlooked. So heres GeekTown’s top 5 list of sci-fi movies from the last 12 months:

GeekTown’s Top 5 Sci-Fi Movies Of 2009

Watchmen

5. Watchmen

Watchmen got a fairly mixed reception on release. Yes, it did lose some of the weight of the Moore/Gibbons source material, but considering the number of people that had said it was ‘unfilmable’, and the directors that had been attached to the project and given up, I think Zack Snyder did an decent job with it. Maybe it wasn’t a unique as the comic book fans wanted, but Zack still made a very complex graphic novel into a perfectly fine, engaging superhero movie.

Avatar

4. Avatar

Currently on it’s way to sinking Titanic as the highest grossing movie of all time, James Cameron proves once again with Avatar that he doesn’t know how to make a non-smash hit movie. The lush visual world Cameron creates on Pandora, and the groundbreaking CGI work used to create the Na’vi set a new benchmark for special effects in film.

For our full review of Avatar and the Avatar premiere, click here.

3. Moon

Moon

Moon is probably the least well know of the films in this list, but is well worth seeking out on DVD/Blu-ray if you haven’t seen it yet. Duncan Jones makes a stunning directorial debut, in a clever film that has far more in common with the distopian sci-fis of the early 70s rather than your Avatar style blockbuster. The film is practically a one man show for the lead Sam Rockwell, who turns in a performance that (if there’s any justice) really should gain him an Oscar nomination.

Created for the tiny sum (in filmic terms) of $5 million, Moon proves you don’t need a massive Hollywood budget to create impressive, intelligent sci-fi.

For our full review of Moon click here.

2. District 9

District 9

District 9 was another of those films that crept up through the summers massive blockbusters of giant robots and pointy clawed mutants to slap them around the face and show you didn’t need a massive budget to make great sci-fi. Shot for a modest $30 million, Neill Blomkamp made a stunning feature length debut by adapting one of his earlier film shorts, Alive in Joburg, to create District 9. Taking on the themes of apartheid and translating them into a sci-fi setting Blomkamp creates a wonderfully intellegent and brilliantly original movie. The film is also a feature debut for lead Sharlto Copley (soon to be seen as ‘Howling Mad’ Murdock in the A Team movie), who manages the difficult job of taking his character Wikus van der Merwe, who really shouldn’t be all that like-able, and make you feel sympathy for him.

Not got round to seeing District 9 yet? We have copies on DVD and on Blu-ray to give away! Click here to enter the competition!

1. Star Trek

Star Trek

Like a lot of Trek fans, when it was announced that they were planning on rebooting Star Trek, a shiver ran up my spine… You can’t recast Kirk! You can’t recast Spock!.. Well, turns out you can. And very successfully too! JJ Abrams managed the seemingly impossible task of updating Trek without annoying Trekkers/Trekkies, and still bringing non-Trek movie goers to the franchise. By the simple but ingenious idea of creating an alternate timeline, thereby leaving the original universe intact, every body’s happy, and JJ has a whole new Star Trek universe to do whatever he likes with.

Zachary Quinto turns in a performance of Spock that nearly ‘out Spocks’ Leonard Nimoy (who also appears as ‘Spock Prime’). Chris Pine manages to still convey a very Kirk-like attitude, but without trying to imitate the unique Mr. Shatner. A mention also needs to go to Karl Urban’s brilliant portrayal of Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy which at times felt like he was actually channeling DeForest Kelley.

JJ Abrams achieved the seemingly unachievable in reinvigorating the Star Trek franchise without alienating existing fans and stomping over it’s rich lineage, and for that, we say ‘Live Long and Prosper’.

Click here to read our full review of Star Trek, and here for our coverage of the Star Trek premiere.

Our live streaming of what went on at Leicester Square outside the World Premiere of Sherlock Holmes last night has now finished, however we do have this nice little highlight video.

There’s also a free-to-play online game based on the movie availible to play at http://www.221b.sh

Sherlock Holmes World Premiere!

Some shots of the upcoming ‘Smallville: Absolute Justice’ tv movie have started to pop up around the web over the last couple of days, so I thought it’s only fair to post them up!

There’s also this trailer:

Well, I say upcoming…

‘Smallville: Absolute Justice’ tv movie IS upcoming if your in the USA…

Once again, despite the US  having started Smallville season 9 in Sept 09, the UK is stuck waiting on the moronic idiot E4 programme schedulers for a Smallville season 9 uk air date… Given past history, i’m guessing it’ll be May 2010 before UK fans will get to see it (legally anyway) in the UK. I really really don’t condone downloading, but i’m not sure what broadcasters like E4 think is going to happen when you get a very dedicated fanbase that you force to wait 8 months to view their show legitimately…