Mobile Phone News:

[WARNING: Contains massive plot spoilers!]

I’ve had a bit of stick, recently, since I went to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, despite thinking the first film was rubbish; however, I’m a fair and equitable soul, who likes to give every film a chance (quite apart from the fact I’m a Transformers fan of some 25 years, and so, had to go see a TF film, even if I suspected it would be bobbins). After all, I couldn’t stand the first Resident Evil film, but actually quite liked the sequel, RE: Apocalypse.

Besides which, my mate was paying, so it wasn’t costing me anything, even if it was garbage.

So, I wandered over to see it, since, as well as the above, the trailer had some wide shots in, which suggested Michael Bay may possibly have listened to the complaints people had about the first film. And to be fair, there were some wide shots in it.

Alas, there was also a fundamental lack of any real plot direction, virtually no character development whatsoever, and oh so many flaws. But fortunately, it had phones in it, so I can legitimately talk about it here. Specifically, it had LG phones in it. Obviously it wasn’t something as high-end as the LG Viewty Smart, because 1/ the film was shot last year, and 2/ it’s American. I suspect it was an LG Versa, since that’s the phone LG are now selling in a limited-edition, Transformers-decorated way.

As for the film itself, though… dear god, it was awful. Like, properly, woefully bad. And that’s a real shame, because in amongst the ocean of tepid hideousness, there were one or two dead good concepts struggling to get themselves seen. Like the Decepticons threatening humanity with annihilation, unless they handed over Sleepy LaBeef’s character. That could’ve been such a good plot device, and let us see humanity at its darkest. Or the character of Jetfire, he was actually quite well done. Or the central plot conceit of Sleepy LaBeef holding the Autobot Matrix of Leadership in his head (which they nicked from the Marvel G1 comic, and hence, was something that made me do a little fanboy-smile).

But, no. Instead of a genuinely gripping, entertaining plot, we get nearly two and half hours of a robot doing something to Megan Fox’s leg (yes, think small dogs), Devastator with giant, pendulous… erm, things, made out of two wrecking balls, and a robot in disguise as a human, who has a tentacle where you really wouldn’t expect to see one.

Not to mention Michael Bay now seemingly having an obsession with tentacles. They should’ve called it Transformers: Hentaipocalypse, and had done with it…

Every reviewer who’s said the film is just like hitting yourself repeatedly with a hammer, while really staring at the inner cogs and motors of a Hoover is bang on, I’m afraid. I never thought I’d see the day when a movie that’s essentially nothing but wall-to-wall action is dull. Congratulations, Bay, you’ve somehow, magically made action boring. Oh, and a bit of extra criticism, if your title character is the bot known only as The Fallen, then don’t have The Fallen onscreen for only 3 scenes, with a combined running time of about 15 minutes. And I’d like to ask that people please, for the love of god, stop asking why a film needs to have a plot. Because it’s a film, that’s why; if it hasn’t got one, it’s just a collection of badly edited stock footage.

However, I will congratulate ILM once again, because despite being given cack designs to work with, and a director who seemingly doesn’t know how to frame a shot, you did a spot-on job with the special effects, yet again.

It’s just a shame that special effects alone don’t make a movie. You need heart and soul, and Revenge of the Fallen has neither…

Did you actually like Revenge of the Fallen? Or did you think it was a complete pile of steaming garbage? Leave us a comment and have your say!

Right, hands up, anyone who liked The League Of Gentlemen. Obviously I can’t see you putting your hands up, but I know you’re out there. And how many of you were as eager to see Psychoville as me?

I’m guessing quite a lot.

Created by two of the team behind The League, Psychoville is… well, it’s gloriously twisted. Anyone who was a fan of The League will be right at home, here, as it’s packed to the brim with some of the most grotesque characters ever to grace our screens. Oh, and yes, I spotted a mobile phone in it last night, so I’m free to blog about it with impunity, something I’ve been gagging to do since I saw the first episode, last week.

I’ll get the phones out the way first, before I delve deeper into the wonder that is Psychoville. And the phone I saw last night was a Motorola V8. So, hardly worth talking about, then (although the preview for next week’s shows Janet McTeer using a touchscreeny type phone that I’m having no joy in identifying. So check it on iPlayer, and leave us a comment with what you think it is).

Right, that’s the phones out the way, on to the glory of Psychoville itself…

Oh dear god, how can I describe it? Well, basically, the plot centres around a bunch of disparate and equally disturbing characters spread out all over the country (as opposed to the insular community of Royston Vasey, which is for locals only, as we all know), who all have something in common. They’ve all been sent a note by a hooded, anonymous blackmailer, that simply says “I know what you did”. There’s Mr Jelly, a scary, one-handed clown. There’s Oscar Lomax, a blind man obsessed with his “commodities” (which, in a stroke of genius, are Beanie Babies). There’s the serial killer-obsessed mother-and-son double act of David and Maureen Sowerbutts. There’s Robert, the dwarf with psychokinetic powers. And finally, there’s what may be the most beautifully twisted comic creation I’ve ever seen: Joy the midwife (played with beautiful malice and insanity by Dawn French, who’s back in her Murder Most Horrid mode), who clearly believes her Freddy Fruitcake doll is a real, living baby, and who feeds him blood from the blood bank in his bottle.

I never thought I’d see a group of characters to rival Edward and Tubbs, Herr Lipp and the terrifying charisma of Papa Lazarou, but by god, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton have done good. Really good. Seriously, this is most likely the one chance I’ll get, so if Pemberton or Shearsmith are reading this blog (I can dream), then I want to thank you both personally for making one of the best comedy thrillers I’ve ever seen.

And thank you for not using a laughter track. I really like the fact that with some of the bits, one is not sure whether they should be laughing or not, because it’s just so wrong, and yet, one laughs anyway.

If you haven’t yet seen Psychoville, I have but one piece of advice: get the first two episodes watched on iPlayer, and then do not miss any subsequent episodes. Trust me. And as a final treat… part of the viral marketing/alternate reality game around Psychoville, direct from Youtube, with possibly the best cameraphone-based joke I’ve ever seen…

Are you a Psychoville fan? Have you tried out the online Psychoville experience? Leave us a comment and have your say!

I’m a bit disappointed. I’ve just got the game Prototype for my Xbox. And I’m disappointed. Not in the game, the actual game rocks like nothing I’ve played in a long time. No, I’m annoyed because according to Eurogamer, there were some real adverts for Nokia in the game (sort of like real world advertising, similar to GTA IV’s fake phones, only with real, actual handsets), and after playing it solidly for about 8 hours, I haven’t seen one.

What I have seen, though, is an advert for something called Dualize, which I suspect isn’t a real product in the slightest, and this is the bit that’s annoyed me even more.

There’s a phone on those fake billboards.

And I can’t work out exactly what phone it reminds me of.

That is annoying…

It looks a bit like it’s based on a Nokia (but one of their early slidy ones, not something like the Nokia N97), but I have a radical theory. The banner is for something called Dualize (and I wish I could’ve screenshotted it), which, if you stretch your imagination a bit, could be a reference to the network Three. And then it hit me, where I reckon I’ve seen the design before. It’s almost a dead ringer for the INQ1 Facebook phone that they sell, with a bit of Nokia glued on around the nav-keys.

However, for anyone who’s played Prototype (yes, I know it wasn’t supposed to be out till today, but the place I bought it from sent my copy early)… if you can pinpoint what you reckon the phone in the Dualize banner’s based on, then leave us a comment.

Now, on to the game itself. It’s had a smattering of reviews, and some of them have been a bit mediocre. Yes, I can see why reviewers are saying the graphics aren’t up to speed, because some of the textures are a bit drab and lifeless. But that’s not the point. The point of Prototype isn’t to be relentlessly pretty, the point is to let you brutally mangle everything that you come up against. Set in the middle of some kind of massive zombie flu outbreak on Manhattan island, you play Alex Mercer, a man who’s lost his memory but somehow gained shapeshifting abilities, the ability to turn yourself in lots of pointy or bludgeony weapons, and generally eat everyone around you.

The point, then, isn’t about having super-slick, top-end graphics, it’s about mincing everyone around you, military, zombie, mutant and innocent bystander alike, into tiny, itty, bitty chunks. Oh, and punching tanks to death. If ever there was a game destined to have an 18 rating it’s this’n…

And it rocks, most assuredly. The only downside? It’s made finding a picture of it for this blog post (i.e. one without lots of graphic violence) really hard to find…

It’s just a shame there’s no real phone advertising in there. Especially on PS3. That would’ve been a great way to push the new Sony Ericsson Aino, ‘cos, like, you can use that phone to control your PS3.

Imagine watching footage from Prototype on your Aino, where the character is looking at something on his Aino.

That’s enough post-modernism to break anyone’s brain…

[EDIT: Damn. I should've played through more of the game before I wrote this post, since there is a real phone in it, handled by Alex Mercer himself, and when he slings it towards the camera in disgust, you can clearly see it's supposed to be a Nokia 6120. So, turns out Nokia maybe did get a bit of actual product placement in there! Of course, Sony may get a bit peeved seeing a Nokia phone in a game on their system, but that's their own fault, they should've got Sony Ericsson in there quicker.]

Can you pinpoint exactly what the phone adverts in Prototype are based on? Leave us a comment and have your say!

Ever since it was announced, I’ve been avoiding the new Star Trek movie like the plague. I’ve been convinced, all along, that it would be rubbish. I mean, come on, as good as Simon Pegg is, how well could he ever possibly play Scotty?

Well, I finally caved in, and went to see it.

And…

Bleedin’ nora, it was awesome! Honestly, I expected it to be bad, bordering on chuffin’ awful (since it was written by the two writers responsible for the godawful script in Transformers), but I was in for a somewhat hefty surprise. It’s genuinely well written, the acting’s superb, ScottyPegg rocks, and the plot is about as massive as it gets. I’m not going to spoil it by saying what happens, but thanks to this movie, everything about Star Trek has changed. I’ll simply use the words alternate universe, and we’ll leave it at that.

However, this is a phone blog, so there needs to be something related to phones in all of this… and there is!

Y’see, in one of the early scenes, we see a young Kirk barrelling along in a really rather nice ‘67 Corvette Stingray. Niiiiiiice car. And then, out of the blue, we hear a noise. And it’s a familiar one.

It’s that ol’ Nokia ringtone, only it’s been all futurised and done with proper synthesizers and whatnot. S’like Nokia would sound if Jean Michel Jarre was their producer. Yup, Baby James T. Kirk has got a future Nokia embedded in the dashboard of his Corvette. We get to see what Nokia phones might very well look like when man has boldly gone where no-one should’ve really gone, thinking about it, because we’ve now upset the Ferengi or something.

Of course, the phone in the film is a touchscreen, and one is forced to wonder whether that’s what the Nokia N97 has in its future. After all, as aliens all round the galaxy can attest, you haven’t lived till you’ve been manhandled by Captain Kirk…

Have you seen Star Trek? Did you love it as much as Techy Markus? Did you think Scotty’s little alien pal rocked? Leave us a comment and have your say!

Leonard Rossiter is one of the greatest comedy geniuses who’s ever lived, and many people reckon his finest hour was The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (in the interests of fairness, though, just as many people reckon that series had a tremendously weak script, and was made great solely by Rossiter and the other actors’ performances). Anyone who thinks that remakes are the work of Satan had best look away now, because the remake of that classic series, Reggie Perrin, is actually rather good.

Oh, and yes, it’s got mobile phones in it.

Well, come on, in a series that’s all about becoming disconnected and alienated by the world around you, a boring job, and the various ways the world can make you crack up in spectacular style (including having onscreen fantasies about snapping your boss’s neck), mobile phones are going to get a mention. Because not everyone loves them as much as me, let’s be honest.

And so, Reggie (played by Martin Clunes) gets an LG Viewty. Reasonably decent phone at what it does, showing its age in the modern world of mobile phones. So, was it chosen because of that, to make it a proper counterpoint to Reggie, a man whom the exact same things could be said of?

Or was it because someone on the production team likes ‘em?

Either way, it ends up making sense. I can’t see someone like the character they’ve crafted in Reggie Perrin using something like an HTC Magic, no matter how hard I try.

Although it would’ve been nice if they stuck a sneaky reference to Nokia in, when they did the episode set in Finland that had ‘globalisation’ as a theme. Us mobile phone types could have guffawed for ages, then.

So, what of Reggie Perrin the series, then? Well, a weird thing’s happened. Watching it objectively, it’s not actually that laugh-out-loud-and-wet-yourself-giggling funny… and yet, I really like it. I tune in religiously to watch it every week, and in all honesty, for the life of me, I can’t work out why I like it. Maybe it’s the pretty harsh lens it casts modern life through. Maybe it’s the fact that Martin Clunes plays downcast and fed up better than anyone else I can think of. Maybe it’s the fact it’s got personality coming out of its ears, despite not, objectively, being that hilarious. Maybe it’s because I can just feel them building up to the same fake suicide ending the original series had, which was genuinely poignant.

Or maybe it’s because it’s got Lucy Liemann in it, who knows…

In conclusion, I have absolutely no clue why I like it so much. But I do. So there.

Do you love Reggie Perrin, despite not quite knowing why? Or do you think it’s a stain on the memory of the original? Leave us a comment and have your say!

Yes, that title should give away exactly what film this blog post is about, the epic that is Snakes On A Plane. Never before has there been a film that’s so accurately summed up by its own title. It’s snakes, right? And they’re on a plane! Honestly, it’s like the Ben Hur of epic stupidity, with about 2 hours of legless lizards attacking people on a plane, and Samuel L Jackson swearing at them.

I pretty much had to watch it when it was on, on Saturday.

However, this is a mobile phone blog, and I wouldn’t be writing about it if it didn’t have mobile phones I recognise in it. Which brings us nicely to the most ham-fisted bit of product placement outside of Cloverfield. Y’see, the whole plot centres around a yakuza boss trying to kill off the witness who saw him commit a murder, who’s now under the protection of Mace Windu- sorry, Samuel L Jackson. Does the mobster shoot the witness? Does he plant a bomb on the plane?

Nope. Box full o’ snakes. And flower garlands soaked in pheromones to send ‘em mental, sending the psychotic serpents on a biting spree of biblical proportions. Cue Jackson contacting the emergency herpetologist to get anti-venom, but oh no, they’re all exotic snakes, and no American hospitals carry it. Ooh, bright idea, take photos to show the reptile boffin. But to do that, “we need a camera to take the pictures and a laptop to email them.”

Ready for the product placement? Cue the fit lass with her Palm Treo 650 (you would’ve thought somebody like Nokia or Sony Ericsson would’ve bunged them a bag of cash to use their phones, but alas not), saying “or one of these, look it can do both!”

Ha! Ham-fisted, or what!

Besides, the camera on the old Treo was bobbins, so all the herpetologist could’ve really said about any snake he saw a photo of is “er, I think it’s a green one.” Still, the important thing is, we got to see Samuel L Jackson strike down upon them with great vengeance and furious anger, those who would attempt to poison and destroy his brothers. And you knew his name was Shaft, when he laid his vengeance upon them. With a broken bottle on a stick. And a spray can with a lighter on it. Oh, and a harpoon gun.

I can’t help but wonder, as well, what phone that lass would’ve had nowadays. I mean, logic dictates it’d be the descendant of the Treo, the Palm Pre. But I bet it’d be an iPhone. After all, she had a chihuahua in her carry-on bag. That says it all, really…

How would you survive a snake attack on a 747? Do you favour the broken bottle on a stick? Or the flaming spray can? Leave us a comment and share those mid-air, serpentine survival schemes!

Ah, Monday night was brilliant for telly. First, we had Spooks, with a big huge massive ending (and no, I’m still not telling you what it was). And then, the tone changed, as I switched over in anticipation, to E4. After waiting for what seems like ages, the TV miniseries I’ve been waiting for has started.

Dead Set has arrived…

I will get onto the mobile phones in it in a bit, but first, a bit of back story.

I cannot stand Big Brother. It’s a godawful carbuncle on the face of TV. However, I did watch the first series, mainly to see whether it was a colossal wind-up, or not. And while I was watching it, me and my sister came up with a wizard wheeze. Lock the housemates in, kill all activity to the house, and let them think that the world had ended, that the apocalypse had happened. Maybe some virus, and they were quarantined. It’d be genius.

It seems the TV gods were listening to us, because Charlie Brooker, one of the most acerbic, talented and hilarious writers ever to grace our TV screens, has had the same idea. What would happen if the apocalypse happened on an eviction night? But it’s not just any apocalypse. It’s the single best apocalypse one could wish for.

Yep, that’s right.

Zombies.

Night Of The Big Brother Dead. It’s just genius, it really is, and the first, hour-long episode was pure fried gold (spot the reference, there, for a rockpoint). I made sure I got the mobile phone spotting out the way early on, so I could savour the ravenously hungry undead, and excessive gore later on. Like you do.

So, what mobile phones were on display before the country’s infrastructure went down the swanny when the rampaging undead hordes swept into the crowds on Big Brother eviction night, and tore everyone apart? Well, in truth, there was only one scene with mobile phones on display, and the only one of interest was the Nokia N82, the older, non-slidy relative of the Nokia N96. And that was it, cell towers were squashed under decayed feet, and people were forced to roam onto other networks, and everyone’s bills got higher. Or something.

Look, be thankful I even noticed the Nokia N82, I was far too excited by the prospect of seeing Zombie Davina…

Grab yourself the Nokia N82, or its new sibling, the Nokia N96 today! Be advised, though, neither are insured against zombie apocalypses!

You may remember that I’ve blogged about mobile phones on display in the top BBC drama Spooks, before. You may also recall that I said they should probably be jealous of their MI6 equivalent (a certain Mr Bond), because he gets better mobile phones than them.

Well, now that the 7th series of Spooks has hit our screens, we can finally answer the important question: have MI5 given their field agents better mobile phones?

Oh, and is Jo dead, obviously…

Well, that second one, I’m not telling, you shall have to watch it for yourself and find out. But as for mobile phones, has their selection improved any? Well, erm, not really. There was at least one Motorola KRZR on display, which… well, fair enough, it’s a really nice budget mobile phone, but you’d expect people defending the realm to get better gear.

The star of the show, though (well, in terms of mobile phones, obviously), was undoubtedly the LG Viewty, as used by field agent James Bo- erm, Adam Carter. Although that in itself causes a bit of a logical problem. At one point, he throws his mobile phone across to new field agent Guy of Gisborne… sorry, new field agent Lucas North, played by Guy of Gisborne. Only without the eyeliner.

But here’s the problem. Lucas North is supposed to have been in a Russian prison for the past 8 years.

Wow, the LG Viewty must be easy to use if someone who’s been in a Russian prison since 2000 (when the hottest mobile phone at the time was the Nokia 3210). Mind you, he’s arguably spent the last 8 years living on salt and vodka, which may have given him some techno-superpowers to instantly know how to use any mobile phones, and not get freaked out by something that, to turn-of-the-millennium phone users, would look like something that fell off the starship Enterprise.

Or, the writers forgot that bit. Still, we can forgive them, because the ending… oh, the ending!

And no, I’m not telling you, it’ll completely ruin the episode. Go and get it watched on iPlayer, now!

Then grab yourself the LG Viewty, a phone so easy to use, that even 8 years in a Russian prison can’t stop you from getting the hang of it!

As you all know, we keep an eye out for starring appearances by mobile phones on the telly, and in films, and what have you. We all especially love it when it’s a mobile phone like the new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (fresh from being used by Batman) and it’s something completely gratuitous.

I’d like to personally thank The Register for this story, since the video for Britney Spears’ new single is, erm, gratuitous in every, single, possible, imaginable way…

Erm.

Ok.

Ooh, look at that, 28 seconds in, and the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic gets to fill the whole frame, with a pointless shot of the calendar. And then there’s a good few seconds of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, taking centre-stage again, and taking Britney’s piccie while she’s perched on a photocopier.

Obviously, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is a bigger draw for people than Britney Spears, these days, what with the whole ’shaving her head and going mental’ thing.

Mobile phones - 1, Britney Spears - 0

As for the song itself… well, it’s utterly, utterly awful, and seemingly consists of Britney saying “Womanizer“, over and over and over and over and over again, inducing a mental state not dissimilar to that induced by Chinese water torture, so in that respect it could be classed as a triumphant return to her earlier career. However, it should be noted this is somewhat mitigated by the appearance of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and Britney Spears not wearing a great deal…

I also find it oddly amusing that the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is a music-centric mobile phone, yet possibly not that many people will fill it with Britney Spears songs…

You too can take your Britney Spears great music collection wherever you go! Check out our coming soon page, and let us email you when the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is released!

Warning: if you haven’t seen any of series 3 of Heroes, this post DOES contain spoilers!

Woohoo! Heroes is back!

Yes, I’m excited… Heroes rocks, as I’ve said at great length before, even if one of the new villains in this series is basically Pyro out of X-Men, and another is a German and can manipulate magnetism. Now where could we have seen a German super-villain who had magnetic powers, before, hmm…?

Oh, and look, we have product placement in it, right from the get-go! From all the cars being Nissans, through to an African bushman saying he should’ve gone with Sprint (American network, to those who don’t know), it seems everything is back to being business as usual.

Oh, and for the phones, it would seem that Samsung have paid a boatload of cash to get their mobile phones up on screen. First up was the Samsung Ace (wielded by new character Tracy Strauss), a Windows Mobile-powered Blackberry-type mobile phone thing. Which isn’t available in the UK.

Ok, forget that one, then.

Oh, and then there was the big, blatant bit of product placement, the one shown in the pic on this blog post, with Nathan Petrelli showing off his mobile phone. Like, right in the centre of the screen. Annoyingly, I couldn’t identify it, but that’s hardly surprising, with it being another phone the UK hasn’t got (as I found out after trawling the web for a bit), the Samsung Instinct.

Ah, but here, we can go ‘nyer, nyer‘ to the US of A, because we have a mobile phone that’s similar to it, but better (apart from the fact ours doesn’t have GPS). The Samsung F480 Tocco. More or the less the same interface, far better camera. The Samsung F480 Tocco’s prettier, too. Well, I reckon so.

To mitigate that, though, the guy holding the Samsung Instinct can fly.

Grab yourself the Samsung F480 Tocco, and be cooler than a superhero! Note, however, it won’t make you able to fly…