Nerd Culture Podcast

The event most people call the lead-in to the Oscars, the Golden Globes, was on today in the US, with Ricky Gervais again on fine form with hosting duties. Although not as in your face as last year, he was still quite daring and very funny.

But this isn’t one of those normal websites that report on this sort of stuff. I’m not going to bore you with a critique on the outfits on display on the red carpet, or any celeb goss,  I’ll leave that to the others (but gosh darn that Sofia Vergara!). What I will give you is a listing of the major categories and a announcement about our upcoming episode #18 on February 19.

Cecil B. DeMille Award – Morgan Freeman

Best Original Score – Ludovic Bource – The Artist

Best Screenplay – Woody Allen – Midnight in Paris

Best Director – Martin Scorsese – Hugo

Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Motion Picture) – Christopher Plummer – Beginners

Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Motion Picture) – Octavia Spencer – The Help

Best Animated Film – The Adventures of Tintin

Best Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical) – The Artist

Best Actor in a Motion Picture (Drama) – George Clooney – The Descendants

Best Actress in a Motion Picture (Drama) – Meryl Streep – Iron Lady

Best Motion Picture (Drama) – The Descendants

I’ve skipped over the TV winners for space. A full listing of the winners and nominees can be found at www.goldenglobes.org.

Not a bad night for The Descendants and The Artist. I really look forward to seeing both of these in the next week or so.

Now for my news! To celebrate this years upcoming Oscars, episode #18 of the Nerd Culture Podcast will be a special on the 2012 Academy Awards. The NCP Crew will be watching all of the nominated Best Picture films and will be giving both who we want to win, as well as our predictions for the winners. Hopefully it wont be another Shakespeare in Love year…..

So tune in for that, as well as the episodes leading up to it – we still have episodes #16 & #17 to come!

Bob Anderson, a former Olympic swordsman who staged sword fights for films including the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings series, The Princess Bride, Highlander and The Legend of Zorro (to name just a handful) has died, he was 89.

R.I.P. Mr Anderson, thank you for some of my most cherished film memories. Your incredible skills will be sorely missed.

The Nerd Culture Crew would like to wish everyone a happy New Year!

We hope you had fun celebrating last night, and aren’t too out of sorts today 🙂

The Nerd Culture Podcast will return for episode #15 on January 8th, with a rundown of our highlights from 2011.

The Nerd Culture Crew would like to wish everyone a safe and happy Christmas / Hanukkah / Kwanzaa / Winter Solstice / Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, and a safe and happy New Year.

As mentioned in our last episode (#14) we are on an extended break over the holidays and will return for episode #15 on January 8th, with a rundown of our highlights from 2011.

Enjoy your presents, and try not to eat too much!

NASA have confirmed the existance of a planet with the right distance from its star to support water, plus a suitable temperature and atmosphere to support life. They called it Kepler-22b, but I call it Earth 2!

Spinning around its star some 600 light years away, Kepler-22b is 2.4 times the size of the Earth, putting it in class known as “super-Earths,” and orbits its Sun-like star every 290 days.

Its near-surface temperature is presumed to be about 22 Celsius. Scientists do not know, however, whether the planet is rocky, gaseous or liquid.

The planet’s first “transit,” or star crossover, was captured shortly after NASA launched its Kepler spacecraft in March 2009. But lets face it, they’ve probably known about it since the days of Area 51 (how do you like that conspiracy fans?).

NASA also announced that Kepler has uncovered 1094 more potential planets, twice the number it previously had been tracking. So plenty of space to colonize and eventually conquer the galaxy.