One of the greatest joys of having Barack Obama as President of the United States is having a bona fide geek leading the country. The Pres is into comic books and Star Trek, and has even thrown up the Vulcan “live long and prosper” salute. When he was still a US Senator, he had on his website a photo of himself in front of a Superman statue. This is a man after our own hearts.

Now, the geeky Obama strikes again with a recent photo-op on the White House lawn where he’s wielding a toy lightsaber after a fencing demonstration. The event was held yesterday to promote Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympic Games [...]

Steven Spielberg has been trying to make a movie called Lincoln for quite some time now, but to no avail. He even had Liam Neeson attached to star as Abe, but all of those complicated little components to a film’s production became a little too big and the project has been stalled out since then. In what you would think might make things even worse for Spielberg, Robert Redford has announced that he’s now making his own Lincoln movie called The Conspirator, which will begin filming soon, and stars James McAvoy and Robin Wright Penn. Of course, you’d be wrong.

No, it’s actually quite the contrary — Mr. Spielberg is thrilled with this news and welcomes Redford’s movie with open arms. The reason? There are a couple. Most important of all is obvious: the eyes. Spielberg hopes that people seeing this new movie will open more doors for his movie to get the backing that it needs. He also believes that there is plenty of stories to be told about the legendary president, and that his is completely different from theirs. [...]

It appears that director Oliver Stone will be branching off into the world of documentary film making with a new 10-part series called Secret History of America, which will air on Showtime in a one-hour episodic format. The show’s content is all-but-guaranteed to stir up controversy and get people fumed and debating.

The series will be narrated by Stone, and will cover many different hugely-important and “under-reported” events in American history of the last 60 years, revealing many “newly discovered facts and accounts” that we never knew about before. Of the project, Stone stated that “through this epic 10-hour series, which I feel is the deepest contribution I could ever make in film to my children and the next generation, I can only hope a change in our thinking will result.”

Topics that will be covered range from the Cold War and the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima, to the Vietnam war, the Kennedy administration, and America’s impact on the world since Communism fell. [...]

What happens when the most powerful man on the planet in President of the United States, Barack Obama, meets the most “explosive” director in cinematic history, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen director Michael Bay? Does the universe implode? Does God shoot off some fireworks synchronized to an Aerosmith soundtrack to set the mood? Maybe we just get an innocent and amusing little story and quote.

While at a press conference recently, Bay was asked about why he chose to use President Obama’s name in his Transformers sequel instead of a fictional presidential figure. Bay went on to tell the story of his meeting Obama in an airport in Vegas right after the start of his presidential campaign. The entertaining part of the story comes when Obama found out Bay was a director and which movies he had made, he humorously corrected him by saying “So you’re a big-ass director,” to which Bay surely takes pride in.

Obviously this is more just a fun little tid-bit and not that important. But while the story is entertaining, the original question is a bit odd. [...]

While watching The Colbert Report, as I so often do, they let loose one of their great movie references as it relates to a real news story. This particular news story is from The Raw Story, who reported the announcement that a United States weapons laboratory has officially created a “super laser” which was capable of creating temperatures and pressure equal to that of a star or a large planet’s core. Naturally, this got people to thinking: do we have our very own Star Wars Death Star!?

While the exact damage this little baby would cause isn’t really known, it is expected to keep nuclear weapons in check, as well as offer a possible answer to safe fusion power. I wonder if this is how we would take out Texas-sized meteor that were threatening to hit Earth, instead of the standard oil drilling crew. Asteroids style.

Click over to the dark side to see the great video from The Colbert Report!

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke at a dedication ceremony for the weapons and energy breakthrough achievement, saying: [...]

Zachary Quinto has posted a 5-minute audio sample of the Star Trek novelization’s audiobook, of which he is the narrator.

Listen to the clip here below.

Quinto, who stars as Spock in the newest Star Trek film, voices all of the characters in the full 8.5-hour audiobook, which is based on the film adaptation by Alan Dean Foster and includes parts of the story that did not make it into the movie.

Speaking of Quinto, who attended the MTV Music Awards this weekend with his Heroes co-star Hayden Panetierre, the actor attended a fundraiser last week where he got the chance to shake hands with President Obama. Quite amusing, considering how the President has repeatedly been compared to the character Spock, with several photoshopped images of Obama with pointy Vulcan ears and eyebrows. Quinto is a big supporter of the President and had campaigned for him during the election [...]

The American Medical Association Alliance is at it again, making a push for any and all movies that include some form of smoking to be given an R-rating. Dr. Jonathan Fielding of the AMAA drops the heavy research evidence that 1-in-3 kids who see smoking in movies, or whose favorite superstar smokes in a movie, are much more likely to start smoking them selves. Also, that 56% of movies of the past couple of years that were “youth-rated” G, PG, or PG-13 included smoking.

The MPAA quickly corrected the very obvious fact that they had no G-rated films with smoking, and that the others were rated appropriately for their content. The MPAA also reaffirmed that they have been including the act of smoking in their rating systems for a while now and that of the 55% of all movies that included any kind of smoking, only 21% were given a PG-13, with 5% being PG — leaving 75% of the movies getting an R.

This isn’t good enough for the AMAA, who again want any movie with ANY kind of smoking to be rated R. Their “case-closed” example of the year is the recent hit X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which had Hugh Jackman apparently smoking a cigar for two-hours straight in a cinematic homage to the late, great George Burns. [...]

IESB has the dirty details on a conference that took place at Troublemaker Studios in celebration of a bill being signed to push forward a Texas film incentive program. Press and politicians alike were on hand to hear what Troublemaker main man Robert Rodriguez had to say about the program and the films that he would be able to now film in Texas.

Rodriguez mentions Machete, his sci-fi film Nervewrackers, as well as his live-action movie based on The Jetsons, but also touched on two very interesting titles: Predator and Sin City 2.

Most notably, it looks like Robert Rodriguez will be producing and directing his very own reboot of the classic Predator series called Predators. This confirms a scoop that Bloody-Disgusting received back in January — a scoop that describes the movie as being about “…a team of commandos face down a mysterious race of vicious monsters.” Yes, indeed, an entire race of those horrifying dreadlocked beasts.

This is huge news for fans of Predator who were so heartbroken over the handling of the creature in Alien vs. Predator and its sequel, Requiem. [...]

Well-known actor of stage and screens both big and small — Ron Silver has passed away at the age of 62. He had been battling esophageal cancer for two years when he passed away this morning quietly in his sleep.

Along with his work on the stage, Silver appeared in many movies, including Silkwood, Romancing the Stone, Blue Steel, and Reversal of Fortune, as well as more recent movies like Ali, Find Me Guilty, and The Ten. He appeared on multiple big-time TV shows, with long stints on Chicago Hope and perhaps his best work on The West Wing. He was nominated for two Emmys, one for The West Wing.

Not only did Ron Silver leave us with a lot of great entertainment on many different platforms, he was also a longtime political activist. Most recently he even had his own public affairs show on Sirius satellite radio. Because of his passion for politics, it is likely that his work on The West Wing was his most passionate work, and the work that will leave his greatest mark on our world. [...]

It’s being reported that the United Nations is going to hold a type of panel specifically for the TV show Battlestar Galactica. The plan being, to look at the way the show has focused on real issues our world faces, and how they were dealt with on the show. For those of you who are fans of the old Battlestar Galactica or just don’t like the current show, which is set to air its series finale in a depressing weeks time — you need only read this story to see just how brilliant, important, and just plain damn good it really is.

Battlestar Galactica is known as a massively entertaining science fiction show about the final thousands of human beings left in the universe struggling to find a new home where they can rebuild humanity, all while fighting the highly-evolved Cylon race, who are attempting to wipe out the “weak” human species. But on top of this solid foundation, Galactica infuses a vast array of human tendencies, political strategies and downfalls, religions, and all-around real world issues that we see every single day in our own lives. [...]

If you can’t get near a television right now, fear not — you can watch the 2009 Presidential inauguration of Barack Obama right now online.

Obviously, this is a wonderfully glorious historic moment for the United States of America, so be sure to watch it here below — or directly at Hulu or at Joost, the latter has a live chat you can participate in.

The official theme for the 2009 inauguration is “Renewing America’s Promise,” a vision that underscores the President-elect and Vice President-elect’s commitment to restoring opportunity and possibility for all and re-establishing America’s standing as a beacon of hope around the world.

Here’s the schedule of events, which are well underway, but I’m sure all of this will be available for replay afterward [...]

After finding out how much of a fan Barack Obama was of comic books and specifically, Spider-Man, Marvel made sure that they got to work on an issue where the two meet up.

In conjunction with the upcoming inauguration of Barack Obama, Marvel is teaming up the President-Elect with the everyone’s favorite webslinging superhero in Amazing Spider-Man #583, “Spidey Meets the President!”

The story, written by Zeb Wells with art by Todd Nauck and Frank D’Armata, occurs in Washington, D.C. on Inauguration Day, where an old Spidey nemesis will try to thwart the swearing in ceremony of the 44th President of the United States.

The issue #583 will be on sale at comic shops on January 14, 2009, and will also have a special variant cover featuring Obama and Spidey by artist Phil Jimenez [...]

We here at Geeks of Doom just want to say on this most historic day …

Sen. Barack Obama has won the election for President of the United States of America …

… And it’s a great day to be an American.

Congratulations Sen. Obama.

Here’s to a much brighter future.

In honor of this “most important election in American history” taking place this Tuesday, November 4th between Barack Obama and John McCain, we at Geeks of Doom decided to compile a little list of some of the completely fictional presidents that have shown up in movies or on TV over the years who you would likely vote for over our current options. Some are completely different than anything we’ve ever seen before in a president, while some share familiar similarities; some come from dramas, some from science fiction, and some from completely ridiculous satire. But one thing’s for sure, they’d all make worthy candidates in one way or another.

No matter which candidate you’re hoping wins this Tuesday, or who you love or hate, we all just hope things don’t go to hell and good things come from whoever wins But until that time comes, please read on and enjoy 11 Fictional Presidents You’d Likely Vote For Over Obama & McCain!

The Upper Deck Company marries politics with baseball to produce the Presidential Predictor card set of illustrated parodies that show several of the top Presidential candidates in rare form by tying each one of them to a pivotal moment or personality from baseball’s rich history. Enter here to win a set of cards from Geeks of Doom!