For we the movie fanatics of the world, the Academy Awards are just as exciting as the Super Bowl. Many of us throw or attend Oscar parties, and even go so far as to print out that ballot and lock our picks into place.

Over the past few years, this and a lot of other awards shows have kind of lost their flare. It has become apparent that deciding nominees and voting for winners is not about who is the best and who is most deserving, but about what has the best side-story and what the popular names and titles are. This massive flaw is hard to swallow, and the appeal of the whole event is bordering on non-existent.

To help bring more appeal to the game, the folks behind the Academy Awards chose to make a few changes in the format of the show. The biggest of these alterations was of course changing the amount of Best Picture nominees from 5 to a whopping 10, which meant that all of the deserving but not-so-traditional contenders (The Dark Knight) could get their chance to be underdog heroes.

Continue reading on for more and to check out the full list of this year’s nominees!

We at Geeks of Doom love Halloween. The smell in the air, the leaves changing color to mark the occasion, and all of the old edited horror movies playing over and over on your TV make it one of the most entertaining and exciting times of year.

Back in 2006, we compiled a list of some of the best geek costumes on the market for those of you who do not yet have an idea as to what you want to be. It’s already been three years now, so we thought it was about time to compile another epic list of costume options for the undecided (which includes myself).

While checking these costumes out, keep some things in mind — most importantly: pretty much every costume that you see will have multiple styles of varying price and quality. The majority of the ones we have here are in the $30-$50 range, but you can find really high-quality “Deluxe” versions of the costume that will run you in the $100-$200 dollar range. These are for the folks who have money to spare and love authenticity. If you’re out of your freakin’ mind, there’s even Batman and Darth Vader costumes that will run you $700+ dollars. If you don’t like the one we’ve linked to, just search the character and check out all of the others that exist. Most costumes have children’s versions available, too. We’ve included some great kids’ costumes, but if you find an adult one you’d like for the little ones, just search it out!

Also worth keeping in mind: a lot of these costumes have female counter-costumes that would be perfect for couples looking to match up. Oh, and it won’t be stupid like going as a plug and an electrical socket. Tee-hee.

Many, many costume options were found for men, women, children, and pets, so please continue on and check some of them out!

Out on DVD and Blu-ray today is Michael Bay’s blockbuster sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. On behalf of Paramount Home Entertainment, we here at Geeks of Doom have two (2) prize packs to give away to some lucky readers!

Two (2) winners will each receive the following:

— Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Two-disc Special Edition DVD
— Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Poster
— Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen T-shirt

What do you have to do to get a chance to win? Glad you asked ’cause it’s really easy. Just make sure you’re a subscriber to our email digest, and then fill out and submit the handy form below. (Form is here after the jump.)

Good luck!

TO ENTER: There’s just two simple steps:

(1) Make sure you’re subscribed to the Geeks of Doom email digest. If you’re not then click here and sign up. (If you’re already a subscriber, then go right to the next step.)

(2) Fill out the entry form below and submit.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science voters, lend us your eyes. Your attention is demanded!

In a Summer movie season dominated by gigantic science fiction and fantasy movies like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Terminator Salvation, two much smaller sci-fi films from lesser-known foreign directors were the ones who stole all of the spotlights. Those two films were Neil Blomkamp’s District 9 and Duncan Jones‘ Moon.

Now that all of these movies have come, said their piece, and gone, it does not mean it has to be the last we hear of them. One fan of Moon has taken that a step further, and has begun a campaign to get Academy voters to take notice of Sam Rockwell‘s performance and give it the attention it deserves, hopefully resulting in a Best Actor nomination. The movie, director Duncan Jones, and Rockwell have all been praised numerous times for the film, and it’s difficult to over-look the performance as it is right up on par with Tom Hanks’ nominated work on Cast Away. Rockwell has been around a long time and has given a lot of memorable performances, including some that were the only watchable part of certain films that we’ve seen over the years. So whether he wins a spot on the ballot or not, the man absolutely deserves to be considered.

Transformer: Revenge of the Fallen
Directed by Michael Bay
Starring Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel
Rated PG-13
Release Date: June 24, 2009

When Transformers came out in 2007 and was a huge hit, you had to have known that a sequel was waiting in the wings. While it was an entertaining movie, it was far from perfect, due to the fact that it had to set up a lot of the origin story. Now with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the sequel can hit the ground running, but does it deliver like its predecessor?

It has been two years since our main protagonist Sam (Shia LaBeouf) has encountered the Transformers and life has moved on. He is going to college and trying to maintain a long distant relationship with his girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox). He has all but put the Transformers behind him but unfortunately, the Decepticons have other ideas. Apparently remains of the All Spark, the cube that brought all electronic machines to life, are still on Earth and hold the key to giving the Decepticons the upper hand in the destruction of the Autobots. This puts Sam smack dab in the middle of the war between the Transformers once again.

Now, just so no one gets the wrong idea, if you have seen the first movie or have seen trailers of this movie, I am already assuming that you are not paying money to see Revolutionary Road. Revenge of the Fallen is about as big a popcorn flick as can be. The explosions are bigger, the action sequences are more eye-popping, and the overall story and dialogue are virtually non-existent. This is one movie that is all about eye candy folks, but that is not to say that that is a bad thing.