November 21, 2006
Torchwood
Um. Oh. OK.
First Day.
The sex-starved mist alien. This reminded me way too much of an episode of new ’Outer Limits’ where a meteorite containing an alien intelligence crashed into a young woman’s bedroom then took over her body and turned her into a veracious nymphomaniac sex monster who absorbed men into her body (Absorbaloth style) as she was bonking them.
Cyberwoman.
Seven of Nine in a hi-tech basement in Cardiff. Oh well, since Star Trek NG did sort of nick the idea of Cybermen for the Borg - nicking their extension of the idea back again seems fair enough.
Fairies.
Oh. Meh. I wasn’t keen on this episode. You know what would’ve been more scary? That if they’ve kept the whole original fairy look as they went around killing people instead of making them into big ugly gangly demons. That was too easy, too cheap a shot. Written by Peter J. Hammond too - he of ‘Sapphire and Steel' fame. I expected better somehow.
Countrycide.
The sci-fi channel showed the remake of ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ only last week not so long after Channel 4 had shown it a few weeks before. So y’know, already I was a bit burnt out on the whole cannibal family thang -especially as it was better done there. Not much made sense in this episode - why where bodies being left out in the open all over the place? Isn’t that going to call lots of outside attention to the village? A whole village gone cannibal? There seemed to be something missing from the plot there. It smacked of a quick re-write having been done on the fly -maybe they'd originally had an alien monster but the budget ran out so they had to remove it at the last minute?
I think another problem I’m having is that I’m just warming to any of the characters so far. They’re all a bit monochromatic.
So now the big question is… are they building up to do a Doctor Who style big two part finale - or is it just going to plod on like this? I.E. The Cardiff version of the X-files -just reworking old horror film clichés every week? If you ask me it needs a bit more Doctor Who and a lot less nicking from other shows.
Oh well - it's early days yet.
Posted by groc at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)
November 11, 2006
Am I
the only person in the world who's noticed how much Ben Linus of 'Lost' looks like Nomi Klaus?
If there was ever going to be a film biography - I'd know who I'd be casting in the lead role....
Posted by groc at 06:27 PM | Comments (0)
July 20, 2006
Big Borefest
This year’s Big Brother has got to be one of the most boring ever. Somehow or other Endemol in their increasingly strained efforts to keep things interesting and through their constant shit-stirring have ended up with the biggest group of uninteresting non-entities going (bar the one single person -that‘s Pete).
The thing is - this year no over-arching story has emerged to keep anyone’s interest. In the past two years we’ve had the triumph of the trans-gendered Nadia seeking and gaining a measure of acceptance from everyone. That year also had the back-story of the preying mantis-like Michele getting her mandibles into the poor hapless ‘Stu’ and not letting go - not until she’d got every last penny she could from selling her ‘love story’ to all the papers and celebrity magazines.
Last year it was the cringe-making car crash spectacle of gay Craig’s creepy unrequited fawning and stalking of the resolutely heterosexual go-go dancer Antony. (If I think hard I can just about remember characters like Makosi, and some geeky boy character and something about a fat girl doing something unmentionable and totally uncalled for on the lawn with a bottle... *shudder*)
In fact from week one this year it’s pretty obvious they’ve all been treading water until Pete wins. They could have just given him the prize money at the end of the first week. Shut the house down - left the inmates in there without telling them the show was over (they would never have noticed) - and we’d all have been happier.
So -off the top of my head, we had the first week of a hyperactive near-psychotic Asian queen who annoyed everyone in the house so much that they had to start bullying him to protect themselves - until he evicted himself. (Making me wonder if Endemol hadn’t again crossed the line and brought in psychologically fragile people just for the sake of the whole freak show element) Not so long after two other non-entities walked - well one was ’pushed’ out-(in a ’you can’t quit - we’re firing you.’ sort of a way.) Who’s left? There are so many invisibles there - no one bothers to evict them because they simply forget they’re there. Doing not much - just taking up space and eating food. There’s the two poufs - one Canadian, tall and just ordinary - everyone in the house seems to hate him. The other is younger and has obviously read far too many self-help books and gone on too many courses. The other thing I’ve noticed has been the usual innumerable giant fake breasts and over bleached hair on some of the women. Someone at Endermol must have a rather unhealthy fixation/fetish on women with unfeasibly large silicon enhancements. Oh, I also remember there was the endless mind numbing, totally retarded bitch-fests that went on amongst the women Oh yeah, that was so entertaining my hand kept hitting the remote to check what else was on.
Then there was the whole Kit-kat ticket fiasco. Mmmmm -so out of a number of random tickets the housemates -totally by chance manage to pick the one person there who’s previously been through - was it two auditions for the show? To the point where a few of the housemates had already met her? Yeah. That sort of thing happens all the time… *cough* Now piss on my chips and call it vinegar. I’ll believe you. Oh and by sheer coincidence she has melon sized breast implants - mmmm?
In short this is a show long past it’s prime - it’s gone from interesting and diverting to freak show and back round to desperate and boring again. It needs to be put to rest now.
The trouble is that there’s nothing else on any other channels anywhere to watch now (especially now the Doctor Who season has ended) - it’s the quiet-as a grave Summer season mired in endless repeats.
*sighs* I guess I need dvds - and by the bloody crate full to get me over this dreary period.
Posted by groc at 02:33 PM | Comments (2)
May 04, 2006
Arf Affirmative
hello - how did I miss this. Another Doctor Who spin-off? K-9 gets a second attempt at his own series.
Have you spotted the spin-off sites and the games you can play there over at Deffrey Vale School website and the Torchword House holiday site yet? There's the Leamington Spa boathouse too. Mickey tells you what you're supposed to do here.
Posted by groc at 04:24 PM | Comments (0)
April 16, 2006
Lost
So Channel 4 has started it's teasers for the new season of Lost.
If you lower your expectations - and lower them you must, it's just about OK. Although it's become all too obvious that the show's own success -and so it being expanded from a proposed three up to five (!!!) seasons -is working against it. It's evident the shows creators simply haven't got that much worthwhile material for a run that long. So get ready for lots and lots of padding. Dreary pointless soap-opera style padding getting in the way of what could be a brilliant show.
If you don't mind a few light spoilers this article sums up the problems with the show better than I can.
I've even been considering writing a series of study notes so that UK fans can be spared wasting too much time on this season.
Posted by groc at 02:32 AM | Comments (0)
March 28, 2006
A for Ay? what's going on here then?
Just sat through 'A for Andromeda'. I was informed by people who go on about this sort of thing (critics) that this was a TV sci-fi classic. I think in this case when they say 'classic' they mean -boring. And it ends with the Lady alien committing suicide - but, but that's how The Quatermass Experiment ended too. Only there it was Quatermass going into the Tate Modern where the alien creature was hiding and talked and talked and talked until he had bored the poor thing to death. (I had to watch it three times before I managed to stay awake until the end of it.)
As I watched Andromeda I couldn't help noticing how the schlocky trashy sci-fi film 'Species' had ripped off the basics of the plot, even down to having a female alien protagonist -at least in that movie the alien lady got to escape and ran around killing and bonking away in a effort to make a few alien babies of her own. Surely that's far better than getting all miserable and topping yourself?
Posted by groc at 02:50 AM | Comments (0)
March 07, 2006
Monty
Posted by groc at 12:34 AM | Comments (0)
February 23, 2006
Lost the point
Um. Well - it’s now currently half way through season two in ‘Merika-land. And although it’s been sort-of-alright and it’s still sort-of-good, I have to admit that I have been losing patience with it somewhat. From reading the various forums around I can see there are two very distinct groups that make up the shows audience.
There are those that are involved with the characters and can’t wait for the week’s latest flash back, which goes to deepen their understanding of and appreciation of each of the individual survivors on the island.
Then there’s the second group which are more fascinated by the mysteries and the endless questions and puzzles on the island. Such as how are all these characters interconnected, how and why did the plane crash, what reasons are there for it being there? What is that creature on the island, who and what is the Dharma Initiative, who are these mysterious ‘Others’ who inhabit the Island. What is the significance of the Numbers which keep recurring? Etc. To this audience - (and I have to now confess to being in this second group) - these flashbacks only get in the way of the bigger story.
At first in season one I liked the back stories and flashbacks - but I’m finding them irksome and overdone now, particularly when they’ve already reached the stage where they keep covering old ground without adding new information, or are just plain filler. I understand that this is due to other pressures and the various logistics of filming the show, but it’s getting to the point now where I feel I’ve been tricked into watching a whole series of half ‘made-for-TV’ movies of the week, and half soap opera. Movies of the week are OK, but I can generally take them or leave them - (and I have to say, I usually prefer to leave them). Soap operas are something I’ve successfully weaned myself off years ago and so am not keen to fall off the wagon. Come to think of it I stopped watching soaps for much the same reason I’m getting disenchanted with Lost - I.E. thin story lines being stretched over way too long a period of time.
Fortunately - it does look like the second half of this season might be throwing up a few more answers or at least a few new mysteries about the Island (although that‘s annoying in altogether another way) - I lay stress on the word ‘might' because the creators seem to be honing their skills as experts in diluting those aspects of the show. I remember reading a few weeks back how they were looking forward to a very long run for the show and I have to say my heart sank a little. All I could see ahead was an endless succession of ever increasingly pointless flashback stories. OK, each character either learns from their past history or repeats their mistakes, thank you, Yes, I’ve got that now. Please move it on. Instead they’ll have a whole dedicated flashback over an issue when in fact the character could have simply said out loud to another person whatever the issue is and got it all over in a few seconds. If they continue this trend before long it’ll be: “Kate - says she doesn’t like Ranch Dressing much.” Cue: whole flashback episode to where she first tasted some in a Deli once and discretely spat it out. Or “Jack doesn’t particularly like corduroy jackets” - cue: flashback to his childhood where his mom took him shopping and made him try one on, only he felt it made him look nerdy and his school friends would tease him…. You get the drift.
On one of the very entertaining and informative official `podcasts' (how I hate that stupid term) one of the creators joked that they’d like to do a flashback episode for the ‘execute’ button - they’d show it being designed on a drawing board then cast and pressed in plastic… and so on and so forth up until it was placed on the Island. The trouble is, if the show does run for years - I can all too easily see them having to do things just like that just to keep the episode numbers up. Every so often another plane will crash or boat run aground -and that’ll set off another run of flashback stories for each new survivor… and they’ll never get around to answering any of the Island’s mysteries… but they’ll keep on adding in more - like yet another strangely symbolic animal or find yet another new hatch -gah! (cue Groc falling into deep boredom induced coma.)
I'm finding a similiar problem with Invasion on channel 4 - surely the show is running on a plot for what might have made a good single one-off episode of the X-files - but here it's being dragged out forever. I find it ironic that in the UK the new Doctor Who has veered away from it's original format of one story run over a series of four, or six or more episodes has condensed everything down to at most two episodes - but more usually it's now just one 45 minutes long one. Which works very well. Meanwhile these new US series have moved their format to one story being padded out forever.
I guess we can lay blame for this on the American TV network studio system where they have to fill a set quota of episodes every season (usually 22) regardless of whether they have enough quality material to justify all those episodes. It's a pity because -I'm guessing -that certainly in the case of Lost it would be twice as good if it were to be as half as short.
Posted by groc at 02:01 AM | Comments (1)
February 09, 2006
P J Hammond -and that
W00t! I've just read that P J Hammond is writing /or has written an episode of the upcoming Torchwood.
Who's Peter J Hammond you ask? He created Sapphire and Steel.
(I've always thought that the Doctor Who episode 'Father's Day' was like an episode of Sapphire and Steel but with unnecessary monsters added in.)
Oh, and I didn't know there where new CD audio adventures of Sapph and Steel. With Sapph played by that doctor woman I liked out of Ultraviolent -Susannah Harker, and David Warner as Steel and oh hello, Mark Gatiss gets in on the act -playing Gold. He gets absolutely everywhere. Doesn't he ever sleep?
Posted by groc at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)
December 20, 2005
what i'm looking forward to
One of the few things I'm geniunely looking forward to this Xmas.
this is like the wrapping paper...
who is doctorwho.
I can't wait to open the present.
Posted by groc at 08:17 PM | Comments (0)
December 05, 2005
'King of the Ants'
Blimey. So I rented this film after having heard it mentioned on ‘Shock Movie Massacre” - it was only after having doing a quick google - I noticed it was directed by Stuart Gordon (Re-animater etc.) but it was written by Charles Higson. Charlies Higson?!!? Of the ‘Fast Show’? of the Reeves and Mortimer remake/remodelling of ‘Randall and Hopkirk’ ? of “Swiss Toni”?
Yup - it is that guy. Turns out he’s written some very dark books as well. (I'll be keeping an eye out for those now.)
That the lead actor Chris McKenna is very tasty and that we get to see him with his clothes off is a big bonus.
George Wendt Interview (he was 'Norm' from 'Cheers' y'know.)
Posted by groc at 03:45 AM | Comments (2)
November 28, 2005
after these messsages...
Every since I've been acquainted with satellite TV -I've always been irritated by the length of ad breaks on their channels. Where a good 15 minutes out of every hour is wasted on that inane repetitive drivel. Doubly annoyed by the fact that I'm paying a subscription charge for it too. In fact there have even been occasions where the commercial break has gone on for so long I've forgotten what it was I was supposedly watching. Yes - I know I have a short attention span and this isn't helping it any. You used to have to near break your neck to make a up of coffee/tea/whatever during the adverts, but now it's getting to the point where you can comfortably make a whole three course meal.
But anyway -people have been complaining about the length and duration of ads during Lost, and their complaints have been upheld by Ofcom. Whether or not this will make a difference remains to be seen.
And they wonder why people bittorrent TV programs?
Posted by groc at 06:05 AM | Comments (3)
November 23, 2005
K9 on Brighton Beach
the pebbles must've played havoc with his wheels.
Posted by groc at 02:47 AM | Comments (1)
November 21, 2005
in case you missed it
(and i had nodded off and missed about three minutes or so of the beginning of it) here online is the 5 minute Dr Who sketch that they showed on 'Children in need' - something that usually I expend a lot of effort avoiding. Ugh, shudder.
Posted by groc at 11:38 PM | Comments (2)
November 18, 2005
bastard E4!
can someone tell me whose bright idea it was to put the very last episode of Queer as Folk on at 3.30 in the morning? Which, of course I forgot all about and so didn't even set the video for. Maybe they think that us homosexuals only come out in the hours of darkness? Grrrr. The only damn program that is specifically for us queers and this is how they treat us? Mmmm, things sure have changed a lot since the early days of Channel 4, when they had a Government remit to cater for minorities. What's the last mainstream program they had on that had homos in? Oh yes, the utterly dire 'Playing It Straight'. [sarcasm] What a fantastic show that was. [/sarcasm]
Posted by groc at 06:04 PM | Comments (1)
November 12, 2005
Lost link dump 3
A bit about them there Lost web site tie-ins.
A Lost Notebook (just the facts ma'am -just the facts).
Hanso Foundation has one single new page up. LEP
It's bound to be quite significant in some way.
As is KHR. Hint: think airport codes.
Posted by groc at 10:09 AM | Comments (0)
November 11, 2005
bad weather in Worthing
Worthing? Maybe we're in Worthing. [real player pop up link]
The weather here is driving me crazy, the winds have been blowing relentlessly all day long. The noise is really, really, really getting on my nerves and making me bad tempered. There’s nowhere in the flat to escape from it either.
Screams.
Here’s a picture of the new redesigned cyberman* to help cheer me up a bit. It looks to me like a mash-up of Rog 2000. The stomach from the Batman costume, and the robot from Metropolis. I think it’s fantastic. I’m in love with it.
*I had problems with flash suddenly deciding to stop playing in firefox - an update to player 8 and an update to the adblock extension and things are fine again. Phew.
Posted by groc at 05:19 PM | Comments (0)
November 08, 2005
oooooh
(pronounced as whoooooo)
I won't be able to afford it. sob.
(BBC DVDs are way over priced.)
Posted by groc at 05:15 AM | Comments (3)
October 28, 2005
the Avengers
coming to BBC four soon...
me excited - me excited!
Posted by groc at 10:33 PM | Comments (2)
October 26, 2005
Lost - random link dump 1
This is my personal link dump - and will almost ineviably contain spoilers and shit because I'm up to season two now. If you're following it on Channel 4 in the UK -Look away now. It probably won't make any sense to you yet anyway.
last warning.
OK then.
and here as a mov.
NB:
Remote viewing. How many of the survivors have had dreams and visions and prophetic incidences?
Electromagnetic disturbances (prob. might be why the planes got lost and crashed - their navigational systems getting screwed up, and why they can't get radio signals out into the wider world.)
B. F. Skinner and his theories of behaviour modification through operant conditioning. (A way of getting rats to push buttons for no very good reason - very useful. I'm sure it's a technique many call centres and data entry places make use of to this day.)
Life extension?
there's been a couple of people on the Island (Ethan and Desmond) that are very strong...
Oh look, there's polar bears in the clip too.
Look at the Hanso Active Projects list.
Mathematical Forecasting? That's numerology that is. that's the recurring set of numbers that is.
Juxtapositional Eugenics? Explains why they're so keen to kidnap Walt and Claire's baby.
All together telling me this is an Island where an awful lot, well, ALL of their experiments have gone terribly, terribly wrong. Or else maybe -terribly, terribly right.
Someone else's theories on the Hanso Foundation.
Isn't "Hanso" an anagram of "Noah's" -does that mean anything?
Who Is Alvar Hanso?
Some interesting various pictures.
Posted by groc at 09:20 PM | Comments (1)
October 20, 2005
tHHGttG movie
Um Ok.
I've just finished watching it on rental.
What a disappointment. Really. I found it pretty awful actually.
Great SFX - great scenery and costumes. The flash-style animations for the book -fantastic.
But:
First off - the incidental music was really doing my head in all throughout the length of the movie - it was way over the top and far too intrusive.
The largely unknown cast where badly chosen, certainly not a single one of them had any charisma worth a light. As for making Ford an African-American? No. Wrong. Uh-uh. Bad idea.
Leading me to my next point - the whole thing was over-Americanised. Anyone left wondering why the new Wallace and Grommit film is such a massive success in the US? I’ll wager it has a lot to do with it having kept it’s British-ness 100%. It’s formula wasn’t tampered with in anyway, indeed the slightest attempt to have tampered with that would’ve killed it stone dead. (I was annoyed enough with ‘Chicken Run’ having Mel Gibson’s voice in it.) Yet Hollywood in the main still can’t bring it’s self to finance any film that doesn’t have American voices in it. It’s down to it’s own cowardness and it’s perennial insistence on insulting the intelligence of it’s audiences.
And why change the story around so much? More importantly the biggest most unforgivable sin of the whole enterprise was taking all the philosophical-related humour out of it. The whole of the HH Guide simply doesn't work when it's dumbed down. It was never an action-adventure romp sort of thing. It’s humour and brilliance lay in the vast array of madcap ideas it rattled through at breakneck speed. Too many of them were stripped out and left a yawning vacuum at the centre of the film.
In short the BBC TV series -despite being done on a shoe-string was vastly superior. It was far better acted and much funnier.
I honestly think Douglas Adams would’ve felt quite insulted by this film.
Posted by groc at 07:27 PM | Comments (2)
October 17, 2005
Torchwood
Captain Jack gets his own show!
(shrieks with excitement.
Posted by groc at 08:13 PM | Comments (3)
October 10, 2005
queek duck
Posted by groc at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)
October 07, 2005
Bryan Fuller
Note to self:
I was just watching an old episode of Voyager (Retrospect) - when I noticed Bryan Fuller's name on the writing credits, (I'm not hardcore geeky enough to usually take notice of these sorts of things, despite having watched them hundreds of times before) on very Seven-centric storyline . Of course I know Bryan Fuller's name from being a 'Wonderfalls' and 'Dead Like Me'. So it would appear Bryan specialises in writing highly intelligent, very sassy, independent -slightly stroppy female characters. Cool. It so turns out he's written a lot of my favourite Voyager episodes too.
OK. I'm a fan. Mark it as offical.
Apparently he's making an animated film due for release next year. 'the Amazing Screwtop Head'.
Oh and I might have already put this interview link in before, but here it is again.
Posted by groc at 05:08 PM | Comments (0)
September 20, 2005
by dint of my usual insomnia
I accidentally caught sight of the most amazing, funny, hilarious and educational show I'd ever seen. It even had brilliant costumes, songs and dance numbers.
It was Dr Tatiana's sex advice to all creation on channel 4.
Here's another link from Dr Tanita's offical site.
It was originally a book.
Posted by groc at 05:08 AM | Comments (0)
September 13, 2005
oooh nooooo
Mainstream sci-fi's TVs first openly bi-sexual male not coming back until series three. Gah. Oh well - at least there will be a series three. Yay.
Posted by groc at 05:24 PM | Comments (0)
August 24, 2005
Lost
So - what is the deal with people's sub-consciousnesses on this Island? That's got to be one of the biggest clues going. Not that I know what that ultimately means.
"Living is easy with eyes closed,
misunderstanding all you see..."
Strawberry fields
the Beatles
Charlie's tattoo.
Go ask Alice,
I think she'll know.
Posted by groc at 11:24 PM | Comments (0)
Ok I'll admit it
when it comes to teevee - I'm a wee tiny bit psychic.
K9 is on his way back!
Posted by groc at 09:38 PM | Comments (0)
August 12, 2005
lost
of course you watched the pilot of Lost on Channel 4 this week didn't you?
(cue a very cold hard stare your way if you didn't.)
But I've just looked at the flash-driven channel 4 Lost website - ooooh it's good.
PS thanks to Pete Ashton for mentioning this prog. on his blog. He has good taste that man.
Posted by groc at 12:41 AM | Comments (1)
July 19, 2005
Boosh almighty
coo - they have a blogspot as well as the official site. Did I know that already?
and new series on bbc three out soon.
and as an experiment out on broadband first (this is the fuuuutuuuuuure (echo-echo-echo).
We want all TV on demand - when do we want it? Now. On demand. We demand it now. Now we said.
UPDATE:
watched it! It worked and everything.
Posted by groc at 11:26 AM | Comments (2)
July 18, 2005
Psst.
Psst. You 'Merkicans. Got broadband? 'The Power of Nightmares' - episode one - available as a free download here. So no excuses for not seeing it please.
Posted by groc at 07:07 AM | Comments (2)
July 08, 2005
23-6-801 solved
the answer to this little conundrum was finally posted on the offical Doctor Who website.
It was simply a mistake they made on the Psalms board (there is no 801th psalm) in episode 8 (Father's Day) and they turned it into an in-joke on the sneak preview 'making of' diary WhoSpy - photoshopping it into a few of the pictures. Just to tease us obsessives into a frenzy.
Cool huh?
Well I think so.
Posted by groc at 08:23 AM | Comments (0)
July 06, 2005
more Wonderwall links
PopGurls Interview: Caroline Dhavernas.
Posted by groc at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)
July 05, 2005
Wonderfalls
The first episode was on Sky one tonight. I was looking forward to it because it was by the writer of 'Dead Like Me' -Bryan Fuller. Here's an interview I found with him.
I didn't know he was openly gay either. How cool is that?
PS. How many people working on Dr Who were gay? Watching the 'Confidentials' on BBC three certainly had my gaydar running burning hot...
Posted by groc at 11:36 PM | Comments (1)
June 29, 2005
bye bye Cult TV at the BBC websites.
I'm suddenly reminded of the early days of the BBC back when they blithely erased thousands of irreplaceable programmes off early video tape. Nowadays they realise what a utter folly that was. Especially in these days of nostalgia and home DVD releases -but oh look - here's history repeating itself.
They're about to erase huge swathes of the cult pages over at bbc.com.
I can't believe how stupid this is. Probably the idea of some Middle-management types. Gah!
Posted by groc at 03:03 AM | Comments (4)
June 23, 2005
new Rom Zom movie
ooooh, new Romero Zombie movie!
Posted by groc at 09:03 PM | Comments (1)
June 18, 2005
phe-whoooo!
And so it proved that wretched idiotic idea which was going around about Adam = Davros had nothing to do with anything. Just as I thought and expected. Mainly because it made no dramatic sense whatsoever. Do you see why fans are fans (including the obsessively inclined audience) and writers are writers now? There are very distinct reasons for that.
And ..... was the bad wolf. Oh -eeer. Except that doesn't reaaaaaally make any sense - why chose Bad Wolf? This is not ever adequately explained. One can only hope for better clarification later - except you know it will never come.
Mmmm and I detected more than a few hints of RTD and the other writers having had a few Buffy lessons along the way. How end of season 'Buffy vs Adam' was this ending exactly? Let's say very and move on quickly.
And hah! the BAFTA peeps must have been given a set of totally different episode to watch and left to report on. Cool. I love that RTD has a long history of messing with the press and whole publicity machine - this is how it should be.
[[Meanwhile on planet Earth I'm very, very pissed off with my DVD recorder for having carefully made a recording for me - but without any sound whatsoever. Gaaaaaaaah! Don't buy Philips DVDRs people - they're rubbish. I love it (I do heart DVD) but it has been loads and loads of trouble. Oh well - I can do another recording but this one will have the bloody BBC three logo all over it. Grrrr - I hate those stupid logos!]]
Posted by groc at 07:54 PM | Comments (3)
June 17, 2005
Who-eeer.
Not to beat my own drum or anything - but I've just seen the latest teaser trailer for Saturday's episode - and oooh, looking at the screen - that Emperor dalek looks not too disimiliar from my artwork. Yay me.
Badwolf: mmmm now, how did that old fairy tale go again? What big ears you've got... What big teeth you've got... all the better to...
Posted by groc at 12:30 PM | Comments (0)
June 16, 2005
Spoiler Alert - look away now...
Posted by groc at 07:45 PM | Comments (0)
June 13, 2005
Who - er, what?
Over the past couple of days I’ve been entertaining and boring myself in equal measures trawling through these long (1) and (2), long (3) pages the comments of which have been hijacked by Who fans wittering endlessly on and on and on with their own theories about the current series. (If I owned these sites -I’d be considering asking expenses off of the BBC for my hosting/bandwidth bills.)
But one of the more unlikeliest theories that a large number of people have got hold of and refuse to let go of -is that boy genius Adam of the ‘dalek’ and ‘long game’ episodes is going to become Davros - the creator of the Daleks.
The tenuous indications of this are supposedly that
1. he’s met a single dalek once.
[at a distance - I got the impression he held only a junior position in Van Statten’s alien museum/research labs, and only got to spy in on the Dalek at a distance via CCTV.]
2. now has a hole in his forehead Just where Davros has a glowing eye thing.
[Except in Davros - it is just that -a replacement for his two missing eyes - and a hint at how far into Dalek-like state he himself had de-evolved to. but certainly not ever a device that is fed raw information through and which turns his brain into a computer processor.]
3. that he’s supposed to carry the entire history and knowledge of the human race up until the year 200,100. (Hope I’ve got that right.)
[Except he doesn’t - that knowledge wasn’t kept in his head (quote: ‘it would have exploded’) he had to phone down what he could to an answering machine, and although it is vaguely possible his mother changed the ansaphone tape like he asked -just before nipping down to the shops - and that the Doctor destroyed only a new blank one. This seems all very unlikely. If she wasn‘t already down the shops - she would‘ve answered the ‘phone surely -especially to her son she hadn‘t heard from in months.]
This whole theory also ignores a number of inconsistencies and facts:
1 that Davros already existed (exists still?) once already (otherwise where would the original Daleks have come from?) and that he came from an entirely different planet altogether. Adam would have to be Davros II.
2. Why would he ever want to recreate the Daleks? Why? He knows from the single one he’s seen that they’re super-hyper-dangerous homicidal psychotic maniacs never to be trusted -ever. If he's a boy genius - surely he's also smart enough not to touch.
3. There’s also the problem of how he could’ve managed to transport himself so many hundreds of years into the future, especially it looks like Humans won’t develop time travel capability until the 51st century (Cap. Jack’s original time period) Why would he even want to go to that period of history? The indications are that Human development was already being stunted and manipulated for the worse in the 90 year period before Adam’s little visit with the Doctor and Rose.
But my biggest problem with this whole theory is -as to what exactly could his motivation as a human being/Earthling be -to want to devastate the entire human race - and over such a ridiculously long period of time? All that just to teach the Doctor a lesson for having abandoned him on Earth with a hole in his head? How is that supposed to make any dramatic sense? Get a grip.
Adam was a self-serving, self-interested chancer certainly -but there were no indications of him being capable of being downright genocidally evil. Rose and the Doctor’s teasing him over the hole in his head could hardly engender the sort of long lasting hatred and seething evil that would span thousands of years of planning and plotting just to exact revenge. One that may or may not have also taken in a massive Time War along the way? Such nonsense.
After all that I’m just left with the conclusion that a lot of people really, really want to see Davros back and that desire is obviously so very strong. Certainly stronger than rational thought would dictate.
Unfortunately it looks like they may have to make do with a 1960s style Emperor Dalek instead. Hope the disappointment won’t be too crushing for them.
Of course, there's nothing to say I'll be the one who's got it terribly wrong and it's me who'll've egg all over my face...
I doubt it though.
only 4 more days to go... and counting...
[[I’d better state here -from a personal point of view, I always thought Davros was a bit rubbish as a super-villain.]]
Posted by groc at 11:30 PM | Comments (4)
June 12, 2005
what? Grrrrrr.
Do these people remind you of anyone? They were just a bit too big and in your face to be mere background detail.
Posted by groc at 08:44 PM | Comments (0)
June 10, 2005
OKey Dokey
"Johnny Vegas - eighteen stones of idiot" is by far one of the worst things I have ever seen on television - and I've seen some shit television in my time believe you me.
Posted by groc at 11:02 PM | Comments (2)
June 05, 2005
eeeek!
'xcited.
Posted by groc at 07:35 PM | Comments (2)
wolfy
Arf.
"...Doctor Who is a fairy tale."
Christopher Eccleston.
Don't look here if you don't want to know who the big bad (Buffy ref.) of the last two episodes is. Beeeeg givaway.
Posted by groc at 02:52 PM | Comments (1)
June 01, 2005
who's afraid?
Other obsessives like me collecting the findings...
Yet I've not seen anyone anywhere use the well known phrase "wolf in sheep's clothing..." although I have seen people mention that Rose (red - hello!) was wearing a Hoody when she first met the Doctor. (Echoed in 'the Empty Child' when Nancy was talking to the Dr. "What big ears you have...")
But who's going to be Grandma - and who the woodcutter that will save them all at the last minute?
The Editor... ‘The right word, in the right broadcast, repeated often enough, can destabilise an economy, invent an enemy, change a vote…’
Oh look, I just quoted the Editor from Satellite 5. How could that be at all relevant?
Me, I think it would be cool if the Doctor turned out to be the Master - or something like the 'Valeyard' (the dark, evil side of Colin Baker's Doctor*) and went off to actually cause all that trouble, death and disasters throughout history (like Clive's collection of data suggested he might. With time travel it's likely all those things haven't actually been made to happen yet (except of course they have, but... oh you know what I mean). I say that because in episode one, the Doctor looks at himself in amirror and comments on his appearance -as if he's never seen his new face before. It seems unlikely he'd have been through all those previous dates in history without passing a mirror at some point along the way.
But maybe Capt'n Jack with his two year memory hole will be the villian, although I think I'd prefer it if somehow he turned out to be the real Doctor. If only if because it would make a brilliant change to go from the tradional a-sexual Doctor to a full on omni-sexual. But, it being a kids show that ain't going to happen. Shame.
Oh and it would be so cool seeing Eccleston coming back from time to time as a villian - but how likely that is to happen is anyone's guess. Probably not very.
*I read that somewhere - because I haven't actually seen most of those episodes.
In other cult media: I'm finding I just can't get interested in Big Brother this year. They're just all the one giant amorphous blob to me - I can't tell one annoying stupid fame-hungry young person from another. This might change when they've weeded a few of them out - but at the moment... feh. Wake me if anything interesting happens. (Some gay sex would be good, you know, now the Hets have been at it.)
Posted by groc at 04:32 PM | Comments (0)
May 28, 2005
wolf spotting
what's written on his big bomb then?
And big kudos for Stephen Moffat for giving us a mainstream sci-fi proper bi-sexual character. Something Star Trek never dared to do - the pussies.
And what's going to go here then?
Posted by groc at 08:37 PM | Comments (3)
May 23, 2005
bad wolf and numbers
Mmmmm - what was in room 801?
2nd picture up from the bottom: an important day for your diary.
(I'm not sure but I think I've picked up a part of the puzzle everyone else has missed...)
Posted by groc at 03:14 AM | Comments (2)
May 22, 2005
geocomtex
Geocomtex - for all your hi-tech needs.
(I love this stuff. I found this all by myself I did. I wonder what else there is.)
Posted by groc at 12:55 PM | Comments (1)
May 03, 2005
the power of nightmares
Cannes to screen BBC's Nightmares.
Posted by groc at 11:44 PM | Comments (0)
April 24, 2005
The Nomi Song
The Nomi Song - a documentary film.
Posted by groc at 01:43 PM | Comments (0)
April 21, 2005
Bowie's area
this link is dedicated to Jeremy who gave me her old video copy of this particular movie.
via all things christie.
Posted by groc at 12:36 AM | Comments (0)
April 19, 2005
Ah, Smallville --how do I hate thee
Let me count the ways.
Tom Welling - yeah, OK well, that’s just nothing even remotely anything like acting is it? To call it wooden? That’d be an insult to trees.
Moreover, this is a taunt I can equally level at the rest of the cast. Isn’t one of the first rules of any drama that in some way we should care about the characters? Who could care anything about this bunch of cardboard cut-outs? They’re all so relentlessly bland. If they were to be wiped out over night in a meteor strike - who would even notice they were gone?
Super-boy? Isn’t he in his very late 20s / early 30s? Surely to god he’s way too old to be still in high school?
If he’s Superboy -who is going to grow up to be Superman - then who was that Superman in ‘Lois and Clark'/'the New Adventures of Superman'?
Where’s Clark Kent’s trademark thick black rimmed glasses disguise? Clark Kent is supposed to be a bumbling geek to hide that he’s Superboy/Superman. If he’s going around playing college football and whatever -then… well, that’s a large portion of the whole Superman mythos pissed away.
I can’t get my head around this whole re-invention, updating business. It just doesn’t gel with me. Is he Superman or not? Why throw away big chucks of the myth away but then keep making endless lame 'knowing' 'subtle' references to it. Like having Kent wear so much red and blue... blah blah blah. (I've spotted a few in the few episodes I've seen, but I couldn't be asked to list them.)
If I was making this show - I’d have gone for the full-on retro treatment and set it back in the 50s or 60s. Played around with the anachronisms a lot more. Made it fun and funny. I can’t stand all this completely tedious wholly dreary tortured teenager approach. Mainly because it’s all so unconvincing - “oh, I’m really fantastically good looking, oh, and look I’ve got super-powers too, and the chicks just can't keep their hands off me”. Well, boo-fucking-hoo. Isn’t *your* life so hard and difficult, my heart bleeds for you. It's impossible to take seriously - it was wrong to have tried. It should have been made as a comedy show from the get-go. It would have been brilliant played as a comedy.
Lex Luther’s long greasy haired billionaire (but trailer-trashy) father. Who’s idea was that? Because that was a full-on car crash of a lame idea if there ever was one.
That episode where Clark’s father was supposed to have visited Earth back in the 60s and met -was it the Grandma of Lana Lang or Lois Lane? -I can’t be bothered to remember. That took crap onto a whole new level of super-hyper-mega crappiness with sprinkles on top.
I'll stop now - because I'm starting to lose the will to live.
Posted by groc at 02:01 AM | Comments (0)
April 16, 2005
Lost
What? You haven't been bittorrenting this from the internets? What? it isn't on Sky or any other British channel yet? Even though one of their programs (Entertainment Tonight - or whatever it's called) keeps mentioning it?
Oh -of course, they've got to show the entire series over there first, then they've got to translate it into European English from the Americ... oh wait, they don't do that. Funny also how they can manage to broadcast that same Entertainment Tonight program without having to wait months first...
Filmfodder: Lost Blog.
Posted by groc at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)
April 08, 2005
W WW
Hello. Wheldon to do a new Wonder Woman?
Strokes chin - this could be interesting....
Posted by groc at 10:54 AM | Comments (2)
April 06, 2005
DLM
Mmmmm, I don't know if this is true, but I've just read that 'Dead Like Me' isn't going into a third series on Showtime because the head honcho there didn't like the show, and so has cancelled it.
Over the years I've gathered the distinct impression that American TV executives as a race are staggeringly moronic. Why even work in TV if you hate it so much and want to kill off any program that's intelligent, witty, funny, moving, etc.? Only to replace them with an endless stream of cheap, nasty, mindless and mind-rotting reality shows? Wouldn't these executives be happier working in Toxic-waste managemnt instead?
*deep heavy depressed sigh*
Posted by groc at 12:13 AM | Comments (3)
March 29, 2005
a conclusion
the new Dr Who - fresh and exciting.
the new Enterprise for all the expensive sfx - and the good looking cast, desperately tired and dull. I won't miss it in the least when it's gone.
Posted by groc at 08:19 PM | Comments (2)
March 28, 2005
OK
am I the only person left wondering - why, in the restaurant scene in Dr Who, in the bit with the champagne bottle - when the cork went pop - that there wasn't a flood of champagne everywhere?
Posted by groc at 12:22 AM | Comments (3)
March 27, 2005
Am I the only one
who is left completely and utterly cold by 'Shirley Ghostman'? How is it that one thin lame idea which would ordinarily struggle very hard to fill a 10 to 15 minutes sketch has been given a whole series? The only thing I liked was the teaser/trailers - he should have stuck to just those and not done the shows. Oh and no, I didn’t like that other show he did were he played various annoying characters amongst real people either.Posted by groc at 04:51 AM | Comments (0)
March 09, 2005
oh spoil-sports
stopping freebie CDs on newspapers - it's not the CDs that are trashy - it's the bloody papers. Yes, there have been times where I've bought a paper just for the CD alone and been appalled at what passes for news and articles in the actual paper itself. No wonder we're in such a mess in this country given what nonsense is printed -all going to poison the minds of the readers.
(I'm also miffed that I missed the chance of a free 'Strictly Ballroom' DVD. Oh well, it might turn up in a charity shop if I'm lucky.)
Posted by groc at 09:40 PM | Comments (1)
March 08, 2005
sorry neighbours
I shrieked like a girl when BBC showed that one second long flash teaser of the new Dr Who.
and it's got Autons... I loved the Autons... or more accurately I was scared shitless by them as a kid. I loved their fingers falling off and the guns coming out -and shooting people down in the street. I wished I could do that with my hand... mmmm, I still wish that. It would be so ... (titter) handy.
Posted by groc at 10:31 PM | Comments (0)
March 02, 2005
Ab...so...lutely...
I was watching the tail end of an old episode of ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ tonight and suddenly in my usually slow alcohol-addled brain flared the realisation that Saffy is the autobiographical element of the whole show. Sweet sensible, on-the-ball Saffy= Jennifer Saunders. Suddenly everything clicks into place and yet in the last series Saffy has a child in a relationship to a not-very-bright black man. Er… hello and who is married to a famous black comedian in real life? Jennifer’s comedy partner Dawn French…
What can all this mean?
It’s means I’ve drunk nearly a whole bottle of white wine containing too much of that there alcohol stuff and I should stop thinking thoughts now and just pass out…
(...the room smells of turpentine...)
Posted by groc at 12:44 AM | Comments (1)
March 01, 2005
Negativland IPod
Yeah, Apple - that computer for them people what think different. mmmm worrying.
Posted by groc at 01:23 AM | Comments (0)
February 28, 2005
multi-channel TV
is a baaaaad idea.
11pm BBC three Ideal.
11pm E4 Queer as Folk.
11pm Channel Five Joey.
11pm Paramount Five Go Mad on Mescaline.
I also want to try and fit in an episode of Nathan Barley I've missed.,.
(and I'm on the phone at the same time - whimpers)
Posted by groc at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)
DLM
At long last!
New series of 'Dead Like Me' starts Tuesday 15th March on Sky One. Hope it's as good as the first series was.
Posted by groc at 12:53 PM | Comments (0)
February 11, 2005
Slippy Sliders
(bookmarks for my own benefit - feel free to ignore.)
Sliders
TV Tome
EP.com (Earth Prime
Earth Prime -(so showing it's age as an elderly fansite.)
I've been watching it on the Si-fi channel - except I keep missing bits.
Posted by groc at 10:08 PM | Comments (0)
it's real - eek
Posted by groc at 10:05 PM | Comments (1)
February 09, 2005
Nebulous
more Nebulous - it's a bit annoying having only found out about this 'show' (radio play) on it's last episode.
Here's hoping it gets made into a TeeVee show fairly soon.
Posted by groc at 04:22 PM | Comments (0)
February 04, 2005
robotbastard
robotbastard - the short movie.
[via Christie]
Posted by groc at 09:25 AM | Comments (0)
Nebulous
Mark Gatiss is Professor Nebulous.
Being such a hardcore teevee addict I usually never listen to the radio - - but this internet radio thing is fantastic. In particular being able to listen to programmes you've missed - at a time when it's convenient to yourself.. This is how teevee should be.
instead of all this being ‘broadcast at’ nonsense. Most channels already know this - that’s why satellite/cable channels double up with their second ‘plus’ channel showing everything again an hour later (which still seems like a terrible waste of bandwidth to me - I‘d rather have twice the picture quality thank you very much) - it’s also why they show the same new program two or even three times during the week, but how much better it would be if you could watch on demand? I expect it will happen (and in away with Bittorrent it is already, and makes the point for me that this is what people want) but you guarantee they’ll balls it up - by crippling it with DRM (which just amounts to the entertainment industry treating all their customers as criminals).and meaning you won’t be allowed to play it on your personal media player. God forbid.
(I‘m still irked by region codes on DVDs -how pathetic an idea is that.)
Posted by groc at 03:46 AM | Comments (0)
January 29, 2005
interviews
Radio Steward Lee interview with Alan Moore.
next week Alan Moore interviews Brian Eno.
Cool.
Posted by groc at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)
Feb 11th
Spongebob movie.
can't wait!
Posted by groc at 11:13 AM | Comments (1)
January 25, 2005
mmmm 'kay
So howcum they're (E4) even now still advertising the new upcoming 'Mount Pleasance' and other new stuff (like Smallville and Desperate Wives etc.) on their channel - but have managed to totally forgot to mention there's a whole new season of the Merikan version of 'Queer as Folk' that started tonight... mmmmmm?
(and no readily - easily found links on the E4 website - y'know, just incase anyone should, y'know like to know about the program ever. Interesting that lack huh?)
Posted by groc at 12:35 AM | Comments (3)
January 22, 2005
Tim Burton's
Corpse Bride trailer.
Ooooo000oooOOhhh.
Posted by groc at 01:23 AM | Comments (2)
January 21, 2005
Spongebob in pro-homosexual video? Huh? Wha...? WTF.
Nutty Merikan Christians Conservatives attack Spongebob.
(via Lisa )
Posted by groc at 10:33 PM | Comments (2)
January 16, 2005
Mark Gattiss interview
Dr Who and a League of Gentlemen film, a novel. There's a lot of good stuff to look forward to.
Posted by groc at 02:01 AM | Comments (0)
January 06, 2005
oh no....
The Big Brother Panto - in which a whole bunch of extremely vain, rather pathetic, rather rubbish and totally talentless people get together to put on a totally rubbish Panto. As if Pantos weren't rubbish enough to start with. Here's Channel 4 scraping the bottom of the barrel again.
Posted by groc at 10:31 AM | Comments (1)
December 26, 2004
"I've been watching you"
So one night a while back there was this really tacky trashy movie on the sci-fi channel. Set on a American campus where a series of murders have taken place, a fresh man finds himself targeted by the gayest Fraternity house ever seen. There was also a lot of smooth muscular teen boy flesh on display - which made a nice change from the female boobies that are more usually in these kinds of thing. It was called "I've been watching you" -but in 'Merika-land it's known as 'the Brotherhood'.
Hey - whadda know - the director of this film 'bats for our side'.*
Apparently there's been two sequels but I've not seen either of those.
(*Sorry 'bout that obvious bit of glibness, I realise that you, yourself dear reader might bat for your own side altogether.)
Posted by groc at 07:49 AM | Comments (0)
December 24, 2004
Why can't the US tell the difference
between England and France?
I'm watching Shriek on TV and they've just got to the bit where's Robin Hood - a English historic mythic/legendary character - but they've given him and his merry men a French accent. Why?
It reminds me of Star Trek NG - where a completely English actor with a crisp English accent is given a French name and he's supposed to even have been born and bred in France.
Merikans can't be that stoopid can they?
Don't answer that question.
51% of them recently showed just how stoopid they can be when they put their (lack of) minds to it.
Posted by groc at 07:31 PM | Comments (0)
December 19, 2004
I'm stuffed
I accidently found this while checking out something. Eeeek.
Posted by groc at 08:20 PM | Comments (0)
December 17, 2004
Wonka
Johnny Depp as Willy?
Tim Burton remakes the Chocolate Factory?
What's that going to be like?
Posted by groc at 12:32 PM | Comments (3)
November 29, 2004
sponge-tastic trailers
whimper
how much longer will us poor Brits have to wait now?
Posted by groc at 10:50 PM | Comments (0)
Rex
Posted by groc at 08:41 PM | Comments (0)
November 27, 2004
the Mark Gattiss - Dr Who connection
Old 1999 BBC2 Dr Who night spoof. (Scroll down to the last two sketches.)
Interview in the Sunday Herald. (Brief mention of the Dr Who novels he's written.)
Playing a friend of Turlough's in an audio drama.
Posted by groc at 05:56 PM | Comments (0)
November 22, 2004
happy birthday
In a weird coincidence I had occasion to google for Robert Vaughn today. And it's his birthday! Happy Birthday Napoleon Solo/ Lee/ Gelt / Harry Rule / Ross Webster etc. etc.
Posted by groc at 06:55 PM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2004
PIFs
old UK Public Information Films.
Posted by groc at 04:48 PM | Comments (0)
November 11, 2004
there's a
Rex the Runt DVD box set - why wasn't I told?!
I neeeeeeeed this.
Posted by groc at 10:53 PM | Comments (3)
ooooh ooooh oooh
A Wallace and Grommitt film!!!???
can't wait - can't wait - can't wait.
Posted by groc at 09:05 PM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2004
Butterfly
On the other hand maybe watching the DVD of the director's cut of 'the Butterfly Effect' (as good as the film is and as much as I enjoyed it) near one's birthday isn't that good an idea.
Posted by groc at 08:44 PM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2004
dvd
of arty short animations that i want but can't afford.
Posted by groc at 10:18 AM | Comments (0)
October 14, 2004
sigh
I'm currently watching the new Battlestar Galactica remake thing. I am bored, for it is dull and very boring. Mind you I didn't much care for the original series- those hideous brown uniforms they wore -urgh. That furry robot thing that a kid had - urgh. That there was an annoying kid - urgh. That bloke that was once in 'Bonzana' -urgh. The super shiny chrome Cylons with the Knightrider eyes were just about the only thing I did like. But then -they were called the Cylons - which sounds like the name of a washing powder. Feh.
God job I quite liked the new Stargate series and even the new spin-off Atlantis , but with reservations. Many, many reservations.
I am so running out out of cool new good things to watch.
Posted by groc at 10:50 PM | Comments (2)
September 30, 2004
Fork lift safety
German fork lift safety video. (You might need a strong stomach though.)
Posted by groc at 10:48 AM | Comments (4)
September 29, 2004
old horror films - a bit queer
have i put up this link before? Even if I have it's worth reading again - especially as the new Horror channel is showing a few of these gems again.
Posted by groc at 08:44 AM | Comments (0)
September 24, 2004
stretchy
New Incredibles Movie Trailer.
Which reminds me: how much longer have we got to watch for the Spongebob movie? I know it won't be out in America-land until Thanksgiving. So will we have to wait for Xmas or even until the new year?
Posted by groc at 02:51 AM | Comments (0)
September 12, 2004
Invaders revisited
I was watching the Invaders on channel 5 in the wee small hours of the morning (bloody stupid time for them to put it on...) and at the end I noticed Larry Cohen was created as it's creator. Cooo, Larry Cohen hey. I never knew that.
Posted by groc at 02:41 PM | Comments (0)
August 30, 2004
lomotastic
BBC four as part of their photography week repeated their documentary on the lomo* camera.
Handy hint: if you decide to try out Lomography for yourself don't even bother trying to get a secondhand LC-A on ebay - where they're now going for silly prices. Get yourself a secondhand Olympus XA 2 instead- they're a better camera, do the same job and are usually a lot cheaper, more like 20 to 40 instead of 70 and up. I don't quite see why people are paying good money to take what are in essence 'bad' photographs. Successful marketing and cultism I guess. That Lomo cameras now so expensive takes a lot of the fun out it for me.
Anyhow - in a way the mobile phone camera is really the new lomo.
(*in this article the writer has done some slightly sloppy research -the Holga is chinese made not Russian.)
Posted by groc at 02:45 PM | Comments (3)
August 23, 2004
waaaaaant
Posted by groc at 11:58 AM | Comments (0)
August 18, 2004
Mary, Mary
something I've heard about, and read about and really want to see is Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.
That and a few of the Saturday morning episodes of PeeWee Herman's Playhouse.
Isn't this sort of thing what bittorrent was made for?
Apparently not. Grumble grumble...
Dammit - I should be given my own cable/satellite channel.
Posted by groc at 08:57 PM | Comments (0)
August 13, 2004
be seeing you
Readng this sort of thing 1. 2. makes me realise just how much of 'The Prisoner' was based on fact.
Posted by groc at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)
Redrum Redrum
damn. I'm going to have a track down a copy* of it now I've read this and this.
coincidently a few days ago I was image googling for 'that' iconic image from the film -I had the notion of turning BB 5 Michelle into Jack. Maybe I will still.
*But I want it dirt cheap. Coz I'm poor and I can't afford it at new rippoff prices.
Weird. About half an hour later I'm looking through an old copy off the Guardian (last weeks dated the 5th Aug) which I hadn't even opened yet and on one of the pages ----there's Johnny. being used to illustrate some (in truth rather silly) mathematical formula researcher has worked out for horror films. Freaky.
Posted by groc at 01:52 PM | Comments (0)
---, bothered and bewildered
I'm sure I've pondered on this before. Nicole as Samantha -mmmmmm. This one could go either way, but given Hollywood's track record with these things...
But why, oh why can't they get into their heads that instead of tampering with tried and true classics they should be taking any one of those thousands of old BAD movies and BAD TV series and using them to remake into GOOD new movies.
Oh look it's T4 right this second. Yay.
Posted by groc at 08:22 AM | Comments (0)
July 17, 2004
Retro-futuro
For some reason the forthcoming movie (although god knows when -or even if, it will ever reach the UK) "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" suddenly reminded of the rather obscure but rather wonderful 1984 fantasy movie "Nothing Lasts Forever". Who saw that?* It was on telly a couple of times. It featured a bus trip to the moon, and the revelation that the world was run by a secret underground society who were tramps and hobos in the overground world... or something like that.
Mmmm, I wonder if anyone will make a proper retro-futuro version of Dan Dare? (I know there's a cgi animation TV series -but it's quite awful.)
*I bet Zbornak knows about this since it starred Zach Galligan who also starred in Gremlins I & II
Posted by groc at 08:58 PM | Comments (3)
June 30, 2004
Dead good TV.
Its gone now but I am not an Animal was good.
The Mighty Boosh on BBC three is good. Blimey o'reilly - it even has it's own blog.
(Pre TV Boosh series RealOne 2002 interview here.)
Got broadband and lots of patience? Totally excellent must-see internet movie here. Via this website here.
Posted by groc at 01:09 AM | Comments (0)
June 28, 2004
Disch
It's weird how things interconnect. About a month ago I bought 'The Brave Little Toaster' on video super cheap from 'The Works' (a discount bookshop & stationers) simply because I'd remembered seeing it on TV years ago and liked it a lot and so felt like watching it again. I then noticed to my great surprise that it was based a children's book written by Thomas M. Disch. Disch so happens to be one of my favourite writers from the 1970s New Worlds influential new wave school of sci-fi. He also wrote a novelisation tie-in of The Prisoner (which is currently being shown on BBC three as part of a 60s season they are running) which I bought (but havent got around to reading yet) last year. Then what do I find upon reading an old interview with him? Only that he bats for our side. Coo, I never knew that before. In one of the photos he has got the big burly bear look down pat.
Er... that's all so far.
Posted by groc at 06:26 AM | Comments (1)
Radio 8 ball
Ask your question. A piece of music from their library gets chosen at random to answer it.
Posted by groc at 04:13 AM | Comments (1)
June 27, 2004
bubblegum
"I have come to chew bubblegum and kick ass....and I'm all out of bubblegum"
A line I recently heard being mangled into near incomprehensibility by BB5's Victor in the diary room. I think it somehow got changed to '...give out lollipops...'
Anyhow, it comes from an Ad-lib in one of my favourite cult movies 'They Live'.
I'm parking some links about the movie here so I don't lose them.
(which I've politely hidden behind the 'continue reading' so any uninterested parties need not trouble themselves...)
A review and another and production notes.
Official site of Ray Nelson who wrote the short story the film was based on. His section on 'cartoonism' is particularly good. (Im nearly equally as truculent -no one has ever managed to make me run either.)
Posted by groc at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)
June 20, 2004
a little wonder
You know that current Wella Shockwaves advert where a young lad and his mates go to a 'trendy' nightclub and all their hair keeps changing moment to moment and acting up. Something to do with flirting with a girl whose hair also does magic tricks. Groc wants to know if the boy in the ad is the same model/actor who was in David Bowies' 'little Wonder' video -after all it would help explain the Bowie t-shirt that he's wearing.
Posted by groc at 08:51 PM | Comments (0)
June 17, 2004
meltdown
So I was there tonight watching BB all the alcohol-fueled screaming, the tantrums, the tears, creepy psycho-bunny boiler Michelle drooling over the disinterested Stu, mouthy Emma and gangsta-wannabe Victor being pulled off each other, drunken girls crawling around on their hands and knees trying to find a quiet place to vomit... all up until the plug was pulled -where upon BB probably had to call in the riot police, and hide all the knives and sharp objects. Theatre of Cruelty or what? Looks like BB might have turned the heat up just a little too much this year.
I was joking about the last bit -but it turns out I had pretty much hit the nail.
Quote from one of Vanessa that they (the BB editors/censors) let slip: "What kind of animals are we that we needed security guards to come in and sort us out?"
At one point I also spotted a security guard stood in the background -eyeing Victor waryily...
More news here and here.
Posted by groc at 03:33 AM | Comments (1)
June 16, 2004
separated at birth?
I was suddenly struck tonight how much that bald super villian with the huge mono-row that was in 'Thunderbirds' The Hood, looks like Marco of BB.
Posted by groc at 01:44 AM | Comments (1)
June 14, 2004
Da da da da
Da da da da
Da da da da
Batman, oh this sounds goooooood.
Posted by groc at 08:35 PM | Comments (1)
June 13, 2004
Stepford
"It's a picture in which an intriguing subtext gets lost within a scattershot comedy."
See - maybe they shoulda let Tim Burton do it after all.
Update: Jason Silverman at Wired didn't think it was up to much either.
Posted by groc at 08:08 PM | Comments (0)
June 09, 2004
Evil Big Brother
indeed. Quality television, quality producers.
Posted by groc at 11:09 AM | Comments (1)
June 07, 2004
Potter
The bf & me went to see Harry Potter yesterday afternoon. Yay. The series is improving with each successive movie. (This is the first one Ill want to own on DVD when it comes out.) But the need to have read the books beforehand gets even more crucial as the ever increasing sizes of the novels means much of the sub plots, characterisation and other details from them gets jettisoned in order to shoehorn in the barebones basics to fit the movies running length. Ive always thought that the books would have been better served if theyd been made as a big budget high quality TV series, where everything could have been rolled out at a much more leisurely pace and you wouldnt have lost so much of the detail of the magical world Harry inhabits. I think the Henson Workshop people wouldve made a reasonably good job of it. Although I think they wouldnt have been able to resist having muppet-like creatures all over the place, I prefer the CGI ones of the movies.
One of the things that crossed my mind as I was watching it was how once upon a time people said that watching a film (or TV show) made from a favourite book was bound to always a bit of a disappointment -because it could never live up to what your own imagination and the mental pictures youd created for yourself. But now with the art of special effects and CGI etc. that little truism no longer applies. Not by a long chalk. Theres no way any of my own personal mental pictures of the night bus, the marvellous Hippogriff (I want one) the Dementors etc. lived up to what they created up there on the screen.
Strange huh?
Posted by groc at 08:51 AM | Comments (5)
June 01, 2004
BB
Wow. This year it's not so boring. Radical.
Posted by groc at 08:38 PM | Comments (3)
May 31, 2004
What I dont watch 2
Mutant X. I dont watch this program for a lot of the same reasons I dont watch Smallville.
I get the impression that for quite some time TV execs had been eyeing the phenomenal success of Buffy with much envy, (or rather at the huge rating figures) and decided they needed a similar program of their own to appeal to that same yoof demographic. Unfortunately like any other sad soul whos only watched the occasional Buffy episode at a very superficial level (and have usually decided to dismiss it out of hand without ever knowing what theyre missing) theyve come away with all the wrong ideas from it. This series also tries to sneakily draw on the success of the Matrix and the X-men movies but again totally misunderstanding the point of what really made those movies such big blockbusters. So they got in Marvel comics man Avi Arad to do a X-men lite for them. (Bizarrely also missing out what used to differentiate Marvel from DC in the sixties*, which was realistic superheroes with far more personal problems than super powers) The resulting formulaic mess is a show featuring pretty glamour model boys and girls (whose hair gel has far more acting talent than they do) with wish-fantasy super powers having their own jet plane and their own secret island filled to the brim with lots of fancy hi tech toys to play with. They then have to do the regular obligatory kung fu style fight sequence at least once an episode. Their only real worry in life -since theyre not living with their parents, or have to go to college -or keep down a job, (they don't even have bad teeth, acne or short-sightedness to contend with!) is that theyre being pursued by a dreary mock Andy Warhol look-a-like baddie. Well, that is, they were up right until the point when the producers eventually twigged (and it took them long enough) that he was more than a bit crap really and so put him into cold storage - literally. After all it was a major flaw having a villain whose only other distinguishing attribute, aside from being a Warhol clone, was his total lack of an immune system. Someone you can defeat just by breathing on them -doesnt exactly fill one with fear and dread does it?
What other qualities have theyve missed out? Well, for a start any attempt at characterisation. These are all extremely tedious individuals, not one of them has any personality whatsoever. The stories are pedestrian and beyond pathetic. All the most hackneyed clichs are trotted out with absolutely no attempt to play around with them, subvert them, or even -godforbid laugh at them. Every episode: the villain hatches some lame plot or pits one of his tame new super mutants to pit against Team-pretty they fight, (featuring lots and lots of flying wire work) they foil his plot, then pout prettily, the villain vows hell get them next time Roll credits. Stifle yawns. Psychpathic Andy-alike master villain aside it doesn't even have any kitsch value.
Posted by groc at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)
May 29, 2004
incredible
(Is Edna Mode based on Edith Head I wonder.)
Couldn't they have given her a better costume (sorry about the ad-heavy site) and that stoopid cowl -yeesh. And how come she's 'Patience Philips' and not 'Selina Kyle'? I fear the worst.
Posted by groc at 11:57 PM | Comments (1)
Golden Age ---going, going....
So I've just sat through yet another slice of the mini golden age of TV end tonight. *Choke sniff* since when does one get so upset over a sitcom ending? Fraiser is next to go sometime in, I think June. I'm getting worried now -because what new good things am I going to watch? I just don't do the soaps. (me recovering addict -mustnt ever go near.) There are still a few good British sitcoms -but they only make them six at a time once or two years at a time -if were lucky. There's Will & Grace still - but ummm. Can it go the distance? I somehow think its popularity has already peaked and even now its on the beginning of a long slow downward slope. Give Karen her own spin-off show now. Hell, give Megan her own sketch show and totally ditch all the rest of those annoying talentlesss losers, while they can go on to do something else - probably off-off Broadway, where we don't ever have to see them again.
Posted by groc at 01:03 AM | Comments (6)
May 27, 2004
Beckham as an Auton
Beckham in Dr Who as a villain? Ummm. Somehow I bet Mr. Russell T Davis just fancied a chance to meet him in the flesh.
and here's a link especially for Ian. I'll be trying *not* to watch it myself.
Posted by groc at 06:31 PM | Comments (1)
May 25, 2004
nnnnoooooooooo
Is this the Bonnie Langford of the 00s -Billie (Because I want to Chris -Because I want to) Piper to be the new Dr Who assistant? Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Was Michael Grade behind this I wonder?
Via Over your head.
Posted by groc at 07:34 PM | Comments (6)
May 24, 2004
movies
In searching for info about 'Seconds' -the Rock Hudson movie that was shown tonight on BBC2. I also found a little more about the upcoming Stepford Wives remake. Pooh that there was a missed opportunity that it could've been a Tim Burton film - I'm sure he'd have managed to get the right balance between humor and horror, with a side order of social commentary exactly right. Although I'm still wary about Hollywood's cannibalistic tendancies of remaking (and more often than not thus ruining) perfectly good classic movies.
(Reading off the same page -hints of Nicole Kidman playing Samantha in a possible big movie adaptation of Bewitched? That's an interesting idea...)
Posted by groc at 02:13 AM | Comments (4)
May 23, 2004
Angel
Nooooooo. I've just watched the last ever episode of Angel. (Hey, I've got a broadband connection and I'm going to use it.) Noooooooo, it's too much like the last episode of Blake's seven. Nooooo.
Another little piece of a mini golden age gone.
Posted by groc at 03:36 PM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2004
What I don't watch
Y'see, when I was a kiddie growing up I used to buy a huge amount of comics from a market stall. Most of them were from the 60s, so Superman to me and (especially Superboy) belongs to at least that early era and before (there were a lot of reprints from the 'Golden Age') -so in my mind a kind of amalgam of the 40s 50s and very early 60s is mixed together to make up this whole mythical/nostalgic comic book time and place where all the stories take place*. In my head Cary Grant in round thick black rimmed spectacles would have made the best Clark Kent ever, (exactly like he looked in 1938's 'Bringing Up Baby'. Although I'd have to have someone else playing Superman**). It was actually a big hard push for me to accept the 70s Christopher Reeves Superman films. Likewise for the Lois & Clark (or the New Adventures of Superman as it was known in the UK)TV series.
Now this Smallville business - I just can't connect to it. If he's Superboy living now in the present day - then who was that Superman played by Dean Cain in the 'Lois and Clark' series? I know, I know, this a whole new clean slate Superboy - but my brain isnt having any of it. The Superman character and his mythology has been around too long for that. The other thing I can't stand is that everyone in it is just way too good looking - they're nearly all fashion models dammit. Years ago I had a friend making the somewhat dim and offhand comment that everyone on 'Buffy' looked too plastic. No. Wrong. If you want plastic looking - here it is. In spades. The only one who looks dodgy is -of course, Lex Luthor's daddy and he's evil. All that money and he cant afford a haircut and a shave - or any good grooming? Come on now, pull the other one. Yup, in Smallville anyone remotely normal or 'plain' (as the Americans like to call ugly) looking is either a hopeless victim or a villain. Whhhoo, subtle hey?
The other thing is that (from what precious few episodes Ive sat through) it seems to take itself far, far too seriously. Theres been a complete humour bypass in the scripting department. That makes the whole show a bit plodding and dreary to me. Im sorry, but with all those super powers how can anyone take Superman seriously? It needs some humour there. To me Clark Kent has always been a comedy figure not a angst-ridden teen, he should be all geeky and awkward and be wearing glasses and being beaten up by the bullies at school the whole time -he should be the last one anyone suspects of having super powers. Not this absurdly good looking hunk with finely chiseled cheekbones but who's got as much personality and character as a log that's over-dosed on elephant tranquillisers.
Theres also the thing that Ive never been that much of a Superman fan - feh. Ive always liked Batman better. Let's face facts here, even with the silly bat ears he is so much cooler.
Bonus link via Timemachinego: trying to reinvent Superman.
*And that would have made more sense in light of the whole 'why doesn't anyone notice Superman looks exactly like Clark Kent without his glasses' issue.
**So can you imagine how totally thrilled I was to see Tim Burton creating a whole 30s/40s retro-future world for his Batman. That was so exactly the right thing to have done. Genius.
Posted by groc at 02:34 AM | Comments (6)
May 14, 2004
Rate this...
See, I told you I thought that the Nielsen ratings thing that American TV execs use to justify cancelling otherwise perfectly worthwhile new TV series was deeply flawed didn't I?
It's unbelievable that this is an industry that bases so many of it's decisions on collected data that is only now waking up to the fact that people use video recorders and PVRs and TiVo to *gasp!* time shift their viewing. They're going to start collecting the information on that now. Errr, how long have most Americans had video recorders?
How clueless do these people have to be before they stop breathing altogether exactly?
Posted by groc at 02:45 PM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2004
Donnie
A director's cut of Donnie Darko? Oooh ooh ooh.
Posted by groc at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
May 10, 2004
Rocko
Found this good interview with Joe Murray - creator of Rocko's modern life.
Posted by groc at 10:42 PM | Comments (1)
May 06, 2004
gay tedium
Queer Eye for Straight Guy US -good.
Queer Eye for Straight Guy UK -bad.
Very bad.
The queers are far more irritating and stereotypical and younger and a lot creepier than their US counterparts.
More of the same on the same day:
I tried to watch a bit of 'Fairy Godfathers' on Channel 4 but got bored very quickly and gave up on it.
Sigh - I remember when Channel 4 did their famous Out series many years ago. What happened?
Posted by groc at 10:25 PM | Comments (2)
May 05, 2004
horror
oooh ooh ooh I get the Horror channel (sky 330). really bad, really cheap, really badly acted horror films -how I love thee.
Posted by groc at 01:00 AM | Comments (4)
May 04, 2004
Simps
I just caught sight of the actress who does the voice of Bart Simpson in 'Maximum Overdrive' and it got me thinking...
How does the Simpsons work? Because usually networks run a proper series of something and you get a whole crop of brand new programs over the season. But that doesn't ever happen with the Simpsons. Sky just shows a hodge-podge of repeats taken seemingly randomly from older and newer seasons thrown together - which makes things very confusing. One program will tell us Ned Flander's wife is dead yet the next episode - no, there she is all alive and running about ... oh no, turns out it's an older episode shown after a later episode(unless its the Halloween special one where she appears as a scary ghost.)
So any new Simpsons episode is doled out once every so often during which time they take great pains to let you know that it is a brand new one. Is this just how Sky has decided to run things in the UK and in America land they get treated to a whole proper series of new toons - or like us do they too have to put up with the occasional new episode being trotted out irregularly?
I want to know.
Posted by groc at 01:39 AM | Comments (2)
April 30, 2004
Labyrinth
Oh excitement! Jeremy has just sent me a pressie of her old tape of Labyrinth (she'd bought it on dvd for herself.) this is great -I get to see Jareth the goblin King (Bowie) oooh-eeer playing with his magic balls. (Suddenly channelling Frankie Howerd:) Oooh-err Missus, no.
To think that only this morning I was watching an old interview with Bowie (back when he was celebrating his 50th birthday) on the Performance channel.
Posted by groc at 02:09 PM | Comments (2)
colour
I'm still watching the 'Lost in Space' repeats. The show is in proper colour now not colorized -the give-away was that if anything the colours are much more garshily vivid and unnatural-looking than they were before. It's great, but oh dear god -so so very very much orange velour.... eeek.
Posted by groc at 10:32 AM | Comments (0)
April 29, 2004
KAZ
aah-ha, after the excellent word dot com (nothing to do with microsoft's over bloated word processing program) disappeared I'd thought I'd never see one of my favourite cartoonists -Kaz on line again. But no - hah, he's got his very own webby web site. He wrote episodes of Spongebob you know, as it happens a couple of my most top favouritest episodes at that - the nasty patty for one, mid-life crustacean for another.
Posted by groc at 06:34 AM | Comments (2)
April 28, 2004
TeeVee
Hey, whatever happened to 'Odyssey 5' -it was this highly promoted new sci-fi program which Sky One aired in 2002 with much hype, and much fuss. (Of course I managed to miss the pilot - doh) but since that first series theres been nothing. Nadir. Not even a repeat -it just quietly vanished never to be heard from again (and I so wanted to watch the pilot darn it).
I think there should be a law that whenever a show is cancelled -especially one that is based around a strong story arc such as 'Odyssey 5', and the recently repeated 'John Doe' on the Sci-fi channel -that the authors should be made to put all their unfilmed scripts and story notes onto the internet -and anything else that lets the fans know what direction the plot lines were going off in and how the story was planned to have ended. Theres been way too many shows over the recent years that various networks have callously killed off after only the one season. Its at best plan disrespectful and at worse downright rude to their audiences keep on doing this. It should be obvious that the US Network producers are making a huge fundamental mistake by basing all their decisions on their wretchedly old fashioned Neilson ratings system. That has got to be just about as brain-dead it gets, theyre totally failing to take any notice of this new multi-channelled multi-media, DVD buying world or even of their foreign markets. Its scary to think how many original, intriguing and interesting shows with scads of potential have been axed simply because a few red neck hicks in the middle of nowhere cant tear themselves away from their monster trucks, Jerry Springer, and W W Wrestling, and all those endless cheap (in both senses of the word) and tacky reality shows. Its equally absurd that absolutely everything made has to be an instant over night success or its out on its ear. Sometimes it takes time for an audience to catch up with a show -and this can be especially so when its a little bit off beat -you know anything that isnt slavishly formulaic. Short termism is the disease of our age.
(I should be grateful that Dead Like Me has gone into a second season.)
I say all this because Im getting seriously concerned now that so many of my favourite shows have been axed or have come to their natural end - with so few new ones to replace them. Its like a mini-micro golden age has drawn to a close.
I just hope theres something worth watching from this list. (Yay on there being a Farscape mini-series at least someone somewhere has seen sense -or the campaign to save Farscape at least.)
Posted by groc at 06:50 AM | Comments (2)
April 27, 2004
Croozin'
So I watched Cruising on Channel 4 last night. I think Id seen it once before a long time ago. What an odd film it is. I certainly found its pacing all a bit ponderous and slow. (But that might have something to do with my MTV-addled attention span.) It was all very existentialist with some very bizarre almost surrealist touches -for instance why did they have that huge black guy dressed only in boots, cowboy hat and a jock strap in the police station to hit suspects. That's not normal police uniform is it? That was beyond weird. Maybe it was symbolic of something? It was so against the grainy documentary feel of all the rest of the film. As for the plot well, it was a sort of gay leather queens take on Hitchcocks Psycho wasnt it? Only instead of a Norman Bates keeping his twisted dead mothers memory alive by going around stabbing people -we had a muscle Mary keeping his twisted homophobic dead fathers memory alive by going around stabbing people. And why at the beginning of the film did they feel to need to stress that the murderer was shooting blanks as it were his semen not having any sperms floating around in it. Were they trying to infer that because he's impotent therefore he must obviously a homosexualist gay man then or something? No, I didnt get that either.
Then theres the added bonus twist ending of oooh look, the Al Pacino character has had his delicate young psyche all warped and twisted by being amongst all those leather men all that time so now hes started going around stabbing people. Perhaps. (Is that right -I wasnt actually paying the full 100% attention towards the end. Update: Reading the IMDB write up about the film -it seems the ending was deliberately left ambiguous. Ummm warra cop out. Hah ha -I made a pun.)
A very odd film lots of nice muscley men though.
Posted by groc at 12:42 PM | Comments (6)
April 23, 2004
colorized
Suddenly the last two episodes of 'Lost in Space' on the FX channel (Sky 289) have been in colour -or rather 'colorized' and I've been occasionally watching the first series of Bewitched which also has had the treatment. Which is fine -it's been well done but... me being me, I can't get over it. It obsesses me. Its a permanent distraction -I dont stop noticing its been colorized -Im constantly looking out for the little flaws -the way the eyes, teeth, are sometimes hair left their original grey. I wonder if their costumes and sets were that colour originally -if its blue or green now could it have originally been orange or red? How would they know what colour to colorize things? Did they manage to find colour photos of those original props, sets and costumes etc. or do they just make it all up as they go along?
Lookee at how many Spongebob DVDs there are. Want!
Posted by groc at 10:16 AM | Comments (3)
April 20, 2004
last weekend
Saturday night and Sunday late morning - and afternoon K and I had Blockbuster DVD-a-thon. So at last I'm now up on 'Underworld', 'Spirited Away', and 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. All of them rather spiffing, 'Spirited Away' being exceptionally so. So much so its going on my must buy list.
Pirates was interesting for it being a out and out Disney film, not even put out under their Touchstone Pictures/'Buena Vista' banner. (Home of many a 80s Bette Midler film.) It certainly proves once they tone down their creaky tired old sentimentality and their patented bland family values style entertainment Disney is quite capable of a rollocking good yarn. Its just a pity they cant extend a similar touch to their tired animated output, youdve thunk theydve learnt some valuable lessons from having Pixar around. But nah, they will insist on churning out the same old same old -then they wonder why the public isn't biting anymore. Durrrrr.
Posted by groc at 07:30 PM | Comments (0)
April 16, 2004
Dear Channel 4
What makes you think a mere 6 episodes per season is any where near enough for a comedy classic such as 'Black Books'?
By the by a third series of 'Spaced' wouldn't have hurt either.
Posted by groc at 04:28 AM | Comments (3)
April 13, 2004
Horror Deco
[via Dis Infomation]
Posted by groc at 09:50 PM | Comments (4)
April 08, 2004
Eat Spongebob
Ooooooh. Ooooooh. Oooooh. Edible tie-ins how I love thee.
Posted by groc at 02:16 AM | Comments (2)
Pee Wee
via the Cartoonist. Pee Wee Herman/Paul Reubens interview.
Pee Wee's Big Top. Tuesday 13th April 11am BBC 2
Posted by groc at 12:42 AM | Comments (1)
April 04, 2004
The Avengers strip
via Scrubbles: cartoon strips of The Avengers with Steed & Cathy Gale. Joy.
Posted by groc at 03:24 AM | Comments (0)
April 02, 2004
Lost in Space stuff
Talking of Lost in Space... apparently there's a re-make of the series on it's way...
(wonder if they'll update it so it ends where they get found/find their way again?)
Incidently I never knew Bill (Danger, Danger! Will Robinson, Danger!) Mumy grew up to become a comic book writer and even did a 'Lost in Space' series. Me want to see.
Although I did know he played Lennier in Babylon 5. Everyone knows that.
Oh. My. God. But something else I didn't know which I've just found out is that he was one half of the people responsible for one of my all time favourite weirdo novelty songs 'Fish heads' by 'Barnes & Barnes'. Wow.
Posted by groc at 05:54 PM | Comments (0)
March 31, 2004
Quatermass
The Hammer Horror Magazine comic book adaptation of the Quatermass Xperiment film here.
Posted by groc at 04:16 AM | Comments (0)
February 29, 2004
90s TV comedy wot I used to like.
'The Naked Truth' - Tea Leoni (wife of David ('X-files' dreamboat) Duchovny).
Wherein Tea played a photographer/paparazzi for a scandal sheet - her manic boss played by the wonderful scene-stealing Holland Taylor and the paper's proprietor played by a carpet biting Tim Curry.
God -it was camp.
I think -if memory serves me right Channel 4 used to show it late at night followed by 'Pearl' which starred ex-Cheers star Rhea Perlman (incidentally she's wifey to Danny Divito) which co-starred scene-stealing, carpet-biting Malcolm (If.../Clockwork Orange) McDowell as her English professor.
God - he was camp.
I'd like both shows to be shown again please.
Posted by groc at 12:21 AM | Comments (0)
February 28, 2004
Fur TV
I don't know what to make of it -really I don't.
There certainly was no LOL on my part. Does it get better?
And talking of new comedy did you see Catterick?
Odd wasn't it?
Posted by groc at 10:56 PM | Comments (4)
February 23, 2004
Invader Zim
downloads, includes the pilot episode. Beware of a long grindingly slow wait to get it though .
(Turns out I actually own the first issue of "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac".)
Posted by groc at 12:58 AM | Comments (8)
February 18, 2004
green
I'm really, really jealous. OK? It's being (presumably very well) paid to do something you really enjoy doing. How brilliant is that? Isn't that what life should be about?
Posted by groc at 06:17 AM | Comments (0)
February 04, 2004
Laura
When it comes to oddball TV Ive got a long memory. There was a programme on late night channel 4 (back when it was still cool and its remit was to be bold and daring) called, oh something like United States of Television. It was a show that showed the maddest and strangest clips from New York public access cable TV*. There were things like a drag queen pastor and other weird things. It was fronted by this marvellous dead pan American comedienne who I really liked. Her name was Laura Kightlinger, a name that kept leaping out at me at the end credits of Will & Grace. It transpires shes a writer and consulting producer of the show. Im pretty sure she also guested in one of the episodes playing the nurse in a sperm donor clinic who told Will to just put the junk in the cup.
Cool.
Er thats it. Shes just an obscure heroine of mine thats all.
I wonder if they still have public access channels in NY? Back then by law cable TV companies had to have channels dedicated to local people who could make their very own shows and they had to show them. I thought it might have been something wed have over here but nah. Shouldnt we have our own local TV channels?
*I think this was a follow on show after one called 'Manhattan Cable' which had the same format but was presented by Laurie Pike.
Posted by groc at 10:32 PM | Comments (8)
January 31, 2004
More
Posted by groc at 09:08 AM | Comments (2)
January 30, 2004
Stepford Wives Remake
Remade as a comedy?
Oh.
I'm not sure what to make of this.
Generally I'm with what John Waters said: (I'm paraphrasing wildly here)
Why oh why do they insist on recreating classic movies - they can never match the original and the resulting film is usually a completely insulting mess. Classic movies don't need remaking. Instead why don't they go and remake any one of those thousands of awful films that litter Hollywoods history and aim to make them a lot better?
But then Hollywood isn't exactly renowned for having good ideas is it?
Posted by groc at 07:35 AM | Comments (0)
January 29, 2004
Nigel Kneale
Jack Kibble-White interviews Nigel Kneale.
[This one's for the trash addict.]
I think I'd like to see Kinvig -of course this is one of those exceedingly rare things that they'll never repeat -not even on one of those myriad of digital channels. (These seem to be reserved for either endless repeats of Only Fools and Horses etc. or totally utter crap like Nation 277 or Friendly TV) Likewise it's unlikely to ever be put out on DVD because supposedly not enough people would buy it. What we need is a massive databank of old TV episodes which you can either download via tinternet for yourself or at a push order an individually copied DVD from. Hurry up future.)
Posted by groc at 05:40 AM | Comments (0)
January 28, 2004
M & M
Dull Will, shrill irritating Grace and infantile fairy Jack in the background as a subplot. Megan & Madonna high in the mix = best. Will & Grace. episode. ever.
Posted by groc at 09:30 PM | Comments (1)
January 24, 2004
Doe - d'oh
The Offical Joe Doe site - a flash driven interactive thing. It makes my brain hurt.
[I guess I should explain for the benefit of those of you without access to the SciFi channel that 'John Doe' is a TV series. It was yet another one of those in a long line of shows that the American Fox TV network commissioned but then terminated after just the one season because it failed to reach some arbitrarily set viewing figures. Which, as it was running as an on-going story was pretty damn rude of them. I hate it when they do that, and they do that a lot that Fox network do.]
Posted by groc at 03:11 AM | Comments (0)
January 22, 2004
Cunningham stuntsham
There's DVD of the works by Chris Cunningham? Me want.
Doya think if I had an Amazon wishlist people will buy me stuff?
No, I didn't think so either.
(Note: to self, if I ever need an example of how totally shit my BT so-called broadband connection is: all I have to do is try and play the two movie clips. Broadband movie forget it. Go to dial-up version, oh, it can't even play that either! Hurumphf! But at least the Woodring realplayer cartoons played fine.)
Posted by groc at 07:23 PM | Comments (1)
January 20, 2004
Note to self:
Sky digital 289 -the FX channel. They're showing the 60s series of Lost in Space, Batman, Land of the Giants etc. ooooooh. Kitsch heaven. How long has this been going on and why wasn't I informed?
Posted by groc at 03:31 AM | Comments (3)
January 19, 2004
Avon calling
Noooooooo! Nooooooooo! I've just seen a really crappy TeeVee commerical with Avon* -(actor Paul Darrow) advertising those shopper scooter things that are so popular with the little old ladies here in Worthing. That's not right. Not Avon! [Sobs.]
Although it might have been really funny if he'd worn his old costume from the series, but that would have been more like a Harry Hill TV Burp sketch. Mmmm now there's an idea...
*from Blakes 7.
Bonus link: Oh dear Oh dear Oh dear.
Posted by groc at 02:09 PM | Comments (3)
January 16, 2004
microcast
Posted by groc at 01:49 PM | Comments (0)
Gene genie -loves chimney stacks
Oh wait - that was another Gene altogether.
Here's a record of Gene Roddenberry's repeated attempts to come up with a tv series idea to rival Star Trek. Which did eventually bore fruit as (the somewhat rubbishy) Andromeda. Well, the variation on the Rip Van Winkle theme and the character's name remained intact. Now it transpires there's to be another one of his ropey old ideas to be made into a series. This is not bad going for someone who's actually been dead for 12 years. Oh well it can't be any worse than Joss Whendon's decidedly odd idea of having a sci-fi Western in outer space thing.
However I got onto this train of thought escapes me...
Posted by groc at 05:19 AM | Comments (0)
January 12, 2004
Ringu lego
Oh yeah, I nearly forgot this link was forwarded to me by my friend J-me.
Spookiness-a-go-go.
Hellraiser pinhead minifig too.
Posted by groc at 10:39 PM | Comments (2)
Missing: one Tolkien chromosome
I was taken to see Return this weekend and despite the sprawling noisy spectacle of it all -I was well bored -really, really bored. I confess since they've never appealed to me I've not read any of the books, and even after watching the whole trilogy I *still* dont want to. Although I realise it would mean Id understand more of what was going on. (Me: Uh? Whered that massive army of green ghosts suddenly come from? Him: blah blah blah repaired sword, blah blah blah some promise, returned King, blah blah blah Me: oh. (Thinks: I wish that had been a bit clearer in the film.) For some reason I dont feel driven to wade through those thick tomes simply to get the finer plot details of a set of films that I didnt particularly enjoy watching the first time round. Lifes too short (and its getting shorter all the time).
Throughout all of the series I didnt connect with or even particularly like any of the characters so I didnt much care what happened to any of them. They all came across as a bit flat and cardboard-like to me. I did however, feel sorry for the poor giant cgi elephants. I like elephants -even computer generated ones. (It also crossed my mind a few times that at some level werent these films glorifying war? Is that such a good idea? Especially these days with that Mr Bush acting like one of the evil or mad kings out of the movie.)
So I must be amongst a teeny tiny percentage of the world who are totally missing the 'Tolkien chromosome'. It just doesnt reach me. This might have something to do with me being more interested in imaginary futures than I am in imaginary histories. Nostalgia-worship being a particular disease endemic amongst the British. I dont know. I dont care. I dont get competitive sports either.
Oh well. I did my duty -I tried.
Whens that new series of Angel on?
(P.S. Please dont fill my comments boxes with flames. If you liked it all well and good but any ranting at me wont suddenly make me see the light.)
Posted by groc at 01:47 PM | Comments (5)
January 09, 2004
Shreeeek (like a girl - a pretty girl)
(thanks to Daaaaaviiiid for the alert)
Posted by groc at 07:23 PM | Comments (1)
January 08, 2004
Commerical breaks 1
The worst adverts obviously are shown during the daytime when they presume only the unemployed, the retired, the skiving student and the housewife are watching. So that in mind most feature an endless parade of normal (usually meaning various ugly and overweight) actors people whove consolidated all their loans and thus achieved a state of nirvada-like bliss or something. Might I suggest culling as a more effective and attractive solution. After all they still dont look that happy -probably because they know the next round of utility and credit card bills are due any moment and the whole sorry debt mess is about to start afresh.
Quote me happy
The campaign started off all big budget (*cough*) with one of this countrys most irritating men - Richard Blackwood doing a pratty little dance around outside some designer home (were we meant to believe he owned that house? - I dont think so somehow) and now its all common street folk whose intelligence levels suddenly drastically plummet and they start having inexplicably giggly spontaneous noisy quasi-orgasms when talking on the phone. While Stepford wife style zombie call centre staff smile in bemusement. Bizarre and stunningly stupid - who says Quote me happy? Nobody. Nobody except a non-too bright advertising executive trying to come up with a memorable strap line and failing rather miserably thats who.
Time Lifes Life of Jesus video.
Errr. I think the chances that Jesus was blue-eyed and blond are pretty remote actually - in actuality he probably looked more like Bin Laden. That's a scary thought isn't it.
To be continued
Posted by groc at 08:41 PM | Comments (8)
January 06, 2004
VR 5
Posted by groc at 01:33 AM | Comments (8)
January 04, 2004
DVDs wot I recently watched:
Terminator 3
Much sound, fury, explosions and special effects signifying nothing. Pointless. Although I found the bleak ending an interesting touch. But it had to be there in order that the previous two films could continue to exist -after all you cant keep sending killer cyborgs back into the past/present day if theres no robot-dominated future for them to be sent back from can you? Terminator 4 anyone? But for my money having a Terminator movie that doesnt have Linda Hamilton in it was a bad move. Its was her character that actually made the other two movies as good as they were -not the lumpen Schwarzenegger.
(Something I've always wondered: Once the machines have achieved their objective of eliminating every last human -what will they do then? Shut down? Go into outerspace to find other humanoid-like aliens to destroy? What? Maybe they'll take up art and music -grow flowers?)
Bruce Almighty.
Unbearably schmaltzy -cloying and soft headed. If this is how Hollywood regards theosophy and the nature of man and his relationship with supreme being -then its no wonder mainstream America is in deep, deep trouble.
Trying so hard to be like a Its a Wonderful World for the 00s but with instant breast enhancements, pissing dogs and where id-driven self-centred self-interest takes over from any sense of community spirit.
Oh well. Thank god I'm an atheist.
The Ring
The American version of the cult Japanese movie series. Which despite being constantly irritated by the Matrix-style green tinge that they had throughout the entire movie -I really enjoyed. I see it as belonging alongside the others in the Japanese series as opposed to being a replacement for them.
Posted by groc at 09:37 AM | Comments (7)