Happened to catch about 20 minutes' worth of the film "Annie" on television recently. Featuring 1980s people dressed up in 1930s style, periodic random song numbers, child abuse, vaguely paedophilic dancing by a chorus of girl orphans, (attempted) murder by throwing someone off a bridge, and Albert Finney with a very strange head....
This is the Bizarro Universe version of Dennis Potter, isn't it?
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Planet of the Recyclingwatch
For those of you who have just joined us, Recyclingwatch is a handy guide to everything that you might be finding, well, a little familiar, whether from past seasons, the old series, or something else entirely. Whether you call it homage, pastiche or out-and-out blatant ripoff, it's out there, and we're looking for it.
The Unquiet Dead: Malcolm's “fanboy” gush at the Doctor is a strong parallel for the Doctor's own treatment of Dickens, with equivalently bemused-but-pleased reactions on the other side.
The End of the World: Mobile phones that work through time and space
Father's Day: The Doctor is galvanized to intervene when he finds out about people's ordinary mundane lives and thinks they're wonderful. Person being gobbled up by armoured flying creature
The Parting of the Ways: Swarm of alien creatures descending upon Earth.
The Christmas Invasion: seasonal references, to highlight that this is a holiday special. Someone getting skeletonised (also: pretty much any Dalek story since the new series started). “Press the big red button.”
New Earth: ...also "Gridlock," "Smith and Jones," "The Doctor's Daughter" and anything else featuring an alien which is basically a human in an animal mask: the Tritovores. “New Earth” also has the Doctor being forcibly snogged by companion, and a sudden ascent through a lift shaft on wires, as here.
The Runaway Bride: the Doctor going all emo over the departure of a companion
Daleks in Manhattan: Animal-headed creatures wearing boiler suits for no logical reason.
Voyage of the Damned: 70s disaster-movie action, with a small group of interchangeable survivors and a temporary companion who fancies the Doctor. Improbable vehicle flying through London's aerospace. Implication that the Doctor gets on rather well with Queen Elizabeth II.
The Fires of Pompeii: Psychic whose prophecies foreshadow the Doctor's future
Planet of the Ood: More prophecies, and a visibly recycled title.
The Sontaran Strategem: UNIT return, and they're all fanboyish over the Doctor. Soldiers saluting the Doctor (despite him being a civilian) and the Doctor getting anal-retentive about it.
The Doctor's Daughter: Temporary companion with dubious morality, who ends the story by flying off with the potential of a return later.
The Unicorn and the Wasp: Giant insect aliens.
Silence in the Library: fast-moving, all-consuming group of creatures; temporary companion who fancies the Doctor and goes on about their similarities.
Midnight: Small group of diverse people, stranded on a bus, turning on the Doctor in panic, and one of them starts getting psychic messages from the outside.
The Stolen Earth: prophecies of death and doom for the Doctor, again. Also the Doctor translating the animal-headed aliens' dialogue for his companion.
The Next Doctor: The Doctor again announcing that he doesn't travel with companions anymore, but picking up a temporary companion for the duration.
The Sarah Jane Adventures: Mobiles saving the day, over and over.
Old Skool Who: “Delta and the Bannermen” (bus stranded on alien planet); “The Greatest Show in the Galaxy” (ditto, with deserts); “Battlefield” (return of the Brigadier Bambera-alike); “The Demons” (Malcolm is basically Corporal Osgood in a lab coat); Big Finish/BBC Books (Iris Wildthyme, a slightly amoral but charming female Time Lord who travels time and space in a London bus); “The Ark in Space” (this episode's "homo sapiens" speech is the one about chops for dinner being much more important than alien planets); “Ace” (a companion who's a juvenile delinquent and the Doctor doesn't particularly censure her for this; always carries a backpack with various unlikely but useful items in it; also, Andrew Cartmel has said that her replacement was intended to be a female cat-burglar); “The Ribos Operation” (descending through a hole in the roof to rob a museum); “Planet of Fire” (the production team at great expense and with much fanfare travel to a foreign location to shoot it, and never let you forget it, but frankly they might just as well have gone to Camber Sands for all the difference it made*); “City of Death” (art theft, plus bumbling detective); “Remembrance of the Daleks” (skeletonising weapons); “Time Flight” (Tegan repeating airline landing safety info as the Concorde approaches the 1980s = the Doctor repeating bus driver instructions as the bus approaches modern London); “The Caves of Androzani” (excrement as valuable commodity).
Everything Else: “The Langoliers” (ill-assorted group of people who land somewhere strange, to discover there's a swarm of omnivorous creatures), “Pitch Black” (desert planet with swarm of all-consuming aliens and catsuited heroine); “Mission Impossible”, “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” series 6, “The Return of the Pink Panther” (sequences in which a black-suited thief drops from the roof of a museum to remove an artifact); “Buffy” series 7 (“from beneath you, it devours”); “Raffles” (who also stole a well-guarded antique gold cup from a museum, but much more amusingly and plausibly; also, a minor aristocrat who steals for fun and excitement); Lara Croft (antiquity-robbing well-endowed action heroine); the 1953 version of “The Fly” (oh, just look at the Tritovores); “Summer Holiday” (the archetypical Brits on Buses film); “The Time Traveler's Wife” (person making use of psychic powers to supplement their income by winning the lottery); “Primeval”'s season premiere this year featured long action sequences in the British Museum and surrounding area, and regularly involves time rifts with nasty creatures coming through; “Alien” (all-consuming aliens with metal bones); “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (carefully replacing a valuable object with a cheap one of equal weight).
*Seriously, one of Britain's main assets is that, for a country that tiny, it packs an amazing amount of varied landscape. Want snow? Go to Scotland. Want tropics? Go to that weird microclimate in Northern Ireland. Want beaches? Go to Southampton. With a bit of CGI it could be anywhere in the world. No need to go to Dubai and support morally dubious political regimes.
The Unquiet Dead: Malcolm's “fanboy” gush at the Doctor is a strong parallel for the Doctor's own treatment of Dickens, with equivalently bemused-but-pleased reactions on the other side.
The End of the World: Mobile phones that work through time and space
Father's Day: The Doctor is galvanized to intervene when he finds out about people's ordinary mundane lives and thinks they're wonderful. Person being gobbled up by armoured flying creature
The Parting of the Ways: Swarm of alien creatures descending upon Earth.
The Christmas Invasion: seasonal references, to highlight that this is a holiday special. Someone getting skeletonised (also: pretty much any Dalek story since the new series started). “Press the big red button.”
New Earth: ...also "Gridlock," "Smith and Jones," "The Doctor's Daughter" and anything else featuring an alien which is basically a human in an animal mask: the Tritovores. “New Earth” also has the Doctor being forcibly snogged by companion, and a sudden ascent through a lift shaft on wires, as here.
The Runaway Bride: the Doctor going all emo over the departure of a companion
Daleks in Manhattan: Animal-headed creatures wearing boiler suits for no logical reason.
Voyage of the Damned: 70s disaster-movie action, with a small group of interchangeable survivors and a temporary companion who fancies the Doctor. Improbable vehicle flying through London's aerospace. Implication that the Doctor gets on rather well with Queen Elizabeth II.
The Fires of Pompeii: Psychic whose prophecies foreshadow the Doctor's future
Planet of the Ood: More prophecies, and a visibly recycled title.
The Sontaran Strategem: UNIT return, and they're all fanboyish over the Doctor. Soldiers saluting the Doctor (despite him being a civilian) and the Doctor getting anal-retentive about it.
The Doctor's Daughter: Temporary companion with dubious morality, who ends the story by flying off with the potential of a return later.
The Unicorn and the Wasp: Giant insect aliens.
Silence in the Library: fast-moving, all-consuming group of creatures; temporary companion who fancies the Doctor and goes on about their similarities.
Midnight: Small group of diverse people, stranded on a bus, turning on the Doctor in panic, and one of them starts getting psychic messages from the outside.
The Stolen Earth: prophecies of death and doom for the Doctor, again. Also the Doctor translating the animal-headed aliens' dialogue for his companion.
The Next Doctor: The Doctor again announcing that he doesn't travel with companions anymore, but picking up a temporary companion for the duration.
The Sarah Jane Adventures: Mobiles saving the day, over and over.
Old Skool Who: “Delta and the Bannermen” (bus stranded on alien planet); “The Greatest Show in the Galaxy” (ditto, with deserts); “Battlefield” (return of the Brigadier Bambera-alike); “The Demons” (Malcolm is basically Corporal Osgood in a lab coat); Big Finish/BBC Books (Iris Wildthyme, a slightly amoral but charming female Time Lord who travels time and space in a London bus); “The Ark in Space” (this episode's "homo sapiens" speech is the one about chops for dinner being much more important than alien planets); “Ace” (a companion who's a juvenile delinquent and the Doctor doesn't particularly censure her for this; always carries a backpack with various unlikely but useful items in it; also, Andrew Cartmel has said that her replacement was intended to be a female cat-burglar); “The Ribos Operation” (descending through a hole in the roof to rob a museum); “Planet of Fire” (the production team at great expense and with much fanfare travel to a foreign location to shoot it, and never let you forget it, but frankly they might just as well have gone to Camber Sands for all the difference it made*); “City of Death” (art theft, plus bumbling detective); “Remembrance of the Daleks” (skeletonising weapons); “Time Flight” (Tegan repeating airline landing safety info as the Concorde approaches the 1980s = the Doctor repeating bus driver instructions as the bus approaches modern London); “The Caves of Androzani” (excrement as valuable commodity).
Everything Else: “The Langoliers” (ill-assorted group of people who land somewhere strange, to discover there's a swarm of omnivorous creatures), “Pitch Black” (desert planet with swarm of all-consuming aliens and catsuited heroine); “Mission Impossible”, “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” series 6, “The Return of the Pink Panther” (sequences in which a black-suited thief drops from the roof of a museum to remove an artifact); “Buffy” series 7 (“from beneath you, it devours”); “Raffles” (who also stole a well-guarded antique gold cup from a museum, but much more amusingly and plausibly; also, a minor aristocrat who steals for fun and excitement); Lara Croft (antiquity-robbing well-endowed action heroine); the 1953 version of “The Fly” (oh, just look at the Tritovores); “Summer Holiday” (the archetypical Brits on Buses film); “The Time Traveler's Wife” (person making use of psychic powers to supplement their income by winning the lottery); “Primeval”'s season premiere this year featured long action sequences in the British Museum and surrounding area, and regularly involves time rifts with nasty creatures coming through; “Alien” (all-consuming aliens with metal bones); “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (carefully replacing a valuable object with a cheap one of equal weight).
*Seriously, one of Britain's main assets is that, for a country that tiny, it packs an amazing amount of varied landscape. Want snow? Go to Scotland. Want tropics? Go to that weird microclimate in Northern Ireland. Want beaches? Go to Southampton. With a bit of CGI it could be anywhere in the world. No need to go to Dubai and support morally dubious political regimes.
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Train to be a 1980s film star...
Watched "Night of the Creeps" recently, which is one of those bad horror films that's aware of its own badness and enjoying itself thoroughly. The weird thing about it, though, was that the casting director quite clearly had in mind particular high-profile, but expensive, actors of the era (mid-eighties) for the key roles, and was casting cheaper lookalikes. In a parallel universe somewhere, there's a mega-budget, mega-hit "Night of the Creeps," which features Michael J. Fox as the hero, Rutger Hauer as the villain, Geena Davies as The Girl, the Jewish one from Parker Lewis Can't Lose as the best friend, Stacy Keach as the hardbitten police detective and Morgan Freeman as his sidekick, with Danny Devito as the comic-relief coroner (are there any non-comic-relief coroners in popular culture, except perhaps Dana Sculley?) and a cameo by Jeff Goldblum as the research scientist who's the first to die.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Go see "Watchmen," everybody
Alan tells me that the general consensus re "Watchmen" is that bloggers love it, and professional reviewers hate it. Well, put me in the blogger camp then.
I wasn't prepared to like it either, as the last couple of Alan Moore film adaptions made me convinced his material is unfilmable. But no-- about one-third of the way into the really clever title sequence (who knew it was possible to insert all the backstory that Moore provided in the text sections of the comic, into the movie?) I turned to Alan and whispered "I think I'm in love with this movie." The rest of it didn't disappoint, and although there was a significant change to the ending of the story, it's a change that I think worked and if anything strengthened the message of the comic. They also managed the trick which I felt "V" failed to do, which is to adapt a story written in the 1980s, keeping all the 1980s issues intact, but still keeping it relevant to today.
Sign me up for the four-hour directors' cut!
As for the reviewers, well, the comments for the Daily Mail's predictably negative review are pretty hilarious.
I wasn't prepared to like it either, as the last couple of Alan Moore film adaptions made me convinced his material is unfilmable. But no-- about one-third of the way into the really clever title sequence (who knew it was possible to insert all the backstory that Moore provided in the text sections of the comic, into the movie?) I turned to Alan and whispered "I think I'm in love with this movie." The rest of it didn't disappoint, and although there was a significant change to the ending of the story, it's a change that I think worked and if anything strengthened the message of the comic. They also managed the trick which I felt "V" failed to do, which is to adapt a story written in the 1980s, keeping all the 1980s issues intact, but still keeping it relevant to today.
Sign me up for the four-hour directors' cut!
As for the reviewers, well, the comments for the Daily Mail's predictably negative review are pretty hilarious.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Natasha Richardson RIP
Another thing to bolster my dislike of downhill skiing (I'm fine with the cross-country kind, but downhill skiing has never had much appeal; the scenery goes by too fast). I suspect I might even have skied at that resort myself, at the age of 13, which is just too weird.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Headline of the Week
TARRANT ARRESTED IN ASSAULT CLAIM
...Several Federation officers to press charges. Vila reported to have turned State's Evidence.
...Several Federation officers to press charges. Vila reported to have turned State's Evidence.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Unexpected Reassessment Corner: *The Green Slime* (1968)
Alan and I finally, courtesy of Ebay, got our hands on a copy of The Green Slime, a film we'd been wanting to watch for ages, anticipating a 90-minute-long festival of Sixties horror kitsch. Well, although the kitsch was there to some extent (the general look of the film can be summed up by imagining what Gerry Anderson would have done if he had been working on a BBC rather than an ITC budget), we actually found instead that, if you peel away the hilarious-looking monster, the detergent-bottle spaceship, the banal dialogue and the inexplicable decision to have everyone speak in a 50s-newsreader monotone, there's actually a really good film in there (incidentally, if you're not familiar with it, there's a really funny review here and the trailer here).
It's always been a firm belief of mine that the best sci-fi and (especially) horror movies are the ones where the sci-fi/fantasy/horror element isn't an end in itself, but is a metaphor, externalisation, or means of understanding something more basically human. Hellraiser isn't about the cenobites; it's about a woman tearing her marriage apart through adultery. Forbidden Planet, famously, isn't about the robots or the spaceships, it's about one man's suppressed reverse-Oedipal desire for his daughter and jealousy of the younger men who will inevitably replace him in her heart. The Black Hole is about sexual repression and the ways that can twist human relationships; The Blob is every bit as much about the 1950s' ambivalence about the emerging teenage subculture as anything starring Marlon Brando. And so on. Amazingly, The Green Slime turns out to be one of those films.
Taking away the space station setting, The Green Slime is the story of two men who are in love with the same woman. She chooses, not surprisingly, the one who generally seems to be a nicer and more responsible human being. The film's protagonist, the rejected suitor, Rankin, comes back into their lives after a decent interval, and then, in an orgy of repressed lust and desire for revenge, takes away his former friend Vince's command, completely destroys his life, and then kills him. Kurosawa films have been made of less.
So where does the monster fit in? Again, like the cenobites, the Blob, the Id Monster, etc., it (or possibly they) fits perfectly into the story as a metaphor for what's happening at the human level. The titular slime is brought onto the space station because Rankin's anger issues mean that he smashes a scientist's sealed specimen jar, splattering a crewmember's uniform, and then orders the uniforms triply decontaminated, which exposes it to energy which causes it to develop into a marauding creature. As the creature multiplies (and yes, Rankin's personality disorders are responsible for that as well), so it parallels the deteriorating situation between Rankin, his ex-friend, and his ex-love interest. The creature/creatures is/are, in a sense, a physical manifestation of Rankin's jealousy, becoming activated, growing, and multiplying, and not incidentally attacking Vince, his staff, and his girlfriend as it does (though interestingly, although the monsters attack the girlfriend, they don't kill her the way they do everybody else; come to think of it, no women actually get killed, which supports the metaphor), ultimately destroying Vince's space station and him along with it. Not incidentally, the monsters are also green, one-eyed, and possessed of phallic tentacles which kill any man which gets between Rankin and the object of his desire, and it is Rankin's attempts to destroy them which feed them with the energy they need to grow.
Basically, this movie needs to be remade, with a proper budget, a witty script, and an overall presentation which will bring out its hidden messages (arguably, that is; I'm compelled to add that Alan's position on this is that it's the very Sixtiesness of it that makes it so great). As it is, since it's not even been officially released on DVD, I'd just like to encourage anyone who's interested to seek out a copy and watch it with an open mind. Or vote for it at TCM and hope that this will get it an official release.
It's always been a firm belief of mine that the best sci-fi and (especially) horror movies are the ones where the sci-fi/fantasy/horror element isn't an end in itself, but is a metaphor, externalisation, or means of understanding something more basically human. Hellraiser isn't about the cenobites; it's about a woman tearing her marriage apart through adultery. Forbidden Planet, famously, isn't about the robots or the spaceships, it's about one man's suppressed reverse-Oedipal desire for his daughter and jealousy of the younger men who will inevitably replace him in her heart. The Black Hole is about sexual repression and the ways that can twist human relationships; The Blob is every bit as much about the 1950s' ambivalence about the emerging teenage subculture as anything starring Marlon Brando. And so on. Amazingly, The Green Slime turns out to be one of those films.
Taking away the space station setting, The Green Slime is the story of two men who are in love with the same woman. She chooses, not surprisingly, the one who generally seems to be a nicer and more responsible human being. The film's protagonist, the rejected suitor, Rankin, comes back into their lives after a decent interval, and then, in an orgy of repressed lust and desire for revenge, takes away his former friend Vince's command, completely destroys his life, and then kills him. Kurosawa films have been made of less.
So where does the monster fit in? Again, like the cenobites, the Blob, the Id Monster, etc., it (or possibly they) fits perfectly into the story as a metaphor for what's happening at the human level. The titular slime is brought onto the space station because Rankin's anger issues mean that he smashes a scientist's sealed specimen jar, splattering a crewmember's uniform, and then orders the uniforms triply decontaminated, which exposes it to energy which causes it to develop into a marauding creature. As the creature multiplies (and yes, Rankin's personality disorders are responsible for that as well), so it parallels the deteriorating situation between Rankin, his ex-friend, and his ex-love interest. The creature/creatures is/are, in a sense, a physical manifestation of Rankin's jealousy, becoming activated, growing, and multiplying, and not incidentally attacking Vince, his staff, and his girlfriend as it does (though interestingly, although the monsters attack the girlfriend, they don't kill her the way they do everybody else; come to think of it, no women actually get killed, which supports the metaphor), ultimately destroying Vince's space station and him along with it. Not incidentally, the monsters are also green, one-eyed, and possessed of phallic tentacles which kill any man which gets between Rankin and the object of his desire, and it is Rankin's attempts to destroy them which feed them with the energy they need to grow.
Basically, this movie needs to be remade, with a proper budget, a witty script, and an overall presentation which will bring out its hidden messages (arguably, that is; I'm compelled to add that Alan's position on this is that it's the very Sixtiesness of it that makes it so great). As it is, since it's not even been officially released on DVD, I'd just like to encourage anyone who's interested to seek out a copy and watch it with an open mind. Or vote for it at TCM and hope that this will get it an official release.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
You all know I don't have much time for Torchwood...
...but this is a surprisingly attractive promotional poster.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Headline of the Week
From the Globe and Mail:
MAID OF THE MIST MONOPOLY CHURNS UP COMPLAINTS
...mainly because I immediately pictured a group of Canadians sitting around a monopoly board, arguing as they buy up Niagra Falls-based tourism companies.
MAID OF THE MIST MONOPOLY CHURNS UP COMPLAINTS
...mainly because I immediately pictured a group of Canadians sitting around a monopoly board, arguing as they buy up Niagra Falls-based tourism companies.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Oh, like Odysseus went somewhere *else* for his holidays
And now, it's time to play Spot the Tautology:
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Farewell Miss Brahms
RIP Wendy Richard, then. This is particularly ill-timed, as Alan and I have been holding Are You Being Served? marathons lately (sometimes chanting along with the jokes, Rocky Horror-style), and so it was literally only yesterday (well, last week) that I saw her as a bright-eyed young Cockney shopgirl.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Victory
I've just won a court case against my ex-landlord and gotten the balance of my deposit back.
Yay.
Yay.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Keeping score
Since last January, I've been keeping track of the number of movies I watch every year in the sidebar. The problem with this system is, what do I do with partial movies? For instance, last year I watched about two-thirds of both Cloverfield and Great Expectations; in both cases, enough of the movie that I felt like I'd invested a significant amount of time in seeing them, but in neither case had I watched the whole movie.
This has come up again because the other week I watched the remake of The Omen, but got thoroughly fed up by the time I got to the scene where Damien murders his mother, and I'm not sure whether to count it as half a movie or just ignore it.
This has come up again because the other week I watched the remake of The Omen, but got thoroughly fed up by the time I got to the scene where Damien murders his mother, and I'm not sure whether to count it as half a movie or just ignore it.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Dune is busting out all over, part II
Fixing some packet pasta with a French label, I noticed that the cheese sauce sachet was prominently labeled MELANGE.
Don't it make your brown eyes blue...
Don't it make your brown eyes blue...
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Patrick McGoohan RIP
Also Ricardo Montalban. Is someone collecting actors?
As a result, I've been paying attention to The Lol'ing Prisoner again after far too long. Expect some more pictures over the next little while.
As a result, I've been paying attention to The Lol'ing Prisoner again after far too long. Expect some more pictures over the next little while.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The Next Recyclingwatch
The Unquiet Dead: Christmas Dickensiana, also featuring homeless aliens trying to take over the Earth.
The Christmas Invasion: Christmas setting featuring regeneration crises, and questions about the Doctor's identity. The Doctor gets, and accepts, a dinner invitation.
Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel: Mrs Hartigan's "Turn left, turn right," routine is a deliberate echo of Mr Finch's playing with the converted; Cybermen chasing people through the corridors and back staircases of an old house; Cybermen hiding out in underground tunnels and snagging a local power-hungry maniac to convert into their leader.
The Runaway Bride: Christmas setting involving red/red-clothed queen who is trying to save her race from genocide; improbable physics regarding the Thames. The Doctor gets, but declines, a dinner invitation.
The Shakespeare Code: Bitchy evil feminists involved in the conjuring of portals around premodern London (and watch for a Shakespeare cameo on the London info-stamp).
Daleks in Manhattan/Enemy of the Daleks: Small band of classic DW villains are thrown into the past and, low on power, make use of local technology and workforce to try and build themselves up again; the "Cybershades" are a close analogue of the Daleks' pig-slaves. Both Dalek Sec and the Cyberking are hybrid creatures whose merging doesn't quite go according to plan, leading to an internal power struggle between them and their followers. The Doctor offers the Cybermen here the same deal he offered the Daleks before-- relocation to another planet provided they leave humanity alone.
Last of the Time Lords: The Doctor's messiah complex surfaces again.
Voyage of the Damned: The Doctor's Tarzan act on the pulley is a direct visual steal from his using the angels for flight.
The Sontaran Strategem/The Poisoned Sky: Frustrated intelligent person allies self with aliens bent on taking over the Earth, then is rather surprised when the rest of the world doesn't see their plan as anything but horrible.
Journey's End: Something that appears to be a regeneration but isn't, which leads to the creation of a human analogue to the Doctor.
The New Series Generally: Rosita has a name which is a merging of Rose and Martha, and seems to have Donna's personality to go with it. The Next Doctor is every bit as much at home in Victorian London as the current one is in modern London.
Catchphrasewatch: Between the pair of them, the Doctors get off some "Allons-y,"s, one "No no no no no," and a "Brilliant" or two, with the Cybermen wandering around muttering "delete" at intervals.
Old Skool Who: Big Finish anticipate this heavily, with "The One Doctor" featuring a fake Doctor and companion team, and "Minuet in Hell" a man who is convinced through alien influence that he is the Doctor. Doctor Who: The American Telemovie brought us a faintly-ersatz Doctor with a penchant for cod-Victoriana. Earthshock has the Cybermen searching their database for info on the Doctor's past lives, in black and white. The War Games features people with artificially altered memories. Remembrance of the Daleks (villains who gain the power of imagination by wiring a human into a computer).
Everything Else: Not only is the setting Dickensian, but there's a straight-out A Christmas Carol reference in the Doctor's conversation with the urchin at the start. Lionel Bart's Oliver! (you keep expecting the Victorian extras in the background to burst into song). Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has the cod-Victorian protagonist, and his offspring, rescuing an underworld full of dirty-faced oppressed children from the machinations of the Child Catcher, as well as some proto-steampunk chic. Little Orphan Annie featured the villainous Miss Hannigan, a power-hungry, child-hating orphanage matron with a fondness for saucy double-entendres. The Cyberking references, as well as The Iron Giant, the Japanese "mecha" genre of films and animes, featuring giant robots attacking cities (in particular, Science Ninja Team Gatchaman has a hermaphrodite villain with a fondness for siccing improbable mecha, including a giant robot mummy, a giant scorpion and a nest of giant ants, upon Tokyo). Around the World in 80 Days features balloon-related Victorian shenanigans.
The Christmas Invasion: Christmas setting featuring regeneration crises, and questions about the Doctor's identity. The Doctor gets, and accepts, a dinner invitation.
Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel: Mrs Hartigan's "Turn left, turn right," routine is a deliberate echo of Mr Finch's playing with the converted; Cybermen chasing people through the corridors and back staircases of an old house; Cybermen hiding out in underground tunnels and snagging a local power-hungry maniac to convert into their leader.
The Runaway Bride: Christmas setting involving red/red-clothed queen who is trying to save her race from genocide; improbable physics regarding the Thames. The Doctor gets, but declines, a dinner invitation.
The Shakespeare Code: Bitchy evil feminists involved in the conjuring of portals around premodern London (and watch for a Shakespeare cameo on the London info-stamp).
Daleks in Manhattan/Enemy of the Daleks: Small band of classic DW villains are thrown into the past and, low on power, make use of local technology and workforce to try and build themselves up again; the "Cybershades" are a close analogue of the Daleks' pig-slaves. Both Dalek Sec and the Cyberking are hybrid creatures whose merging doesn't quite go according to plan, leading to an internal power struggle between them and their followers. The Doctor offers the Cybermen here the same deal he offered the Daleks before-- relocation to another planet provided they leave humanity alone.
Last of the Time Lords: The Doctor's messiah complex surfaces again.
Voyage of the Damned: The Doctor's Tarzan act on the pulley is a direct visual steal from his using the angels for flight.
The Sontaran Strategem/The Poisoned Sky: Frustrated intelligent person allies self with aliens bent on taking over the Earth, then is rather surprised when the rest of the world doesn't see their plan as anything but horrible.
Journey's End: Something that appears to be a regeneration but isn't, which leads to the creation of a human analogue to the Doctor.
The New Series Generally: Rosita has a name which is a merging of Rose and Martha, and seems to have Donna's personality to go with it. The Next Doctor is every bit as much at home in Victorian London as the current one is in modern London.
Catchphrasewatch: Between the pair of them, the Doctors get off some "Allons-y,"s, one "No no no no no," and a "Brilliant" or two, with the Cybermen wandering around muttering "delete" at intervals.
Old Skool Who: Big Finish anticipate this heavily, with "The One Doctor" featuring a fake Doctor and companion team, and "Minuet in Hell" a man who is convinced through alien influence that he is the Doctor. Doctor Who: The American Telemovie brought us a faintly-ersatz Doctor with a penchant for cod-Victoriana. Earthshock has the Cybermen searching their database for info on the Doctor's past lives, in black and white. The War Games features people with artificially altered memories. Remembrance of the Daleks (villains who gain the power of imagination by wiring a human into a computer).
Everything Else: Not only is the setting Dickensian, but there's a straight-out A Christmas Carol reference in the Doctor's conversation with the urchin at the start. Lionel Bart's Oliver! (you keep expecting the Victorian extras in the background to burst into song). Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has the cod-Victorian protagonist, and his offspring, rescuing an underworld full of dirty-faced oppressed children from the machinations of the Child Catcher, as well as some proto-steampunk chic. Little Orphan Annie featured the villainous Miss Hannigan, a power-hungry, child-hating orphanage matron with a fondness for saucy double-entendres. The Cyberking references, as well as The Iron Giant, the Japanese "mecha" genre of films and animes, featuring giant robots attacking cities (in particular, Science Ninja Team Gatchaman has a hermaphrodite villain with a fondness for siccing improbable mecha, including a giant robot mummy, a giant scorpion and a nest of giant ants, upon Tokyo). Around the World in 80 Days features balloon-related Victorian shenanigans.
Thought for the day
Q. How many television executives does it take to change a lightbulb.
A. One, but does it have to be a lightbulb?
(from the commentary track of my new Out DVD)
A. One, but does it have to be a lightbulb?
(from the commentary track of my new Out DVD)
Thursday, January 01, 2009
a review of "Dune: House Harkonen" in the style of nigel molesworth
there is a man named baron harkonen.
baron harknonen hav a brother, and he hate baron harknonen.
there is also a religious order called the bene gesserit, and they all hate baron harkonen.
there is also a duke called leto atreides, and he hate baron harkonen.
leto atreides hav two wives, one son, three good friends, a doctor and a mentat, and they all hate baron harkonen.
in fact the whole business is unspeakably sordid.
baron harknonen hav a brother, and he hate baron harknonen.
there is also a religious order called the bene gesserit, and they all hate baron harkonen.
there is also a duke called leto atreides, and he hate baron harkonen.
leto atreides hav two wives, one son, three good friends, a doctor and a mentat, and they all hate baron harkonen.
in fact the whole business is unspeakably sordid.
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