TV box round up - mostly new

Treme I loved the Wire, Generation Kill & The Corner and I've got lots of love for the music of New Orleans so why can't I seem to enjoy Simon's post-Katrina drama set in the Crescent City? I've only seen the first three but besides the music there seemed to be little else going on, a handful of storylines with little momentum and that seemed to be about it. I will watch the rest somehow eventually.

Louie is the Curb-ish sitcom from the comedy brain of Louis CK. Semi-autobiographical it switches between his stand up material and his mundane struggles being a divorced father of two. Pretty funny but I'm not entirely convinced.

Persons Unknown - guess this is supposed to be a Lost substitute with mysteries rubbed in your face from the get go. 7 peeps are whisked from their everyday lives and wake up in an abandoned yet cctv filled town which they can't escape from and then their jailors start messing with them. It's ok but I doubt it'll last.

True Blood is back for it's third season, it's still good and they've expanded their bestiary to include Werewolves and Nazis. Oh and the third episode has a one of the most bizarre sex scenes I've ever seen - enjoy.

Jason Lee moves on from Earl to star in a light-ish cop show called Memphis Beat, it's not quite as good as Justified but better than I expected. It's only two eps in but so far I've quite enjoyed it: the cases are darker than I'd expected and it's peppered with some choice Memphis tunes.

The pilot for Rubicon was so-so, it kinda feels like Warehouse13 mashed with Lone Gunmen, all conspiracy and paranoia among a group of kooky CIA analysts, starring one of the leads from Pacific as the main dude. I'll give it a go when it starts in August.

Aural Pleasures

Amicus fatigue, Early Burt & a Bundy Biopic

I think Vault of Horror will be my last of the Amicus portmanteau films, not that it's terrible it's a quite enjoyable 90 mins I just think I need some genuine scares from a proper horror movie and soon - these half amusing/creepy 70's anthologies are beginning to get tiresome. Anyways this one is framed by the tale of 5 men being delivered to a sub-basement dining room by an uncooperative lift & after their meal they each confess to being hounded by awful, vivid nightmares. I liked Tom Baker's Voodoo painter, the Indian rope trick one and Terry Thomas' tale of a fastidious newly wed but the others were pretty weak. I think someone at the Beeb should try and make a genuinely scary anthology thing and I don't mean a homage like Mark Gatiss' Crooked House (though that was quite good).

Customers don't always exhibit the best taste in films yet I keep getting suckered in and giving their recommendations a go, well after sitting through White Lightnin' I think I may just start ignoring them. According to the customer it's Burt Reynolds' only good film after Deliverance and I agree he shows a modicum of acting ability, certainly more than in later years but it's hardly a challenge. Playing a Southern convict turned snitch looking to even the score with a murderous Sheriff turned moonshine baron Reynolds employs a modest array of acting faces, moody, happy scared blah blah blah but none of it convincing and he's still got that irritating chuckle. Anyways this potboiler thriller has a paper thin story so they've padded it out with comedy rednecks & car chases. Must have been a success at the time as there's a sequel called Gator but I won't be watching it.

The Deliberate Stranger is a tv-movie from the 80's about the life and crimes of Ted Bundy. It's ok I suppose. Bundy is certainly a fascinating character and I learnt a fair bit bout the case, I'd no idea he'd escaped from prison twice & defended himself in court like a loon but I'm sure a documentary would have sufficed for me, worst of all, apart from the guy playing Bundy, this has some of the worst acting I've seen in ages. Hopefully the Gacy one with Brian Dennehey stands the test of time better.

The Rise of the Idiots

There's a funny/tragic/infuriating article on the Guradina site about two utter morons being appointed to Health Select Committee by our ConLib overlords. One is proud ignoramus Nadine Dorries, her of Humanzee fame and frequent spouter of abortion nonscience, the other is some guy called David Tredinnick who seems - astonishingly - to be just as thick as Dorries: his particular flavour of stupid involving asking taxpayers to pay £700 in expenses for software examining correlations between astrology and complimentary medicine citing as evidence the Moon's effect on the tides and from Hansard, Tredinnit during the alternative medicine debate

"In 2001 I raised in the House the influence of the moon, on the basis of the evidence then that at certain phases of the moon there are more accidents. Surgeons will not operate because blood clotting is not effective and the police have to put more people on the street."

So much for evidence based policy making then. Thanks Claggmeron.

Since the budget it's looking more and more likely that this magic coalition will collapse and personally I can't wait, the acrimonious blood letting will be marvellous to behold. If Clegg thinks his VAT u-turn stands well with Libdem voters he's delusional and it looks like the polls are beginning to show the result of their twisted little marriage. The usual excuses will be thrown out I'm sure but it'll lead catastrophe sooner than he thinks. The in-it-together budget itself is coming under increasing criticism too - Simon Hughes kicked off with some murmurings about tinkering with it, the IFS called it regressive and now we've got a Nobel prize winning economist calling it a crock of shit, my words not his. Oh happy days

Black and LaBute's Death

Lewis Black is one of the funnier Daily Show contributors so I was looking forward to his latest live dvd, Stark Raving Black, and it didn't disappoint he's still a righteously angry political commentator and fantastic at cutting through the insane levels of bullshit in American society. My only criticism could be that halfway through he drifts away from his political stuff & the performance softens a bit and the laughs less frequent but it's only for 20 mins or so out of 80 mins of shouty fun

After seeing Rock & Jordan bigging up their version of the 2007 farce Death at a Funeral on TV last week I thought I'd give the remake a go. I have watched the original and thought it was funny but slow to start and over-reliant on cheap gags. The remake, as far as I can remember, sticks almost exactly to the original plot and suffers from most of the same faults with the addition of some terrible performances from Martin Lawrence, whose always rubbish anyways and a tired occasionally incomprehensible one from Tracy Jordan. LaBute should hang his head in shame - if you're remaking a movie within 3 years of the original surely you have some ideas on how to improve it & if not why bother ? Mind you maybe he's got previous...

Tontine, Treasure & Topaz

The Wrong Box is a farcical little gem about an extended family vying for the contents of a large tontine adapted from a novel by RLS. Set in Victorian England it sports a stunning cast including Mills, Richardson, Caine, Pete & Dud, Rossiter, Sellers and Wilfred Lawson it's a classic bit of 60's fun. Directed by Bryan Forbes who apparently directed the excellent Seance on a Wet Afternoon & Stepford Wives mmm must look into some of his other stuff.

Yellowbeard is another British ensemble comedy but this time from the 80's and not quite as funny as it should've especially as it's bedecked with Chapman, Idle, Cleese, Cheech & Chong, Feldman, Cook etc etc. It's a tale of pirates and treasure on the high seas and it romps along and there's some great lines but the actually funny bits are outweighed by cheap gags and plain duds - still I'd rather watch it again than any of the POTC movies.



The Great McGonagall is Spike Milligan's biopic of the awful Dundonian poet William Topaz McGonagall. As weird and surreal as you'd expect from something tumbled from the mind of Milligan there's dream sequences, meta-performances, out-takes & fourth wall breaking along with plenty of wit, smut, toilet humour & terrible verse. I'm particularly fond of Sellers' cameo as jazz piano playing Queen Victoria.

Top 10 British "genre" mini-series

Looking for something other than Football, Golf or Tennis to watch? Nothing over 6 eps and all from our fair isle.

10. Gulliver's Travels - stretching it a bit as it's a joint UK/US effort but it does feature all four voyages.
9. Jekyll RLS's novel as reworked by Stephen Moffat was surprisingly good.

8. Count Dracula from 1977 is one of the more faithful adaptations of Stoker's novel.

7. The Nightmare Man a great story shines through despite it's piddling budget.

6. The Last Train an interesting PA tale from ITV with enough moxie to have a grim ending

5. I Am Not An Animal animated comedy bout some experimental animals escaping to live "normal" lives in the burbs



4. Dead Set Charlie Brooker's zomcom can be watched on youtube here.

3. The Day of The Triffids the original version of Wyndham's novel had more tension than the recent remake and can be watched here.

2. Edge of Darkness the Gibson remake sheds the originals strange mystical & scifi elements.



1. Hitchhiker's Guide.. of course

Cacophony of Cliches

Brooklyn's Finest is the latest by Training Day director Antoine Fuqua and it's was a little disappointing as it treads much the same ground as that enjoyable thriller but with added cliches and less focus. 3 cops played by Gere, Hawke & Cheadle are struggling with their jobs for one reason or another and are slowly drawn together for a ridiculous, plot holey denouement. The acting is solid from all three and it's well shot but ffsake the script and plot are so stereotypical, so over used that once the film starts you could pretty much guess the final third straight away.

Cold Prey is a Norwegian horror film that manages to squeeze in even more cliches than Brooklyn's Finest which really must have been quite an effort. A gang of chirpy snowboarders head into the wilderness looking for some tourist free slopes and after a leg snapping accident they decide to hole up in an abandoned ski-lodge hotel thing with the usual deranged killer stalking the corridors. Events take an even more predictable turn as the body count builds with neither the acting/script or scares lifting this above a painting-by-numbers exercise. Must have done quite well in Norway as there's a sequel I won't be watching.

Thinky TV

Traffik is the 1989 C4 miniseries which was later adapted, quite successfully by Stevo Soderbergh into a big budget thingy only to be remade into another miniseries a few years later. Over the six original episodes it's multi narrative approach looks at the heroin trade in Europe and the cultivation over in Pakistan with a poppy farmer, recently arrested German trafficker and a UK government minister and his junkie daughter as the main strands. It's a honest, very earnest look at the problems faced by individuals and governments in trying to "solve" our problem with opiates and with great performances from Bill Paterson, Julia Ormond and Lindsay Duncan this drama stands up really well especially so given it's 21 years old. It's a terrible indictment of our policies and governments that things have improved little in those intervening years. Seems like you can watch it all on YouTube here

I'm still tracking down Sidney Lumet stuff and found this little HBO special called Strip Search written by Tom Fontana of Oz fame. It's a peculiar post 9/11 drama about interrogation and human rights with the same script used simultaneously in two very different scenarios: Glenn Close interviews a Middle Eastern man in the US while Ken Leung interviews Maggie Gyllenhaal in China. The acting is good and I'm on board with it's political stance but I'm not entirely convinced by the clever-clever script device - it certainly helped make the point but another pair of stories would been much better. Lord knows what the original 120 min version was like, but as it is, an hour was quite enough for me.

Dren & The Defendor

Splice was great, an intelligent thought-provoking scifi/horror about some foolhardy scientific tinkering. Natali's tale is essentially a Mr & Mrs Frankenstein parable with a young couple of whizzbang researchers pushing their forward into humanoid based critters against orders and inevitable consequences are really quite disturbing. I won't spoil the details of the second half but it manages to straddle it's b-movie roots and the mainstream divide quite well, both leads are decent, the script & fx both sharp and it's got some brilliant, er twists and turns.



Woody Harrelson extends his acting chops by his convincing portrayal of a vigilante with learning difficulties in the bittersweet comedy Defendor. On paper it looks as if it's little more than a companion piece/rip-off of Kick Ass but this little film has a lot more going on than just explosive violence and crazy stunts. It's sensitive handling of the delusional titular hero and his tragic quest to track down the evil Captain Industry made this a much richer experience than I expected though marketing it as a straight comedy was definitely a mistake - though it is funny it gets harsh and I imagine the majority of peeps would prefer a different ending. It's like a slightly bigger budget version of Special so if you liked that delusional superhero give this a go.

Sunday Soul

Tin foil hattery

Gawker have an interesting article about this ongoing Pentagon-Wikileaks stramash - seems like Wired.com could've protected the now arrested Manning but decided against it (which isn't very nice) and now they're being all coy about releasing the log of their chat.

BoingBoing steps up to the plate though and releases a less edited version & my fav quote is ~ asked about the content of the cables, Manning replies....

"crazy, almost criminal political backdealings... the non-PR-versions of world events and crises... uhm... all kinds of stuff like everything from the buildup to the Iraq War during Powell, to what the actual content of "aid packages" is..."

So is all this talk of cables all a smokescreen so the Pentagon can trample on Wikileaks? or is there really a bumper crop of shit about to hit the fan ? I hope the latter.

Science Speckles

Mmm Mars was once quite watery with an ocean covering approx a third of the surface but that was 3.5 billion years ago while our lovely moon might have over 100 times the water we once thought. Via Space.com & Digg

Some 7th graders from California have found a skylight in a Martian lava tube and they're hoping to get a look with the HiRISE. Via Reddit

Yet another stunning pic from APOD - shame its too big for the blog.

Fossils found in Mayan graves point to their understanding of our planetary prehistory.

Not that it's a surprise but here's some research showing that fewer American's believe in evolution than almost any other western country.

First pic of Ikaros in flight, via BBC

Civvy Street Blues

Apparently Rolling Thunder is on Tarantino's top10 list of films which seems strange as it's a rather mediocre tale of revenge. A returning POW is tortured by some coin collecting Mexican's, his hand mangled in the waste disposal and wife and son slaughtered in front of him so unsurprisingly after getting out of hospital and sharpening up his hook/hand he heads for the border for some serious payback. The acting is good, the action solid and I guess there's some interesting stuff about the psychological damage he received as a prisoner but ultimately this is just window dressing for a massive shootout.



We all expect our summer blockbusters to be dumb but The A Team really, really pushes the boat out on the stupid. I always thought the original show was a bit lame, I mean what sort of soldier fires off a full clip and never hits anyone? anyways this big screen version is much the same: lots of big & noisy thoughtless action peppered with "witty" one liners. The cast perform adequately though there's little acting actually required and the messy plot is steamrolled by the frenetic pace of explosions-stunts-shootings.

PS3 @ E3

Surprising but very good news that Portal 2 will be getting a PS3 release - via Kotaku

Sony still aren't giving much away about the forthcoming subscription service apart from the price - it'll cost $50 per year or £18 per quarter.

GT5 release date is November 2nd apparently, pinch of salt and all that though. via Joystiq

Thatgamecompany have a adventure title called Journey scheduled for 2011 and it looks rather nice - apparently you'll be uncovering the history of an ancient civilisation. via Eurogamer.

Brain Matters

Interesting article on Discover by a psychologist, Kirsh, who thinks anti-depressants like Prozac are little more than placebos after doing a meta-analysis of clinical trials. Sure he's right but that won't stop them producing/proscribing & profiting.

Lucid dreaming is inching towards mainstream science with an article in the New Scientist about it's use in neurological research to illuminate the physical roots of our consciousness.

Goldacre has an amusing piece about an experiment that appears that superstitious people perform better at certain tasks and even better if they're allowed to clutch their lucky charms.

Turns out drawings might be the best predictor for truthfulness according to an article cited on Derren Brown's blog.

Tied to the TV

I kinda remember Kids in the Hall, mainly for the puerile squishing of heads, but they seemed to have dropped off the map since then. One of the contributors stars in The Wrong Guy a demented farce about a corporate exec who finds his murdered boss' corpse, goes on the run (even though the police know he's not the culprit) and continuously bumps into the actual murderer as he flees for Mexico. There's plenty of great lines and Foley's performance as the moronic Hibbert ties it altogether quite nicely - a good comedy that seems to have been forgotten.

12:01 is a reasonable bit of made-for-tv science fiction - rehashing Groundhog Day with a thriller about a particle accelerator, a murdered scientist and a buffoonish office worker turned hero. Despite it's cheapness it's got a competent cast and the script has just enough charm & wit to keep you watching till the end. Given the wholesale theft of the film's structure I guess it should be considered a success as I didn't think of Bill Murray once.

Other than clips of Shatner's famed airplane freakout I don't think I've ever seen a single T.Z. episode so jumping in with the cheesy, big screen Twilight Zone: The Movie was probably a big mistake. Is it supposed to be scary? or funny? I've got no idea but despite the talented directors involved this was 90mins wasted with only John Lithgow's performance as the gremlin seeing air passenger lifting my spirits.

In politics stupidity is not a handicap - Bonaparte

According to the idiot's paper, Daily Mail, we can expect a visit from empty headed Sarah Palin some time soon as she apparently wants a pic with her and the Thatchasaur. Cameron's lucked out though as he's not on her schedule.

And rich git Lord Ashcroft, Hague's deep pockets chum, is going to slam Cameron and his coterie for their limp election performance and half baked ideas. Via Liberal Conspiracy via NOTW

Clegg's also in the firing line with some Libs threatening trouble over the capital gains tax and generally cosying up to a bunch of dicks. Via Grinuarda

New polling shows only 48% think the Lib/Con thingy will last five years.

Guido is still chomping on poor old Gordo's cheeks - spreading a rather nasty rumours about Gordon being admitted to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

More Film Flam

Frank Darabont's zombie comic TV adaptation is looking quite tasty - first still above - via IO9 and there's an interview with the man himself over at Horror Squad

Supernatural is getting an anime adaptation from Madhouse producers of Death Note, Paranoia Agent, Full Metal Alchemist etc etc.

Vincenzo Natali, director of Cube, Cypher and the soon to be released Splice has been confirmed as helming the long awaited Neuromancer adaptation. Via Quiet Earth.

Yet another remake on the cards is Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - what, exactly, is wrong with the original Alec Guiness BBC mini series? I presume it'll suffer the same plot-squashing that blighted the State of Play and Edge of Darkness remakes but at least they've got a decent cast involved with Gary Oldman, Thewlis, Firth and Fassbender all lined up.

There's a new Studio Ghibli production due this summer called Karigurashi No Arrietty, it's based on the book The Borrowers. Twitchfilm has the teaser vid.

Prophetic scifi & Ridley's retirement fund

Nigel Kneale's The Year of The Sex Olympics is a startlingly prescient scifi film. Filmed in 1968, it portrays a future where the populace is split between Low & High drive individuals, the latter producing reality-tv pornography to help pacify and control the more numerous former. Leonard Rossiter plays a Co-ordinator of one these shows who decides to commission a new programme called The Live Life Show that'll explore some of our darker emotions. Despite it's dated appearance this is still a thoughtful, intelligent satire predicting the rise of those schedule-filling moronic reality tv shows we're currently cursed with.

Robin Hood directed by Ridley & starring Crowe is a decent enough thing I suppose - if they'd had the balls to tell Russell to sort his accent out or just hired someone more competent it could've been much better. It does have an interesting slant on the origins of the titular hero and a few decent action scenes but the rest is bog standard Hollywood guff and it's all slanted towards the inevitable sequel(s).

Drugs & Wars & Dipshits

Guido has a classic bit of Dennis Skinner - the ever amusing Beast of Bolsover - having a pop at George Osborne, as is his wont, thing is it's about a tawdry tale of vice girl & charlie & George! never heard this before - found a Mail article here and of course the photo in question, very shiny faced. Can't really think of another white powder you might chop into a line but who knows.

Sullivan's really digging in for war with his latest post questioning the very existence, the foundation of the state of Israel. It's a fair enough question in my opinion cause it's really all about a bunch of old books but I he's going to get a facefull of shitstorm.

Simon Jenkins, who's a bit bluergh has a nice idea - let's scrap the armed forces - I think the very least this ConLib thingy could do is offer up Trident as they're own personal sacrifice or a few overseas bases but no we have to have that big red button, shiny shiny red thing makes you want to push it.

Stupid BP has turned belligerent poor thinking Americans ire towards our own with this monstrous event in the Gulf but we can still laugh when some pervo who didn't even campaign wins a Senate primary and this dumbshit. Via Gawker Via Buzzfeed.

HBO Highs

Chris Rock's Good Hair is a fascinating glimpse into the world of black hair, weaves and some heavy duty chemicals. After hearing his daughter complain she doesn't have good=straight hair he investigates the strange world of $1000 weaves and the massive industry that preys on women's desire to look "european". Assisted by a bevy of talking heads he dots around the world meeting characters from LA to the Indian temples which provide most off the hair heading for the heads of western women, weird and surprisingly entertaining.

For Neda, another fine HBO production, is a powerful look at the life and death of the young Iranian woman shot by a sniper during the post election furore. This is disturbing & heartbreaking film with plenty of interviews with Neda's family and friends, scenes of Neda's death and a number of public executions. I hope the protesters succeed in ridding themselves of such blight. Ha - found it on youtube so have shoved below - link probably be pulled soon though.

Film Flim Flam

I'm kinda glad Guillermo has left the Hobbit films, his fecundity shouldn't be bound to some kids book so was delighted he's sniffing around Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness. via DOG

Same site has a stupid list of Carpenter's ten best+worst, pah I still think Ghosts of Mars is better than Vampires.

Batman Year One as an animated feature? that is something that I'd watch, now please. If I had TV powers I'd just greenlight a shitload, there's decades of great stories in 2000ad alone.

With Prince of P. making a half decent stab at vid-game-turned-movie here's another effort with the may-as-well resurrection of the Mortal Kombat franchise - the first one was ok, well in my then-debilitated state it seemed quite good actually but I didn't repeat the experience.

Lord Luton picks

Scuppering EIFF & brainless celluloid fantasy

As it's about to be shown at the EIFF I thought I should get round to watching Fuest's strange scifi film The Final Programme based on the even stranger novel by Michael Moorcock. Though they've changed the ending this sticks, as far as I can remember, pretty closely to the plot of the novel - Jerry Cornelius plans an assault on the family home to rescue his sister from the clutches of his demented brother and gets assistance from a creepy scientist Miss Brunner only to end up a pawn in her larger schemes. The film looks great - Fuest designed the sets himself apparently - and though there's plenty of decent actors along for this crazy ride it's stutters a bit towards it's shambolic ending. Never the less I enjoyed this drug addled scifi thriller for the oddity it is but it's probably not for everyone.



Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is, unsurprisingly, a lot of guff. Based on a series of video games it follows a jumpy Jake Gyllenhaal as the time bending Prince trying to restore honor to his kingdom with nowt but a magical dagger and a fair princess in tow. There's plenty of action, some natty SFX and competent enough acting but it's a soulless piece much like those insanely successful POTC movies. Reasonable enough for a wet Sunday afternoon I suppose.

Ear Excitations

Eye's Squared

Colossus: The Forbin Project is brilliant - an intelligent cold-war era parable about artificial intelligence and the idiocy of the arms race. Dr Forbin invents a impregnable supercomputer to run the nuclear defense of the US only to find that the Soviets have done exactly the same thing. To the surprise of both sides the computers start to communicate, eventually merging into a powerful autocrat that intends to rule the earth in a rational semi-benign dictatorship. The FX and design reek of the 70's and the computer tech is amusingly dated but it clips along a decent rate with some decent performances and a strong script and a nicely downbeat ending. Apparently Ron Howard's proposed reboot has stalled - think I'd prefer a sequel myself.



Asylum is a horror anthology feature from Amicus and as usual with these things some of the stories are better than others. The tales are framed by the story of Dr Martin, played by Robert Powell, who turns up at the asylum hoping to join the staff but instead of a typical interview he's asked to listen to 4 patients and see if he can identify the former head of the unit who's now been admitted as a patient. With a starry cast including Lom, a young Rampling, Eckland, Magee and of course Peter Cushing this is a highly enjoyable romp.

The Great Antidote

The strange phenomenon of Sonoluminescence is explored on IO9 today - no clear answers but it does have a nice pic.

Tentative results suggesting the possibility of life on Titan, via New Scientist.

You've probably seen this clip before as it's 4 years old but I hadn't so proving Space is the Place here's some boffins larking around with Alka Seltzer in micro gravity conditions. Via Reddit.



Looks like we can leave the development of space to the Japanese - not only are they planning to send a humanoid robot to the moon by 2015 they've now released plans to have a robot moon base by 2020. And it's not that the private sector is lagging far behind there's some astonishingly ambitious plans on the Shimizu site for amongst other things a Solar Cell belt for the Moon that could supply all of the worlds energy requirements. My favourite idea is the Green Floats though.

Fear & Frears

The Creeping Flesh is a nice slice of Hammer fun starring Cushing and Lee. Playing two competitive scientist brothers they get into a tizzy over a peculiar giant skeleton found in New Guinea that seems to be revivifying and seems to be the embodiment of evil. Nowt particulary outstanding but a solid bit of nonsense nonetheless.



Stamp, Hurt & Roth all provide great performances in The Hit from 1984. Stamp grasses up his chums after a botched job and flees to rural Spain - ten years later and a stone faced Hurt and brash Roth are sent to dispose of him, unfortunately Stamp's serenity and a series of accidents unravel their plans. It's 80's stylishness is a bit much at times but it's well shot and with a strong script and 3 excellent actors this is a terrific forgotten little thriller.