Lost – “The Shape of Things to Come”

10/10 – WTF !?!?!?

Seriously, this show is just insane now and hasn’t yet jumped the shark. After a month off, we get right back into the story without much delay. I won’t even try to catch up with that plot. “Lost” has truly proven that American television can do anything if it chooses.

Right from the opening, we are constantly provoked and prodded with both answers to old questions and even more bizarre new puzzles. We learn why Sayid is working for Ben in the future, but now Ben appears to be quite a bit more powerful than we had previously been lead to believe.



Last years “flash forward” trick is now standard in the show and one of the most bizarre “WTF” moments I’ve ever experienced was seeing Ben wake up in the desert (as if he teleported there … no footprints in the sand, etc.) The attack on the compound and the smoke monster sequences are quite amazing in everyway possible.



Frankly, though we do get a few more episodes, it will be hard not having this show to look forward to for the long period between seasons.

Doctor Who – “The Sontaran Stratagem”

4/10 – where’s his sonic lipstick?

Depressingly, the series is still looking cheap and the return of the classic Sontarans was not handled at all well. Helen Rayner, who last year turned in a weak script bloated with massive effects, seems to have turned in a decent idea only to be terribly let down by a low-budget. So far, the sets look like a warehouse and … a school … and a little room somewhere with cheap “old series” looking buttons. I’m a fan of the old series, but here’s the thing … you can’t have a wizbang plot AND a low budget.

A young genius called Luke Rattigan is working with the Sontarans by using their technology to devise a device called Atmos, which makes a car carbon-free and functions as a Sat Nav. However, 52 deaths across the world occur simultaneously when Atmos takes control of several cars. The Doctor receives a call from UNIT employee and former companion Martha Jones, who is now engaged to Tom Milligan. The Time Lord and Donna head to Earth and meet Colonel Mace, who is spearheading a raid on an Atmos factory.

Immediatley, boy genius is always a bad start. Just really … seriously … Adric … we hate the boy genius thing. Then there is UNIT, which should be a welcome reunion, but in truth UNIT now has nothing to do with the past and was really just pushed up as an idea to a.) keep Martha in the picture until she (probably) joins Torchwood in the 3rd series or b.) just some soldiers for the Sontarans to kill …. Probably both.

So far no real care has been taken with these mid-season 2-parters. The Cybermen were poorly handled and the Daleks were shoved into a King Kong homage. The Sontarans appear to be in a Kroft special or “The Sarah Jane Adventures.”

I’m reading various reviews and I seem to be in the minority. There were some fun moments, but the gravity of the situation (excuse the pun) didn't really sink in ... I hope part 2 will be better and someone is saving this cash for a big ending.

Blake's 7 is Coming Back

April 24, 2008

Blake's 7 set to wobble its way back to television screens



Adam Sherwin, Media Correspondent
Science fiction fans can celebrate the revival of a famous cult hit after plans to revive the BBC series Blake’s 7 were announced.

The space-set saga, which ran from 1978 to 1981, was praised for its dark storylines and gained an international following. After years of lobbying by fans, the success of Doctor Who and complex sci-fi series such as Battlestar Galactica has prompted a remake.

The new Blake’s 7 will fly on Sky One after the satellite broadcaster asked the rightsholders of Terry Nation’s creation to develop a fresh series.

The BBC show followed the exploits of Roj Blake as he led a band of reluctant rebels against the totalitarian Federation, which ruled the galaxy.

Launched in the wake of Star Wars’ success, Blake’s 7 challenged viewer expectations with its cynical characters, who were eventually massacred in a shoot-out.

Blake 7 Productions will now have the technology to create the epic space battles which were constrained by the BBC’s budgetary demands in the late 70s.

Producers have mapped out a six-part series reviving Blake, his self-serving lieutenant Avon, Servalan, the ruthless Supreme Commander, and the show’s other fondly-remembered characters.

Although the UK audience will be limited to Sky subscribers, the series will be sold to international broadcasters - the original was shown in 40 territories. The Blake’s 7 brand also has significant potential for programme downloads and DVD sales.

Elaine Pyke, Sky One commissioning editor, told Broadcast: “At a time when science fiction shows often discard good storytellng for overblown visual effects and following the lead of Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica, the time is ripe for a revival of a show that represents the best traditions of the genre.”

Sky is seeking a show to replace Galactica, praised as a complex allegory about US foreign policy intervention, but which has begun its final series.

The BBC will challenge the revival with a new sci-fi show that echoes Blake’s 7. Outcasts follows the race to find an alternative home to Earth in the Universe. In return for their liberty, a group of social misfits and criminals become the pioneers of a large new settlement on a near planet.

In Blake’s 7, Blake is a political dissident who escapes deportation to a remote planet by forming a gang of reluctant rebels, who include a smuggler and a thief.

Russell T Davies’s popular reinvention of Doctor Who convinced broadcasters that sci-fi was no longer the province of geeks. Life On Mars, with its time-travel scenario, continued the trend.

Doctor Who - “Planet of the Ood”

4/10 – OK, seriously, when is the series actually going to start …

There is something desperately wrong with the 4th season of Doctor Who. Some might blame Catherine Tate as Donna, others the writer Russell T. Davies, but I’m not so sure. I think they’ve stretched themselves too thin. For one thing, the new season has lacked a lot of the slick luster previous series have had and look a bit more like the children’s “Sarah Jane Adventures.” Quite frankly, maybe two spin-offs is slightly too distracting from the original? Who cares about Torchwood’s great ratings? They are miniscule by comparison to Doctor Who … even in America!

Then there is the story telling. The seasons have a predictability to them that has now gotten a bit annoying. Episode 2 always has to be an historical, while the future shows always revolve around something we’ve previously seen. The only chances the season takes are towards its gallop to the half-assed story-arc ending.

Planet of the Ood. Well, where to begin? Oh, why not the Ood themselves? They aren’t anything interesting, apart from a good creature design. But, that doesn’t matter since we’ve seen enough farting aliens – oh please, one more f’ing Slitheen story, preferably on New Earth -- in the last few years to make us grateful for anything else. The story, while on its very obvious surface, is a simple metaphor for slavery, basically goes no place and ends no place. It felt nice, but bored me.





And, next week we get the mid-season old monster 2-parter with the Sontarans … and I dearly hope they haven’t ruined them the same way they did with the Cybermen (my official favorite classic monster) … But, if they can do it, they will find a way. Perhaps farting Sontarans … all in unison, since they are a clone race.

Basically, where once I was hopeful, now my enthusiasm is sinking fast …

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

4/10 – Trust me, he knows …

Two brothers (Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman) are both in some financial trouble and decide to knock over their own parent’s jewelry store, but chaos ensues when the robbery goes wrong and their mother is killed. Much hailed in critical circles, I’m going against the grain here and saying that “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” is really quite poor. The now cliché “Pulp Fiction” style of jump-cut narrative is not innovative or new anymore and could only be seen as clever by the incredibly stupid. Let’s face it, once you’ve seen a trick, seeing it again and again isn’t as good.

Also, though it’s nice to see Ethan Hawke return, Philip Seymour Hoffman is one of the most overrated actors in the business. He does some character roles really well, but most of the time the fat obnoxious guy he plays isn’t very satisfactory. Albert Finney, another of the overrated genre and Marisa (I’m not too old to be naked) Tomei, complete an otherwise disinterested cast in this pathetic family melodrama. In fact, that is the very point of what drove me nuts about this film: the characters are all completely disconnected from each other … even when they are not supposed to be. Its as if the actors all got in some fight and decided not to look at each other throughout filming.

Basically, rent it if you have to.

P2

1/10 – move along, nothing to see here ….

Rarely do I see a film that I can honestly, without any sense of reluctance, say has no redeeming value what-so-ever. P2, the latest in the psycho-kidnapper genre is probably the dumbest film I’ve seen in a long, long time. Its essential crime against cinema doesn’t lay in the fact that it is somehow repulsive, just endlessly dull and repetitive.

OK, so you know if you are watching a horror film, you are going to get the usual “Saw” type terror scenes with the main characters in distress, etc., with some clever object lesson or point. P2 does not deliver anything essential or new.

It is, quite simply, the story of a woman working late at the office and being kidnapped and held hostage (rather elaborately) by the night-duty security guard on Christmas Eve. That’s it. She kills him and escapes in the end.

Breach

Chris Cooper plays infamous spy Robert Hanssen, an agent convicted of spying for the Soviet Union (and, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia) for 15 years. His arrest in 2001 sent a shockwave through the intelligence community. The film is subtle and accurately portrays his uncovering by an upstart FBI operative working cover. The full extent of his damage is still unknown.

For the spy fan, this is as good as it gets and as realistic as it gets. Cooper is almost too charismatic for the role of Hanssen, but if the movie were toned down any more it would be asleep. As it is, it simmers to a boil that resenates long after the credits role and makes you want to watch it again. Simply great.

Valentino

1977 - Ken Russell freely admitted that this movie was a mistake, but there is always something worth seeing in a Ken Russell film. In this case, we get the usual garish colorful splash of melodrama applied to the myth of silent film star Rudolph Valentino. Truth be told, there isn’t much I do know about Valentino, but that’s the point of a myth.

Valentino’s life takes center stage and, though probably as much fiction as fact, it is an interesting little life. Russell milks every moment (and myth) for what its worth throwing in a few good key names of the time for good measure. Massive splashes of color are the director’s trademark and he doesn’t let up. Felicity Kendall delivers a fine supporting role as the woman who discovering the Latin lover.

If you want facts about the star, read a book. Like Oliver Stone’s “The Doors” there isn’t much strict fact, but you do get the feeling that the reality is less important than the myth. What little fact exists (like the infamous powder puff incident) are presented in heavy time compression.

Five Days

Sadly, this should be a gripping important drama about the abduction of a woman, but for the fact that we’ve seen it so many times in crime dramas that the impact is just too muted by the medium itself. The problem is primarily that it seems lost in genre-trading. Is it a mystery? A family tragedy?

This might have been vaguely effective if it were a TV movie, but five episodes drags us along with characters and situations that seem … well, drawn out for the sake of filling up time. The question is, ultimately, at the end of the show, do we actually care? Though well filmed, conceived, and acted, I found myself drifting off during the numerous family digressions during the 3rd and 4th episodes. By episode 5, it was difficult to understand what the point of the show was in the first place.

Obviously a BBC prestige drama, HBO got in their hands into the mix.

TCM Archives - Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 2

The Divorcee / A Free Soul / Night Nurse

There’s a lot your grandparents never told you about the old days.

I’m currently watching through the excellent collection of pre-code Hollywood films -- the films made before the Hays office and the Catholic League of Decency stepped in to tamper down the sex and violence in films. If watching an old film makes you think that no one did anything slightly indecent before the 1960s, you should try watching this collection … and rethink the greatest generation.

“The Divorcee” and “A Free Soul” are two classic examples of the prevailing sexuality of the post stock market crash era. People wanted to see the rich and the libidinous and that’s just what Norma Shearer delivers in these two semi-morality tales. “The Divorcee” is clearly the best of them. Based on the 1929 Ursula Parrott novel "Ex-wife", Norma Shearer discovers that her husband has had an affair with another woman. Though he insists its “no big deal” it clearly is and she decides to “even their account.” Exposing the double standards of men and women, the husband clearly can’t take having been cheated on. Women are not supposed to do these things (even though its no big deal for a man.) Ultimately, the wife has many torrid affairs and returns to her husband and all is well.

“A Free Soul” sees Shearer gets involved with her drunken lawyer father’s gangster client (Clark Gable) and ultimately ends up costing the family and herself more than she could have ever imagined. There is a happy ending, but it seems so downbeat that you don’t even notice it.

“Night Nurse” is a Joan Crawford tale that twists and turns around her attempts to be nurse … and a good one at that. She soon discovers that she is to care for two children who are being killed slowly by a greedy shoffer (Clark Gable again) with designs on marrying the drunken wife and collect their trust fund. It turns out that an early friend in the underworld she made saves the day by … calling some guys and taking him for a ride. Essentially, he has him murdered. It is this kind of story that makes you wonder what people are thinking about when they make movies now.

Included are some good commentaries by movie history buffs (who sometimes make you laugh and sometimes make you wonder what audience they are talking to) and an excellent documentary of the entire process leading to the enforcement of the code in 1934.

I haven’t watched “Three on a Match” and “Female” so I expect to review those in future blogs.

Logan’s Run - Reissue

Anyone who knows “Logan’s Run” (and if you are of a certain age, you definitely do) you don’t need a recap of the plot. But here is one just for the sake of completeness:

Sometime in the 23rd century...
the survivors of war, overpopulation and pollution
are living in a great domed city, sealed away from the
forgotten world outside. Here, in an ecologically balanced world,
mankind lives only for pleasure,
freed by the servo-mechanisms which provide everything.
There's just one catch:
Life must end at thirty unless reborn in the fiery ritual of Carousel.

Everyone in the dome has a lifeclock in their hands and at the age of 30 they die (though they all think they are being reborn.) Logan is a Sandman who hunts and kills those who try to run. When he discovers an Anhk the computer sends him on a new mission. By removing his remaining years, he is to go under cover as a runner himself. The only problem is now he is really running.



There is a lot of semi-nude scenes and the first appearance of Farrah Fawcett.



The original DVD was issued as a barebones early release and many fans were looking forward to a restoration. Unfortunately, very little if anything was improved. The print looks the same and the anamorphic quality doesn’t actually seem enhance much of the spectacle that was the cream of the sci-fi crop prior to the release of Star Wars the next year.

In short, this is more of a double dip than anything. Even the original artwork was better than the reissue.

Cloverfield

Well, what can you say? Over-hyped? Yes, big time. This movie is accurately described as a combination of “Godzilla” and “The Blair With Project” … and all that is true. It has some of elements of “28 Days Later” in it as well, but that’s to be expected. But, if you accept that what you are going to see is not the greatest movie ever and a rather great contribution to the B-movie monster genre, then you are going to enjoy it. How could you not? Nothing is explained, everything is seen through a camcorder, and you only have the limited point of view of characters and their limited motivations. It is in fact more like real life than the huge 1997 “Godzilla” remake or the various remakes of “King Kong.”

Despite its POV style of filmmaking (not for those that get a bit dizzy when the camera giggles), this is a movie that does not cheat on the special effects. There are many and with the camcorder device to tell the story, we get a different view of the same old story of New York getting beaten to crap by a giant monster. What else do you want? Happy ending? Well, no, sorry.

Brought to you by the same company that makes "Lost" it isn't exactly a topper to the greatest American television series ever made, but at least it doesn't wuss out.

Angel-A

Luc Besson (“The Fifth Element” and “The Professional”) brings us an unusual twist on the angel stories of “Wings of Desire” and, especially, “It’s a Wonderful Life” with this French language black and white comedy with a heart.

Drowning in debt, without a Euro to his name and refused the benefits of the US green card he won in a lottery, André (Jamel Debbouze) decides the best thing for all concerned is to chuck himself into the Seine. Just as he is about to end it all on the Pont Alexandre III, however, he is interrupted by a beautiful blonde (Rie Rasmussen) who leaps in first. When he pulls her to safety, she offers to help him out of his current malaise.

Angela, of course, is no ordinary stunner, though it takes time for the skeptical André to realize she has latched onto him for a reason. The twist is that she needs him just as much as he needs her, if only to feel the emotional connections that divinity has denied her.

What we get is a movie that at first seems stylistic and emotionally distant (as most French films do) but draws us in with the heart of the film. It defies expectations and, if you don’t mind foreign language films, is just one of the most recommended films I have seen in years.

Battlestar Galactica

“He That Believeth in Me” and “Six of One”



Any fan of the newly reinvented BSG knows that each season is different and we also know that this, season four, is to be the final conclusion to the story. We know that all but one of the final five cylons were revealed in somewhat silly finale of last season with one left to be revealed. Baltar escapes conviction in his genocide trial, only to go into hiding with a group of fanatical followers who believe he is some kind of prophet. Oh, and Starbuck turns up claiming she’s found Earth.

Again, we are in a new and strange area with season four. Baltar does appear (at least in outwardly) to be some kind of healer and is now a believer in the one true god, but that doesn’t mean he averse to sleeping with his beautiful female followers. Starbuck is believed to be a cylon and claims that the continued jumping away from the nebula is taking the feeling away from her to find Earth again. Her ship is in pristine condition and thinks she’s only been away six hours (when in fact, she’s been believed dead for two months.)





By the time we get to episode two, the cylon raiders are refusing to attack the fleet and there is a division in the ranks of the seven cylon models whether or not to lobotomize them. In the end, Caprica Six decides to take matters into her own hands and turns the centurions to their cause and, it appears boxes the lines of a few of the models.






Like all seasons of BSG, there is a lot of moral ambiguity surrounding our characters and situations. Furthermore, there is the constant shifting of allegory (last season saw allusions to Iraq and “The Great Escape” with some rather unsettling twists.) Baltar as a Jesus figure is probably going to be one of the series’ most enduring contradictions. What will the remaining season bring is, frankly, anyone’s guess. However, I deeply suspect that the revelation of the final cylon will not be as truly interesting as what happens in the overall scheme of the plot.

Doctor Who - The Fires of Pompeii

8/10 - Up Pompeii (Yeah, I know)



Well, there’s nothing like a good old history story is there? “Its Pompeii … and its volcano day” is the line we’ve been waiting for since Captain Jack said it in 2005. It was almost inevitable. The Doctor and Donna arrive in what they think is ancient Rome and the usual "This is wonderful" scene ensues.



But, as usual, there is something not altogether right going on. As we long-time fans have come to expect, these historical adventures always have some alien influence (unlike the Hartnell days) and in Pompeii the Doctor finds that the soothsayers know a lot more than they should. (What is on Donna’s back?)

The aliens that landed centuries ago are reconstituting themselves into an invasion force … one that puts the Doctor in a very difficult position. There are a lot of great special effects and a good solid story that puts the morality of Doctor Who back into position. Donna comes across, again, as the voice of reason for the Doctor, but also understands the impossible choices he must make.

But, I have to add, that something about this story didn’t sit right with me. I can’t quite put my finger on it, so perhaps I should let it be for now. Some stories take time, while others (like “The Shakespeare Code”) seem wonderful on first viewing and become tiresome after multiple viewings.

Doctor Who - Partners in Crime

Its been a while since I last reported in, so I’ll have to make up for some lost time. But, in that, I can only start from today.

7/10 - Growing up Baby Fat



The return of Donna Noble from “The Runaway Bride” might have a lot of viewers vexed at our yelling comedian Catherine Tate bitching her way through an entire season, but this first episode shows a new (and yet old) dynamic entering into the new Doctor Who. However, Donna is a changed (somewhat) woman from when we last saw her and she’s looking for the Doctor. It is rather funny, then, that they spend half of the episode just missing each other. When they do meet, it might be the funniest moment in the history of the new series.

It is a light comedy about an alien breeding farm masquerading as a diet pill manufacturer. The Adipose are breeding a new generation out of the fat from human bodies. That all sounds pretty grim, but the “monsters” are so cute that this becomes very silly most of the time. In fact, it is a bit more like the children’s show “The Sarah Jane Adventures” (specifically the pilot “Invasion of the Bane”) than proper Doctor Who. It is only at the end that a good punch in the stomach of the coming season’s dark path.



Donna, in a classic comedy bit at the end, makes it very clear that, unlike Rose and Martha, she is not love with the Doctor and … at last … Doctor Who returns to total reset.