Buys
Got a couple DVDs this week - Eureka Season 4.5 (getting right on that) and the Korean film War of the Arrows.
"Accomplishments"
DVDs: The Guild Season 5 started off slow for me, and I've no doubt it's because I've never been to a convention and never plan to. This is the season where the Knights of Good go to one, see. But I COULD get into the "sharing a hotel room" comedy, and eventually caught up with this world. The relationships between the characters continues to evolve, Tink finally gets some backstory, and it's fun to see all the con regulars make cameos of some kind. There's Nathan Fillion, and Erin Gray, and Brent Spiner, and Zack Levy, and Eliza Dushku, and Stan Lee... So lots of fun once I got into it. The DVD includes a commentary track with the whole gang, , cast and crew interviews, a gag reel, the table read for the first episode, and featurettes on how they built the con and the steampunk stuff, and created twins out of one extra on a shoestring budget.
I've seen both versions of The Machurian Candidate, but the original is the only one I wanted in my collection. Still, I'd forgotten how insane some of the dialog (straight out of the Condon novel) was, and how much it ramped up the tension. The meeting between Sinatra and Janet Leigh's characters, for example, feels like she might be saying code words to activate him as a sleeper agent. You just don't know. But the actors make it work like they're veterans of Mamet's plays, none more so than Angela Lansbury as the emasculating mother, a role that got her nominated for an Oscar. It's an austere film, with little music, but it takes a lot of chances both in style and content, no doubt hitting too close to home back in 1962, coming out not long before JFK's assassination. The DVD includes a sporadic but always interesting director's commentary, a vintage interview with Sinatra and the director upon the film's re-release in 1988, a large photo gallery, and remembrances by Lansbury and a fawning exec.
We knew we wanted something silly this Kung Fu Friday because we would go to a housewarming party straight after. That's how the blaxploitation film Hot Potato got on the ticket. Black Belt Jones and a team of operatives fight their way through Thailand to rescue an ambassador's daughter kidnapped by a crime lord, fighting or helping what seems like a dozen tribes each with their own specific costume along the way. At its best, Hot Potato looks like it should be turned into an Icecapades spectacle (I blame the costumes and the choreography both). At its worst, you want to kill the loathsome White Rhino character played by George Memmoli, a heinously terrible comic relief character that very nearly ruins what is otherwise an ok martial arts comedy. Can't believe Memmoli almost played in the lead in Taxi Driver. Geoffrey Binney plays another agent, Johnny Chicago, who I'd swear was the inspiration for Indiana Jones if he wasn't so awful too. So it's a good thing we have cool cat Black Belt Jones (Jim Kelly) and his girl-du-jour, a super-competent Thai agent played by Irene Tsu. One to mock, and sometimes groan at.
Audios: Frazer Hynes narrates the audio CD version of Doctor Who's The Abominable Snowmen, which makes for a better than average "base under siege" story by virtue of its setting. A Tibetan monastery beset by robotic Yeti controlled by a Lovecraftian god called the Great Intelligence that eventually manifests as great gobs of foam spilling down a mountain, well, that's the kind of mix you only find in Doctor Who. Hynes does a good job relating the story's visual beats, not forgetting to let us in on the complex expressions of the characters. Victoria is charming enough as the easily-mesmerized damsel in distress. And the second Doctor is, as usual, pretty darn great. As I listen to these audios, Pat Troughton keeps climbing up my list of favorite Doctors.
Mentions: The most recent issue of Diary of the Doctor Who Role-Playing Games (#16), a pdf 'zine that touches on every aspect of Who gaming, including material for all three published RPGs, featured a number of blogs I visit frequently, mine among them! Thanks, Diarists! You know, I should offer to write something for the Diary. I quite like what they're doing.
Hyperion to a Satyr posts this week:
III.ii. The Mouse-Trap - Hamlet 2000
Got a couple DVDs this week - Eureka Season 4.5 (getting right on that) and the Korean film War of the Arrows.
"Accomplishments"
DVDs: The Guild Season 5 started off slow for me, and I've no doubt it's because I've never been to a convention and never plan to. This is the season where the Knights of Good go to one, see. But I COULD get into the "sharing a hotel room" comedy, and eventually caught up with this world. The relationships between the characters continues to evolve, Tink finally gets some backstory, and it's fun to see all the con regulars make cameos of some kind. There's Nathan Fillion, and Erin Gray, and Brent Spiner, and Zack Levy, and Eliza Dushku, and Stan Lee... So lots of fun once I got into it. The DVD includes a commentary track with the whole gang, , cast and crew interviews, a gag reel, the table read for the first episode, and featurettes on how they built the con and the steampunk stuff, and created twins out of one extra on a shoestring budget.
I've seen both versions of The Machurian Candidate, but the original is the only one I wanted in my collection. Still, I'd forgotten how insane some of the dialog (straight out of the Condon novel) was, and how much it ramped up the tension. The meeting between Sinatra and Janet Leigh's characters, for example, feels like she might be saying code words to activate him as a sleeper agent. You just don't know. But the actors make it work like they're veterans of Mamet's plays, none more so than Angela Lansbury as the emasculating mother, a role that got her nominated for an Oscar. It's an austere film, with little music, but it takes a lot of chances both in style and content, no doubt hitting too close to home back in 1962, coming out not long before JFK's assassination. The DVD includes a sporadic but always interesting director's commentary, a vintage interview with Sinatra and the director upon the film's re-release in 1988, a large photo gallery, and remembrances by Lansbury and a fawning exec.
We knew we wanted something silly this Kung Fu Friday because we would go to a housewarming party straight after. That's how the blaxploitation film Hot Potato got on the ticket. Black Belt Jones and a team of operatives fight their way through Thailand to rescue an ambassador's daughter kidnapped by a crime lord, fighting or helping what seems like a dozen tribes each with their own specific costume along the way. At its best, Hot Potato looks like it should be turned into an Icecapades spectacle (I blame the costumes and the choreography both). At its worst, you want to kill the loathsome White Rhino character played by George Memmoli, a heinously terrible comic relief character that very nearly ruins what is otherwise an ok martial arts comedy. Can't believe Memmoli almost played in the lead in Taxi Driver. Geoffrey Binney plays another agent, Johnny Chicago, who I'd swear was the inspiration for Indiana Jones if he wasn't so awful too. So it's a good thing we have cool cat Black Belt Jones (Jim Kelly) and his girl-du-jour, a super-competent Thai agent played by Irene Tsu. One to mock, and sometimes groan at.
Audios: Frazer Hynes narrates the audio CD version of Doctor Who's The Abominable Snowmen, which makes for a better than average "base under siege" story by virtue of its setting. A Tibetan monastery beset by robotic Yeti controlled by a Lovecraftian god called the Great Intelligence that eventually manifests as great gobs of foam spilling down a mountain, well, that's the kind of mix you only find in Doctor Who. Hynes does a good job relating the story's visual beats, not forgetting to let us in on the complex expressions of the characters. Victoria is charming enough as the easily-mesmerized damsel in distress. And the second Doctor is, as usual, pretty darn great. As I listen to these audios, Pat Troughton keeps climbing up my list of favorite Doctors.Mentions: The most recent issue of Diary of the Doctor Who Role-Playing Games (#16), a pdf 'zine that touches on every aspect of Who gaming, including material for all three published RPGs, featured a number of blogs I visit frequently, mine among them! Thanks, Diarists! You know, I should offer to write something for the Diary. I quite like what they're doing.
Hyperion to a Satyr posts this week:
III.ii. The Mouse-Trap - Hamlet 2000
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