Freyburg

The Three Who Rule were efficacious in their praise for Turn Left, a tour de force performance from Catherine Tate and the best part of Rose’s rather presumptuous arrival into Series 4. Of course, a good episode means we spend most of our time rapt in wonder and not actually commentating, but we made a special effort to lay down some bon mot as we enjoyed things being on Donna’s back, Doctors dying and mirrors sending people sideways through time.

Oh yes, and happy 45th birthday, Doctor Who.

 

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I walked into Dark Knight expecting a decent Batman film, but I walked out amazed. All through the film I was asking myself “is a superhero movie this good? Really?” Let’s start with the best thing about the movie, the late Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker. Ledger’s villain is all menace, venom and insanity, and he owns the role in a way that makes you look at Jack Nicholson’s take on the Joker and wince. That’s not to say Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman don’t all step up to the plate, because there isn’t a bad performance in this movie. And they’re all helped by an amazing script, that takes the usual superhero good vs. evil tropes and turn them on their head. It’s the writing, the acting and the staging that make this movie a masterpiece of the genre and easily the best film of the year. Highly recommended.

One of the worst things about Youtube is the sheer volume of “tribute” videos and other such poorly edited codswallop that gets in the way of searching for a clip of, say, Doctor Who. But amongst the junk there are a few gems, including this mashup of the interminable flight sequences from “Time Flight” with James Bond and the Death Star (amongst other wackiness):

Then there’s this bit of remixery which makes a complete hash of the Five Doctors in brilliant fashion:

Part 1:

and Part 2:

Just lovely.

Well, thanks, Gene Simmons, now we have a terrible TV show AND your idiocy and ignorance regarding the digital age with which to mock you. Apparently, according to Gene, the music industry is dead and it’s all the fault of the fans. It couldn’t possibly be that the old model Kiss rode to fame and fortune on isn’t valid anymore, or that maybe nobody wants music from a bunch of aging rock-dorks. No sir, couldn’t be that at all.

For once, the Three Who Rule were in total agreement that “Midnight,” the psychological thriller/Donna-lite episode of this season’s Doctor Who, was a fine bit of viewing. That left us with little else to do besides mock Who overseer Phil Collinson and engage in many a ridiculous digression, as per usual. Next week, Rose, dead Doctors, and atomic weaponry. Allons-y!

 

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Dissent in the ranks this week, as the Third Guy forsakes a life of marital bliss with Who scribe Stephen Moffat and rips “Forest of the Dead” a new one. Steven and Warren, on the other hand, were charmed and entertained by the concluding episode of the two-parter that began with last week’s “Silence in the Library,” and thus did vigorous debate and pointless digression occur for about an hour and change.

 

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Classic Trek and flatulence….a winning combo.

Tonight I’ll be going to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which is notable not because it’s the first time in nearly twenty years that Harrison Ford will don the whip and fedora, but also because the movie is part of a move away from computer generated effects and back to real effects, and more importantly, real stuntmen. An article in the San Francisco Chronicle explains how stuntmen in movies allow a film that was made decades ago to still appear fresh, while the latest computer generated epics look out of date a year or two after they’re released.

Even though I love computer and visual effects, I’m compelled to agree. And not only are new movies using too many CGI elements in lieu of good old fashioned, clunky but lovable “real” effects, they aren’t even paying attention to the rules of yore regarding editing and composition. I recently stumbled upon “The Black Hole,” a forgettable B-grade sci-fi movie from Disney made in 1980. I was immediately struck by the fact that, despite the overall cheapness and second-string nature of the production, they went out of their way to create a decent pace and to make every shot look as cinematic as possible. And back in the old days, every movie had to at least try for that goal, because they weren’t able to fall back on the easy answers afforded today’s films with digital editing and fancy VFX tools.

….and not a moment too soon. Heather Mallick points out that the ultimate “girlie” movie is less about female liberation than about rampant consumerism and empty, shallow competition to secure a rich husband. I can’t possibly match Mallick’s lovely bile, so check out her article yourself. She also name-checks and quotes professional misanthrope Toby Young’s post about the SATC movie, which is OK by me. Time Out New York also points to the movie as unleashing a new wave of douchification on unsuspecting NY neighbourhoods, and how the show created the creature known as Julia Allison.

I for one will probably never see the SATC movie, but my sympathies go out to all those dragged to the film by a significant other. That just ain’t fair, and I recommend dragging that significant other to as crappy a revenge flick as possible. One of the Saw movies should do the trick.

Another week of lackluster Who, this time set in 1920’s England, starring Agatha Christie…and resulting in a bit of inconsequential fluff that added up to an at best average viewing experience. The RFS crew, always ready to make lemonade out of crap, soldiered bravely on and veered so wildly off-topic that they might just have gone full circle and accidentally gone back on topic again. Digressions ahoy!

 

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