Freyburg

Yes, you read that right, my latest article at Mac | Life is all about the Apple products the Dark Knight needs to strap to his belt in order to better fight crime. And speaking of comics-related matters, San Diego Comic Con is a huge, crazy festival of nerdosity the likes I’ve never seen. And I’ve seen a lot of nerdosity in my time.  

The three jaunty fellows were pleased as punch to commentate on one of the high points of Tom Baker’s career, “The Talons of Weng Chiang,” a fantastic set of episodes by the late, great Robert Holmes (though unfortunately marred by the casual racism of the period.) Since Talons is longer than a trip on a Victorian steamer to the colonies, we decided to split the commentary into two parts. Warren will be at San Diego Comic-Con next Sunday, but he’ll do his best to get Part 2 off his hard drive and onto the Internet in a timely fashion.

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.

The dark times begin as we enter a solid half year with no new Who, but the august crew at Radio Free Skaro have ably responded to this gulf in quality televisual spectacle with a new series of Classic series commentaries, beginning (sort of) with Black Orchid, a Davison two-parter done on the cheap and set in the 1920s. Sarcasm and japes, anyone?

After last week’s mind-melting funfest, things could only go downhill…and they did! The Three Who Rule were unsparing in their criticism of a finale episode that had its moments but seriously underwhelmed. Still, that didn’t stop Warren, Steven and Chris from staying mostly on topic and ranting about what will be the last bit of new Who for quite some time. Next week, a Black Orchid commentary, take it or leave it!

“The Stolen Earth,” the penultimate episode of Series 4, was a barnburning spectacular of fanwankian proportions, and the RFS crew did their level best to keep their geeky selves in check before effusively praising (or in the case of Chris, begrudgingly praising) a jam-packed episode full of danger, Davros, Daleks, derring-do, and other things starting with the letter “D”. Delightful!

Chris absconded to Las Vegas  this week for liquor, gambling, and other licentious pursuits, so it was left to the other two pillars of RFS to hold the fort, which they barely managed. The subject at hand? “Turn Left,’ which served as not only this season’s “Doctor Lite” episode but also as a fantastic return to the series for Billie Piper, not to mention a sterling performance by Catherine Tate. The usual digressions and drivel-making were of course present, but without our tall co-host’s derisive sneers and seething hate, it wasn’t quite the same.

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!

I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a daily video post/podcast with a short, opinionated blurb from me about some matter of import. Here’s the first test run of said idea, where I yander on about the iPhone. Constructive criticism welcomed.