|
Post by Pinwig on Feb 11, 2024 23:36:42 GMT
BBC4 have had a children's TV evening, including the documentary on Oliver Postgate. I enjoyed seeing that again and am now watching Pogles Wood DVDs.
|
|
|
Post by The Doctor on Feb 11, 2024 23:45:48 GMT
Balls. I had no idea that was on today. -Ralph
|
|
|
Post by Pinwig on Feb 12, 2024 10:02:49 GMT
It's all on iPlayer.
|
|
|
Post by The Doctor on Mar 9, 2024 11:13:02 GMT
Gave up on Gladiators. Crap banter from most of the gladiators: too few lacking in personality and too nice!!!
YOU WANT TO DESTROY YOUR FOES, NOT SAY "THEY DID A GREAT JOB".
DESTROYYYYYY!!!
-Ralph
|
|
|
Post by Pinwig on Mar 9, 2024 15:54:51 GMT
There does seem to be a mandate with this about promoting good sportsmanship, with Viper being the heel exception who's allowed to be bad because he typifies bad sportsmanship and gets laughed at for it. I can see they're doing that for the impact it'll have on kids, and to be honest with the number of arguments I have to cope with in PE lessons it isn't a bad thing.
|
|
|
Post by Fortmax2020 on Mar 9, 2024 17:25:49 GMT
The Gladiators are growing into their roles more as well as it progresses and starting to flex their character muscles a bit more now. Legend especially.
|
|
|
Post by The Doctor on Mar 9, 2024 20:37:41 GMT
I tried watching Dune Part 1 but gave up after a while. Too much voiceover exposition and slow-mo at the start. And too much bloody whispering! I had no idea what Willy Wonka's mum was saying. It was all WHISPER WHISPER WHISPER.
Willy Wonka seemed very wooden with zero screen presence.
Portentious bollocks but then I don't like the book so maybe I am not the audience for it.
-Ralph
|
|
|
Post by legios on Mar 19, 2024 19:49:39 GMT
I have now seen almost all of Space 1999. I kept Bringers of Wonder Part 1, Bringers of Wonder Part 2, and The Dorcons back, so as to hopefully finish the season on a high note. I now only have The Dorcons remaining.
"The Bringers of Wonder" was brilliant nonsense. The Sack-Monsters were absolutely great. I think if I had seen them at age six they would have been downright terrifying. As it is their corrugated blobbiness makes them possibly the most entertaining monster I've seen in the whole season. Kind of lovely to see Martin Landau decide that this is the script he's going to just cut loose and go radio-rental on - it is a brilliantly up-to-11 performance by anyone's standards, making it all the way up to 12 compared to Landau's usual somewhat controlled performances. And always nice to see Stuart Damon turn up to play Stuart Damon.
Episode two also has the funniest "high-speed" foot chase I have seen in pretty much anything. (If you've seen it you know the one I mean). It also has some of the funniest stupid pseudo-science in the season.
* The aliens are doing their plan because their planet ran out of energy the can absorb, and they have to get more or die. The only energy they can absorb is the energy from a nuclear explosion... So you are saying that their planet used to have lost of nuclear explosions but they ran out explosions?!
* Maya "Oh, the creature I turned into stores oxygen the same way a camel does water." Karl *stares confusedly* "It turns oxygen into fat?"
It was nonsense, but it was fun nonsense that refused to pretend that it was anything other than silly. That is its saving grace.
One episode remains, and then I will have completed my forty year journey into Space:1999!
Karl
|
|
|
Post by The Doctor on Mar 19, 2024 20:36:54 GMT
Yes, the 'high-speed' chase is amazing.
-Ralph
|
|
|
Post by legios on Mar 21, 2024 20:21:16 GMT
And so, a forty year voyage ends... and it turns out that "The Dorcons" is actually quite good. All of the guest performances, in their space-toga backstabbing glory are rather good. The first half actually feels like it has some dramatic weight, engaging with the question of sheltering one life at the cost of others to a degree that you don't see in most of the Season Two episodes. Sure, a hypothetical Season One version of this same idea would be a much more weighty and interesting piece of drama. But this is at least trying. Then we move onto the royal shenanigans in space toga-land and for once everyone has the same memo and has the same understanding of what the tone is. Patrick Troughton is great, bringing a certain dignity to a role of a horrible individual who believes they are doing a sad but necessary thing. Much more restrained and interesting than the role had any real reason to be.
Then Koenig wins the day by the power of telling the truth and the Dorcons inherently corrupt monarchial system, stuff blows up, our heroes live to travel on in their unending search for a safe haven and we can turn the telly over satisfied before the stock Frieberger "Yucks" tag-scene comes along to ruin the mood...
It's been a long, strange journey from "The Metamorph" from here, but if nothing else, it is nice that I am ending the journey on a high note.
Karl
|
|
|
Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Mar 25, 2024 20:29:05 GMT
Blu-ray bingeing over the Easter season. Knocked off work early today, watched episodes 2.8 to 2.10 of ST: Discovery and episode 1.1 of Wednesday, as that has now popped up on discy format in HMV. Enjoying everything.
Martin
|
|
|
Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Mar 28, 2024 17:14:48 GMT
Finished Discovery s2.
Finished the Wednesday s1 Blu-ray. Enjoyed the humorous deadpan delivery. Thought the four episodes directed by Tim Burton were particularly good.
On to Short Treks s2.
Martin
|
|
|
Post by Bogatan on Apr 21, 2024 12:58:41 GMT
Paramount+ have just added What We Left Behind: Looking Back At Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
A lovely, but all too brief 2 hour look back on DS9. Been wanting to watch it for years.
|
|
|
Post by legios on Apr 29, 2024 21:10:40 GMT
Been introduced to Kamen Rider Gaim, which is a slightly different take on a Kamen Rider show. Usually these things start off with a single Kamen Rider fighting mysterious monsters and trying to work out what the agenda behind them is. Instead we've got multiple riders from the outset, all connected to street dance troupes that are using a strange game using "Lockseeds" to summon monsters from another dimension to duel over status and who holds the right to perform on which public stage.
But all that is also an allusion to the warring factions of the Sengoku period of Japanese history... (No, really - there is a line right there in the opening song that translates as "Today is just like the Sengoku", and the song continues to talk about dyeing the world in your colours. And the there is quite a bit of making and breaking alliances in the first arc and a sense of a balance of power in rapid change...)
It is certainly an interesting choice! The closest analogue I can come up with is if someone made a CBBC show about armoured superheroes fighting each other in Manchester - themed them as Knights - and made allusions to it being based on the War of the Roses...and expected the kids to know what they were talking about. Certainly different to my other experiences of Kamen Rider, but its not a bad set-up at all.
Also, the various Riders have armours that are stylised around whichever fruit is associated with the Lockseed they are using to transform. There is something gloriously mad about seeing a giant CGI fruit descending from another dimension onto someones head, and then turn into a practical costume of armour with fruit themed shoulder guards and stuff, whilst a disembodied voice makes a series of declarations like: "Banana!", "Banana Arms!", "Knight of Spear!"
(I am developing a huge love for Tokusatsu transformation sequences - the whole disembodied announcer voice, the costumes that appear from nowhere, the complicated arm gestures and the heroic poses. It is theatrical, hugely larger than life...and in the technical sense of being deliberately performative arguably camp, and I think that is something I rather like in my superheroes. A quality not unlike the Christopher Reeve Superman films I think).
Karl
|
|
|
Post by legios on May 6, 2024 18:01:51 GMT
I have started Fallout on Amazon. Quite enjoying it so far. It may be a little too gory for my tastes, but in places that applies to the later games as well. (There is a reason I much prefer centre-mass shots in New Vegas and Fallout 4). They really have gone all out to capture not just the design language of the franchise, but also a real sense of the tone. There is a fine balance of melodrama and humour being shot for, and I think they are mostly landing the tone they are going for.
The cast is also marvelous. Walton Goggins is one of the standouts - his "I've had two-hundred years of bull5^&*, this is just Tuesday" performance is absolutely marvelous. But everyone else is absolutely solid as well. I'm looking forward to seeing where they go with this. Two episodes down, six to go. Hopefully they can keep delivering all the way through.
Karl
|
|