Firefly - War Stories

Hey, I actually watched this one on air, start to finish! I think it might be the only one that I did.

In the aftermath of Ariel, the crew is living it up good. And "good" out in the black means fresh produce. River and Kaylee get to play on the Serenity set. ("One of you is going to fall and die, and I'm not cleaning it up!") Book is offering his opinions on River's condition and spinning ancient philosophy (or "sadistic crap dressed up with florid prose"). We find out (not surprisingly) that River hasn't been made quite as well as Simon had thought at the end of Ariel. Jayne is being obviously contrite (with the fresh produce).

This is the first episode that has shown any strife in the Wash family. (Well, TUAP does, but that's in two weeks, right?) Wash is really almost as out of his depth on Serenity as Simon. He just handles it better because it's more his choice. He's not nearly as rough and tumble as Jayne, Mal, or even Zoe (warrior woman). He likes flying his spaceship, loving his wife, and playing with his dinosaurs. He's my hero. Annnnd he's a leaf on the wind. Don't forget that.

I'm sure had the show run, somewhere in season two or three we would have seen their courtship. From what we saw in Out of Gas I'm guessing he fell for her fast and when she fell for him she was really annoyed by it. Mal certainly was.

It is nice to see that Joss has no problem with making his stand-in characters obnoxious and wrong. (Xander, anyone? Xander is Joss and Wash is Joss with a spaceship.) Wash and Zoe almost make up for stopping Xander and Anya's wedding. It's good to have a pretty solid married couple on a sci-fi show. And they are neither hopelessly sappy nor fatally flawed. *Sigh* Leaf.

We get our second recurring character: Adlai Niska! I wonder if he would have been the season's big bad? He's just such a lovable scary Russian crime lord.

A little more indication of Shepard Book: Man of Terrible Mystery. And Jayne's opinion that he's not fooling anyone. "Rabbits. Right. For stew."

A torture chamber is a rather interesting place for a quiet little character study. It's great to see Wash and Mal airing out their opinions of each other. Of course, a lot of it is Mal putting on an act. Or at least some of it. This ep has the classic Joss earmark (heh, ear) of going from falling down funny to cover your eyes scary (and maybe back).

It's also got the classic Joss moment where the cliché is turned on it's head. "But sufficient perhaps for one. Ahhhh, you now have--" "HIM. Sorry. You were going to ask me to choose, right?" Heh. What was funny was when I started seeing scenes like this in other movies, and I was surprised when it DIDN'T go the "Joss" way. (Kate & Leopold is the classic example.)

I LOVE the scene when Wash decides that Mal is the hero, and they need to save him. And realizes that Mal is also crazy.

The crew getting the ear is good too. (Only time that Book swears in Chinese, btw.) Then the crew swinging to the rescue is nice. This isn't really a "swinging to the rescue" crew. As we see. I mean, is Simon really the guy you want coming to rescue you? (Actually, I guess yes. Because if he cares he WILL NOT STOP.) Wash's gun is high-larious. And Book, "It is somewhat fuzzier on the subject of knee caps." Ouch.

Ahhhhh, River. Doing the math. (I had a friend who saw Serenity(movie) first. When he went back and saw the show he was greatly disappointed that he didn't get to see River doing THIS stuff.)

Hey look! It's a stupid tacked on Inara plot! I'm told that the original draft tied this into the main plot more. Kind of like Jaynestown. The client comes to the rescue. Dumb plot tie-in.

This was when I was enjoying Firefly like no other show. (Heroes has come close.) Two more episodes to go.

Next week we look at some Objects in Space. Ohhhhh, I got some opinions there.

Firefly - Ariel

As cool as Firefly has been up to this point, this is when it gets really good. For some reason the next three episodes feel a little bit more "about" something. Go look at Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In both of those shows mid-season is where the story kicked in. Where they went from "wacky fun" to "harrowing plot". Sadly, Firefly will be canceled in three episodes.

The River story comes back to the forefront here (another reason to have Safe later on). Again, some have said that the reason Jayne gets slashed is because he's wearing a Blue Sun shirt. Ok, sure.

It's a good old fashioned heist show. It's the best that Firefly ever did. Train job was ok, but not much about the heist. Trash wasn't as polished as it should have been. This one hit the sweet spot. Plus all the little character bits you could ask for. "Clear." "Could you not do that while we're--- EVER?!?" Wash at hte dump throwing away the life-saving catalyzer (guess it WAS a nothing part). The crew learning all the medical lingo - "If I'd wanted schooling I'd have gone to school!"

The character who really gets to shine here is Simon. When River slashes at Jayne he is so deferential to Mal, both because he's so surprised at River, but also because he'll do anything to keep her safe. Locked in her quarters, but not back in Alliance hands? Fine.

Then we get to see him determined and resourceful coming up with the plan to get into St. Lucy's, and then we get to see what Simon was like back in the World. Brilliant, and probably rather intimidating doctor. "Gifted" is the word.

Again - good River writing. "You're going to suspend cerebral and cardio-pulmonary activity in order to induce a proto-comatose state." "That's right." "I don't wanna do it." Brilliant and creepy but childish and ordinary.

The Blue Hand guys show up. Of all of my disappointments in Serenity (and there are a couple) the fact that these guys never showed up was a BIG one. Scarrrry. And going through airport security would never be the same. One does wonder in the land of the HUGE conspiracy, what attracts more attention - a few grunts that might talk about how they picked up a couple of kids or an entire unit of Alliance's finest? Kind of the Capricorn One school of silly government plots. (What worries me most is the people that think this sort of stuff goes on "all the time".)

Then there's Jayne. Most shows have a character what can't be trusted, you can usually trust them. Nobody's going to really do anything, this is episodic television. We also get to see Jayne's loyalty (for whatever reason) to Mal. He's still a goon and a thug, but he's got his own way of moralizing things. And the payoff with Mal at the end is perfect. (It's also the second Firefly I ever saw, BTW.)

Book and Inara are conveniently out of the way. So, it's like Serenity! Might have been interesting to see what Book would have had to say about the proceedings. Shepard Book, Man of Terrible Mystery would have figured out what was going on from the moment Jayne left the ship. AND had something to say about the Hands of Blue. Good thing he was meditating on his rock garden.

Like I said, this is where it got really good. Right before it ended. *SIGH*

Next up, let's tell some War Stories.

Tallguy's Firefly - Safe

By this time next week, we'll be done. Again.

And the Tams were Safe. Welcome to the Tallguy Firefly recap. Airdate November 8th, 2002. Incidentally, Objects in Space, the last chronological episode aired December 13th, 2002, five years ago yesterday. So I've really kind of blown this. But it'll be a busy week.

We open with a flashback. We're getting deep into the River / Simon story here. I think this episode works fine right where it is. None of this would have touched me if the only thing I had seen of River was in the previous four episodes. She's not in Serenity or Train Job much. She's just strange in Bushwhacked. Since she's used so sparingly, we need all the River we can get before we get here.

We see that the Tams were happy. And their parents were loving but indifferent. I guess it's tough to cram "idyllic gifted childhood" into a minute and a half. I might have liked to have seen more with Mr. and Mrs. Tam in later seasons.

There's a lot of "built up to" in this episode. You get the notion that Mal and the crew have been dealing with River's shenanigans for a while now. Not just four episodes. And Simon is finally starting to see the life that he's living in comparison with the life he traded. Enough that he can be a little mean to Kaylee. (And they have this fight a lot, remember?)

Also another piece in the puzzle of Shepard Book, Man of Terrible Mystery. I'm not sure they had really made up their minds on this one. Either that or they weren't as good at switching back and forth as they should have been. Some things unsettle the good preacher that shouldn't have if he was really Man of Terrible Mystery. OR we just really don't know what his story was, and it all would have made sense later. I
mean, this isn't Ron Moore we're dealing with here.

My biggest argument for Safe being where it is is that when River breaks into dance with the locals (cause Summer's all trained ballet dancer, right?) it just breaks your heart. Because you've seen how broken and how damaged she is. Like Simon will say later "She just wants to be a kid." If I didn't know River at this point, I wouldn't have seen that. (There's a similar scene for Mal in Serenity. I'll talk about that next Thursday.)

I tend to dismiss this episode as one of my less favorite. (It's got a teeny bit of religious bigotry, but it is after all television.) Then I watch it and it's got many of my favorite bits. Lots of this beats in this episode made it into the movie. Mal saying who is and who isn't part of his crew, and what that means. It also taught me sanguine means bloody. Educational Firefly!

"See, morbid and creepifiying, I got no problem with..."

"Black market beagles"

And of course: "BIG DAMN HEROES, Sir!" "Ain't. We. Just!"

It's still got cows. And it ends at the table. All in all a great episode, really. It sums up a lot of the "western in space" feel that Joss and Tim wanted. And Fox didn't. So MOVE it.

Next up, back to the sanctified "intended" order with Ariel.

Meet the Robinson's

We saw Disney's Meet the Robinsons last week. What an INCREDIBLY STUPID movie. I loved it all to pieces. It's not quite the Emperor's New Groove, but it's in that vein. Only with time machines, dinosaurs, and space ships. It's basically a bunch of writers and animators just like me who got to play with Disney's money.

I remember seeing an interview with Steven Spielberg on why 1941 was his first flop. He said that looking back on it, he realized that the only people who would enjoy this movie were the people with exactly the same sense of humor as him, Bob Gale, and Robert Zemeckis. Well this is kind of the same situation. And in both cases, I'm that guy!

Worst Pies in London!

The opening titles to Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street are on line. Warning: These ARE disturbing. Not as much left to the imagination on screen as on stage.

What cracks me up is that there is STILL no SINGING in these titles. In the trailers there are a few snippets of Depp kind of singing "there's a hole in the world like a great black pit". But they're not really going out of their way to say MUSICAL.

One of my favorite movie quotes from the Harrison Ford remake of Sabrina was thus:

Mack: The most difficult tickets to get will be for a Broadway musical.
Linus Larrabee: So?
Mack: That means that the performers will periodically dance about and burst into song.

Anyway, brace yourselves. (If the Zombie song disturbed you, don't click here.) Here it is.

Mighty fine!

I've got nine days. Whoops! Eight! Then it's all over. Well, until the DVDs come out. Little extra stuff there. And of course the BDM. But that's YEARS away at this point.

Welcome back to Tallguy's Firefly recaps. The idea was to review each episode of Firefly on the fifth anniversary of it's airing. Then I got tied up finishing a Star Trek fan film (airs Saturday, December 22nd at 5:01pm - 17:01 - get it?). So here we go rushing through. But like I've said, it's kind of how I watched them five years ago.

Shindig. If you only watched these on DVD, this is sort of a step backwards. There's not TOO much difference in going from Bushwhacked to Shindig, or going from Bushwhacked to Our Mrs. Reynolds. I think the move was really to put Safe a ways back. But more on that next time.

The hologram pool balls are ridiculous and go against the whole "most basic of technologies" vibe of the frontier. But it's SPACE, right? Ah well. Mal being a petty thief just cause it'll bug someone is fun.

Hey look, it's an Inara plot where she is actually is part of the plot!

And now we come back from the credits with my favorite Firefly shot ever. Looking out the bridge window landing on Persephone. And the Leaf almost crashing - again.

BADGER! I was so upset Badger wasn't in Serenity. Especially when they replaced him with twin Badgers. In case you wondered why it seems we've seen Badger before, it's because we haven't. Well, in the order they aired them in anyway. (And it was nice seeing him on BSG.) I could easily see something that built up to a big multi-episode plot with Badger and / or Saffron. Very Angel. But, we're getting canceled in four episodes, remember?

The A plot isn't bad. It's a genuine Mal & Inara plot. Mal gets to be all vulnerable ("I don't like people that killed me") and Inara gets to be torn between two worlds. Kaylee is extremely Kaylee ("How do we know, unless we question it?") There's a sword fight. The guy from L.A. Law is good. There's a Rhett Butler look-alike.

See, this is where Joss cheated. Big time. He talks a big game, about how the Alliance is actually good and benevolent, only not if you're the poor sods what got thumped by them in the war. So really it's just a difference of opinion. Like Vietnam, he says. *cough* Also how he wrote Firefly after reading a book on those shattered souls that lost the American Civil War. But then he goes and gives the Alliance slavery and indentured servitude, rather than just big government indifference. (In Joss and Tim's defense, they did a pretty good job of it in Train Job and Bushwhacked, but not so good the rest of the time.) Then there's the whole River thing. So, the Alliance really isn't muddled at all. They're the bad guys. (And it doesn't reflect well on Inara that she doesn't really seem to care one way or the other. She's pro-Alliance, actually, remember?)

Lot of nice stuff back on the ship while the plot bubbles. The card game is fun. Zoe and Wash being all lovey. River going crazy some more. Some have pointed out that River is tearing Blue Sun labels off the cans, because she hates the Blue Sun Corp, because that's who did this to her. Ok, sure. Coke and Microsoft run everything. Got it. Obviously they never had time to go anywhere with this. River and Badger is cool, especially when you learn that Mark Shepard taught Summer Glau the accent. And Jayne gets to have his Jayne coin land dumb side up kind of a lot. "That's exactly the kind of di-version we could have used."

And it all ends with cows.

Next time: Our crew gets home Safe!

Big Opening

Too fast! It's all too fast!

Over on TrekMovie.com they had a poll asking if you saw Star Trek: The Motion Picture on opening night. (I didn't, but we saw it within the week. Liked it then. Like it more now.) Over 60% said they didn't see it because they hadn't been BORN yet. Arrrgh.

I saw this and Disney's The Black Hole within a week or two of each other. Both of them had something I'd never seen before, and never saw again with a new release motion picture: An Overture. Just a few minutes of music played over a background. (ST:TMP's was a black screen in the theater. The Director's Edition added a moving star field.)

Films I have since seen that have Overtures: Lawrence of Arabia. Gone With the Wind. My Fair Lady? Sound of Music? Wizard of Oz? Have to go check those. (edit - No. But 2001, King Kong, and Mary Poppins did.) Looks like the only two movies after ST:TMP and The Black Hole to have overtures were Dancer in the Dark (2000) and Kingdom of Heaven (2005).

An overture signaled an EVENT. Something was about to HAPPEN. Heck, these days we don't even have a main title, unless it's trying to be all retro (like Superman Returns).

I realize that the whole purpose of an overture is somewhat at odds with the world we live in. It's intent is to settle you in to the theater. Get you into the movie mood. Well, people don't DO that anymore. They never GET into the movie mood. They're worried about cel phones and blackberries and going back out for candy or maybe over to the next theater for another movie.

Another concession that I will make is that I miss overtures because I enjoy the kind of music that most overtures used to contain. Maurice Jarre, Jerry Goldsmith, John Barry. A rap star overture just wouldn't do it for me.

Another "old school" movie tradition I miss is Intermission. Used to be when you went to go see the latest three and a half hour epic, you'd get a potty break. I remember seeing Lawrence of Arabia at the Cine Capri. Two hours of dazzling desert-scapes. I've never seen the concessions stand so full. Then ten years later I saw Titanic (with NO intermission). Afterwards I've never seen the restrooms so crowded.

Firefly - Out of Gas

Ahhh, time's running short. It's almost over. Gotta get a move on.

Out of Gas. My very favorite-ist episode. There are some that come close, to be sure. Real close. It's really "These are my favorite and these are not." And even those are really good.

I remember reading reviews of this ep (Television Without Pity comes to mind) that thought the flashbacks were from The Unaired Pilot. That this was somehow addressing the "AIRED IN THE WRONG ORDER" problem. Well, no. This would have been told exactly the same way, aired order or no. And what a way it's told.

I love "out of order" storytelling. Probably my favorite use of this was Steven Soderberg's The Limey. I admit, it catches my interest. I enjoy the cleverness of it. (Having said that, BSG is never allowed to use a "48 hours ago" card ever again.)

I love how this tells about the "core" crew of Serenity. (Notice there's nothing about Book or the Tam's? That's because that was all in TUP.) We never got the full scoop on Inara, but this is a start. Wash joining is another "playing against expectations" moment from Tim and Joss. So is the "genius" mechanic. I'd have liked to have eventually seen more of how those Zoe and Wash came together. But then they canceled the show. And we had the whole Leaf business. Kaylee's is as cute as we'd figure. Jayne's intro explains a whole lot, doesn't it?

But this is really about Mal's love affair with his girl. How Serenity is the fix to all his hurts. The freedom that he lost. This ship is
his new faith. (A little sad, but Mal's a sad character.) Mal and Zoe first walking into the cargo hold is one of my favorites in the whole show.

It's also got a dinner table scene. Always did love them too. There was something different about this aspect of the show. It said a lot about the "family" aspect as well as just adding a reality of life out in the black.

Not a lot of Zoe, since she had to go be in a terrible Matrix movie. But some really good Wash stuff. Wash is almost as much a fish out of water with this crew as Simon is. And as much at odds with Mal, much of the time. By contrast, Kaylee is a little too whiny when Serenity breaks down.

River continues to be built. Again, I'm amazed at how slowly they developed this character. Just little notes here and there. More on that in another two episodes. The best River writing would ground her weirdness in some sort of normalcy. "I didn't get you anything." The best best River writing would ground her weirdness in being Simon's bratty kid sister.

Book seems to be firmly in "humble preacher, way out of his depth" mode. Certainly not the criminal mastermind we glimpse in many other eps.

Quentin Tarantino has much to answer for for introducing the "adrenalin to the heart cures everything" gag.

This ep runs into the same problem that shows up a lot in the series: Space is big. And empty. So it's hard to get lost in. Or snuck up on. And if you "run out of gas" you do tend to keep moving. Go watch Apollo 13, Tim. Never did figure out why the bad guy ship (who's bridge I have stood on, BTW) didn't just hang around and wait for Mal to die. Or why the shuttles didn't see them coming or going. Space. Big. Remember? But it's yet ANOTHER example of someone telling Mal "People just suck" and Mal saying "Oh no they don't."

And the last scene. It's love. In point of fact.

Next up, a mighty fine Shindig. (And BADGER!)

The Comfortable Chair is looking comfortable

As in "Indiana Jones and the Comfortable Chair".

But... Ok, this just looks cool.

THIS. IS. SPAAARTAAAAA!

View Larger Map

Heh heh heh heh....

The last time we left...

It's my brother's birthday, so I have to write something. And I'll usually rant a bit about, and always remember this.

But 30 years after that (and 36 years ago today) we did this:



More here.

Firefly - Jaynestown

October 18th. So I'm really only a little more than a month behind.
But time is running out for our intrepid crew, so I'll have to hurry. And now I have new BSG to review. Arrrgh. (Grrr.)

This is Firefly gold, isn't it? I mean, JAYNE! The man they call JAYNE! Written by Ben "I'm going to write the funniest episode of Angel EVER" Edlund. Oh yeah, he also created The Tick. And co-wrote Titan A.E. with Joe Sweden (I haven't written in a long time so I'll explain again that this is my high-larious-to-me name for Joss Whedon).

This is a great episode for everybody. Even Inara who has a dumb tacked on Inara plot (that rather lamely intersects with the main plot) has some good moments. "Jayne?!? You're talking about Jayne Cobb?!?" I always kind of got the idea that Morena B. was learning on the job. I think that if they had figured out what to do with her character she would have been a standout.

It's a Jayne episode (it's THE Jayne episode) but it also gives Simon a LOT to play off of. Both of them get to react to the advances and setbacks of each other. "The box-dropping-man-ape-gone-wrong-thing!" And of course Simon messing up with Kaylee was so funny that they did it three times in fifteen episodes. So Kaylee has some good stuff too. "It's. Going. WELL."

Mal gets to be all Mal a lot in this episode. Never at the center but always ready to do what needs be done in the margins. I always thought that Jayne's deference to Mal was interesting. The close of the episode is surprisingly touching for an otherwise laugh-filled ep.

Book. And River. River and Book. River and Book and The Book. And the Hair. With Zoe for good measure. See? Why couldn't Inara get subplots as good as these? "His brains are in terrible danger!" Even when I see that clip in my "The Bug" video it makes me laugh.

Book's speech on the Bible just shows that Joss is trying hard. He knows there are people who believe this stuff, he just doesn't know why. I will give him five stars for a good faith effort on faith. I think this was closer to the mark than Book's ideas on faith in Serenity. (If a man what believes in Jesus doesn't care what you believe as long as you believe, I guess he don't believe too hard, does he?) Again, I'd have been disappointed if the "honest homespun preacher" persona ever turned out to be a total fabrication for whatever diabolical means Book turned out to have. I'd have liked to have seen Mal and Book actually develop the mentor relationship we saw in the movie.

One of the great things about this show was how gradually they built River's character. So folk were better at writing her than others. I'll say Ben was the best. (Joe probably wasn't bad.)

For the "they showed them out of ORDER!!" crowd, the only two relationships that are progressing here are Book / River and Kaylee / Simon. And since they did pretty much this same exact fight three times over the show (including one very late and un-aired), this doesn't seem problematical. River didn't have much to do in Shindig, and I'll have a lot to say about the aired order of Safe when we get there.

Unfortunately the writers can't add. Fess is twenty-six as is pointed out several times. Stitch says that he and Jayne pulled their caper four years ago. Fess talks about Jayne's exploits "when he was growing up". Now I know Fess has some maturity issues foisted on him by his father, but I can't see him calling twenty-two "when he was growing up". Heck, the War for Unification was already over and done by then. I think Mal even had Serenity.

And here are the WORDS!

The Ballad of Jayne

Jayne, the man they call Jayne

He robbed from the rich
And he gave to the poor
Stood up to the man
And gave him what for
Our love for him now
Ain't hard to explain
The hero of Canton
The man they call Jayne

Our Jayne saw the mudders' backs breakin'
He saw the mudders' lament
And he saw the magistrate takin'
Every dollar and leavin' five cents
So he said "you can't do that to my people"
He said "you can't crush them under your heel"
So Jayne strapped on his hat
And in 5 seconds flat
Stole everythin' Boss Higgins had to steal

He robbed from the rich
And he gave to the poor
Stood up to the man
And gave him what for
Our love for him now
Ain't hard to explain
The hero of Canton
The man they call Jayne

Now here is what separates heroes
From common folk like you and I
The man they call Jayne
He turned 'round his plane
And let that money hit sky
He dropped it onto our houses
He dropped it into our yards
The man they called Jayne
He stole away our pain
And headed out for the stars

He robbed from the rich
And he gave to the poor
Stood up to the man
And gave him what for
Our love for him now
Ain't hard to explain
The hero of Canton
The man they call Jayne.

Next ep - we run Out of Gas.

But Lee Majors is Still Alive

Childhood hero passes away. I'm sure what everyone is thinking is something like "We didn't expect him to live this long." I'm sure Mom and Dad have some pictures of us with Knievel stuff. Pics of us jumping our bikes off of ramps over anything we could find? Well, we didn't let the folks see that stuff.

Best Sheldon EVER

Ok, not ever. But it's up there. Anything that makes fun of Tom freaking Bombadil is good in my book. There is a reason that he has NEVER been in ANY form of adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. Radio. Movies. Comics. Lot of time on NOTHING.

The End Was Near

Wow. Over a month! Sorry.

I know, I'm SO far behind on my reviews. Almost defeats the purpose at this point. But we'll do the impossible, and it will make us mighty. (Actually, since I only watched four of the ten aired episodes live, and plowed through the rest on VHS, this is kind of appropriate.)

Anyway, just a quick post that five years ago at Thanksgiving, I sat down to my Dad's computer and read that Firefly had been placed on "hiatus". The writing was on the wall. We were fighting a war that had already been lost. But we're known for that. It's our way. (And that's better than a plan.)

We Happy Few...

In case you were wondering, today is St. Crispin's Day. So it's a good day to post this!



Hey look! (At about 1:43) It's little Bruce Wayne in the front row!

Sad Sparky

Yeah, I'm way behind. Two episodes of Firefly, couple of Heroes (it's slow, but it's good). Been playing Half Life 2.2 / Portals ("...and then there will be cake!") and working on Star Trek: Of Gods and Men (December, we mean it this time!).

But this article caught my eye. And I have to say, Sparky's "life of misery" wasn't so secret to anyone who actually READ Peanuts, not just read the greeting cards. Heck, go watch "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" or "A Charlie Brown Christmas". I'm not saying Schultz was Stephan Pastis or anything. (For one thing, his puns weren't as bad.) But all of the best Peanuts cartoons had a strong undertow of melancholy. And we loved them. I don't know what the book is really like (I still need to get Clarence Thomas' book), but the headline doesn't surprise me in the slightest. "Happiness is a sad song" sounds just about right.

Set Course for Talos IV

Yowza! I know what I'm doing THIS night. It's Remastered, so I won't get to see the REAL Enterprise on the big screen, but this will still be a hoot.

And those "out the window" shots at the Starbase are outstanding.

Still Laughing

It's Saturday and Lobot is still cracking me up.

Five Year Firefly - Our Mrs. Reynolds

Five years later and Fox still sucks. They had my Bug video yanked off of YouTube. Mind you, there's still a TON of Firefly AND Dire Straits videos up there, including whole clips of episodes. Just not mine. But hey, who am I to try and sell their stuff, right? Grrrr. (Arrrgh.)

Gasp! We skipped an episode! Two! Not REAL sure why. I mean, the episode opens with horses, wagons and floral bonnets. To say nothing of the folk talking all manner of peculiar like. So it's not like Our Mrs. Reynolds had a more "westerny" feel (which I gather Fox, um, disliked) than Shindig. But this is OBVIOUSLY why the show was canceled, right? Because they shifted two episodes. Ok, not airing the pilot wasn't bright, but they essentially aired the SECOND pilot. Star Trek did that. I think it was more not having a clue how to advertise it and not accepting anything that didn't have 24 / American Idol ratings. Oh, and their ravenous lust for canceling sci-fi. There's a REASON why Chris Carter shouted loud and often that X-Files wasn't sci-fi.

So here we are with Our Mrs. Reynolds. Written (but not directed by) Joe Sweedon! (Written AND directed by leads to leaf on the wind time. But he totally brings the funny.)

Five years ago I am now officially watching Firefly. Huzzah! And it is one of the best. It has it all. Except River. It has no River to speak of. (Simon has some moments. River has some DISTURBING deleted scenes.) Took me about seven seconds (after I said "Hey! That's Ron Glass! And Adam Baldwin!") to say "Ah. That's the Willow character. And that's Xander flying a spaceship." I didn't figure out that Adam B. was the Cordelia character, but what can you do? Oh, and they had no SOUND when things blew up in space! How COOOOOOL is THAT?

This is an astonishingly quotable ep. "That's a DUMB planet!" "A very special level of hell that they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater." "Nobody's saying that sir." "Yeah, we're pretty much just giving each other significant glances and laughing incesently." "I call her Vera." "QUAINT!" "Some people juggle geese!" "My days of not taking you seriously are definitely coming to a middle." "I wish you hundreds of fat children!" "Is it Christmas?" "I will riddle you with holes." "Isn't that... SPECIAL?"

Inara has some good lines. Morena B. is actually pretty funny. (As opposed to Ron Glass who is high-larious.) YoSafBrige (I'm skipping ahead with the jokes, but I'm a leaf on wind, so sue me) is the companion gone BAD, so Inara actually has something to do! Again, not sure how long they could have kept this up. Yes, I will mention this again. Next week in fact. But it's a nice ep for the Mal/Inara 'shippers.

It's got the classic Joss twist twist twist fakeout. (It's funny! No, it's sexy! Or, funny again. Oh, wait, no, it's actually scary!)

This may be the first mention of "Earth that Was". (Don't recall it in either of the previously aired eps, the skipped eps, or the Unaired Pilot.)

It's got Wash and Zoe being extremely Wash and Zoe at each other. They're very sweet, but they do fight like cats and dogs.

Of course, Saffron was interesting enough to bring back.

And Mal gets to say again how folk don't suck (except Fox). More to the point, someone else gets to tell him how everybody sucks (including Fox) and he gets to say "Oh no they don't either (except for Fox)." Mal is still the BDH. (I'd explain what that means, but we skipped that episode. Stay tuned.)

JAAAAAAAAAAAYNE! The man they call JAAAAAAAAAYNE! See you next week.

Beep beep beep beep beep...

Fifty years ago today the U.S.S.R. started the space race. Excellent try, guys. On October 4th, 1957 it looked like we had already lost.









Of course, on December 24th, 1968 that was clearly not the case.

But this is where it began.

Now I need to go watch The Iron Giant and October Sky.

Sheldon! Dune!

Sheldon does more Dune jokes. Here. And here.

Sheldon makes me laugh more than PvP these days. And that's saying something. (It's ok Mr. Kurtz, I still love PvP.)

And in case I never mentioned, here.

(Heroes is still cool. Review up later. I'll try to have this week's Firefly up on time. No, really.)

Rock it out, Lobot!

Ok, this is the funniest thing I've seen in a really really really long time.

Goodbye, Moneypenny

Lois Maxwell, the original Moneypenny (and like M, only one of two that were any good) has died.

Until the Brosnan Bonds (and recasting the part for the second time) there was only one director who "got" Moneypenny, and that was Terrence Young (Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Thunderball). Everyone else made her a goof ball. (Ok, Peter "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" did alright.)

If you count Bond, M, and Moneypenny as "the original three", that leaves only Sean Connery still standing.

For a little more conservatism in your Trek...

National Review has FINALLY done their Star Trek weekend. Oh my, that's a lot to read... Guess I'll start with Lileks. (You know, I'm supposed to be MAKING Star Trek tonight, not reading about it.)

Everthing New is Old

Yikes!

20 years....



Unlike Firefly, THIS I watched on opening night. Until I was in college without a TV I never missed an episode. I own all seven seasons on DVD as well as all four movies.

Good job, guys.

Firefly - Bushwhacked

You know, if you're not watching Firefly -- IT'S TOO LATE! GONE GONE GONE GONE GONE!

This is the firefly ep I tend to forget. Don't know why. It's funny, I always remember the first shot of the show and the last. I always forget some real highlights of the ep. Mal is obviously a big part of this one. Reavers and the war always put him in a good spot. (Wouldn't THAT make a good movie?) We get more exposition here. not all of which is in TUAP. More on Inara. Zoe and Wash. Plus they do recap a bit from the pilot.

This shows off one of Mal's big weaknesses. "I will argue with you for way longer than it takes to explain because no one questions my authority!" Good character flaw. Dumb plot point. (Don't worry. It gets WAY dumber.)

The interviews with the Alliance rock. (And there are some great outtakes with Alan Tudyk too.) "We're private people." "Her legs!" Heh.

I don't think any space shot looked cooler w/o sound than the transport ship 'sploding.

Some AWESOME Book stuff this ep. Sure we all wanted to know who he REALLY was, but I would have missed this book. Very kind. A little meddling. Right a lot. Mal's conscience. (A useful one that can be part of a lot more stories than Inara. I'm still skeptical that Inara would ever have had anything to do other than create unbelievable romantic tension.)

Did you notice how much NOTHING Inara has to do? Ok, she has a nice moment with Simon at the beginning and then later with Mal. "Just when I think I have you figured out." Then Mal promptly proves her wrong. (Or right.) Heh.

Of course I'm not sure as to how well these reavers match the movie reavers.

I think this is the scariest episode that got made. There's a very dark feeling of dread and unknown. They were putting a lot of work into setting up the reavers. Of course this is a Tim Minear ep. I think he had some gifts that joss lacked from time to time.

We start to get a lot more River here. And we start to get that she's special.

Simon rocks, as usual. 'Specially when Jayne is torturing him.

Speaking of which, it's impressive how totally Adam B lives in Jayne. The ballgame, making fun of Simon.

"Piece of JUNK?!?" Wouldn't you just love to see Kaylee and Scotty get really plastered?

As much as they try to do space 'right' they always miss that space is BIG and that there isn't geography to hide behind or fly around.

Another moment that serves double purpose either as a reprise or an introduction is when Greg Edmunson plays the reaver drums. Again, I saw this first and it works fine. So there. I say again, they didn't kill the show by moving THREE episodes.

The ballgame is mission statement type stuff. Life in The Black. No holodecks here.

"May have been on the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

See y'all next week for Our Mrs. Reynolds!

Heroes! - "Four Months Later"

Heroes - Yep, add it to my weekly blather.

Ahhh, the start of new TV. For those of you not watching heroes, you oughta be. Avast! Here be spoilers.

They saved the cheerleader. They saved the world. What next?

Well this was a nice start to the scary second season. Last season (that we watched completely two weeks ago) left the follow up a lot to live up to. Nice to see that we're ramping up slow. My first thought is - did ANYONE stay married? My second thought is - that is SOME beard, Nathan.

Do the non-super Bennetts know why they're in exile? (Ok, Mr and Mrs B. are still together. That's nice. But they still have the crazy dog.)

It's a nice relief to see that Mr B (Noah) is still being spy guy. Disgruntled copy center employee spy guy, but still. And Claire's story is still strangely compelling. I don't know why. It has as ordinariness that I like. Did anyone NOT see that the "friend" was going to be "special"?

Mohinder's story still needs some ramp up time. Not so interested yet. Same with Parkman. Although obviously (heh) Molly is going to be one of the hooks to the Big Bad.

The Big Bad killed Sulu! I'm bummed! I hope they don't kill off ALL of the silver agers. (Although I guess Mrs. Petrelli is the last one, isn't she?) (Hrmmm. Are they the GOLDEN agers, and then Nathan and Peter are silver, and Claire is... Whatever you call post-silver age?)

Hiro's story is SO entertaining I can't stand it! It's awesome! Takezo Sensei rocks. The scene where Hiro had to put his glasses back on is one of my favorites so far.

Peter is the cliff-hanger, eh? I figured it was him or Sylar. So, how does one totally disappear when a) one was pretty darn wealthy 2) a congressional candidate and d) you apparently maintain a cel phone plan? But, hey. That's REALLY quite a beard.

Sylar must be busy getting fitted for his ears.

No Vegas people yet.

Well, THIS is what it's like watching week to week. Not SO bad.

Five Years Ago TODAY TODAY!

Ok, I messed up. Firefly premiered tonight, not on the 10th. Whoops. So go back and read my post from the 10th.

Happy fifth anniversary of Firefly, for real! So Ff opened in a nice cozy Friday timeslot. Of course, so did BSG and that turned out ok... So I guess I'll quit whining in that regard.

See you next week for Bushwhacked!

Rich Mullins

I've been trying to think of something profound to say about Rich Mullins today, the tenth anniversary of his death. Ten years ago I didn't care. It's been quite the decade.

All I can say is that just a few months later his music would become very important to me. Rich was the soundtrack of my coming back to the Church. An Arrow Pointing to Heaven. Indeed.

I'm sorry I never got to meet him. But he'd probably say that 1) that was no big loss and 2) that I got his music, what more did I need? Probably can't argue with that.

Arrrgh, Matey

In case ye be forgetting (I was a bit un-memoraful m'self) today be National Talk Like a Pirate Day. Arrrgh. (Grrrr.)

So I leave ye with this:



And the reflection that talkin' piratical is not too far twice removed from Joss-speak. At least the way Sparrow does it. Now avast ye scabrous dogs and hoist up the john bs sail, see how the mainsail sets, call for the captain ashore, let me go -- er... Arrrrrgh!

(What's a Pirate's favorite WWII movie? A Bridge Too Faaaaaarrrgh!)

Oh. Dear.

In today's "And Scarecrow and Mrs. King isn't out on DVD, WHY?!?" news:

A CLASSIC TV series of the first order. *cough* Ah well, at least it'll have the Starbuck episode...

9/11 One Midnight Gone - Again

Another 9/11 past. Gotta be the weirdest national day. Maybe not. But it still gives me a jolt. I almost feel like it should not be allowed as a day. Like the 13th floor of days. "That should be here by 9/11" "That's due on 9.11." I'm almost offended. I hope the nextgen has (almost) no idea what I'm talking about. T know 12/7 in a rather abstract way. It should be like that.

If you were dropped into Feb '43 I wonder how long it would take before you could tell they were at war. If you traded places with someone, how long would it take them to tell we were at war?

Driving to work on 9/11 this week I passed under a bridge with a sign that said September 11th 2001 and a fella with a nice sized flag. I saluted, he waved.

Ten minutes later I passed a sign that said "LEARN THE TRUTH ABOUT 9.11!" Oddly that person did not wait with their sign.

Still living in The Future, I guess.

The Nerdiest Thing I've Read This Month

Wow. In the year 1987 America launched the last of it's deep space probes. Judgment Day was August 29, 1997. There was that business at Tycho. That's right, gang. We're living in THE FUTURE! Now where's my flying cars!?!

September 13th, a day of remembrance:

Eight years ago today, we lost the moon.

It may have been the single largest tragedy ever in the history of the
planet, having caused the destruction of much of our civilization, as
well as the disappearance of many species, some through direct
catastrophe, many others by disrupting the cycles by which they bred and
reproduced. There hasn't been as much sickness from the radioactive
materials scattered in orbit from Farside Dump as we thought there
would, but it has been bad enough--a thousand Chernobyls, covering much
of the planet. It will be centuries before we know the true costs.

There's nothing in the sky at night anymore except the plain old stars
and planets, just specks of light. No inspiring romantic glow filling
the darkness of the night, no waning tiny sliver to just peek over the
shoulder of the not-quite-dark sky.

No stepping-stone to the stars, either. Without the inspiration of the
moon, few have cared to continue what we started. Even many of the
Martians have come home, because they cannot yet feed themselves
completely for so many there, and some came back to be with their
families for what felt like the end of the world here on Earth.

Lastly, a dedication to those who were lost with Luna, at least some of whom were known to still be alive when we last had contact, but without supplies, without the sanity-preserving contact with home, cannot be expected to last indefinitely, and will likely not last even a generation. Yet some here feel the Lunatics are better off than we are, as they will not have to watch so much of their home die, to be reborn as a world alien to us as generations progress.

Six years ago today

Not as much fun as five years ago, obviously. But this is not a bad way to make it better.

It's also nice to note that it has not happened again.

Indiana Jones and the...

Well, here it is.



Still not all that excited. (Prove me wrong, Steve. I dare you.)

THIS is exciting. The flying shots alone will get me in the theater. Oh, and Aliens v. Predator is actually looking cool this time out.

Five years ago TODAY!

Five years ago tonight I was NOT watching Firefly. This is not strictly speaking my fault. I didn't really have television in the wild and woolly days of 2002.

I don't recall how I heard about ff. Probably because I had started watching buffy on DVD earlier that year. So thanks to DVD and Netflix (a new and exciting thing back in the day) I knew who Joe Sweedon was. (For those joining late, this is funny - cause, like, his name is really Joss Whedon, and if you run it together, it's Joe - oh, you got it? Good. I think it's funny and I keep using it...) Anyway - It was the Buffy guy doing spaceships! And it had Adam "I'm not a Baldwin" Baldwin and Ron "Harris from Barney Miller" Glass. Then I found out it was all westerny, which was just nifty. (Joe hadn't totally screwed with the way I talked yet - so it wasn't "SHINY". Note that I said things like "westerny" ALL on my own.)

So. Here's how it is: l'm going to recap these in broadcast order. Keep in mind that "Serenity (tv)" was shown LAST. There MAY be some ranting about The Powers That Be Fox. Maybe. I will leave any "future" spoilers to the end of each week.

The Train Job
Ahhh, the sonorous tones of Shepard Book. You DVD kiddies have no idea what I'm talking about. Each week opened with an into to the 'verse (that's Ff speak for universe of course). With clips from The Unaired Pilot, Book tells us of the war and how the edges of the System are a rough and tumble place. "Find a crew. Find a job. Keep flying." It bugs me to this day that these intros aren't on the DVDs. Especially since "Keep flying" became such an important part of Ff culture. (They ARE on iTunes along with the "Previously on...". This is the proper way of course.)



The Bar. Our intro to our Big Damm Heroes (ain't they just?). Note the western/Chinese fusion atmosphere. Very Casablanca with a Chinese accent. Did you see the covert and possibly criminal activity on the part of the dancer and the fellow in the brown coat?

"Your move." Whoa. This looks like a TOUGH game of Chinese checkers! The fellow that spoke seems gruff. "I live on the edge." Let's see how THAT works out. This is a Joss show and bravado is not usually rewarded in low stakes situations. See? So very quickly we establish one character as bold and brash, another as cool and competent, and a third as tough but dumb.

"A toast!" Hey! Exposition! More about this war. This big war they failed to win. Which is why Mr. Brown Coat might seem unhappy about it. Also our first Chinese as a co-spoken language. "Browncoats"! I get it!

"Captain." Oh yeah. We knew that from the intro that's not on the DVD.

Jayne. The man they call Jayne. I just saw a Q&A with Joe S. (hey - I'm still laughing) where he talked about how Adam B. kind of screwed things up. We weren't supposed to love Jayne. But we do.

Big Fight. Our Heroes are overwhelmed. Ah. These are THOSE kind of heroes. The lovable losers that are smart and scrappy.

Nice holo-window. Nice moon. It's SPACE!

Our first fiddles!

"We'll rise again." Subtle.

Annnnnd THERE'S our GIRL! She's still lovely, even in her pilot model shape. Guns blazing. Oh, wait... No guns? No space battles?

Wash! The Leaf on the Wind! More folk. Wash is married to the woman. Captain has a chip on his shoulder.

No sound in space!

You CAN'T take the sky! Just can't! Unless you're Fox.



I've always thought this ep was pretty masterful in it's own way. For us what watched it before Serenity TUAP (The UnAired Pilot - keep up) it had to do all the exposition. For you mugs that watched on DVD, it had to be a followup. I think it's grand as both. I never felt lost watching the first time through. A lot of the info from TUAP is doled out over this and other eps. It works as either exposition or recap. Of course this ep also marks a pretty big change in the flavor of the show. Mal wasn't near as funny in Serenity. Funny, but not AS funny. He was gruff and tortured. He'll get that way again, don't worry.

Ok, I wrote most of this on a flight a few weeks ago and forgot about it, so the rest won't be as shot-for-shot, Television Without Pity. (Sighs of relief, I know.) But The Train Job is a great yarn. It's got a TRAIN! In SPACE! And it's got SPACE gangsters! And a SPACE sheriff! It's still one of MY favorites. Even the people that weren't crazy for it when it aired loved it when Mal said "Darn." and kicked the fella through the engine. Wacky fun. I imagine if this really HAD been the second episode well and true, it wouldn't have changed much. They still would have recapped JUUUUUST enough in case you didn't watch last week or didn't remember none too well.

The scene that will be a recurring theme is when Mal is told that everybody sucks and that's just the way the 'verse is (more or less) by the sheriff. Mal essentially says "Oh no they don't either!" ("I do not hold to that," he might say.) He kind of wants it to be that way, because then his life would make sense. But it doesn't. And that's Mal. "You're welcome on my boat. God ain't." Book and Mal. MAN I wish they had had time to go somewhere with that!

Oh, and this ep introduces Adlai Niska. Not saying he'll be any trouble later on or anything...

Annnd we say good night with a shot of the Hands of Blue. As if airport security didn't make us jumpy enough! (Not a WHOLE lot of River in this ep. OR the UAP. She got brought on real slow.)

Next week: REAVERS!

No Kidding?

You know, I just spent the last few months looking for work. And now I have to go to a job to earn a living.

But somebody figured out a way to get paid for this!

Wow! How shocking! Because that wasn't what I was expecting to hear at all!

"It could also be due to the poor medical outlook for impoverished American ex-pop stars who have no health insurance, he said." So, doesn't that mean that he should take a sample of non-rock star impoverished Americans and find out? If this is the case then they're not really rock stars anymore, are they? I mean, that's not what's killing them, right?

Gorey Trek!

I love it when my favorite things come together. You know, bright copper kettles mixed with warm woolen mittens, like that?

Well here's a well meaning lunatic doing Star Trek Edward Gorey style!

"...altercation with some Klingons" might be my favorite.

Totally fake

But made with Blender. And I figured the Mac Zealots would like it.

And you thought YOU were busy!

Here's some time to kill...

Got us some crime to be done!

For those of you that cared and didn't know:



(Also, no Firefly today. Had to fix that. Have you donated to the Serenity II fund yet?)

Stay Healthy, Johnny

Good news this morning. John Towner Williams will be scoring the film of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Mind you, he's 75 NOW. HP:AtDH will be out in 2010. Indiana Jones and the Out of Reach Cane will be in 2008. Jerry Goldsmith didn't last this long, so let's hope Mr. W. is taking his vitamins.

I have all of the Potter scores (except Chamber of Secrets which they did a Superman II on: Re-tracked the film with Williams' Sorcerer's Stone score). When I was reading the last half of DH I was listening to Sorcerer's Stone and a little Prisoner of Azkaban. Goblet of fire never even showed up on the iPod. I like Patrick Doyle very much, but really.

I just noticed that iTunes lists the artist Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire Soundtrack. Doyle must be pleased.

Ship like that, be with you till the day you die

This blog is going to get really Firefly for a while. I know, you're all shocked.

Well, here's my next acquisition.

For those of you not REALLY paying attention: "forward written by Orson Scott Card (yes, that Orson Scott Card)"

Well. There we are then. Shiny. Mine.

(Yes, I contributed my $20.00 to the Serenity Sequel Campaign. Got a free DVD with the donation.)

Serenity DVD Update

For those of you that just had to know...

Places to Buy
Amazon - $18.89
Best Buy* - $17.99
Circuit City - $19.99
Deep Discount - $19.81
DVD Planet - $18.86

Best Buy it is! And you get a comic book! (I don't know what comic book. But since I don't have any Firefly / Serenity comics, I should be alright.)

Alas, my sky is STILL taken...

Well, Amazon knows that I like House, M.D. Which is good, because I do like House, M.D. I almost feel bad for watching it because of my track record of Great Killer of Shows. Maybe I'm just the Great Killer of Joss Whedon / Tim Minear Shows.

Which brings me to the new DVD out next week. Can you believe that it's been five years since Firefly aired? No? Maybe that's cause you DIDN'T WATCH THE SHOW! *sigh* Nobody ever listens to me. But you all saw Serenity in the theater after you saw the Firefly DVDs and knew how awesome it was right? RIGHT? Grrrrr. (Arrgh.) But hey, they're making High School Musical 2! And Rush Hour 3!

Anyway, here's your chance to redeem yourself. You've spent enough money on Star Wars, right? If you already bought the first one, you should get this one because the cover art isn't horrible. (I still haven't seen Serenity art that does the ship justice, but there we are.)

Now, you all know that I would have raved about this in some fashion. Heck, it's five years on and I still say things are "shiny" and I "fix to" do things. We wont even talk about what the Leaf on the Wind has done to my taste in shirts. (I know, I know, your days of not taking me seriously are certainly coming to a middle.)

BUT - I've been BRIBED. I've been bought! I'm like a publicity-- companion! Over at serenitystuff.com they're having some kind of excuse- CONTEST! Contest to get the new DVD LOTS of sales again and give our gallant crew another ride in Joss' shiny spaceship. Hey, could happen. Star Trek made The Motion Picture and THEY got a sequel. Everybody LOVED Serenity. Everyone that SAW it that is. In Star Trek time it's 1974. We should get more movies in five years. C'mon, don't you want to know what was up with Book? BTW, they have a breakdown of the old vs. the new DVD here.

I have to say, on the new Thomas Bigscreen, there is no movie that looks finer. Superman, Star Wars, Narnia, Casino Royale, all take a back seat.

Cause, as we all know, there's no place I can be since I found Serenity. Now where was that gorram sky again?

Sometimes I Love the 21st Century

So as Mr. Kurtz continues his Comic-Con Star Wars run today (think she'll say "Yes" this time?) I naturally got to thinking about "I'd just as soon kiss a wookie". So, with very little effort, and not far to go at all, I opened iTunes, punched up The Empire Strikes Back, dialed to about five minutes into the movie, MAGIC!

One day, my DVD (or whatever) player will be this easy to use. Aw, who am I kidding? They'll still figure out a way to put the FBI warning directly into my retina and disable my ability to blink or something. Can't skip those company logos, can we? Grrrr.

And they have a plan!

Suuuuuure they do.

PvP today proves yet again that either Lucas had NO idea what he was doing or he's a very disturbed man. I'm good either way, but make up your mind, George!

*squeaky Lucas voice* "Well, I realized that I had written enough material for nine *cough* three- er, six movies (and a cartoon and a mini-series and a few video games) so I decided that this would be the middle, er, I mean, last three chapters. And my hero would fall for this smoking hot babe in peril-- er, sorry, that was the old one-- my hero would find his lost SISTER and embark on a "Hero's Journey" (Joseph Campbell - TM) of monastic solitude. Yeah, that's how I meant it all along. And Han shot-- sometime..."

What an amazing world

It just struck me that today, on the 62nd anniversary of the United States bombing Nagasaki, that I received an email from a German friend of mine with an mp3 of music from a video game about World War II. Hmmm. Things get better after all. Eventually.

Attend the Tale!

Well. This is alarming looking...

I just saw that Christopher Lee is "Gentleman Ghost". So there are obviously some liberties. UPDATE!!!! Anthony "Giles" Head will also be one of the singing ghosts!

Ron Weasley's Rat (hey, he was in Chicken Run? Had no idea! - Also as a rat, btw) will be Beadle Bamford. There WILL be SINGING in this movie, no? So that's three Potter alumni. (But can any of them, well, make pleasant pitch changes with thier voices set to a tune?)

New Company

So, try and figure out what movie THIS website is for. (It's on my blog, that should narrow it down a little bit...)

TEEENY BSG News

Remember the note (in the mini-series) that told Adama (Wild Bill) that there are twelve cylon models? (Wow, I remember when that was interesting...) Well, Ron Moore recently said they won't have time on the show to tell us who did it. It was Baltar. Thanks, Ron. Heh. They still have a plan, right? RIGHT?

Spock!

Well, it's official. (It was a day or two ago, I think.) The Heroes guy is Mr. Spock in the new trek movie. Annnnnd they have a new poster. They're calling the movie Star Trek. Catchy name.

The new poster is cool. But not as cool as last year's teaser. And not nearly as cool as the iCorder.

(BTW, the San Diego Comicon is this weekend, so there will be News for Nerds coming out of our ears. There's a picture of Ms. Ravenwood in Indiana Jones and the Unreasonable Expectaions, fer instance. Go to the Indy site.)

Typography

This was up on Yahoo the other day.



I like it. Very sharp.

Here is a great article so that you to can get uppity when someone confuses font with typeface. I know *I* needed more things to get uppity about. (HT to Todd from a million years ago.)

I can't do this with the WORDS in front of me!!!

This is just insane. Really. I mean it.

WHEN did Han shoot?

You know it. I know it. And George is making sure that Han himself knows it. Maybe George will get senile enough that he thinks it's 1976 and he'll be cool again. Could happen...

Chinatown needs new art?

I hate photo movie posters. For one thing, it's all we get anymore. Unless you're Harry Potter or Star Wars. Even then... (I'm guessing Indiana Jones: I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up will have a Struzan poster.)

But I REALLY hate when they take a movie that had awesome art (or at least good art) originally and give it a photo cover. The Big Heads look that is so popular now. Hey look! It's a Jack Nicholson movie. And it's got Jack Nicholson in it! So here's a big picuture of Jack Nicholson's head! Doesn't it look just like Jack Nicholson? (Gosh, I hope I spelled Nicholson right, otherwise I have to correct, like, FOUR of 'em. EDIT - Whew!)

So here's the original.

Here's the "New and Improved".

Don't even get me started on James Bond covers. (The covers are popular enough that there are BOOKS dedicated to them, but they ain't good enough for DVDs. No sir!)

So let's all do our best John Huston impersonation:

Jake Gittes: I just want to know what you're worth. Over ten million?
Noah Cross: Oh my, yes!

Zounds, he was scary!

iTunes - Just for you

iTunes has this potentially really cool little feature called "Just for You". It would be really cool if it actually worked. It looks at what you've bought. (Maybe at what you already have, but I'd imagine if that were the case the ACLU or some such would have stormed the Apple Palace a while ago like thugs from Rungistan. EDIT - ah, no only at what you've bought, and you can TELL it what you have.)

I have two nits - it's not very good. I mean, throwing everything even a little Star Trek-ish or John Williams-y at me is a bit of a no-brainer. It doesn't. It IS smart enough to throw mostly soundtracks. Good for them.

My BIGGER nit is that it offers me stuff I already bought. FROM iTUNES! GRRRRRRR! (aargh.)

Although I do laugh when I buy something new to see the new offerings. I bought "Yo Ho a Pirates Life for Me" and now I'm being offered "Bear Necessities". Nice. Almost smart. Not smart enough. (Offer me Master and Commander, or Horatio Hornblower - THAT'S smart.)

Well Done, Harry

Whew! I'm done. I'm enjoying reading books that I can pick up or put down as I wish and not having to avoid spoilers in the press. (Anyone want to spoil O'Brian's "Post Captain"? Huh?)

Great. Book.

I'm not a raving Potter fan. I like the books. But I've only read each of them once. And I Buffied through the first four. (To Buffy: To watch / read / avalanche through a series in not nearly enough sittings. e.g. two seasons of Bones in three days. Or seven seasons of, er, Buffy, in less than two months.) I'm thankful for the movies because they're nice cliff notes. Rowling has a bad habit of throwing in tertiary characters from four books ago with no recap and expecting you to instantly surmise who and what this character is.

This is either my favorite or second favorite book (Goblet of Fire rocks). And I have to say that I am just dying for the movie now. Good luck, folks.

Nice job, J.K. Thanks.

SPOILERS!!!!

Repeat after me, children (mouse over):

The
bad
guy
is
NEVER
Snape.

Three cheers for Severus Snape!

38 Years Ago

Good heavens. It's July 20th. I'm just not paying attention. I have to say I'm amazed it was a Yahoo headline. Usually the only person that notices is me, until I bug everybody about it.

What an amazing combination of time and place, of can-do and will-do. It was some parts fear, some parts excitement. Really, we went to the moon pretty much as soon as we were able to do it. For some reason it was the United States of America that managed it. With the whole world watching every step of the way. Can you imagine the Apollo missions (or the Gemini, or Mercury) going off in secret? Every rocket that blew up, every step that went wrong we were embarassed about, but we didn't cover up. I'd like to think that's part of why we succeeded.

By the way, I have heard from sources that there are recordings of Armstrong where you can hear him say the "a" in "That's one small step for A man, one giant leap for mankind." Maybe someday we'll find those tapes.

And maybe someday we'll go back to stay. It's 2007. According to Clarke, right now we should have a moon base and the failed Discovery mission should be orbiting Jupiter. To say nothing of flying cars. (On the other hand we have iPods.) Ah well.

Someday.

Coming Soon(ish) - BSG!

Well, here's a nice little article about the new Battlestar special that they'll be running November 24th.

‘Razor’ tells the story of Lee Adama’s first mission as commander of the Battlestar Pegasus and will reveal the story of how Admiral Cain (Michelle Forbes) served her ship during the original Cylon attack on the colonies.

Interesting. There's a trailer up at Sci-Fi Channel, but they make it really tough to link to. Don't want to spread the word or anything. Nice to see Cain back. Heh. (Goes screaming into the distance.)

No fresh word on the DVD for season 3. Word HAD been August some time. But it's been oddly quiet. I've heard more on the soundtrack (which my brother will be delighted to know will have "All Along the Watchtower" - hee). But no date for that either. What's with these people?

How about that iCorder, eh?

Gorey Thursday

I got a daily Edward Gorey calendar. Every once in a while I change it. The last two days have been from The Gashleycrumb Tinies. Specifically "O is for Olive" and "P is for Prue". I used to have a poster of the whole set. Mind you this is when it sat next to a Batman Returns poster, various vampire movies, and maybe a couple of Rocketeers, just for color.

And wow, that iCorder still looks really cool today.

The iCorder

Ok, this is just too dang cool. In a really nerdy uncool way, of course. By a gent name of Adam Ihle.

Hoist the Colors!

Ok. Ok. Ok. I'm writing my Pirates 3 review. Ok. Really. Ok. Mean it. Spoiler Free (until I say otherwise). It's been out for a month and a half anyway. I could tell you that Barbossa and Governor Swan are the same person, and it should be free and clear.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (AWE).

Wow. I don't know why, but this was really really wow for me. She Who Is My Wife loved it, but not as much as I do. I'm obsessive, so this is no surprise. I saw it again today just to see if I really loved it as much. I did. I might go see it again tomorrow.

This is the Promised Third Movie. Third movies are really hard. Either you topped the first movie in the second or you didn't. So now you either have to top the topper, or you have to make the apology. Also, if you decided in your second movie that you are now making a Grand Epic, you probably left lots of follow up lying about like confetti in your second movie that you now have to make good on. I don't think I've ever really seen it done. Back to the Future had a really good part III. Star Wars, um, no. Matrix? Oh, heavens no.

I'm reminded of Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace. A movie with, shall we say, flaws. But it also made a LOT of promises. It zagged in a lot of places that (because of the original trilogy) we thought it was going to zig. (I can go on about this a lot. I won't.) The short version is that it was at least interesting in that respect. Episodes II and III almost universally failed to pay of on any of it. I'm not going into detail. I use Shmi Skywalker as an example (don't blink, you'll miss her) and leave it at that.

Maybe this is why I'm so enamored of the Pirates Saga. It leaves very very few threads unexplored. If it dropped a hint (unintentionally in Curse of the Black Pearl and intentionally in Dead Man's Chest) then it pays it off in At World's End. There isn't the Return of the Jedi feeling that the creators are bored with most of it, or that they wrote themselves into a corner they can't get out of. (They get out of some great corners is some delightfully surprising ways.) If flows like the music that George Lucas goes on about. (Lucas says that the reason his stories repeat is because they are like music, with choruses and verses. Uh huh.) There are wonderful variations and reprises, and I think there are only two or three that fall flat or feel forced in the whole trilogy. (Sadly, two of my favorite characters from CotBP, Mullroy and Murtogg are one of them. They should have been in the second movie and they feel shoe-horned into the third. Sigh.)

The Curse of the Black Pearl (CotBP) (actually, the Pearl didn't ever really have it's own curse, it was cursed) was a terrific surprise. Nobody expected it to be good, let alone great. It hit so many great beats, and avoided so many places where it could have been really really bad. And it had GREAT sword fights. And it gave us Captain. Jack. Sparrow. More on that in a bit.

Dead Man's Chest (DMC) has it's flaws. The whole cannibal island bit goes long and gets stupid in ways that CotBP managed to avoid. I've found that without it, the movie is awesome. But DMC also lays a lot of groundwork (and has the task of turning stuff from CotBP that wasn't really groundwork into groundwork).

AWE is complicated. You have to pay attention. Movies like that are usually labeled “un-followable”. Well, so was Raymond Chandler. This is a film that expects you to keep up. And being that I like the setting, and all of the characters, I'm happy for the exercise. I admit, this is a big reason I like it so much.

But how is Jack? Jack is never as good as he is in CotBP. He's just not. He's not as funny. He's not as smart. He's not as misunderstood. I realize that he is in a different place. He's not supposed to be firing on all cylinders in DMC. But there should have been a better way. He almost gets it back in AWE. There was some Jack stuff that really blew me away on the second view. The scene that never happened again in the sequels was when Jack is in the cell in Port Royal. He's listening to the other inmates going on about the legends of the terror of the Black Pearl. They say there are never any survivors. Jack (who is not in the mood to be all Jack-like) says “No survivors? So where do the stories come from, I wonder?” He's smart. He figures stuff out that other people don't. And he often acts the buffoon to cover it. But he's always smart. In the sequels, he's smart just in the nick of time, but you don't as often see the wheels turning underneath. The is fixed up a bit in AWE, but not as much as I would like. There's never quite the moment when Jack just shows up in the cave and Barbossa says “Impossible!” and Jack sheepishly corrects him “No, just improbable.”

So here we are for part three. This is the Return of the Jedi that we didn't get. The one that feels like it was always supposed to be the end. DMC left a heaping helping of loose ends and AWE gets almost all of them. You jump right back into it. I say if you don't know DMC stem to stern, make sure you watch it at least once before you see this one. They don't recap much if at all.

They up the scale in this one. In CotBP the bad guys could have won and it would not have changed much. We're told that the stakes in AWE are the seas themselves. Historical note: In real life the “bad guys”, the East India Trading Company, won for a very long time. (*cough* Halliburton! *cough*) It's movie magic that the rascals, scoundrels, villains, and knaves, devils, black sheep, and really bad eggs are the freedom loving heroes in this film. But heroes they be. Enjoy it. I love it when Big Social Commentary goes so badly wrong, because then you can just ignore it. (“They said habeas corpus! They must be bad! Like Lincoln!”)

Oh, speaking of “really bad eggs” there are at least a couple more ride refferences that just made me grin. It's nice to hear both Paul Frees and Thurl Ravenscroft in a major motion picture.

Every single character in this flick has a motive. Everyone has an agenda. They took the line in CotBP (“Who's side is Jack on?” “At the moment?”) and ran with it. Allegiances don't just shift, they leap. Good guys are bad, bad guys are good, the only one who stays mostly put is Becket. But he's the bad guy, so there you are.

William and Elizabeth. The love story is great. It nothing new, but they don't pull a Han and Leia (love story? That was last movie!) in this. Will and Elizabeth are still really the central characters. None of these movies are about Jack. They are because of Jack. Will gets a good edge to him and Elizabeth (the distressing damsel) is as resourceful as ever.

Barbossa. Oh, is he still great. You want to see the movie where he mutinies on Jack back in the day. As Depp describes it, "We're like a couple of old ladies fighting over their knitting needles." There's a reason we all cheered when Hector shows up at the end of DMC.

Tia Dalma. She is a force in this movie. Her character takes a rather dark turn right from the get go. She gives Orlando Bloom a lot of help, IMHO. The mischievous voodoo sprite from DMC is quickly gone. She more than anything else telegraphs that it's different this time out.

Davy. Jones. My favorite character in movies in years. More than Jack Sparrow (Captain). He still pays off here. He's not a special effect. He lives. He breathes. He's why I watched DMC as many times as I did.

No spoilers, but Norrington isn't nearly as cool in this movie. He is duped. I can't explain why it's different than it was when Jack stole the Interceptor out from under him, but it is. And in DMC he was so wonderfully damaged. I was expecting him to be a terror in this movie. He's kind of soft here. He's one of the balls that gets fumbled a little.

The Rest of the Cast. They juggle a lot of balls. And they keep almost all of them in the air. They manage to give what would be an otherwise unwieldy bunch of folks all in the right place and doing the right things. Gibbs has been awesome since the beginning. I was greatly surprised at how much I liked Pintel (“Hello, poppet.”) and Ragetti (the guy with the wooden eye) in the second movie. I actually cheered at their entrance this time out. BTW, everybody gets a great entrance. I laughed the second time when I realized that Will's first line is “Jack Sparrow.”

The Song. Pay attention to the song. It explains the whole movie. Really. I love that song.

So there you go. It's awesome. It's fun. It's the overblown sequel that I expect to still like twenty years from now. When you have your Pirate Marathon, you actually anticipate part three instead of dreading it. And it doesn't have a speeder bike chase.

I'll post some of my favorite bits and maybe some of the stuff I didn't like in a spoilerific post somewhere down the road.

Just remember, it's pronounced “E-GREE-JEE-OUS”.

Star Wars Haters

For some reason my sister-in-law thought I might relate to this. I'd say about 60% of it is true. The glaring error (taking it too seriously? What do you mean?!?) is that I love just about everything about Star Wars. Star Wars. 1977. Not "A New Hope" not "Episode IV". Star Wars. The one. The only. The Empire Strikes Back is awesome. Jedi has some great bits. I'll even cherry-pick some moments from The Phantom Menace (LIGHTSABERS and JEDI KNIGHTS). Oh, and Clone Wars was AWESOME start to finish. But Star Wars was the stuff. It was all of the Flash Gordon fun with the cinema genius of Lucas before he became "The Star Wars Guy". There's nothing wrong with it. So there.

(I didn't give this more thought than July 4th, I just wrote it after a lot more caffine. Go read this and this. This is good too.)

Ee Pleb Nista!

Happy Fourth of July everyone! (July 4th, 1776 just in case anyone wasn't paying attention. I'll refer you back to December 7th for the "You HAVE to know this date" dates.") What we don't usually hear about is that the whole blamed country just about fell apart over the next ten years. Then they put it all back together again.

And then we invented Star Trek! (That's the short version.)

It's the Rocketeer!

Heh. The Rocketeer is a Galactica fan. I don't watch the 4400, but I have a friend who at one point reccomended it highly. See, all he would have had to do was say "It has the Rocketeer in it." (Ok, there are many Adam "Jayne" Baldwin shows I never watched. And I won't see Slither if it has the ENTIRE cast of Firefly.)

Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb!

No, it's not Beethoven.

"Study: California has worst traffic in U.S." I'm not linking to this. I'm not even reading it. We knew this. I mean really knew it. How much money did this study cost, I wonder? If they had found out that IOWA has the worst traffic in the U.S., THAT would be a story!

Now if someone comes back and tells me "You know, if you had read the story..." and says it's not what I think, then I'm STILL mad. This means the headline is deliberately misleading and inaccurate. And this is about TRAFFIC. (I was going to say, "Imagine what it must be like for IMPORTANT stories!" But there are probably people out there in it who don't think ANYTHING is more important than traffic.)

The Man With The Hat Is Back, and This Time He's Really Old

Yes, they've really actually finally started making Indiana Jones and the Disappointing George Lucas Movie. Ok, it's probably not called that. But we're all thinking it, right?

Well, here's George, Steven, Frank, and the gang making another go-round.

And for those that didn't see it, here's Indy his own self. It's not the years, it's the mileage, indeed.

I'll try to get excited about this movie. I will. Honest. *grumble*

New Pixar

It's so very very VERY basic. There is Pixar. And there is EVERYONE else.

Summer, 2008.

Seriously, there is more character and heart in one minute of this this than ALL of Shrek 1, 2, AND 3. I really wish this wasn't so, because then we'd get more movies. But it is so. It SO is so. And everyone else is so so. You know? (I gotta go...)

The Ultimate Tallguy and Wife Comic Strip

Ahhh, Dave Kellett comes through, big time. BTW, if you're not reading Sheldon, you ought to be. Funny funny funny.

Scarecrow and Mrs. King, STILL not on DVD. I try and tell She Who is My Wife that we can just watch Charlie's Angels and Babylon 5 back to back. She's not buying it. (Kidding. Please don't make me watch Charlie's Angels. Six Million Dollar man probably isn't as good of an idea as I might think either. Just saying.)

They're Still Toasters

She Who Is My Wife is a little bit of a U2 fan. (And I think Star Trek is kind of all right.)

So when U2 front man Bono shows up on the telly day yesterday blasting the nations at the G8 summit we both got very excited when he said that the only nation that has kept it's promise from two years ago was the United States of America and its leader George Bush. So I thought "Hey, cool, I'll blog on that." I'm writing this as I scour the net for the video we saw. (I have strong suspicions now I won't find it - you'll see). I'm now searching the news and trying to find out about how BONO of all people said something nice about Chimpy McHitler himself. I'm finding NOTHING. ANYWHERE. I start to think that I misheard. Didn't really see it. Until I find this:



They make a big deal about how he takes off his glasses. Right? Well, the WHOLE interview we saw, he had his glasses off. In this clip, right after hey says "THEY are not keeping their promise", right when he's about to start talking about the U.S. they FADE OUT. And they rest of the clip he has his glasses ON. Now I find this. It's linked to the CNN video. But look at this comment: "Hmmm, of the world leaders, Bono says "Bush has delivered more than he promised," and hopes Bush can persuade his fellow leaders to do more." This is nowhere in the video. So the video changed. Way to go CNN.

Further research - found this. In case it changes, here's the meat: "The activists are hopeful they can change enough minds by Friday – in part because they believe Bush has delivered more than he promised and may be able to bring others along. "Europeans say America doesn't care. It's a continent that's really an island. But they're wrong," said Bono." Not a direct quote, but close enough to what I remembered and what the other blogger commented on. Liberal news bias? Naaaahhhh.

Obviously, anyone who can find more, give me a heads up.

EDIT: SWIMW found this for me, good little Bono fan that she is. "...to be fair to the situation, the United States underpromised and has overdelivered; Italy overpromised and is really underdelivering."

Continuing the Khan-a-thon

Heh.

Still Looking, Eh?

Well, I recently found out that with the advent of New Blogger(!) that my old stat counter wasn't working anymore. I hadn't looked, to be honest. (See I'm not nearly as attention craving as all that!) Now I come to find that there are actually people still looking here. Hrmmm. (Hi Mom! - actually, that's not true. Mom's not looking. *sigh*) So I guess I should get back into the habit of posting on a regular basis. About what, I have no idea. (Zombies upset people.) Entertainment isn't very entertaining these days (other than Pirates 3. I don't care what you've heard, I would have gone to see that movie every day last week had I the time / money - no really, I'll have a review up this week!). And politics is making me foam at the mouth these days. (Is there ANYONE who is happy right now? And why aren't the jack booted thugs actaully DOING anything?) But I guess I'll think of something.

Oh, and I forgot to add this yesterday. Still classic.

"Other people have birthdays..."

"...why are we treating yours like a funeral?"



25 years ago today. Wow. (Poltergiest is also today, E.T. is next week.) I had a cousin who bet me that I couldn't get up in the morning before he did, and if I did he'd take me to Star Trek. Fool.

James Horner opens the film with Alexander Courage's fanfare. This IS Star Trek. (Of course, now when kids watch The Motion Picture they just assume that they've redone the music with the Star Trek: The Next Generation theme.) Then, since we all heard Spock was going to die (this is before the internet, remember?), well, they kill Spock. Right up front. Suckers. Then Kirk gets his ENTRANCE. I mean his entrance in TMP was pretty cool, but this was IT. Picard never got an entrance like this. Ever.

Kirk turning 50 made him ANCIENT. 15 years since the TV show (THE TV show, mind you) was FOREVER. And let us not forget (*SPOILERS*) THEY KILLED SPOCK. This was a big deal back then. Now... Well, it's a lot more run of the mill than it should be. Sometimes you get Captain Jack Sparrow, sometimes you get Jean Gray. (Speaking of which, Bryan Singer totally lifted the end of Trek II for X2. And it still worked.)

This was the movie that really got the Star Trek movie series going. I loved The Motion Picture (The Motionless Picture, The Slow Motion Picture, Where Nomad Has Gone Before, etc.) but this is the one that put the spark back in the whole thing and got it moving again. Sadly, they never got this good again. Ah, well.

It was 60 years ago today...

...Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play. Today is the 40th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Felt you should know. Now you can say you read the news today, oh boy.