Season's greetings

I'm a little bit late with this (sorry!), mainly due to having had a busy Xmas and having a less than charming cold at the same time. :( Hope you've all had a lovely time, celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, Kwanzaa, or whatever religious denomination floats your boat. I quite like the term "Xmas" because it's nicely unspecific, even though technically the X comes from the Greek letter pronounced "chi" or something, which is used when you start to spell "Christ", but still. Big letter X:es are good, they remind me of The X-Files. ;)

Anyway. It's that time of year, and I'd like to wish everyone a splendidly

Merry Xmas
(retroactively)
and a fantastically
Happy New Year

:D

The little fella on the top was found somewhere online a number of years back and used to come out around this time of year at my old Thomas Anders fansite, Weidungs Welt! ... and I went and got him out again, along with this old photo manip:

'Tis the season to be silly, falalalala lalalala

Now, I wonder if it's possible to start using the phrase "Squeemas" instead, just for the sake of it. If I start now, maybe it will have caught on by December next year. Whatcha reckon? ;)

The Day of the Triffids #1

Happened to come across this, a new BBC version of the Day of the Triffids, recorded in 2009. I've never seen any triffid versions before and all I know about it is that it's about plants that can move around and eat people.

Triffids are plants grown in big greenhouses so that oil can be harvested from them. Oil that "saved the world from global warming", we're told, because it's very good and all. It begins with the sky looking strange, then there's a bright light and everyone's blinded... Chaos breaks out in the aftermath, the triffids are set free to roam the earth and eat people. In the midst of this chaos are a number of people who aren't blinded.

Geronimo's 4th Modern Talking Obession Test

Thought it was time for one of these again. Fourth in the series, points 301-400 on signs you're obsessed with Modern Talking. Last updated: 4 September 2000, and I haven't updated spelling and grammar mistakes since then. Again, this is a fairly insane list, mainly played for laughs, and no, I didn't get all points back then. :P Like the previous ones, a lot of things are obscure references to song lyrics, music videos, pictures and interviews.

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This is the 4th fun little test you can take, and check out exactly how obsessed you are with Modern Talking... :c)

Instructions: Check all that apply.

If Rickman and Hinds had a love child...

Humour me on this.

If Alan Rickman

and Ciarán Hinds

had a love child,
this is what he'd look like:

Am I right or am I right?

And he's an actor too! It's a Welsh guy called Ronan Vibert, whom I just spotted in Tristan + Isolde. He does look tremendously like a mixture of those two handsome fellows. :)

Defiance (2008)

While Inglorious Basterds was complete fiction (or close enough), Defiance is actually true. It follows four Jewish brothers, the Bielskis from Belarus, played by Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell and George MacKay.

The movie begins with everyone at their home being taken by the Nazis, and those who resist too much, killed. The youngest brother is hiding, the other three are away at the time, so that's why they escape the carnage. Hiding in the woods, they soon come across other Jews on the run, and find themselves setting up a camp... and accruing more fugitives. It's harsh conditions, trying to stay alive with very little food, and more and more mouths to feed, while at the same time trying to keep out of sight of the Nazis.

It's a compelling watch, with great performances from all of the cast. I thought I recognised Chaya, and indeed so - it's Mia Wasikowska, to-be Tim Burton's Alice and the next Jane Eyre! She's a good actress, so perhaps she can make a good Jane after all.

It shows both the best and the worst of humankind. On the one hand, the care and compassion and love, and on the other, brutality, hatred and selfishness. I didn't really know what the movie was about beforehand and hadn't really heard of it, but I was pleasantly surprised. Well worth a watch. It sort of gives you hope that there's good in humanity yet, no matter how much evidence of the contrary the media try to make us believe.

The Spirit (2008)

Film review: The Spirit (2008), directed by Frank Miller

A movie we were going to watch at the cinema but never got around to. It's another one of those graphic-novels-turned-movie movies, whose screenplay was written by Frank Miller (the guy who wrote the Sin City graphic novel... turned film), although this one was originally created by Will Eisner.

It's about a city, Central City, and a super-human being called "the Spirit" (Gabriel Macht) who catches bad guys when he's not busy charming the ladies. His nemesis is the biggest baddie of all, the Octopus (Samuel L Jackson). There are a couple of murderous ladies as well (Scarlett Johansson and Eva Mendes) and a bunch of dimwitted clones.

Dragonball Evolution (2009)

Set in some sort of alternate world, where there are seven balls that control something and good guys have to find these balls before the bad guys do, because otherwise things are bad.

Okay, so I fell asleep and sort of skipped the middle, but it wasn't very memorable. Apparently, James Marsters (Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer) was in it, as the green-faced villain. Hence why I didn't recognise him. Maybe then I would've fought the urge to fall asleep.

It's action-packed, things get destroyed, pretty girls show off their cleavage, there is a lot of martial arts going on... and well... it's meh. That's basically it.

Either taken or gay

So here's the deal. Imagine an incredibly gorgeous bloke, all tall, dark and handsome, and who you can just picture next to you on a wedding photo, because he's just that droolworthy... Then add on the fact that he's intelligent, well-read, educated, into meditation and Buddhism and seems to be a pretty decent guy all around... but then there's the clincher: He's gay. D'oh!

Brothers & Sisters 4.1-2

I only found out the other day that ABC started showing series 4 of Brothers & Sisters back in the end of September, so I'm catching up now. It's a show I saw a trailer for originally and thought looked good, but never got around to watch. That is, until I found out who would guest star in series 2. So I watched those particular episodes and thought it was good and then, as British TV started showing series 2 from the beginning, I decided to watch it, and then I watched series 3... and I've still only seen the first 5 episodes of series 1!

Series 4 has been eagerly awaited by myself and my mum-in-law, who loves the show. Series 3 ended with Kitty having an affair (or did she?), Ryan being a sneaky bastard (er, literally), Robert trying to run for governor behind Kitty's back and she found out, Justin's a med student, Tommy is soul-searching in Mexico and Justecca getting engaged. At the start of series 4, there's a very effective scene which sets the picture for us, in case we forgot. It's Nora and Saul talking in her kitchen. We are told that Kevin and Scotty are same ol' same ol', Sarah's started dating, and Kitty and Robert are trying to patch things up. Brilliant, we know just where we are with everyone.

Spooks 8.7

The penultimate episode of this series! I've had the DVR faithfully record each and every episode off Freeview, so I can put them on DVD discs and swoon whenever I like. And now my plans are FOILED! BAH! Ten minutes in, something went amiss with the Freeview signal and the audio dropped. 50 minutes of silent movie. Not one to keep for posterity and a bit hard to try and lip-read my way through it. Ended up watching the rest over BBC iPlayer, which is a marvellous invention for just this type of emergency!

A Hindu extremist group are wanting to blow up Muslims for religious and historical reasons. The group is led by a handsome guy kind of reminiscent of Sayid in Lost, whose little sister landed in hospital after being brutally assaulted by a group of Muslim youths, and now he wants revenge. The group is infiltrated by a 17-year-old boy who used to be a Pakistani asset, but is now turned into an MI5 asset.

Meanwhile, Lucas found a USB stick under Cauldron's sink and has Tariq analysing it... which takes pretty much the entire episode. Where she is, no one knows. As Lucas laments, he doesn't even know her at all any more. I'm happy to have an episode without her and that phony accent!

It's an engaging episode, even if it's perhaps not super high action and such. It engages on an emotional level and even though I was watching it on a stuttery iPlayer-download, it still drew me in. Looking forward to next week - it looks like it's going to be explosive in many ways... hopefully at least one where they can sacrifice Cauldron to the gods of decent accents.

Spooks 8.6

Incidentally, last night, some channel or other was showing the movie Avatar from 2004... starring... Genevieve O'Reilly! She had a funny accent, bordering on Aussie. It was a movie from Singapore or something like that. Aaaanyway. She's in this episode, of course, with a particularly exaggerated American accent, and she's up to no good. No change there, then. Except now, our team of dashing heroes are on her trail.

The episode is focused on Ryan Baisley, an annoying guy (Ewen Bremner, the one who's in Strike Back), who has some bank account details to sell, because he happened to hack his own bank to get them. He now wants even more money to give them up to the MI5, and then it turns out people who happen to have those bank accounts don't want that to be revealed, and is out to kill him. Cue dashing heroes.

At the same time, the Home Secretary is forced to resign, because of some economic kerfuffle. You see, there's such a thing as a financial eclipse, where you can't play about with money like normal, because then you get find out and the economy collapses. You have to play it cool and let it blow over and the population in general is none the wiser. Well, guess what? Britain's in one. Hence why that money is top priority for the government, and with that, the MI5.

Some great scenes between Lucas and Cauldron, lots of angst. What happened in the end, I'm not entirely sure, but I hope watching the next episode will clear things up. The episode as such was memorable enough that I had to watch parts of it again in order to be able to write this post. So yeah. Time to watch the next one, I reckon. It's said to have Pakistanis in it, apparently. Makes a change from the Americans, I suppose...

Waiting for LOST

Sixth and final series of LOST is set to start broadcasting some time in the new year, and I thought I'd brighten up the wait by an exceedingly catchy little tune. :)

Armitage and Stephens reunited

If it wasn't for Nat at Richard Armitage Fan Blog, I wouldn't have looked up the cast list for upcoming TV series Strike Back, which is starring Richard Armitage. As she points out, it will also feature some people RA has worked with before, such as Ewen Bremner (Spooks 8.6), David Harewood (Friar Tuck), and - here's the clincher! - Toby Stephens (Prince John)! Hooray!

It will have some other famous faces from costume dramas: Andrew Lincoln (Edgar Linton in WH '09), Jodhi May (Anne Taylor/Weston in Emma '09), and Orla Brady (Cathy in WH '98). Some other people as well, of course, but those are the highlights for me personally.

It'll be fun to see Toby Stephens on screen again, and in the same show as Richard Armitage... squee! He's only going to be in two (of six) episodes, mind, and we don't know if they have any scenes together (unless you've read the book the show is based on), but still, same show!

As far as I know, Strike Back will be shown on Sky1 in 2010.

Countdown to Chaos (1999)

This movie, Countdown to Chaos (also known as Y2K), is about that famous old wives' tale of the Millennium Bug. Current rating on IMDb is 3.5/10 so this must be one of the worst pieces of garbage imaginable, right?

Au contraire! (I got the DVD off a French eBayer, see...)

It's not actually a bad film. Well, not that bad anyhow. I've seen some seriously bad films, and they normally make me bored enough to fall asleep - this one at least made the adrenaline flow a little. Not to say that the film is without issues. After all, it's a TV movie so it doesn't exactly have the highest budget and credibility is stretched pretty thinly. There was something about a nuclear meltdown somewhere in Sweden that had me giggling, for instance. Yes, Sweden does have a few nuclear power plants, but their geography was off or something like that. It was a while ago I saw the film, so I don't fully recall. So, what's it about?

Terminator Salvation (2009)

Continuing on the robot theme, we land in the 4th and final film in the rental pile - for this time. Now, I have actually seen some of the previous films. The only one I remember anything of the plot being the previous one with Claire Danes and a coffin full of guns.

Skynet, it's explained (thank you kindly!), as being an artifically intelligent defence system... who developed a consciousness and decided to self-preserve itself against the human race, who probably would like to destroy it. In the middle of all of this is a resistance featuring John Connor (Christian Bale, who got into trouble for swearing at someone on set during the shooting of this film, as you may remember) and his pregnant lady (Bryce Dallas Howard). The movie is about them fighting Skynet, and in my opinion, it ended with me saying "what do you mean, that wasn't the final battle? You mean they're going to drag out the franchise for years to come? Oh FFS!" So yeah, it felt a teensy bit pointless in that respect.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Film review: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), directed by Michael Bay

This is the third of the four recent rentals, and guess who picked this one? Well, not me. Transformers happened to other people when I was growing up - most likely because I don't have any brothers, and my sisters weren't into those things. I was more into My Little Ponies, and when I say "more into" I mean "well into, innit". I haven't even seen the first of the new Transformers movies, and the only thing I've heard of the back story is that there are good robots (Autobots) and bad robots (Decepticons), and that they can transform. My hopes for this movie weren't high, put it that way.

It's a decent action movie, some parts are really funny (Sam's mum, Julie White, getting high on brownies on campus). Other parts are really silly. What was with the crisp-brown sun tans? Megan Fox was sporting one and so was Isabel Lucas, although Ms. Lucas's was even worse. She looked like she'd just popped out of a toaster. Both ladies providing lashings of eyecandy for the boys (or girls, as the case may be), and what are we stuck with? Shia LaBoeuf. Somehow, that doesn't seem fair to me! Although, fair enough, there was also Josh Duhamel.

Goodnight Sweet Wife: A Murder in Boston (1990)

One thing I love about having a Sky subscription is the fact that it gives those rarely watched channels True Movies and True Movies 2. The only time I watch those channels are when I discover they're showing something featuring one of my squees, which isn't very often, but it happens. This would be one of those occasions.

Goodnight Sweet Wife: A Murder in Boston is a TV movie from 1990, based on a true story, starring Ken Olin and Anabella Price, amongst others who are probably even less known. It's the story about a man, Charles Stuart (Olin) who seems to live a very nice life. His wife (Price) is pregnant and things sound all around peachy. Except, of course, Charles is perhaps not as thrilled by the prospect of a baby and eventually plots to kill his missus. Like you do. We don't know everything from the beginning, so it's a find out more as you go along type of story. Some journalists think there's a bit of a hole in the story about a man with a perfect alibi and Charles is trying to pin the blame on an innocent black man, causing a justified upheaval in the community.

Soo... is it any good? 'S awright. Seen worse. Didn't exactly watch it to see an Oscar-winning movie. For the purposes that I did watch it for - i.e. relishing in Olin's gorgeousness - it was excellent. Highly recommended! And that's all I have to say on the matter.

All About the Brontës challenge 2010

Over at Laura's Reviews, there's a challenge for 2010: read/watch anything by or about the Brontë sisters between January and June. Between three and six things. Sounds easy enough!

For more info, and to officially sign up to the challenge, see All About the Brontes Challenge 2010.

I have eight Jane Eyre adaptations that can be watched (and obsessed over, naturally), two to listen to (have started one of them already, i.e. the one from '91 with Ciarán Hinds as Rochester), and then there's Tenant of Wildfell Hall that I could re-watch, and three Wuthering Heights adaptations. Two I've recently written about, so maybe I'll skip those, just like I'd probably skip Jane Eyre '34 and '83 for the same reason. I've not written about Wuthering Heights the book yet, and I have Agnes Grey still to read... maybe give Jane Eyre another read as well... maybe.

Persuasion (2007)

This is a re-post of a review I posted on IMDb a few years ago.

Date: 5 July 2007
Summary: Persuading me to read the book instead

*** SPOILERS AHEAD ***

I love Jane Austen's stories. I've only actually read two of them (P&P and S&S), but after having seen this adaption, I'm reaching for Persuasion from my bookcase just to make sense out of the story, and also, because I refusing to believe Jane Austen could have written such nonsense. For me, I thought that if you base a film on a Jane Austen novel, you can't really go wrong. It will turn out great pretty much by default. I was wrong.

News of upcoming Jane Eyre adaptation

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!

I knew they were making a new Jane Eyre adaptation, and it's been known for some time that Ellen Page (Juno) had been cast as Jane. No word on Rochester. Also, there was no info on IMDb, unless you had a pro account, as it was in pre-production. Apparently, there are developments!

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Film review: Inglourious Basterds (2009), directed by Quentin Tarantino

Second night of the rented films, and the movie which I was interested in watching. Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds. It's a Tarantino film, so logically, it's pretty graphically gruesome in places.

The Basterds are a group of Jewish-American soldiers who are dropped into Nazi occupied France to "kill Nazis". Their lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt in a broad Southern accent) is inspired by the Apaches, and tells his men to scalp the Nazis they kill - and they all owe him 100 scalps. Those that aren't killed and scalped get something to remember them by - a swastika carved into their foreheads. Yum.

The movie follows the Basterds who are doing their best to collect scalps and thereby annoying the Führer. It also follows German superstar actress and ally double-agent Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) and a woman (Mélanie Laurent) who poses as cinema owner Emanuelle Mimieux... when she is in fact Shosanna Dreyfus, the daughter of a Jewish dairy farmer. Her family were hiding under the floorboards in a neighbour's house, when they're detected by the "Jewhunter" colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), a psychotic Nazi, and brutally slaughtered. Shosanna managed to get away, and now she's plotting revenge. Revenge that gets a breakthrough when private Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl) decides to take a shine to her and her cinema.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

Yup, we've hit Blockbusters again. The Squeeze picked out four films he wanted to watch, so next time, my turn to pick! (Maybe I'll pick chickflicks as a contrast!) The first one we saw was this one, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. The only interest I had in it was the fact that Rachel Nichols was in it. Why is she interesting? Well, I've mentioned casting Richard Armitage as one of my roleplaying characters... Rachel Nichols is in the same category. ;) Although in this film, she was a redhead, and while the colour was fantastic, I'm not convinced it suits her very well. She should be blonde, her natural haircolour I believe, but then again, seeing as how my character's a blonde, maybe I'm just biased?

Tiger Bay (1959)

Film review: Tiger Bay (1959), directed by J Lee Thompson

A thriller that can be shown on the BBC at lunch on a Sunday? Surely not! Surely yes, if it was made half a century ago!

Tiger Bay is about a tomboyish 11-year-old girl called Gillie (Hayley Mills, then 13) who witnesses a murder and gets hold of the murder weapon, because every other kid has a toy gun to play with and she doesn't. She also happens to be the one to show the murderer to his victim, as it happens. Polish sailor Korchinsky (Horst Buchholz) comes ashore after a long time away, only to find his girlfriend Anya (Yvonne Mitchell) have left the room he rented for her, and moved into a new one, in Gillie's building.

Korchinsky comes to ask Anya to marry him, only to find out she's not interested in him anymore, and he can bugger off back to sea as far as she's concerned. She's found someone new. They argue, she gets a gun out, and he ends up shooting her - witnessed by Gillie through the letterbox.

White Noise (2005)

Film review: White Noise (2005), directed by Geoffrey Sax

This is a movie I've wanted to see pretty much since it came out, on the basis that it's about E.V.P., Electronic Voice Phenomenon, which is what the movie centres around. I managed to see the sequel White Noise 2: The Light earlier in the year, with the great Nathan Fillion, which was an okay film, if not perhaps what I expected. Or maybe I did just expect it to be a bog-standard horror idea with cheap thrills. Either way, I think I prefer this one.

Recorded off Freeview a couple of weeks back or so, and unfortunately, something went wrong with the picture after the first commercial break, because it was a bit stuttery. Not too much to make the film unwatchable, just enough to delete after watching. The sound was fine throughout.

In this film, we have the main character, the architect Jonathan Rivers (Michael Keaton), who is married to a beautiful and successful author called Anna (Chandra West). One night, when out to see a friend, she disappears. Her car is found by a river, but there is no body, so she is presumed missing. During this time, a man (Ian McNeice) appears to be following Jonathan around. He's called Raymond Price and turns out to be EVP enthusiast and says he has a message from Anna, and that Anna is dead.

Ready For Insanity - The 3rd Modern Talking Obsession Test

Third in the series, points 201-300 on signs you're obsessed with Modern Talking. Last updated: 4 September 2000, and I haven't updated spelling and grammar mistakes since then. Again, this is a fairly insane list, mainly played for laughs, and no, I didn't get all points back then. :P Like the previous ones, a lot of things are obscure references to song lyrics, music videos, pictures and interviews.

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This is the 3rd fun little test you can take, and check out exactly how obsessed you are with Modern Talking... :c)

Instructions: Check all that apply.

X-TENded Modern Talking Obsession Test

Second in the series, points 101-200 on signs you're obsessed with Modern Talking. Last updated: 4 September 2000, and I haven't updated spelling and grammar mistakes since then. Again, this is a fairly insane list, mainly played for laughs, and no, I didn't get all points back then. :P Some points I really haven't got a clue what they mean, eg. the spaghetti throwing. WTH? (It might be a reference to something in a piece of fanfic for all I know.) Like the last one, a lot of things are obscure references to song lyrics, music videos, pictures and interviews.

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This is the 2nd fun little test you can take, and check out exactly how obsessed you are with Modern Talking... :c)

Instructions: Check all that apply.

The Original Modern Talking Obsession Test

For old times sakes... a list of "You know you're a Modern Talking fan when" type thing which I begun some time in 2000, and managed to get up to about 750 points. I thought I'd make a serial of it! ;) I'll let the grammar and spelling errors stand uncorrected. Let's leave it as a legacy of good times gone by and let's travel back in time... and in case you were wondering, most of the points are obscure references to TV interviews, pictures, song lyrics or music videos, and the vast majority of them are played for laughs as opposed to being something someone would actually really do. I just thought I'd point that out, because the list goes more and more insane the longer it gets...

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This is the 1st fun little test you can take, and check out exactly how obsessed you are with Modern Talking... :c)

Instructions: Check all that apply...

Spooks 8.5

Decided to watch last night's episode after having let the cat out and seeing the Squeeze off to work, as a way of making me not go straight back to bed and sleep half the day. I have an exam tomorrow and a lot of studying to get done before then, so need to stay awake. Unfortunately, with SAD, getting up and staying awake is a bit of a challenge. Maybe Lucas can keep my eyes open, eh? :)

This is another one of those running commentary things. So far, I've wanted to yell "because you f***ing killed him!!" after hearing "they're too young to have lost a father". Bah! And also, a spontaneous "oooooh", as in, who's Jack Coalville and will he get it on with Ros? Harry/Ruth shipping? (something Ragtag found was ripe on Spooks forums.) Meh. (And I agree with her, how can you focus on Harry/Ruth when Lucas was out-angsting everyone? With bumshots?) I say Jack/Ros is more interesting. Maybe he used to be on the show, like Ruth, but has returned? Although I can't see the name in the list. I mean, the scene in the café... hand on shoulder! Squee!