Metamatic Forums Socialising The Green Room What are you watching?

I just finished watching The Best of Bowie dvd. Those early years are priceless.

....or just £8.98 at amazon.

P+P is priceless in the UK.

:rolleyes:

…well… episode two had the unlikely scenario of a nicely timed jailbreak involving a JCB weighed down with a concrete block (Jack imprisoned inside), and hilariously outrunning a team of highly trained government assassins.
Now all of that kind of unlikely romping I can laugh at and swallow, and episode three was a fantastically scary drama of a Quatermass style alien contact, involving a bile spewing, monotone sounding creature mocking us from within a poisonous gas filled chamber, where it lurked and hid contemptuously behind the glass. The sinister character of the Permanent Secretary, played by Peter Capaldi, was acting as liaison, and he was very much in his element here. We also learned the grim tale of how Jack brokered ‘a deal’ with these aliens 40+ years previously, giving them 12 children as ‘a gift’ (orphans send to a ghastly fate) on behalf of our great British government as some kind of appeasement.

Having recorded this series I waited till the weekend to eagerly watch the final two episodes, but by the end it had turned into one of those rare moments for me where a drama had left me totally fuming, having lead me up the garden path into its tale of complete and utter cynicism, and into a place where ultimately there were no characters left for me to feel any sympathy for. The UK leadership, the PM, the cabinet, the civil service, no, worse still, the entire Worlds governments and its cronies and henchmen, with the USA (so predictably in a British drama) all being portrayed as a bunch of the most self serving, totalitarian, heartless collection of individuals.

Now we all know in the UK that when it comes to expenses claims, MP’s can sometimes be just a tad ‘me, me, me’, but apparently in Torchwood we are all unwittingly ruled here in good old blighty by a government bordering on a Nazi conspiracy, who with hardly a pause for breath are all ready to throw the majority of us to the dogs, and in a no-win situation its better for survival to sacrifice our children to a fate worse than death. That’s everybody else’s children, not those of our elected rulers of course, and its those pesky kids that society could do without, and in a BBC drama this translates as ‘council school kids’ all being rounded up in their well-behaved nice blue or green jumpers.

The writer did momentarily try to make a point by having the alien state that a child somewhere dies every few seconds in the world and we all live with this fact (either acknowledged or in ignorance), so why would we care or miss the mere 10% it was demanding from us for its inhuman purposes, but any real moral points here were sadly drowned out in the cheap sensationalism of the plot.

The world was ultimately saved when Jack had to sacrifice his grandson, the unwitting child of course had no say in the matter, his head vibrated violently like he was at a Motorhead concert, till he died, and the alien in the tank got the message and pi**ed off back home to monsterville. The UK government closed ranks, protected its own kind, covered up its vile and secret actions, and we were all meant to feel sorry for Jack as he said his goodbyes and thumbed a lift to the stars.

Siouxsie and the Banshees: At the BBC dvd

This is the best item in the whole box set for me. Its good to see the time was taken to get the licence for all this bbc tv content. It could so easily been just a three cd box set otherwise.

Moon

I have to confess that I was intrigued by the Bowie connection, in the films creator and director Duncan Jones. Did you ever wonder when you were younger what it would be like to have one of your heroes as a father, or what would your heroes children be like as individuals? Okay, I live in celebrity-obsessed Britain, but I got over all of that teenage nonsense a long time ago

The main reason I wanted to see this film was for the special effects, as there seems to be less reliance on CGI to shape the visual design, and more of a love for old school techniques in this films aesthetics. Crikey, young Mr Jones must have grown up sharing my own passion for those Airfix model part encrusted 2001 A Space Odyssey inspired space craft, and NASA modular environments, these were for a lot of us geeks the real stars of films like Silent Running, and TV shows such as Space 1999.

Moon is a reasonably straightforward drama, not hugely original, but it’s exceptionally well crafted, and young Mr Jones certainly displays his film-making professionalism. Sam Rockwell is great in this film, and without spoiling the plot for anyone, he is the movie completely, displaying a multitude of emotional states as the lone worker on a mining facility, from boredom to physical deterioration, all mixed with frustration and humour, and he is a very likeable character.

There’s a great robot called GERTY, very smartly inspired by a few classic cinema robots, and voiced by Kevin Spacey, which for the most part has you wondering if it is either a latent menace in the wings, like HAL, or just a well-meaning reliable assistant, like the Valley Forge trio of droids

Only criticism I have really is a totally unnecessary ‘happy’ resolution which can be heard in the soundtrack in the final seconds of the film, one of those moments when you suspect that the director was either urged to do so, or hesitant about the feeling he was leaving the audience with at the conclusion. An overstated upbeat radio message sadly steals the final word, instead of just leaving things slightly more open to debate in our own minds about the ultimate fate of the character.


The Mentalist

I LOVE this show, it’s on Ch5 here, and sadly coming to the end of it’s run tonight at 9pm

When I first saw the forthcoming trailer for the show some months ago, I thought, groan not yet another cop/detective series that I’ll never watch, and its called ‘The Mentalist’ , I had visions of Alan Partridge running around in Lycra shorts with a huge piece of cheese on the end of a fork, shouting “he’s a Mentalist!”

The shows main man here is Patrick Jane, what can I say about this great character, uhm, he's dapper, endearing, funny, witty, highly intelligent, he’s got ‘powers of the mind’, crikey, he could be the next Dr Who


and similarly, Lie To Me

which has ended its run on Sky1 here and is now in repeat mode, is another great show, with Tim Roth just really fantastic in the lead, he’s that neat touch of an ordinarily looking professional character, but someone who harbours an incredible sharpness of mind ready to spring into action, (I wonder if all of this style of characterisation actually follows on in a tradition from raincoat wearing Peter Falk in Columbo).

Made in Sheffield documentary directed and produced by Eve Wood. It's one which I had been willing to buy for a long time. It's a well constructed documentary with interviews with Phil Oakey and the girls, Martyn Ware, Ian Craig Marsh, Chris Watson (Cabaret Voltaire) and Stephen Singleton (Vice-Versa/ABC). It is indeed one of those industrial northern cities that proved an ideal scenario for all the heavy analogue synth music.

It's good to find out a bit more about Vice-Versa where Mark White was the singer and Martin Fry was the additional synth player. Vice-versa was an electronic band in similar vein to The Human League until one day by accident Martin Fry decided to sing and the rest is history.

It's also interesting to note that Phil and Martyn still keep their analogue synths. Don't know about Ian keeping his modular.

Off the summer sales at Amazon and the fantastic second hand market that's ebay I gathered a series of DVDs on Joy Division: Joy Division, Shadowplayers and Here Are The Young Men/Substance. The rise and fall of Factory and Joy Division is an incredible story and the DVDs proved a number of hours of entertainment in particular the two documentaries. As Tony Wilson sums it up, "Joy Division were a great band with great songs".

Chris

I especially liked the bonus footage of the complete Stephen Singleton (ABC) interview. I found it very entertaining. Be sure to check it out.

Just watched "The Italian Job".

Kids loved it!

Yeah! I did. It's funny that years don't go by with Stephen.

Last night on Spanish TV they were showing Depeche Mode: Touring The Angel Live in Milan. Quite a good set they have, although a few songs were left out from the complete show. Whatever's Martin doing dressed as an angel?!? It's curious to notice that Fletch's synths were out of view! Mind you he did contribute some backing vocals!

Chris