Movie Musings: THE DEBT

Why would you watch THE DEBT?

a)      Helen Mirren is a fantastic actress who has the ability to make the camera her sycophantic love monkey, which will allow you to suffer silently through the film’s duller stretches.

b)      You suffer the mistaken belief that Sam Worthington will become an important actor any day now.

c)       It’s been taking up space on your PVR and you need that room for something really important, like a STORAGE WARS marathon or HOUSE OF BRYAN.

Book Review: The Prisoner Of Heaven - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Barcelona, 1957. It is Christmas, and Daniel Sempere and his wife, Bea, have much to celebrate. They have a beautiful new baby son named JuliÁn, and their close friend FermÍn Romero de Torres is about to be wed. But their joy is eclipsed when a mysterious stranger visits the Sempere bookshop and threatens to divulge a terrible secret that has been buried for two decades in the city’s dark past. His appearance plunges FermÍn and Daniel into a dangerous adventure that will take them back to the 1940s and the early days of Franco's dictatorship. The terrifying events of that time launch them on a search for the truth that will put into peril everything they love and ultimately transform their lives.

Even though it’s been a while since I first read THE SHADOW OF THE WIND I still remember the story pretty much as if I’d read it yesterday. THE ANGEL’S GAME, second book in Spanish author Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s “Cemetery Of Forgotten Books” series, I recall less clearly because it was much darker and only seemed tentatively linked to the first book. What’s most telling, and one of the key spots in which PRISONER succeeds is in the fact that when I first read THE ANGEL’S GAME I thought it was good, if very dark but that it just didn’t quite seem to be up to the standard SHADOW set. PRISONER actually changes that status quo, and it makes me desire a re-read of THE ANGEL’S GAME since this one puts a LOT of the story elements in that strange 2nd book into a whole new light and makes it a MUCH better book if you can believe that. It’s hard to explain without spoiling anything, but THE PRISONER OF HEAVEN made me appreciate THE ANGEL’S GAME much, much more.

Well the 3rd book in the sequence, titled THE PRISONER OF HEAVEN, is like a lost connection between the two books. It’s as if when writing both his first two books he purposely left out small key points and elements that we really didn’t notice when they were passing. Sentences that seemed like random worldbuilding back then, all of the sudden become powerful steel links between both SHADOW and ANGEL’S in THE PRISONER OF HEAVEN. It got to the point that as I was reading the 3rd book and things were slotting into place my jaw kept dropping.

This book, like the two before it, is once again a past and present book. We pick things up not long after the conclusion of SHADOW with Daniel married to Bea and raising their young son Julían in 1957. It’s Christmas and at the Sempere bookshop sales are flagging a bit. Sempere Senior ends up with an idea for a nativity scene in the front window to attract customers in an attempt to make ends meet. The illustrious former vagabond and Daniel’s best friend, Fermín Romero De Torres, is soon to marry his love Bernarda but seems more and more down in the dumps each day closer to the nuptials he gets. Daniel only has a scant amount of time to wonder before a nefarious looking older man comes into the store, purchases the most expensive book in the store (a leather-bound copy of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO by Dumas) for 1000 Pesetas, writes an inscription in the front cover and leaves it for Fermín with a cryptic message. I won’t get into any further plot here as the very last thing one should do when reviewing a gothic thriller is to give away the plot.

The only thing I’ll say is that this book will open a window onto the previously unknown past of our favourite character Fermín, and every bit of it is as interesting as everything that’s come before in the series.

Something I wasn’t sure was possible is that we actually get to see growth in Daniel here, and while it is not the type of growth I expected to see, it was welcome from a character standpoint. The same is of course true for Fermín, and I think it’s the tale of the youthful vagabond that makes this book totally shine. Are there other mysteries at play? Yes, but Fermín has always been such a phenomenally realized character with so many hidden winks and nudges that you can’t possibly be anything but enthralled by his backstory.

Divided into 5 Parts, the narrative is shorter than the other two books (clocking in at a mere 280 pages or so), and if I had a complaint about the book it would be that I wished there were more to read. But that is from an addictive fan standpoint, as the story told in the pages is perfectly represented and cleanly told. The prose is sweeping and the gothic style Zafon is known for is present and accounted for, which I believe is part of the charm. These books are as much about the prose itself as they are about the tale. Zafon turns a sentence like a pro and you simply cannot help but get lost in the pages. Like the previous installments, he uses Barcelona as a character in its own right, with grand vistas, rambling streets, dark and foreboding mansions and bustling café’s and restaurants. I think if I ever go to Barcelona I’ll probably have at least a decent idea how to get around.

Once again, Zafon has delivered an absolutely riveting gothic mystery that will have you turning the pages like wildfire. Nothing is stilted and the narrative time shifts are always well placed and never jarring. In fact, at one point while one story was being told in the past and a chapter ended I thought to myself “Oh, I’d like to hear the present day reaction to that!” and the very next chapter the time shifted forward to the present to do exactly that. An intuitive and entirely immersive read THE PRISONER OF HEAVEN sits proudly on the shelf next to its brethren. Considering the first book in the series is the one I consider my all time favourite book ever, succeeding it in the series and impressing is a tall order. That said, I really do stand by what I said at the top of the post. This book is the missing links between both the 1st and 2nd books, while tying into the 3rd and it is also a wholly fantastic standalone story in its own right.

Gripping from the outset, if you enjoyed Zafon’s previous two installments then this one will almost be cream on the top of the already delicious desert. Carlos Ruiz Zafon is a master storyteller and now I patiently begin the wait to the next book in the series.

TV Musings: THE NEWSROOM

More than once in the premiere episode of THE NEWSROOM a character equates  the fanciful notion of a new cast where the focus is on telling the news right and not being beholden to the corporate interests of giant multinationals to Don Quixote and his perpetual assault on implacable windmills.

The truth, we’re told, is a luxury in this day and age and only the mad and the marginalized have any business pursuing it.

THE NEWSROOM works best when it’s tilting angrily at windmills and less so when it decides to remember that it’s also a television drama and it should incorporate a love interest or two in order to please all comers.

It’s loud, brash, clumsy and not terribly subtle. It reads like a freshman year Politics and the Media class, where characters serve as expositional info dumps, giving primers on  “This is the way things work” all wrapped up in that immediately identifiable Sorkin-esque dialogue.

Characters and story are twisted and bent in order to serve the high god of politico-proselytization and everything else is secondary.

The show works best when it’s trying to pass itself off as a pseudo-documentary of sorts. The verite trappings give a drive and immediacy to the show that pulls the viewer along. When NEWSROOM switches gears and drops in some more familiar dramatic trappings, trying to catch up emotional me alongside cerebral me, the dissonance caused by the contradictory aims spoils the pacing of the whole affair.

Aaron Sorkin has clearly dressed THE NEWSROOM in a fine suit of unfettered opinions and beliefs. Like NETWORK, a similarly Quixotesque journalism genre piece he’s mad as hell and not about to take it anymore. By positioning the show’s ‘hero’ to the right of the middle he’s scuttling the critique that he’s using the show to espouse any one political ideology. THE NEWSROOM is not about determining the moral superiority of any particular ideology, It’s about respecting the intelligence and opinions of the viewers and challenging the political divide to raise the level of their discourse to something more than the angry shouting of floating heads on your evening newscast.

THE NEWSROOM is in turn a declaration of principles and a yearning for a way of reporting news that might exist only in theory or in musty old textbooks. It’s an idealistic  throwing down of the gauntlet that refuses to be happy with the broken status quo.

Doctor Who Re-Watch: Series 2, Episode 1 - The Christmas Invasion

Ah THE CHRISTMAS INVASION, thou art a weird duck. The first episode of Series 2, the first full episode with David Tennant in the lead as the 10th Doctor is quite good. But it’s still an odd duck since it’s technically what will come to be called a Doctor-lite episode down the line.

Sidenote: Doctor-lite: These are episodes that existed during the tight shooting schedule when David and Billie or down the road Freema or Catherine would be shooting other episodes and the need to get done more shooting in less time was high (this is info I’ve gleaned from Russell T. Davies book A WRITER’S TALE, which is a must-read if you are at all interested in the behind the scenes of the show) so they would craft an episode that only marginally included the Doctor (prime examples are BLINK, and LOVE & MONSTERS).

THE CHRISTMAS INVASION is a different type of this because it wasn’t a scheduling conflict that made it be Doctor-lite but rather the fact that the violent and taxing process of the 9th Doctor’s regeneration into the 10th Doctor had left the Time Lord bedridden and unconscious for the majority of the running time.

Where the episode benefits from this most is in the fact that Rose Tyler, her mum Jackie and her boyfriend Mickey Smith get a chance to really shine front and center solving a large part of the mystery in the narrative (this time an invasion of the Sycorax) on their own before the Doctor even wakes up.

Let’s get the plot out of the way, which for a Christmas Special is serviceable, if one of the more lackluster ones from the stellar Series 2. While the Doctor is convalescing, Rose and Mickey go Christmas shopping, only to be attacked by Santa robots! When they escape home the Doctor briefly wakes only to defeat the robots and mention it’s the residual regeneration energy that is drawing the things to him. Prime Minister Harriet Jones (whom you’ll all recall became Prime Minister after the incident with the Slitheen in Series 1) has sent a probe into space to Mars, but little known to her it has been gobbled up by the Sycorax warship on its way to earth to invade. The Sycorax arrive and hypnotize people all over London to position themselves on the tops of buildings with the threat that they will make the humans jump if those in charge don’t surrender half the human population to the aliens to become their slaves. This plotline slowly gets undone by the discovery that all the hypnotized humans have the same blood type (that of the type that was on the probe the ship gobbled up), and the eventual moving of the Doctor to the TARDIS where he finally wakes. Upon learning of the plot, the Doctor challenges the Sycorax leader to a swordfight (in borrowed pajama’s yet!) where he subsequently loses his hand. Being so close to the tail end of his regeneration though the hand grows back, and the Doctor is able to vanquish the leader in the confusion. Pretty standard stuff, but not at all unpalatable either. Decent and entertaining, if kind of a prologue to the rest of the Series.

Like I said above though, the spot where this ep shines best is with Rose and Co. All three of them spend a lot of time trying to come to terms with the regeneration, since the idea of it is so alien to them as humans. This person seems to be the same on some levels, but on most others including his looks he is also quite different.  There is a CORE that makes him a Time Lord and some very specific rules he follows, but otherwise all bets are off. The 9th Doctor is gone and in his place is a stranger. Compound this with the adoration that Rose had already begun to have for the 9th Doctor, this further complicates her own feelings. Imagine falling for someone only to have them change their face and parts of their personality. It would be bizarre to say the very least. Both Jackie and Mickey have an equally difficult time with it, but naturally on a different level than Rose. I think Jackie's reaction is probably the funniest (though that's usually the case with Camille Coduri's spot on delivery of lines) since she is truly baffled by this turn of events. I’ve always maintained that this is one of the areas where Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor missed a bit of a boat as he was freshly introduced to Amy Pond without her having known him before. I like the fact that companions have to deal with regeneration like Rose & Co. do here, and it hearkens back to Adric, Nyssa and Tegan having to see the 4th Doctor regenerate into the 5th, and again later when Peri watched the 5th regenerate into the 6th at the end of the CAVES OF THE ANDROZANI.

Now, it’s no secret that David Tennant is my favourite Doctor. I'm a card carrying, die-hard, flag waving, David Tennant fan. He likely always will be, and so THE CHRISTMAS INVASION holds a special place in my heart as his proper introduction, but there is a part of me that wishes he was in it more. That said, his scenes in the finale are very good and you can see where he is headed as the Doctor. Over the next few eps he will begin to solidify both his final look (with hair all “sticky uppy” as Wilfred Mott would call it later), his mannerisms and his personality, but in this ep he gets his wardrobe (Brown and Blue suits, plus Chuck Taylors and a long brown coat) which would become so iconic that I have personally cosplayed as him twice.

Next Time: We get more meat with the latest Doctor when he and Rose visit a future New York in NEW EARTH.

TV Review: BBC's TRUE LOVE

A while back it was announced that a number of DOCTOR WHO alum as well as some other currently hot British thespians would be on a new 5-epsiode show called TRUE LOVE on the BBC. The most notable of these was the news that David Tennant and Billie Piper would be sort of reunited in their first show together since 2009’s DOCTOR WHO: THE END OF TIME PII. When I say “sort of” that’s because TRUE LOVE would take place in the same seaside town and though there would be minor links between episodes, each one would concern a different set of characters and stories and as such Tennant and Piper weren’t in the same episode, but would be on the same show. They would not interact. Still, being a giant fan of both actors I went in with open arms to the show…and sadly, found it VERY wanting.

First off, I think it should be noted that up front the show is apparently improved dialogue-wise, in what one can only assume was an attempt to make the characters ring truer to real-life conversations. While an admirable idea on paper, this falls entirely flat in execution in a two-pronged fail. The first thing wrong with it is that unless you have your TV cranked to ear-piercing levels it is incredibly difficult to hear what is being said half the time since sentences trail off into mumbles. The second issue is that in this attempt to sound like real-life dialogue with all the uncomfortable pauses and the like, the whole thing ends up actually coming off much more falsely than well-scripted dialogue would have.

The second thing I noted is that this show is about what I have termed “un-pretty love”, in that the majority of the eps are about cheating on ones spouse for one reason or another.

Note, spoilers for the first two episodes from here on out.


In Tennant’s episode, his character Nick who is happily married with two teen kids cheats on his wife with an old love who comes to town to basically stalk him. Great... It’s one of those moments in a TV show when you think, ”Who’s side am I meant to be on?" Clearly Nick is the protagonist, and yet if we side with anyone, we side with his wife Ruth (played by DOWNTON ABBEY’S Joanne Froggat) who get’s about 4 minutes of total screen time, so that makes little sense. Nick as a character is fairly reprehensible since he ruthlessly cheats and easily lies to his loving wife. Then the episode ends with him not able to run away with his first love (as they'd planned) and ends up staying with his wife. It’s unsatisfying to say the least as a half hour of TV, and then you add in the factor that since each of the five episodes will be about different sets of characters you know that the ultimate resolution between Nick and Ruth (who seems to be more than aware of what transpired) will never be seen. So what we are left with is a disappointing and ultimately depressing tableau of infidelity with zero redeeming qualities. Nor am I even sure why I was told this particular tale.


The second episode concerned Paul, another town resident who is wedded (in a somewhat stale marriage) to Michelle and they have a young child together. Michelle is too involved in the day to day grind with her homemaker life and their child to excite Paul and he himself is bored by his own day to day grind at his job at the carpet store, which seemingly eats away it him. Until one day he sees a blonde at the bus stop and begins to share furtive looks with her, and this culminates in him leaving her a note in chalk on the ground to meet him…at which point he…guess. Go ahead and guess what happens next. That’s right, they go to her place and he cheats. He cheats multiple times with her while progressively getting more belligerent with his wife about their boring life at home. Well, this sketchy blonde ends up asking him for money to save her ailing mother, and of course he gives her a cheque for Five Thousand Pounds and off she goes with the promise to call him when she gets to her mums, and of course she never does and has swindled him out of most of his savings. At this point my girlfriend rolled her eyes at me as we were watching and I agreed with that sentiment. So this second story of adultery tacks on a hackneyed sick mother con onto the end of the tale. It’s totally and utterly predictable in the worst way. And what’s even worse is that when I began to actually think that PERHAPS…just PERHAPS the resolution of the story might be Paul, realizing his mistake, growing up and being a man and might think to start WORKING on his flagging marriage…turns into him leaving his wife anyway because he was having his affair…and even after she screams at him to get out when he confesses the infidelity, she relents as he packs and asks him not to leave not wanting to sacrifice their marriage to this indiscretion…and he STILL LEAVES. This almost makes Paul even more reprehensible than Nick was, and the only saving grace was that at least he actually had the stones to admit to his wife he’d cheated. But again, the episode ended and I thought to myself, “Who am I meant to side with here?" And sadly I can’t even side with Michelle since her sister Serena was the visiting “first love” of Nick in the first ep whom he cheated with and she is irredeemable in ep 2 because it was her convincing Nick to cheat to make her sister happy.” So I felt almost less connected here.

We stopped at episode two deciding that the show had no really redeeming qualities and was not remotely entertaining on nay level. We MIGHT watch episode three since it’s Billie Piper’s episode, but I don’t even want to really do that since I’m sure it will be but more of the same. What struck me most here is that last years Post-DW David Tennant show SINGLE FATHER, while very difficult to stomach and watch, since it also actually concerns some very unsettling things about “love”, the end result was far more endearing and made sense. In four episodes it was a complete story and served a purpose. In comparison, TRUE LOVE is an absolute joke. It’s disconnected, convoluted, predictable, nasty, irredeemable and even pretty incompetent as a TV show. People don’t watch TV to see snippets of uncomfortable real life, that aren’t cohesive into a proper narrative. People watch TV to be entertained. And while it is okay to entertain with stories that are not the easiest things to watch, it is certainly not okay to present a premise and not only not bring it to a proper conclusion, but also to not even TELL the story in a good way. We don’t need to love the protagonist, but if we don’t like them who can we relate to? And in that same vein if we aren't going to get the whole story, why are we being told it to begin with?

I’m not sure what writer/director Dominic Savage was aiming for here, but if he was aiming for the least decent, least effective show about LOVE ever, then he’s hit the nail right on the head. Perhaps that’s the point of it and perhaps I therefore missed it. I can’t say beyond what I saw and how I perceived it. If I were a betting man though I’d wager that Savage likes his drama to be brutal, unrelenting and bleak. And that is NOT TV that I wish to watch in my spare time.

PLEASE NOTE: None of these issues stem at all from the actors involved. Tennant, Froggat, Walters, McLure ect. all do as good a job as they can with the material they have been given and even do an admirable job at the improv of the dialogue, and I want it known that my issues with this show stem entirely from Savage's writing and directing. 

In short, there is nothing to “love” in TRUE LOVE, and in fact the show would be more aptly titled “Unrepentant Cheaters” or “Irredeemable Idiots”. Terrible. Just avoid it.

Movie Musings: ATTACK THE BLOCK

By the time you get to the third act you realize the central thrust of BLOCK is that it uses an invading horde of sexually frustrated aliens as a metaphor for gang violence.

Pretty heady stuff for a film that’s ostensibly an hour and a half of teenagers running around an apartment complex bludgeoning misfit toys from the Jim Henson workshop.

BLOCK is fun, frothy and strangely not afraid of dispatching those same teens in a fairly graphic manner.

Oh, and if you think that there’s a world of difference between Brits and Canucks, despite our shared history and language, wait til you see the film’s portrayal of low income London. The thick accents and heavy use of slang really do make it seem otherworldly to all us folks hunkered down here in the colonies. 

Podcast: The Giggle Loop #09 - Superteams Last All Summer Long

Not a lot of our listeners may know that I usually (Read: up till now) spent an inordinate amount of time editing the podcast. I used to remove "ums" and "ahs" and long pauses, as well as edited content that made us seem drunkenly foolish (usually at the tail end of the podcast). The last few podcasts however (in their rough, uncut form) have been unwieldy and were beginning to take 3 and 4 sessions of me sitting in front of my laptop for hours a piece, chopping stuff out. This was taking me WAY too long and eating up my free time. So upon having listened to a few other folks podcasts since then that were left pretty much as recorded...I've decided to do the same from here on out.

So here it is, the long awaited 9th episode of The Giggle Loop Podcast, titled (you will notice the titles have changed as well) Superteams Last All Summer Long.

Enjoy!




The Giggle Loop #09 - Superteams Last All Summer Long
Running time: 105 minutes
Download MP3 HERE

Movie Musings: CRAZY STUPID LOVE

Romantic comedy don’t get a lot of play from me. And it’s not just the subject matter or the well-worn jokes and character clichés.

Rather it’s because the endings in romantic comedies are primarily a binary proposition.

a)      The more popular “They overcome life’s obstacles and get\stay together, reaffirming the power of love."

b)      Or the lesser used “They realize that they’re not right for each other and that true love’s kiss is stapled to the bottom of some other poor sap’s face.”

Admittedly LOVE does better than most, jamming several different types of rom-com (coming of age\mid-life crisis\opposites attract) into a single vehicle. The diversity of narrative plot lines handily papering over some of the overly familiar genre motifs.

And there’s a VERY well done surprise twist that is never alluded to at any point in the film’s buildup and pays off of a great deal of the very patient ground work LOVE laid down earlier in the movie.

But it’s still a rom-com and while LOVE is willing to play a little bit with its structure its never able to break free of the genre trap that birthed it.

Doctor Who Crackpot Theories! Series 7! Could The New Companion Still Be The Master? Or Maybe A Dalek? Will The 50th Anniversary Have Multiple Doctor's?

Here’s what has begun to happen this summer (I know it’s not officially summer yet, but it is to me, so there!).

Scott awaits the Seventh Series of DOCTOR WHO.

Scott gets impatient and decides to forget about it.

Scott’s Internet bookmarks (no less than 5 of which are DW related) begin to taunt him.

Scott’s judgment blurs and he begins to pine away for a show that likely won’t start till late September (the premiere will be held August 23rd).

Scott gives up on holding off and begins to get actively excited for a show that won’t air for over two months yet. 

So, DOCTOR WHO fans, if you are like me then you enjoy speculating on what is in store for us in this new Series. That’s why we have a column here at Iceberg Ink called CRACKPOT THEORIES! I know you like them...

So let’s get to it shall we?

The “I’m not letting this go” Companion theory

I know I mentioned in the past (before Jenna Louise Coleman was cast in the role) that it would have been stellar and twisty to have a post-THE END OF TIME PART 2 Master (still played by John Simms, at least initially) who with the “drums” removed from his head (the cause of his insanity) might become a more benevolent (if Magneto-ish) character and therefore could be a GREAT foil as a companion to the Doctor. With the two revisiting a friendship they’ve not seen since their childhood together on Gallifrey. I just really loved the notion of that and the stories that could be written in that mold.

Now, I know that particular FLAVOUR of the theory has been blown out of the water by Coleman being cast (and rumored to be named Clara) in the companion role. But Moffat still said that she would be the most unlikely person for the Doctor to partner with. So, since this is the regeneration-heavy DOCTOR WHO universe, how about the same theory, just tweaked. Clara ends up being a female regeneration of the Master (again, post-THE END OF TIME PART 2) and is either wholly benevolent, or partially benevolent. I just think it would be REALLY great to see someone in the TARDIS who often challenges the Doctor’s motives and quite possibly offers the (sorry to keep using this analogy) Magneto-style viewpoint. A fellow timelord who presents a counterpoint and actually has the heritage (Gallifreyan and Timelord) to challenge the Doctor on his level.

Other [Clara] Companion Identity Notions Theory

Now, should she not be the Master, who else could Clara be that the Doctor would least expect? I present to you a few options without commentary…just to be cryptic.

-Jenny (from Series 4 THE DOCTOR’S DAUGHTER)

-Another Timelord we’ve not met before

-The Rani

- NOT River Song


- Random Human for the 5th Great and Bountiful Human Empire survivor.




And here is one of my pet theories WITH some commentary:

-A humanoid of the species that eventually becomes the Daleks. On the planet Skaro we know that the humanoid species of the Kaled’s and the Thal’s warred with nuclear and biological weapons causing widespread mutations and that Davros eventually created the Daleks in his image (that of a personal tank) using mutated Kaleds. So my supposition is that perhaps Clara is somehow a survivor of the Kaled-Thal war and was not mutated retaining her original humanoid form. Perhaps as a baby she was spirited away off-planet or the like to be raised as she was…but perhaps she still is aware of her race’s eventual evolution into the killer Daleks. Even if this doesn’t happen, it would be nice to see NuWho pay a little homage to the great Genesis if the Daleks episodes. We also know that the season opener is an episode with MANY different incarnations of the Daleks, so perhaps that will tie in down the line with Clara. Like I said, pet theory and probably not at all feasible…but just imagine the Doctor’s companion being one of the species of his hated enemy. Crazy!


The “Let’s Talk About Chris’ Vow” Multiple Doctor 50th Anniversary Theory

This is practically a no-brainer. Now first off, we all know Chris is nearly as obsessed (not quite though) with DOCTOR WHO as I am. So it comes with interesting quantities of shock that he has openly stated (twice!) that IF for some reason the 50th Anniversary episode(s) in 2013 DON’T include multiple previous incarnations of The Doctor (starring folks like Tennant, Davison, Baker et al) then he will officially be DONE with DOCTOR WHO. Now, I’ve known Chris a lot of years….and if he makes this vow he will stick to it no matter HOW good the post Series Seven eps could be.

That said, I personally (though I could never make such a vow myself) am right on side with his thinking. This is the 50th Anniversary of the show. Wait…that’s not enough build-up…

This is the 50th Anniversary of the BBC’s FLAGSHIP series that has populated Saturday night Telly on and off for half a century, and has seen such a ridiculous rise in overseas success that it ranks VERY highly amongst even North American sci-fi fans, let alone Brits.

Phew. Yeah, so that’s what we are talking about here. Now if Steven Moffat (a man who for the most part I endlessly admire as a writer and a staple of British TV) does for some reason choose to not do a multiple Doctor story for the 50th…I truly feel that will be the biggest disservice to the fans of the show ever in his tenure. It could even be as big a mis-step as the 6th Doctor’s Series (TIME LORD ON TRIAL) was for the show.

Now, the GOOD news is that the last major Anniversary (the 20th Anniversary in 1983) saw the airing of the multiple Doctor story THE FIVE DOCTOR’S during the 5th Doctor’s tenure, and had the 1st (re-cast since the original actor had passed away), 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th Doctor’s solving a problem together. It’s one of the more cherished the Classic-Who’s time on TV and I personally still love it. If anything ought to be an indicator to Moffat and Co. showcasing what the 50th Anniversary ought to be about, then that should definitely be it. So hopefully armed with the knowledge that probably more than a majority of the fans WANT a Multiple Doctor story arc tying into the 11th’s story, they will do what is right and give us such a story.

Now, like I said, I could never NOT watch DW…so I can’t make the same Vow as Chris has, but I will definitely side with him on the notion that this is what SHOULD happen for the 50th and if it doesn’t I’ll be pretty annoyed.

The New Old Villain Mention Theory

Now, aside from knowing the Daleks and The Weeping Angels return in the Seventh Series it has been mentioned only this morning that over the weekend at a Convention in the UK that perhaps the Ice Warriors would also be making a return/revamp. Not having seen any of the original Classic eps with this villain, I DO know that they seem to be a fan favourite, so a revamping of them could only be a welcome addition to NuWho. As I really feel that the show should always try out new villains and cover new territory that it’s never a bad idea to fall back and reinvent classic villains in kind of an homage to what came before.

Well, that’s about it for this week’s Crackpot Theories post, but stay tuned over the summer as more info gets dropped about the next Series perhaps there will be more room for more theories to pop up.

Movie Musings: PROMETHEUS

PROMETHEUS isn’t ALIEN, and despite all the similarities in form and content it’s not really trying all that hard to be ALIEN. BUT it does work at ticking off all the relevant ALIEN boxes

• buggy robot
• strong female lead
• barren landscape
• away mission gone horribly awry
• flamethrowers
• questionable corporate agendas

The movie seems more concerned with reaching a certain ending and less concerned about how it jerks around the characters and the film’s sequence of events in order to get there.

(On a much more nit-picky level there are several straight up grade school logical inconsistences in the movie. When contacting an alien culture for the first time, who cracks open their helmet on a whim just because the air is perceived as being breathable?! The scientific method has failed these future scientists. Failed them hard.)

PROMETHEUS riffs on variations on an already established theme, but really fails to carve out new material to add to the ALIEN mythology. Yes, there's some stuff happening there with the Space Jockeys, and that’s all well and good, (and interesting) but even that's not something I would classify as new.

If anything, the film's reliance on ticking boxes and getting some interesting scare moments muddies the crisp, linear understanding of how the xenomorph world functions.

BUT. DESPITE ALL THAT. I liked it. It was interesting. Enjoyable to watch. And I STILL jumped out of my seat on more than one occasion.

It would have been nice if I didn't feel like there was some idea recycling going on, but you know, it also would have been nice if I found my coffee cup was stuffed with 20 dollar bills this morning. Nice is relative.

As long as I liked the end product, and I did, the rest is just quibbling over the expectations I carted into the theatre with me before the first frame had even rolled.

Movie Musings: THE IDES OF MARCH

I love, Love, LOVE ‘inside baseball’ politics films.

It’s not a super-hot genre to begin with so the sample size of potential films to crow about is pretty weeny.

(THE CANDIDATE has been my go-to film for about ten years now when I need an example of what a movie about politics is really all about. But THE CANDIDATE is 40 years old and a wee bit dated, so we should probably give it a rest and search for a more contemporary entry.)

IDES perfectly captures the changing nature of modern politics, creating an incredible amount of suspense and tension from absolutely nothing. In this image oriented world of spin-doctoring it doesn’t matter what you’ve done, what matters is how other people leverage the knowledge of your actions to further their own agendas.

It’s the bizarre and labyrinthian interpersonal dynamics of who knows what  (and when they knew it) that carries the work load of this film

You do have to mentally get over the fact that two people with a hell of a lot of political smarts can’t muster up enough brain power to overcome the needs of their throbbing genitals, but sex and politics seemingly go hand and in hand so it’s not too hard to give that little whoopsy a pass when you’re looking for nits to pick.

Too often writers and directors try to jazz up films about politics by unnecessarily ramping up the tension and turning it into a no holds barred thriller. IDES proves that people being people is rich enough source material for any film to hang its hat on.

A Year Of Tolkien: The Silmarillion

It’s not really that rare to find me daunted and scared off of reading a book. I wish it were rare, but I am a creature of habit and if I think I won’t enjoy something for being too complex, I will usually be able to convince myself of such. What will normally bring me back is endorsement. When people sing the praises of said complex book and tell me it’s well worth it...I will normally reconsider. I read J.R.R. Tolkien’s THE LORD OF THE RINGS the first time I was in my early teens, and I loved it. I do believe that it was my doorway into liking all fantasy as a genre. So when I looked up other things written by the author I found (well, first I found THE HOBBIT naturally) a novel he worked on for most of his life which was about the First (and Second) Age's of Middle-Earth as told by the Elves (Firstborn), and it was called THE SILMARILLION. Now as I previously mentioned I was spooked off this book due to overwhelming opinions of friends and family that it was a singularly difficult book and reads like a religious tome with long passages of umpteen names and places and even long-winded geographical descriptions.

After reading it I'd like to weigh in.

The bad news: It is all those things.

The good news: IT IS ALL THOSE THINGS!

Had anyone told me when I began this book that I would find myself grasping a large cast of characters including gods, elves, dwarves, and men…all with multiple names…let alone getting a grasp of the Elvish language itself (Sindarin at least), I’d have called them nutters. But I did. And mostly this is thanks to Tolkien Professor (Corey Olsen), and his Podcasted Silmarillion Seminars with his students, the Silmarillionares. Their insight from chapter to chapter coupled with Olsen’s broad knowledge of the text itself meant I had little to no problem with the book whatsoever. It’s not an easy book to read and large chunks of it are in metaphor and the like…but I kid you not once you get down who the people are, and what the map looks like and how the world works, you will be just fine.

Once I realized I had a grasp of what was going on, everything after that was pure cream. These stories from the elder days (as told by the Elves) from the genesis of Arda by Eru (the One) also called Ilúvatar and his Valar (godlike beings created from his thought), through the rise and fall of the various Elven kingdoms in the West and in Middle-Earth, of Beleriand, of the Númenoreans and even of portions of the 3rd Age. These are all as enthralling (if not more so) than anything Tolkien wrote in LOTR. The heroes are grandstanding, oath-keeping; blustery legends, and the villains are dastardly, oath-keeping, monsters driven by desire and evil. The tales herein are wonderful, and tragic, and heroic and worthy of the annals of Middle-Earth history. And though they can be read as separate stories, they all have been woven together into the most unassumingly clever narrative to encompass an astonishing tapestry.

Where I think I will personally benefit most from this book will be when I get to my (Year Of Tolkien) Re-Read of both THE HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS, because Tolkien peppered those tales with much of this history I’ve just read. I now know where the wizards came from and who Gandalf and Saruman really are. I know what Moria used to be, and how it came to be as it is in the 3rd age. I know of the origins of Balrogs, Orcs and Wargs. I know who Beren and Lúthien are and why their tale is so important to Aragorn and Arwen. I know of the terrible oath that Fëanor and his sons took which would have repercussions for all the Elves of Middle-Earth. I know of the glory of Fingolfin and his son Fingon, the bravery of Finrod Felagund, the forethought of Turgon the Wise and of his gorgeous city hidden in the mountains called Gondolin. I know how the White Tree of Gondor ended up there and I know what it represents. I know the bittersweet tale of Túrin Turambar and his dealing with the dragon Glaurung at the caves of Nargothrond. And I know of Morgoth (who is also Melkor) the first Dark Lord who sewed dissent, divisions and wrought horrible doom on the inhabitants of Middle-Earth from his mountain fastness of Angband and on Angfauglith the gasping plains that fronted it. This may all be jibberish to you, but trust me that once you’ve gotten into this book it will be very difficult to put down. All these names will make sense and the majority of it will be as epic as anything that happened in the War Of the Ring. You even get to see the genesis of Sauron himself and learn of what happened during the Last Alliance of Men and Elves. You get to see the fabled Númenoreans (Atlanteans) who ruled from an island close to that of the gods, which sunk beneath the waves in a great cataclysm, and how those survivors would go on to found great kingdoms of Men. I know what that the giant statues called the Argonath that stand to each side of the Anduin and guard the way represent and why they are important. The list of things you will learn in this book is endless, and for a fiction and history buff like me it's excellent.

Reading this book was like being given a cheat sheet to all the random mentions in the LOTR and THE HOBBIT. This is the cipher, and it’s so wonderful that I very nearly flipped back to the first page and read it all over again right after I finished.

It’s a stunning testament to the work that Tolkien put into his world. The depth of world building is so great that one wonders how he kept it all straight. I can even say that this seems to be one of the earliest examples of world building on this level, and that Tolkien must be the yardstick upon which to measure other fantasy worlds.

Full of thunderous clashes of great wills, heartstring-pulling emotion, grandiose battles with legendary warriors and weapons, and quiet introspection THE SILMARILLION is everything you would want it to be. If you read his other work, don’t be scared off by the complexity of this volume, for once you get your bearings the book will rocket away and take you to some truly amazing places.

NEXT TIME (in the Year Of Tolkien): UNFINISHED TALES

Movie Review: Snow White & The Huntsman

When I first saw the teaser trailer for SNOW WHITE & THE HUNTSMAN I was...suitably intrigued. Here was another of the recent re-hashing’s of classic Grimm fairytale stories. What was truly interesting about it? The apparent reverence for the dark and frightening nature of the actual tale itself as told by The Brother’s Grimm. It is probably a decently known fact at this point that these tales we all grew up on are actually a fair deal darker and more gruesome and realistic than we remember them...let alone how they’ve been presented to us for years. This is not the sweet Disney princess of your childhood. This is the bereft broken daughter of a benevolent king who has been imprisoned, tortured and deconstructed by an evil queen. This is the story of the same princess who escapes and ends up leading armies against said evil queen.

The short story? I adored this movie from beginning to end.

Where this film immediately jumps out at you is the attention to period detail. This would look at home in any collection of medieval films, from costumes to attention to period beats in the script it succeeds. The script is especially well realized, and I want to give you an example as to why/how:

Early in the film after she escapes and is found by the Huntsman, Snow White’s dress is mired and ripped in the dark forest swamps and The Huntsman turns, pulls out a dagger and slices/rips the whole lower half off exposing the leather leggings that she was wearing beneath. She gives him a quick “look” and he merely looks at her and says “don’t flatter yourself”.

This is a key example of a screenwriter being aware that everyone doesn’t always say everything they are thinking. I hate it when movies have people say everything to “explain” the scene to the viewer. We are not stupid and a script should not treat us as such. Time and time again throughout the entirety of SNOW WHITE & THE HUNTSMAN I kept thinking to myself “Wow, this script is smart and doesn’t treat us like idiots.” And I really truly liked that. Kudos go out to the writer Evan Daughtry on that score. Secondly, first time director Rupert Saunders should be given the ol’ pat on the back as well as he’s crafted a film that is utterly dark, dramatic and grounded in enough realism to make it very believable, and totally entertaining to watch.

Both the leads Kristen Stewart (who I now officially have a crush on) and Chris Hemsworth do a great job and with the stellar nature of the script seem to walk their scenes with ease and because of that it never feels forced. It really does feel that these two are escaping together. Charlize Theron should not be overlooked here simply by the very facet of her acting skill. She’s literally terrifying in certain scenes and comes of as a very well realized villain. It’s funny, but here’s how in tune I was with the script: at one point guards bring in the “mirror” (a round rune-inscribed gold plate) and after they position it she says sternly “Get out.” And as I sat there I thought, she should get really mad at how long it’s taking them to vacate the throne room..and seconds later she screams “GET OUT!” as top register. Perfect! I love that sort of thing. Lastly on characters, the dwarves are literally a who’s who of British Thespians and every last one of them gives every last scenery chewing ounce to their smallish roles. I won’t tell you who they all are because that would ruin the surprise I got at recognizing them, but sufficed to say they are great!

There is a faerie wood in the film and I swear if Japanese director/writer Hayao Miyazaki ever had the chance to shoot a live action film I swear it would look like this. It was lovely, and quaint and cutesy...and it all works. I mean faeries in the film ride forest creatures like rabbits and it never feels cheesy. There is a reverence there that I can’t exactly explain. This is up to and including a forest spirit that could have jumped from the screen from PRINCESS MONONOKE and I swear when it showed up my heart skipped a beat and my smile was a mile wide.

James Newton Howard scored the film and I swear he outdid himself here. Every note is pitch perfect and the score rolls from sequence to sequence with ease. It never feels like a different entity and melds into the film itself in subtle and bombastic ways equally. The softer bits are lovely, and the louder action bits crash and resound with glory. The whole thing really came together for me late in the film when a fireside-dirge is sung by the dwarves and is picked up by a female vocalist on the soundtrack and carries over into the next scene and lends it such an air of emotion that I was stunned. To tell you how much I enjoyed the soundtrack, as I sat in the theatre seat and the credits rolled I booted up my iPhone, logged onto iTunes and bought it right then and was listening to it on the way home.

The film is easily the 2nd best film I’ve seen all year so far after THE AVENGERS, and is one that I wager I’ll want to see again soon. It also sounds as if the public agrees with me. For weeks nothing has been able to take a bite out of the box office because of the juggernaut known as THE AVENGERS, but SNOW WHITE & THE HUNTSMAN has done just that and as of Saturday it had made almost 60 million worldwide and is apparently on its way to 100 million by the time Sunday night’s receipts are calculated. It would appear if we have the summer’s second bonafide hit on our hands and it could not be more deserving in my humble opinion. A dark, realistic and dramatic retelling of the Snow White tale, filled with action, stunning visuals and emotion, this film is bound to entertain even the most discerning viewer. Get out there and see it!