He’s called Alonso!

You knew it wouldn’t take long for me to pass comment on Christmas Day’s ‘Doctor bloody Who’ episode ‘Voyage Of The Damned’, didn’t you? Yeah, ‘course you did. So here we go.

First of all, right from the outset, we have a new beefed-up score that I have to say, I rather liked. Nowt wrong wi the old one, but this new one’s pretty fab too. Staying wi music for a moment, I noticed a lot of ‘This Is Gallifrey: Our Childhood, Our Home’ touches from series three in there. Lovely. And again for the series four teaser trailer tacked ont end – was that the infamous ‘running music’ ‘Futurekind’, also from series three? Certainly seemed that way – and it were fab. So is the coming series, if that trailer is owt to go by.

So then. Bits that made me go ‘yay!’:

A degree in Earthonomics? Inspired. Can I get me one of them? Sounds exotic. And the ship that speaks with a Welsh accent, that were a nice touch. The little “hello sailor!” as the Doctor gets in touch with Midshipman Frame. The lovely melodious voice of The Host that says: “Information: You’re all going to die” in such a nice way (that rather strangely reminded me of an Ood...). The “Don’t get spiky with me!” from the Doctor – and his earlier “Down on Earth he’s a talking conker!”. The “You might be a Time King from Gally Bee but you still need to eat” from Astrid. Wee Bannakaffalatta flashing his bits to knock out The Host – cos if he did that int park, you just know he’d get arrested. And wee Astrid having to stand ont box to reach the Doctor – oh how we howled, seeing as we’d been talking about that beforehand. The rather resigned “unsinkable, that’s me” from the Doctor. The ‘M – M – M – Max’ joke (Capricorn, not Headroom). ‘The Apprentice’ jokes, the “It’s not Great France and Great Germany – only Britain is great” gag, the whole ‘Poseidon Adventure’ thing they had going on, and so much more I’ll remember later when I watch it again (no doubt).

Bits that made me go ‘squee!’:

Midshipman Frame – he’s called Alonso! Alonso! How fab was that? After all the argy-bargy over the whole ‘allons-y vs. and-onsy’ argument, and then me collapsing completely once it were proved he did do the whole “And then it'd be really brilliant if I met someone called Alonso, cos then I could say ‘allons-y Alonso’, every time!”… Astrid’s “Please let me come with you” speech, the Doctor’s In-Your-Face “I’m a 903 year old Time Lord” speech, quite rightly telling him why he was in charge, and just so many bits.

Bits that made me go ‘hmm’:

Purr wee Davey Doctor. Cut adrift again, all by his lonesome, and then whack, not ten minutes later he’s found some other bird as wants to see the stars with him. If he objects to being kissed and mauled so much, why doesn’t he just find a lesbian or a straight bloke to ship out with? And losing Foon and Morvin – I were quite upset that Foon chucked herself off like that, but then again, what else did anyone expect her to do? And she did make damned sure she took one of the buggers with her, so she’s already a hero in my book. Astrid was pretty ok, although I’m wondering what the fuss was all about, really. Apart from Kylie turning up in Kinky Boots, that is, which I am patiently assured by my male friends that they made all the difference to the episode. Certainly made a difference to their attention levels, anyway. Just like that tux of the Doctor’s concentrates the female mind, I shouldn’t wonder. Anyway, she did a fab job of what she were given though, as I were confident she would do. Still sucks that they couldn’t bring her back, but then again, it were a good thing they couldn’t, or it would have been a little too neat and happy an ending for me.

I was impressed with the acting all round this time. Bernard Cribbins – excellent. I did like Mr Copper, thought he was ace, and I did rather have a soft spot for Midshipman Alonso Frame – just cos he maximum-deadlocked himself in, knowing he’d been shot but finding it the only way. Didn’t he hold on for an amazingly long time with with nasty bullet-wound in his side? What a trooper…

This must all be a walk in the park for David Tenninch Tennant by now, but he still pulls all the right faces and brings all the right voices and touches to it. He’s still managing to make the Doctor look enthused by everything but jaded by personal experiences, and that’s never going to get old with me.

Max Capricorn – seen the end of him, have we? Really? Looked a little familiar, that baldy, pasty-faced half-android type. Reminded me of someone else, but I just can’t put me little Dalek sink-plunger on it… Nah, I’m sure he’s done for. I’m sure he’s been wiped out. I’m absolutely sure he’s not coming back as an arch-enemy to revive a bunch of ancient evil genocidal genetically altered space-stalking salt shakers. Not at all.

(Just to be a complete English geek – we had an argument at school last week over how a ‘salt cellar’ was actually a dish, and the proper term for the standy-uppy Dalek-shaped version is actually a ‘salt shaker’. I thought it were a salt cellar. I lost.)

Anyway, moving on… I reckon that wiseass that won all the money on stocks is going to make a comeback at some stage, or at least gets mentioned. I hope he loses it all in some horrid Black Friday affair. We can but hope.

Looks like I’m done here. All of it were fab, double fab, and an extra pint of fab fert weekend. If I could have changed one thing, it would have been Foon and Morvin getting rescued. Ah well. Can’t have everything.

So this means we’re on fer series four now, in what, April next year? Bring it on. For now, it’s peach and lube all round.

Tags:
BBC ~ Doctor Who ~ David Tennant ~ Kylie Minogue ~ Titanic ~ Bernard Cribbins ~ Daleks ~ Bannakaffalatta

Happy holidays

Sorry, been busy. Still all the wrong kind of upheavals going on in me life. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, what I’ve been doing.

Saw ‘I Am Legend’ last Friday – pretty good. Liked Will Smith in it, and I don’t usually go for his stuff. Then again, he was doing those reverse chin-ups without a shirt on. That did kinda sway me a bit. Solid story adapted from a no-doubt no-nonsense book, I should think. Certainly seemed that way. Struck a chord anyway – took him longer to go nuts than it would me, I’ll tell you that fer free.

Have a raging cold, and although I’ve been doing me best to sterilise meself from the inside out, courtesy of mucho vodka and super-strong fresh real pulpy-bits-left-in orange juice, I have to say it’s not having much of an effect yet. Just have to give it more time – Rome weren’t burnt in a day.

Been singing carols wi the kids at work, enjoying ‘em laffing their arses off during dance-offs between five year-olds. Had the company Christmas dinner and went on to Sailorville afterwards, staggering home at 5am to drink three pints of water and crawl into me bed at 6.30am – only to get up at 11am to go to work. Not bad.

Speaking of which, have to say the band in From Dusk Till Dawn last night were bloody fab, and even had time to perform an AC/DC track for us before we’ve clocked the time and literally scrambled fert first taxi parked up outside. Had the pleasure of the same bloke who got us home Tuesday night, and he’s laffed at us going “唔該, 你去唔去西環呀? ~~ 咦! 又係你?” and generally giggling all the way home cos we were impressed by his range of English insults. Not bad for a bloke as only works taxis in Wan Chai, eh?

Planning on seeing ‘Aliens vs Predator’ very very soon. Opens 27th over here apparently, although I’m sure most places will be showing it a tad earlier if it means making money.

Counting down the days to the big Two Five, which automatically means the ‘Doctor bloody Who’ Christmas Special: ‘Voyage Of The Damned’, which promises to be at least amusing and entertaining at seventy minutes long. Don’t forget to tune in at 6.50pm, not 7pm. Would hate to miss them all-important first ten minutes, wouldn’t you?

That’s it, I’m off to bed. Have to be u pand around to work on my one early morning tomorrow. “I’ll rise, but I refuse to shine”, as a famous sidekick once very properly said.

Soopytwist.

Tags:
Will Smith ~ Alien ~ Predator ~ Wan Chai ~ Doctor Who

Transformers ~ a review

I never got to see it int cinema, mostly cos I were working like a demon. Well, no, actually, I were just too lazy to get advance tickets and turned up on two separate occasions to buy em ont door and found the place full. So I gave it up as a bad job. Well no, I gave it up cos I were lazy.

Anyway, the point is, I just watched it last night and bloody loved it. The very first moment, still while all the studio credit cards and shite are flying round the screen, we get the sound. No, wait a minute, The Sound. Oh yes – that’s the sound of the Autobots, and anyone my age will probably have squee’d just like I did. The sound just brought back so many fab memories… And then came The Voice. First off, I’ve went ‘It’s Peter Cullen! We’ve got Venger from Dungeons & Dragons!’, and then I’ve went ‘No, he were Optimus Prime too – they got him back – WOO-HOO!’ and so on and so forth. Sad, I know, but a part of me again had a terribly powerful nostalgia trip and I almost forgot to watch the film.

Then we had the first of many of them faces where you go ‘oh, he’s in it too?’, as Danny from ‘Las Vegas’, otherwise known as Josh Duhamel, turns up as the amazingly lickable likeable Captain Lennox. Very pleased wi’ that bit o’ casting, ta. Then in trundles this Shia LeBoeuf mushty as some character called Sam, and it all kicks off. Is it me, or does he remind anyone else of a very young Russell Crowe? Thought he did a good job of it all though, for someone supposed to be so young. He might go far in kiddy-flicks, that one. I fell about laffing at his parents, I have to say, as they were just so incredibly good at stealing scenes. The parts of the in-film TV interview used during the end credits had me in stitches. The Hot Chick Mikeala was obviously beefed up a bit fert role, so now she fixes cars and is a World Rally Championship driver when it comes to reversing down a street so as Bumblebee can take potshots as nasty nasty Decepticons. Did she remind anyone else of a young Jennifer Connelly? No? Ok, fair enough. I quite liked her toward the end, though.

Oh, and let’s get to them Transformers, shall we? I’m not going to go into how they’ve changed Bumblebee from a VW Beetle to a 1967 Camaro (even though the Camaro was a very very nice car – before it was changed to a Mark 5), or how Soundwave has suddenly become Frenzy. I’m just going to say that the actual use of the characters for the Autobots was fab. I loved Optimus Prime’s impatience as purr wee Sam’s looking through his bedroom fert glasses – wrist on corner of the building, other hand over his eyes, huffing to himself. Pure bloody class.

Supporting cast like Jon Voight (who sounds more Texan every year), John Turturro (how fab was his ‘Sector Seven’ vest?) and Anthony Anderson only helped it along. If I could just voice two gripes though:

Music – Steve Joblonsky did a fair job o the score, but it smacked just a little too much of some kind of mix of Hans Zimmer + James Newton Howard’s ‘Batman Begins’ and Brad Fiedel’s ‘The Terminator’ – some drums I swear were lifted straight off the track from the latter. At other times I thought it were Hans Zimmer himself, and were a little surprised when the names finally came up fert music and behind scenes people. But there we go.

Also, I beg to differ on the whole ‘let’s drop ‘em into the deepest place on the planet – the Laurentian Abyss, cos the cold and pressure will sort em out'. Er… ‘scuse me, but int the Marianas Trench actually the deepest place on Earth? And I’m only saying that cos it came up in ‘QI’ a few weeks back. I’m not actually a geologist or whatever you call someone who knows that kind of stuff.

Anyway, this aside, I haven’t laffed and enjoyed a two-hour stretch of American film so much in a long time. I’m glad I parked me arse and gave it a chance, considering everyone else were saying it were shite. So much for listening to peers, eh. Praps I were just blinded by nostalgia, or just the knock-out CGI work that went into the Transformers themselves, or the supporting cast, or just the way it yipped along so bloody fast. Whatever man, I enjoyed it. (And yeah, I’ve clocked the My Little Pony and Gizmo gags by Hasbro. Nice.)

And now for summat completely different: To add to my collection of ‘there is no God’ evidence, Terry Pratchett has announced he has been diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer’s. See? I’m putting that ont list, next to Freddie Mercury and 9/11.

And that’s it. I’m off to get a big drink.

Soopytwist.

Tags:
Transformers ~ Michael Bey ~ Peter Cullen ~ Optimus Prime ~ D&D ~ Josh Duhamel ~ Bumblebee ~ Camaro ~ VW Beetle ~ Jon Voight ~ John Tuturro ~ Terry Pratchett

Awww

You know when yer having a really bad day, and then when you stop to think about it, it’s actually been a proper bad week? That followed last week’s bad week?

Fortunately I get cyber-cookies sent my way quite a bit. Writing ‘Doctor bloody Who’ fan-fiction and putting it online boots you into the realm of ‘stumbled over your stories, absolutely loved them! Please accept this small pressie, hope you don’t mind me sending it without warning’ territory. I like it, actually. I like presents, presents are good. Obviously I like it very much when people send me pressies cos of stuff I’ve written.

So here’s me, having a few bad weeks, and crises abound. When suddenly, someone who has been propelled to’t top of ‘Online Gods’ list, sends me an mp3 like this wee gem. Why did it make me smile? Cos it was lovely, and I don’t normally do lovely, and I recognised the voice after the first few bars. Oh Jensen Ackles, you are just good enough to eat. And you sing, too.
* insert wistful sigh here *

Just You

I believe in your strength
though I understand you felt alone
cos when you need a friend
there’s no-one strong to fall back on
and your past will still burden you
but I’ll hold you through the pain
pain ~

So in the end it’s not just you
with your memories and your scars
fall on me if you ever forget
how beautiful you are

I believe in your words and your eyes
and when you speak the dreams I realise
that I will envy whoever you give your heart to
support ~

So in the end it’s not just you
with your memories and your scars
fall on me if you ever forget
how beautiful you are ~

And I will never let you fade away
and I want you to know that I love you:
all you are
and all that you’ll be

So in the end it’s not just you
with your memories and your scars
fall on me if you ever forget
how beautiful you are ~
and you are

We like – don’t we like? Have made it my ringtone, just to amuse me. It comes up and sees me, makes me smile, just when I least expect it.


Thank Sean for cyber-cookies, I say.

Tags:
cookies ~ fan-fiction ~ Doctor Who ~ Jensen Ackles ~ Dean Winchester ~ Supernatural ~ depression

Damn, double damn and an extra pint of damn fert weekend

It’s been a while, I know. I have issues.

One of them being that just for once in this shitty existence I’d like summat to go my way. Is that too much to ask? Well clearly it is.

Major shit’s going on and I don’t have time or inclination to fight it. Seems like it was all decided long ago. So just one tiny, infinitesimal bit of good news would have been nice. Like Aaron Kwok winning the Best Actor Golden Horse tonight in Taiwan. A shallow, superficial bit of good news to make me smile – that would have gone down nicely.

But no.

Winner of tonight’s Golden Horse Award for Best Actor was in fact wee Tony Leung Chiu-Wai (not to be confused with Tony Leung Ga-Fai), for his portrayal of the Chinese blokee working fert Japanese while shagging Tong Wei in a variety of positions and places. I like Wee Tony, I love Wee Tony, but it would have put a warmer smile on me face if Mr K had won instead.

Still, at least I’m back blogging. Gotta be better than the constant drinking and ignoring the world I’ve been trying. Which hasn’t worked. I’m better now. Much. So much so, in fact, that I haven’t had a vodka.

I’ve had six.

Every little helps.

Tags:
Hong Kong ~ Asian Cinema ~ Aaron Kwok ~ 郭富城 ~ Taiwan ~ Golden Horse Awards ~ The Detective ~ 郭富城 ~ C+偵探 ~ Oxide Pang ~ Tony Leung Chiu-Wai ~ Ang Lee ~ Lust Caution