Dem Bones

Yesterday evening I was walking along the South Bank of the Thames enjoying the sunshine, when all of a sudden I came across a crowd near Gabriel's Wharf surrounding a burnt out car and a Fire Engine. Several police officers and white suited forensic types with face masks were standing behind the cordoned off area. What was going on? What were all those big lights doing there? And film cameras?

Ah! Wait a minute... It was David Boreanaz, Emily Deschanel and crew, shooting a scene for a UK based episode of the American TV crime series Bones.


I shall look forward to seeing it screened next year with the subtitle, 'London, England' and I'll be counting how many times a red bus is shown driving past :-)

What The Frak...

...is going on with US TV? Lost is back in dribs and drabs, Jericho has been cancelled (again) and 24 is in limbo. Yeah, I know there was the writers strike but geez! It's been a year since the last cliffhanging episode of Battlestar Galactica for fraks sake!

Robot Chicken - "Battlestar Galactica vs. The FCC"
Hold on a second, thank the gods - the new 4th and final season of BSG starts tonight! Supposedly, by the end, the mystery of Earth and who the final Cylon is will be explained and all the dangling plot threads nicely tied together. Is Starbuck a toaster? Will Lee Adama become fat boy again without explanation? Is Baltar Jesus in disguise? Will the Admiral and the President finally get it on?



Exciting eh? Now if only I could remember what the frak happened 'previously on Battlestar Galactica' (Seasons 1-3 recapped in 8 minutes!).

Heaven is a place on Earth

Whadd'ya gonna do? I had a fun day yesterday that took in trips to heaven on Earth, and a New Jersey strip joint. Maybe they are the same place?


Let me start with the Garden State, the place where New York City dumps its rubbish, the home of the Statue of Liberty, Francis Albert Sinatra, Broooce and Tony, Carmela, Silvio, Chrissi and Paulie Walnuts! Yes, as you might have guessed, I went on The Sopranos tour!

At the start, on boarding our coach in midtown Manhattan, we were told that we could meet someone from the series just 2 cars back down the street...

Sure enough there was Vito Spatafore (actor Joe Gannascoli) selling autographed photos and t-shirts out of the trunk of his car - it was cool to see him and kind of appropriate that he was flogging dodgy looking gear.

The tour proper lasted 4 hours, driving around industrial north New Jersey, checking out some of the locations featured the series. The guide, who had been an extra/stand-in in 13 episodes, was very good and kept everyone entertained with filming anecdotes and Sopranos trivia. Did you know that over the 6 seasons of the show that 66 people and 6 animals had been whacked?!



After visiting Holsten's, the diner in which the last scene of the last episode was shot, we stopped at the legendary Gentlemen's club the 'Bada Bing' ('Satin Dolls' in real life) to sit at the bar, have a beer and appreciate the skills of a couple of the pole dancers. Sadly, unlike in the series, a State law means that the girls aren't allowed to perform topless in an establishment that sells alcohol! Boo!


So from an afternoon in the swamps of New Jersey to a night of heaven on Earth - XANADU on Broadway! Xanadu, starring Olivia Newton John and an aging Gene Kelly is of course considered to be one of the worst films of all time. ONJ plays a Greek muse who comes down from Mount Olympus to help a young LA dude achieve his ultimate artistic dream by setting up a roller disco and calling it Xanadu! A classy 80's concept. The film quite rightly tanked, but it had a saving grace - a great soundtrack featuring ONJ, ELO and The Tubes.

Xanadu has now been magically reborn as a comedy musical. It plays up the ridiculousness and camp cheesiness of the original fim, adding a couple more ELO songs (Evil Woman and Strange Magic), more glitter balls and legwarmers! The result is great fun, and for a brief few minutes at the end, the audience realises that heaven could really be a roller disco.

Trade Test Transmission

Yeah it's true - we might have the choice of 57 digital channels but late night TV is really poor. Ceefax used to be more entertaining than what we have now. Are you old enough to remember when TV channels would shutdown rather than just show repeated news or bronzed muscle-bound shiny white-toothed Americans selling impractical exercise equipment?

Back in the 70s, the BBC used to closedown at night and during a fair bit of the day as well. In closedown they'd just transmit the BBC test card. Watching the card was worse than watching paint dry. However, I don't see why they can't bring it back - folks who would rather watch a programme late at night could 'interact' by pressing their red remote button.

Commercial channels could show their test cards and still have adverts every 10 minutes or so like they do now. I don't think viewing figures would go down. I mean Channel 4 are already halfway there when they show 'live' coverage of the Big Brother contestants asleep in the early hours of the morning - Did anything move on the screen in the last 15 minutes? No, so why not save money and just show a test card instead?

Visit Channel M for another example of a test card.

Sonic Screwdriver

A few nights back I was tired and thumbing my remote. Cycling through the Freeview channels late at night is a mind numbing experience:

{click} Some programme with sign language {click} advert {click} advert {click} Rip off premium rate Quiz {click} advert {click} 'Live' Poker {click} 'I can't believe how crap Nuts TV is' {click} +1 {click} +1 {click} advert... and then {click} Good grief! It's a naked Billie Piper being shagged by a guy! And now she's put a condom on her finger and now she's putting it up his... ughh!

Yes, kiddies favourite, Bille Piper was playing a 'high class' prostitute in ITV's seedy drama Belle Du Jour. I guess you've got to admire the former teen pop star and Dr Who assistant for having the nerve to take on the role. I can't say I enjoyed watching it. I just sat there with my mouth open until it had finished. It wasn't clear to me what the intention of the show was - An erotic drama? A comment on the trials of being a prostitute? Or both? Well I didn't find it sexy, but maybe it wasn't supposed to be. It was a bit like watching a car crash... awful but you just can't look away.

Thanks to MustyMC, my internet Nude Celebrity correspondent, for pointing me in the direction of Billie Piper's Playboy photo.

It's like looking in a mirror

simpsonize me

G-G-G-G-Go!!

TV presenter and dog lover Phil Drabble, Actor/Comedian/Stunt Man Mike Reid, Springsteen aide and confidant Terry Magovern, Film Directors Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni. Late Greats.

The name's Bond...

I've been umming and arring for weeks now. Should I buy a copy of the uncut version of Casino Royale or not? The region 3 DVD apparently has a few extra seconds of violence than the UK release and 22 seconds more than the US release. This footage was trimmed by the distributor in order to gain the film's 12 and PG-13 ratings respectively.

So, do I really want to see an even longer version of the sequence where James Bond is given a literal bollocking with that knotted rope? Probably not.

I enjoyed the film at the cinema and thought that it was a major improvement over most of the more recent 007 adventures. It was a pretty good, gritty reboot of the series. I wasn't aware that any cuts had been made before I watched it; in fact I found the violence that I saw at times a little too intense and nasty. This view might surprise older readers of this blog. Generally I've not got a problem with screen violence (I've been known to seek it out), but this is supposed to be a James Bond movie - not Hostel III or Saw IV - it should be aimed at 12 year old wannabe 'secret agents', not wannabe torturers.

Remember when the word 'Bond' used to guarantee an exciting spy adventure film for all the family to enjoy? Let's look back now at a few Bond clips that never made it into the 1970's films. From more innocent, less cynical times. Dang da da dang dang dang dang, dang da da dang dang dang dang...

Canada is the new black

Yeah that's right eh? Canada is officially the new centre of world cool. I think it's time I slanted this blog towards Canada for the next month or so. So heading this way... a little bit of Matt Mays & EL Torpedo and the excellent Tokyo Police Club. For now though let me present to you the greatest Canadian actor that ever lived.. Mr William Shatner in Knights of the Round Table!


Credit due to whoever edited this great vid!

Attack of the Bees!!!

We are in control of your computer screen...

Yesterday I was continuing my way through the excellent 8 Disc DVD set of The Outer Limits (Original Series) Volume 1. I watched episode 18, 'ZZZZZ', originally aired on 27th January 1964. The Outer Limits was always fantastically strange, with way out ideas, but ZZZZZ is particularly freaky.

Bizarrely, a Queen bee evolves itself into a stunning, sexy young woman called 'Regina' (played by the gorgeous Joanna Frank). She becomes the assistant to an entomologist (Philip Abbot) who specialises in the study of bee communication. Her aim is to seduce the happily married scientist, mate with him and produce a thousand bee/human hybrids who will take over the world!


As Regina's behaviour becomes more and more disturbing, the scientist's wife becomes increasingly suspicious and she attempts to get rid of the bee-utiful enchantress. However, she doesn't know that if you anger the Queen bee you anger all of her drones.... Buzzzzzzzz!

The episode opens with the following control voiceover:

Human life strives ceaselessly to perfect itself, to gain ascendancy. But what of the lower forms of life? Is it not possible that they, too, are conducting experiments and are at this moment on the threshold of deadly success...

May 22nd 2007: Alarm as swarm of bees hits pier (BBC Story)

May 24th 2007: Swarm of bees grounds UK aircraft (BBC Story)

"Why Won't She Be Mine?"

Comedy actor/writer/musician Matt Berry and his band The Jonas 3 are performing at The Bloomsbury Theatre in London tonight. Matt will be instantly recognisable to anyone who has seen BBC's Snuff Box or Garth Marengi's Darkplace. Yes, it's Matt who plays suave Darkplace actor Todd Rivers who plays the legendary Dr Lucien 'Sanch' Sanchez! Confused? Good - get yourself the extremely funny Darkplace DVD. Here's the 'hit' song from that series... One Track Lover

For more music and stuff visit Matt Berry @ Myspace

Jacob's crackers...

Yes, Lost is nuts... but it's entertaining! Only another 3 series to go! Hopefully we'll find out who or what Jacob is by then.

Lostpedia

Reboot my server

24's Chloe O'Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub) is looking damn hot over at Geek Monthly.

Chloe, a Senior Analyst at CTU, is an IP expert in 'operational security', 'intrusion detection' and 'penetration testing'..!
She can reboot my server anytime. That's if she's not too busy getting an upload from Jack Bauer and overriding Bill Buchanan's protocols.

Just another day at the office

After his Chinese takeaway, Jack Bauer bites back at the start of 24 - day 6. Has 'CTU worker' Stephen Merchant managed to get a role for Barry from Eastenders?

It's 3 years later... shaggy Jack + more terrorists + more bombs + subway mayhem + same CTU ringtone + Chloe is hot + Curtis doesn't like Doctor Bashir! Same old excellent stuff.

Let's get Tattoo

Hervé Villechaize will forever be known for his performances as Nick Nack in The Man With The Golden Gun and Tattoo in Fantasy Island. If he were alive today I believe he would still be acting and, more than likely, a cast member of LOST - he'd have a ready-made catchphrase to use!

Hervé was a little man with a big heart. In the clip below he sings a song that could contribute to World peace - if only everyone would listen. George, Tony, Osama, Kim, this is for you.

Welcome to the occupation

An Occupying Military Force a

A Puppet President a

A Curfew a

Local Security Enforcement a

Detention Camps a

Tortured Prisioners a

Insurgency a

Suicide Bombers a

Sound familiar? The Frak is Back.

Meet the neighbours

'Kate, the next two weeks are going to be very unpleasant'

Yay! LOST is back! A good start to season three.

The greatest hero in American history

Home Movies

A few years ago I managed to catch a few episodes of the animated series Home Movies on the Cartoon Network. Home Movies is basically about the trials and tribulations of an angst-ridden 8 year old kid (Brendan), his friends and the Home Movies they make together.

I'm now watching the first season (of four) on DVD and a real treat it is too. The script is very funny and obviously mostly improvised. The effect is like a set of real life conversations as opposed to voice actors just reading their lines. This approach of capturing loose improv and fitting it into an outlined story is apparently known as 'Retroscripting'. Whatever! All I know is it works and that I love it. Brendan's soccer coach, McGuirk, is one of the best cartoon characters ever!

Here's a short clip from Season 1 Episode 5, 'Yoko', where Brendan meets cute girl Lonnie...

Romford Hellmouth

Finally, on October 16th, the funniest television series ever made will be available on DVD. From the Press Release:

Garth Marenghi's "Darkplace" was originally filmed in the 1980s and has since earned a cult reputation as one of the most terrifying and radical television programmes ever made. Despite this, none of the episodes have ever been seen before now (although the show enjoyed a brief run in Peru).


Darkplace was scripted and directed by the best-selling horror writer Garth Marenghi, known to thousands as the author of such classic chillers as The Ooze (can water die?), Afterbirth (a mutated placenta attacks Bristol) and Black Fang (where rats learn to drive). In addition, Marenghi starred as the show's lead character, Dr Rick Dagless, a maverick doctor battling against the evil forces lurking beneath a hospital in Romford.

Even now, Garth warns that the show, an effort to "radicalise men's minds", may prove "too subversive, too dangerous, too damn scary." The wait for the most famous 'lost' project in horror goes on, but not for much longer...

Join the quest to get Dr Rick Dagless back on TV at the Save Darkplace website.



Garth Marenghi's Darkplace @ Amazon UK