pixie_twinkle

Power of the Dog and Dune left me completely cold. I haven't seen Licorice Pizza. Honestly, I can't remember any year I've been less enthusiastic with the best picture nominees. I honestly thought Pig was a far better film than Dune or Power of the Dog. Wait - The Rescue wasn't even nominated for best documentary??? Ridiculous.

Pretty much the entire album Felt Mountain by Goldfrapp. Not an un-Bondy track on the entire thing. Here's Utopia:

My favourite Christmas episode wasn't actually one of the specials, but rather The Unquiet Dead from Eccleston's tenure. In avoiding the light-hearted, festive spirit of most of the specials, it actually manages to feel a lot more Christmassy, and is a proper scary episode, too. A real ghost story for Christmas. Simon Callow as Dickens was perfect. TBH this is one of my all-time favourite new-Who episodes, and certainly my favourite Mark Gatiss story. It's a shame Gatiss's episodes tended to be too silly and humourous after this one.

Curious to eventually see all these episodes. Right now we don't get BBCA and I don't fancy signing up for it just for Chibbers Who. If it was RTD I'd have signed up in a heartbeat. Hell, we even signed up for Starz just to watch Torchwood: Miracle Day, which turned out to be a mistake (on our part and theirs!). Reading through all the comments on this thread (can you tell I'm so fed up with Who I don't even care about spoilers?) it looks like Flux might actually be a step up in quality finally. I hope so. I REALLY wanted to like Jodie and Chibnall - I was fed up with the overly silly dialog and convoluted plots of Moffatt's later era. The silly dialog carried right over though. If I ever hear the word Fam again... Still, it's only a show, and as always I hold out hope a fourth (or fifth) golden age of Who will be forthcoming. In the meantime I'm loving the recently animated Evil of the Daleks. Fan-bloody-tastic! Murray Gold had long since passed his prime. By the end of the Matt Smith era he'd become a parody of himself. All big fanfares and action ostinatos. The one thing I did find refreshing about the early Jodie episodes was the change in music. Shame it wasn't all that good. Refreshing, but meh.

I actually preferred Spectre to this. I never understood the hate for Spectre. It has major problems, and I don't like the personal childhood link between Bond and Blofeld (does everyone need a damn backstory and personal connection in films these days?) but as a film it was really entertaining. The scene where Bond discovers Mr White's secret room by observing the rat was really thrilling - it felt like a 60s Bond moment.

Finally saw this thing (actually rented an entire movie theatre to ourselves so my friends and I could hang out safely - it was surprisingly cheap! Only $150!) I HATED the decision to kill off all the main characters. It just stank of a writing team who couldn't come up with a better or more imaginative story so they decided to jump the shark instead. Lazy and frustrating. That said, the film had some terrific sequences. In particular, the game of "hide and seek" in the misty wood was very effective. The length of the film didn't bother me - the film was so exciting to watch that I didn't notice the time going by. The downside was that the film was just so damn gloomy and melodramatic all the way through. Bond has been brooding and angsty in the past, but not for the entire duration of the film. By the time he finally died at the end it just felt like the natural conclusion to the miserable sod he'd been throughout the film. I really don;t know how to rate this film. As a run of the mill action thriller it's decent enough, and I'd rate it maybe 8/10. As a Bond film it fails completely. It just isn't a Bond film. The homages to the earlier films (and there were shit loads!) just reminded me how much more fun those films were. As for the future of the franchise - it definitely said JAMES BOND will return at the end (NOT 007 will return) - so James will be back. As the producers of this film have essentially made it impossible to continue Bond's story from this point, my guess is that the next movie will completely ignore the Daniel Craig films and just be a back-to-basics fun romp. The Craig quintet will exist in their own weird parallel universe, outside of the regular series. I really hope so.

Done

This is excellent news! I love the old CD release of this so it'll be fascinating to hear additional music and improved sound.

Ordered!

Body Snatchers (1993.) This is the third adaptation of Jack Finney's novel "The Body Snatchers," and the first to drop the "Invasion of..." from the title. It's been about 25 years since I last saw this film, and I was surprised how much worse it is than I remembered. The first two adaptations (1956 and 1978 - I watched them last week) are really chilling, and have a lovely slow-burn to the suspense and ultimately horror. This version skips over little details like having any likeable or quirky characters, and any sense of normalcy at the beginning. The decision to set this one in a military base was probably not the best. For a story that's supposed to make you paranoid that your usually unremarkable friends and neighbors are starting to act strangely, it would have been better to set it in a location most of us can identify as home. The first movie was set in a sleepy small town, and the second in a big city. The military base full of robotic "Sir Yes Sir"s doesn't really give us a sense of normality from the start. The visual effects for the most part are very entertaining and creepy. Especially any of the pod-based transformation scenes. However, the big moment involving the little boy right at the end (surely intended as the film's climactic horror moment) is so poorly composited and realized it's laughably bad. I'm amazed they even kept the shot in, considering how poor it looked. Overall, a massive step down from the earlier two masterpieces. I'll probably watch the most recent version this week (The Invasion - 2007). I haven't seen that film yet, and it has pretty poor reviews. Not holding my breath, but I'm hoping it's better than Body Snatchers. 5/10

Saint Saens Christmas Oratorio. An early work, but still festive and lovely enough for the season.

Not exactly score, but definitely score-related. In the months leading up to the (limited) release of Terry Gilliam's film Tideland in 2005, there was a website dedicated to the film that gave information about it. Jeff and Mychael Danna's theme from Tideland played automatically when you visited the site. It was a gorgeous, stripped-down arrangement, heavy on piano. That music never appeared either in the film or on the CD release. I'd love to get a copy of it. The site vanished after the film's release, and that perfect (IMO) presentation of the theme is nowhere to be found.

Just listened through this yesterday. It sounds fantastic. I've always loved the rerecording, but it's something special to have the OST also.

Forgive the incorrect aspect ratio, but this shot is one of the most beautiful moments in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. A ray of sunshine after Bond's difficult escape.

Those are fantastic!