PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back 2016

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back 2016 Based on the Lee Child novel Never Go Back, screenplay by Richard Wenk, Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, directed by Edward Zwick.

This time Jack is killing baddies in Washington DC. He was there to meet Major Susan Turner, a contact in the military. He arrives at her office to find she's been accused of espionage. Soon after Jack is framed for the murder of Turner's lawyer, he's arrested and taken to the same military jail as Susan, he escapes when he sees two of the baddies headed for Turner's cell. He saves her from being murdered and they go on the run. 

TThings get more complicated with the intro of a young woman who might be Jack's daughter Samantha. The baddies try to kill her but that fails. Jack, Susan and Samantha head for New Orleans, more people get killed, eventually Jack gets what's going on and crushes the baddies plan. Turns out Samantha isn't his daughter. Jack leaves and heads out on the highway, looking for a ride.

As entertaining as the first film. I'd watch this one again too.

Jack Reacher 2012

Jack Reacher 2012 Based on One Shot by Lee Child, screenplay and direction by Christopher McQuarrie. I hadn't read any of the books, they aren't the sort of novel I'm interested in, there's a lot of them, I suspect they're fine for the right reader.

Tom Cruise beats up some baddies in a story about some scummy businessmen who get what they want by intimidation and murder. Lots of punching, running and shooting. Good cast and a decent script. I'd watch it again sometime.

The Dragon Pearl 2009

The Dragon Pearl 2009 Story by Ron Saunders, John Armstrong and Mario Andreacchio, screenplay by Philip Dalkin, directed by Mario Andreacchio.

A PG film about a trip to China. A couple of young kids meet on their parents archeology dig in China. They meet a dragon and have an adventure.

It's about average for what it is. I enjoyed it but wouldn't necessarily watch it again.

Lockwood & Co Series 1

Lockwood & Co Series 1 Based on the first two novels in the Lockwood & Co series by Jonathan Stroud, developed by Joe Cornish, written by Joe Cornish, Joy Wilkinson, Kara Smith and Ed Hime, directed by William McGregor, Catherine Morshead and Joe Cornish. The first two novels are The Screaming Suitcase and The Whispering Skull. There are 3 more novels in the series and I've read them all. I plan to read them all again soon.

Ruby Stokes, Ali Hadji-Heshmati and Cameron Chapman are Lucy Carlyle, George Karim and Anthony Lockwood. Anthony started his own ghost fighting company, George has been with him for a while, Lucy is the new girl. She'd worked for a small outfit in a small town but a ghost clearance job killed everyone in her group but her. She left town and arrived in London looking for a job. No one would hire her except for Lockwood & Co.

Lockwood is the sort of teen that acts without thinking, George enjoys research more than ghost fighting, they live in a house that was Lockwood's parents house. The parents had died some years before. The company barely gets by, it gets worse when a clients house burns down. Now they owe £60,00 and have little way of raising it.

Nigel Planner is Sir John Fairfax, he hires them and promises to pay the £60,00 if they'll remove an angry spirit from a big old mansion he wants to sell. It's all a set up job by Sir John and they nearly die. Sir John turned out to be the murder and he doesn't get out of the house alive. At least they didn't burn the place down.

I enjoyed the heck out of the series. Good story, good cast, good characters, good music. My only complaint is having to wait ages for more episodes. Provided they renew the program. It seems to have been well received so there's hope.

Science Fiction Sunday 727

Doctor Who 2 Series 4 Specials

 

The End Of Time Part 1 & 2 Two part story that aired December 25 2009 and January 1 2010. Written by Russell T Davies and directed by Euros Lyn. The last of the series with David Tennant. I'll miss him but I'm looking forward to Matt Smith.

 
 

The Doctor gets a visit from Ood Sigma warning him about the Master. The Master returns with the help of some of his acolytes but his wife nearly ruins it, releasing the Master with a ferocious appetite and great powers. The Doctor finds him in an industrial area eating hobos. The Doctor gets found by Donna's grandfather Wilfred.

 

Joshua Naismith is a maniac billionaire, he's got some alien tech that he glommed onto when Torchwood fell. It's some sort of healing machine that he wants to use to make his daughter immortal. The Doctor and Wilfred break into his mansion and meet up with two aliens. They get noticed and use a teleporter to escape to the aliens ship.

 

Naismith captures the Master, hoping to use him to make the machine work. That doesn't go well and the Master turns everyone on Earth into himself. Only the Doctor, Wilfred and Donna remain unchanged.

 

The Time Lords are planning to escape from the time bubble that holds them. The Doctor put them there at the end of the time war. The Time Lords implant the drumming into the Master's head, the sound that has been driving him insane for hundreds of years, in order  to bring Gallifrey to Earth and escape the time bubble.

 

The Doctor, the Master and the Time Lords have a bit of a dust up. The Time Lords and Gallifrey are sent back into the time bubble, the Master escapes and the Doctor sacrifices himself to save Wilfred. The Doctor doesn't want to die but he can't save himself. He visits all his old pals for one last time and regenerates into Matt Smith.

 

It was a humdinger of an ending and I was sad to see David Tennant go.

 

There's a couple of commentaries and a lot of making of material. It took hours to go through.

Dreamland November 21 - 26 2009 Written by Phil Ford and directed by Gary Russell. There were 6 episodes, the first 12 mins, the rest 6 mins each. The parts were broadcast daily on BBC's Red Button, the official Doctor Who site and BBC iPlayer.

 

The Doctor visits Dry Springs Nevada and has an adventure with aliens. He stops at a diner to get some chili. He meets Cassie Rice and Jimmy Stalkingwolf and finds an alien artifact on display. His sonic screwdriver activates the artifact.

 

Shortly after a couple of Men in Black arrive and try to take the alien artifact. The Doctor escapes with Cassie and Jimmy. They encounter a big bug like alien and some American soldiers. They are taken to Area 51, the Doctor calls it Dreamland.

 

The Colonel in charge puts them in a room and gases them with an amnesia gas. The Doctor gets them out of that before they lose their memories. The encounter an alien and an alien spaceship. They steal the later.

 

The spend the rest of the story running about the desert. The bug like aliens are looking for the grey type aliens, there's a second one that was secretly hidden by the local natives. Jimmy didn't even know.

 

Eventually the Doctor sorts it out like he wants it to be and moves along.

It was a fun story but I wasn't sold on the drawing style. The animation is fairly limited. There are no extras for the animation. A separate disc has three hour long programs titled Doctor Who Greatest Moments. The three programs are The Doctor, The Companions and The Enemies. Lots of clips and short interviews with cast and crew.

Friday Night Movies 927

Crabs 2021 Written and directed by Pierce Berolzheimer. It's his first movie.

The small coastal town of Mendocino California gets invaded by some deadly horseshoe crabs. A lot of the locals die. Then the crab's giant big brother arrives. A group of teens put up a fight using some high tech.

There's a fair bit of crab action and gore. The physical crabs were pretty good, the gore drippy. There's a fairly good amount of humor but not all the jokes land well. It's 80 mins but seems longer. The story lurches to a crawl during some of the character development. I enjoyed it well enough but I'm doubting the need to add it to my collection.

The Alphabet Murders 1965 Based on The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie, screenplay by David Pursall and Jack Seddon, directed by Frank Tashlin. The name was changed to avoid any connection with the British theater chain ABC Cinemas in case the film flopped while playing at the ABC theaters.

Tony Randall plays Hercule Poirot. Originally Zero Mostel was intended to play the Belgian detective but Agatha Christie objected to the script having a bedroom scene with Hercule. That was several years before the film got made, Seth Holt was to be the director.

Tashlin came aboard and rewrote the Pursall and Seddon script with Robert Morley. They added a lot of slapstick and made Poirot a bit of a bumbler. Christie was said to have loathed the resulting movie. I can't blame her. The story in the film bares little resemblance to her novel.

I've seen a lot of adaptations of the novel and this is the oddest. Poirot bowling? Despite all that there's still some entertainment value in the film. It's unique at least. You can find out if you like it at the link in the title above.

Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde 1941

Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde 1941 Based on the Robert Louis Stevenson story Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde, screenplay by John Lee Mahin, Percy Heath and Samuel Hoffenstein, directed by Victor Fleming.

Spencer Tracy plays Dr Jekyll, he's got an idea that he can separate the good and bad in people. We all know now how that's going to go. His experiments lead him to taking his serum and Mr Hyde is born.

 

He likes the night life, visiting the musical halls, and taking a fancy to Ivy, played by Ingrid Bergman. Hyde provides her with an apartment and sexually abuses her for his fun. Things get worse and worse and Hyde eventually kills Ivy. His transformations are out of control and that eventually leads to his death.

Hyde has some interesting visions when he takes his serum.

It's a fairly good adaptation. Before watching this I watched the 1911 and 1920 silent versions. Those were not anywhere near as interesting. Tracy is good but his Hyde isn't as repulsive looking as many of the other adaptations. Despite the lack of ugly his Hyde is still a monster. I'll want to watch it again sometime. Maybe have a Jekyll and Hyde marathon.

The Jester's Supper 1942

The Jester's Supper 1942 Based on a play called La cena delle beffe by Sem Benelli, screenplay by Sem Benelli, Renato Castellani and Alessandro Blasetti, directed by Alessandro Blasetti. The play was later turned into an opera.

In 15th century Florence aristocrat Giannetto Malespini is being bullied by aristocratic brothers Neri and Gabriello Chiaramantesi. That's Giannetto, he's played by Osvaldo Valenti, in his off screen life he was a fascist, in 1945 he and his wife Luisa Ferida were executed by partisans.

The lady is Clara Calamai, she plays Ginevra, a servant in the Chiaramantesi household. Neri brought her to a party at Giannetto's as an insult. Giannetto fell for her and Neri didn't care for that much. Gabriello is also interested in the woman but Neri controls her for his own sick pleasures.

That's Amedeo Nazzari as Neri and Alfredo Varelli as Gabriello. Neri is the worst of the two and he's the one that abuses Ginevra. The film has one of the earliest nude scenes in Italian cinema, Neri rips off her nightgown in front of his pals and Giannetto.

 

Finally having enough of Neri and his brother Giannetto plots his revenge. He convinces others that Neri has gone mad and they chase him through the city and up a bell tower. He escapes and attacks a lot of people. He's recaptured and tortured by some of the people who hate him so much. Luisa Ferida plays one of the many women treated poorly by Neri. Giannetto tricks Neri into killing his brother. Neri is driven mad by the deed.

I found it quite entertaining. The DVD looks fairly good, be nice if they restored it. I got it at Hamilton Books for 6 bucks. Well worth it.

The Sex Pistols Vs Bill Grundy

On December 1 1976 the Sex Pistols made a live TV appearance on Thames Television's Today Show. They were on a segment with host Bill Grundy. Here's a clip of that appearance. Their appearance caused great public outcry and lead to much publicity for the band.

In 2017 Sky Arts started a comedy series called Urban Myths. In series 2 they did an episode about the Bill Grundy show appearance with Steve Pemberton as Bill. Here's that episode. I remember reading about the incident years ago but hadn't thought about it much again. I got a laugh or two from it.

I do remember being so excited on hearing the first Sex Pistols album in the record store. I immediately bought the album and played it over and over. I eventually moved onto someone else to be obsessive about. Occasionally I play one or another of their tracks on YouTube. I don't think I own any Sex Pistols CDs but can't be sure, all the CDs are  in boxes and I don't feel liked digging through them.

 

Science Fiction Sunday 726

Doctor Who 2 Series 4 Specials

The Next Doctor December 25 2008 Written by Russel T Davies and directed by Andy Goddard.

 

In Victorian London the Doctor runs into a man called The Doctor. The Tenth Doctor thinks this is a future version of himself but it turns out to be a regular old human who got screwed up by malfunctioning Cyberman technology and the murder of his wife.

 

A horrible woman makes a deal with the Cybermen and gets turned into the Cyberking. The Doctor helps the fake Doctor regain his memory and together they blow up the Cyberking and the Cybermen.

  

A good story and a nice musical program with music from the show played by an orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall. There was some original content in the music program with the Doctor appearing on video because David Tennant was working and couldn't appear live.

Planet Of The Dead April 11 2009 Written by Russell T Davies and Gareth Roberts, directed by James Strong.

 

A thief steals a gold chalice and escapes with the police on her trail. She boards a bus just before the Doctor does. The bus is chased by the police but a chance wormhole puts them on a desert planet somewhere across the galaxy.

 

The Doctor gets a plan going to return. They also find they're in danger from a horde of destructive stingray like creatures that destroy everything and turn it to dust. The aliens are headed for the wormhole and Earth. They meet some humanoid flies who are also stranded on the planet.

 

The flies don't survive the stingrays but their ship gives the Doctor the ability to make the bus fly. The bus makes it back to Earth. The Doctor has some help from a brilliant UNIT scientist who closes the wormhole.

 

An entertaining story with some fun bits. There's an hour long Doctor Who Confidential for an extra.

The Waters Of Mars November 15 2009 Written by Russell T Davies and Phil Ford, directed by Graeme Harper.

 

In 2059 the Doctor arrives on Mars the day that the tiny colony of humans blows up. He knows he can't change that bit of history but with a bit of megalomania he interferes and it ends with him fearing he's gone too far.

 

It's a sad story. The disc has a Doctor Who Confidential that was entertaining.