PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Phone Shop Series 1-3

Phone Shop Series 1-3 Created by Phil Bowker, written by Phil Bowker and cast, directed by Phil Bowker. There was a pilot in 2009 and the 18 episodes of Series 1-3 aired from 2010 to 2013.

Left to right we have Javone Prince as Jerwayne, Martin Trenaman as Lance, Emma Fryer as Janine, Tom Bennett as Christopher and Andrew Brooke as Ashley. Lance is the manager of the phone shop, Tom is the new employee, Ashley and Jerwayne are salesman and Janine is the gal in charge of pay as you go phones.

It's just the day to day at the phone shop on the high street in Sutton, London. Christopher is a bit of a fish out of water, he's genial and naive, often misunderstanding things going on around him. Jerwayne and Ashley spend all their waking hours on the hunt for new conquests in the bedroom and selling phones. They're often involved with some ill thought out scheme or plan.

Janine wants to advance the corporate ladder and become an assistant manager despite the stigma of being on the pay as you go phone desk. Her ambitions are often outstripped by her abilities. Janine and Christopher bond a bit as they are both looked down on by the rest of the staff. Janine often leads Christopher down some dangerous paths. Lance has so many issues it's hard to name them all. He's often in one sort of trouble or another, randomly he rises to the occasion and pulls his fat out of the fire he created.

It's fast paced and witty. I was laughing every few minutes, often out loud. There's something new happening every few minutes and there's plenty of swearing. I plan to watch these again. Hopefully before too long.

Science Fiction Sunday 745

Doctor Who Series 9 Episodes 3 - 6

 

Under The Lake October 3 2015 Written by Toby Whithouse and directed by Daniel O'Hara. First of two parts.

 

It's 2119 and the Doctor and Clara arrive at an underwater mining base and help them with their ghost problem.

 

Before The Flood October 10 2015 Written by Toby Whithouse and directed by Daniel O'Hara. Second of two parts.

 

It's just more aliens.

 

The Girl Who Died October 17 2015 Written by Jamie Mathieson and Steven Moffat, directed by Ed Bazalgette. First of two parts.

 

The Doctor save a Viking girl from death and sends her off her merry way.

 

The Woman Who Lived October 24 2015 Written by Jamie Mathieson and Steven Moffat, directed by Ed Bazalgette. Second of two parts.

 

Eight hundred years later that Viking girl has changed a good bit. The Doctor saves her again.

There's a short making of and three commentaries.

Friday Night Movies 945

Crime Zone 1988 Written by Daryl Haney and directed by Luis Llosa. An American Peruvian production, much of the movie was shot in Lima Peru with local cast and crew. Roger Corman is the producer and and it's a Concorde production.

Daryl has over 30 credits on the IMDb but I can't say I've seen many of his films other than Xtro 3: Watch The Skies, it's not overly good. Luis is a Peruvian who has made some films in America. I know I've seen the 1993 Fire On The Amazon, a terrible film that's more known for having Sandra Bullock's only sex scene. Luis would also direct Anaconda in 1997, that's got a fair budget and a fairly decent cast but there's still nothing too special about it.

Peter Nelson is Bone, a guy who starts the movie being thrown off the police force. He lives in the squalor of the lowest cast of society. Sherilyn Fenn is Helen, a prostitute who works in the local official brothel. The dregs of society aren't allowed to co-habit for some reason. It's all pretty dumb.

David Carradine plays Jason, he hires Bone and Helen to rob a place with official records. Despite wearing a mask they are discovered and go on the run. Jason gets them to do another job and they immediately become killers, blasting anyone in their way. The script is pretty poor. There's plenty of action and running about but listening to the actors just made me sad.

The movie's well below average, it scores a 4.5 on the IMDb and I gave it a 4. The 4 score has 20.2% of the votes and the 5 has 20% of the votes. A lot of the voters, 12.4%, gave the movie a 10. It was suggested that Sherilyn Fenn' sex scene was the reason. You can see if you like it on YouTube.

Future Kick 1991 Written by Catherine Cyran and Damian Klaus, directed by Damian Klaus. This is another Roger Corman produced Concorde production. This is also Damian Klaus's only film. The film only 80 mins long and 15-20% of the film uses footage from Crime Zone. Disappointing, but oh so typically Roger.

Don "The Dragon" Wilson is a cyborg in this SF picture. Meg Foster's husband was murdered and the police can't get to the cast for days. She hires Don to help her find her husband's killer. They run about, get in fights and occasionally shoot someone.

It turns out that an evil corporation is harvesting organs from the poor and down trodden. There's more fighting and the movie ends with most of the baddies dead. Yay!

It seems to have more strippers than the last movie but that's still not enough to get my vote up over a four. That's the same as the movie's average on the IMDb. If the two films weren't packed on the same DVD we might not have noticed all the copied footage. If they would have worked a little harder it could get a better score. You can see a copy on Rarelust if you want to try it.

Blackpool Series 1 2004

Blackpool Series 1 2004 Created and written by Peter Bowker, directed by Julie Ann Robinson and Coky Giedroyc. Coky is the brother of Mel Giedroyc. Six episodes aired November and December 2004. It was followed by a single episode in 2006.

David Morrissey is Ripley Holden, he owns an arcade that he wants to leverage into a casino hotel. He's heavily in debt, crooked and stupid. Not a good combination for a businessman. He's got family issues and his day gets extra worse when a dead body is found in the arcade. Steve Pemberton plays Ripley's accountant. He's poorly treated by Ripley.

David Tennant is DI Peter Carlisle, he's brought in to investigate the dead guy. He's a lousy cop, manipulative and crooked, he starts sleeping with Ripley's wife Natalie. There's a good handful of other characters but I couldn't be bothered mentioning them. 

Each episode had four big song and dance numbers with the characters miming to some popular hits of the past. The first episode opens with Viva Las Vegas by Elvis Presley. Ripley admires the King and wants the Vegas lifestyle for himself. He's just not smart enough to achieve that. It's only by sheer script writing that he manages to stay out of jail for murder, not that he did the killing anyway. 

I wasn't much entertained, most of the characters are a waste of time to be around. I wouldn't watch it again. I do have the sequel to watch but I haven't time today. Maybe tomorrow.

Bigfoot 1970

Bigfoot 1970 Written and directed by Robert F Slatzer.

A pilot parachutes from her conked out plane only to kidnapped by a Bigfoot in need of a woman to keep his species going. That's Joi Lansing on the left, she's the pilot. The other lady is Judy Jordan, she plays the girlfriend of a biker. The gals are in trouble, the local Bigfoot tribe have kidnapped them for breeding purposes. Or lunch, it's not clear yet.

John Carradine and his business partner John Mitchum are traveling through the same area in search of customers. John M is the younger brother of Robert Mitchum. The biker who's gal was taken by Bigfoot is played by Christopher Mitchum, he's Robert Mitchum's son. Bing Crosby's son Lindsay plays one of the bikers and Doodles Weaver is a forest ranger.

None of them can do much with the dialog, the story or the budget. It's lacking in all respects. The director is lacking a Wikipedia page, his IMDb page lists two feature films and a documentary on John Wayne. I've seen Slatzer's 1968 film The Hellcats. It was a MST3K selection that I saw when it originally aired, I watched it more recently, 2015, when I worked my way through one of those 50 Movie Packs. I gave that The Hellcats a 2.

Bigfoot is about 50% better so I gave it a 3. Still poor. You can watch it at the link above, though why you would...

 

The Burnt Orange Heresy 2019

The Burnt Orange Heresy 2019 Based on the Charles Willeford novel of the same name, screenplay by Scott Smith, directed by Giuseppe Capotondi.

An art critic gets involved with a plan to steal a painting from a reclusive painter. Since it's a Willeford story everything with the plan goes wrong and people start dying. It's a fairly straight forward story and fairly well told. I'd probably watch it again but it would be a while.

I Only Arsked 1958

I Only Arsked 1958 Screenplay by Sid Colin and Jack Davies, directed by Montgomery Tully. A Hammer-Granada production that was based on the TV series The Army Game.

Bernard Bresslaw, Michael Medwin, Alfie Bass, David Lodge, Norman Rossington and Charles Hawtrey are useless army soldiers who are sent to the Middle East to help a King and his oil fields. They get stuck in the middle of coup but bumble their way to a happy ending.

It's a pretty simple and familiar tale with a few jokes, mostly of the physical sort. I liked it well enough but couldn't give it more than a 5 on the IMDb. You can see a copy on YouTube, see link above.

Dalgliesh Series 1 2021

Dalgliesh Series 1 2023 Based on the Adan Dalgliesh novels by PD James, TV series created by Helen Edmundson, written by Helen Edmundson and Stephen Greenhorn, directed by Andy & Ryan Tohill, Jill Robertson and Lisa Clarke. Six episodes, each a two part story, aired in November 2021. A second series just aired last April and a third has been ordered.

Bertie Carvel plays DCI Adam Dalgliesh, Jeremy Irvine plays DS Charles Masterson and Carlyss Peer plays DS Kate Miskin. The stories are set in the mid 70s.

In the first story a nurse is murdered in a nursing school. Everyone has some sort of secrets. In the second story Dalgliesh goes to visit an old friend only to find he's died. He gets involved with a suicide and uncovers some some secrets. In the third story Dalgliesh investigates a double murder in a church. The clues lead him to a rich family with dirty secrets.

Nicely produced and rather dour. They kept my interest to the end but I doubt I'd get around to watching them again.

Science Fiction Sunday 744

Doctor Who 2 Series 9 Episodes 0 - 2

 

Last Christmas December 25 2014 Written by Steven Moffat and directed by Paul Wilmshurst.

   

The Doctor has been trapped by a dream crab and most of the episode takes place in his head. Fun to see Nick Frost as Santa Claus. The Doctor and Clara start traveling together again.

 

The Magician's Apprentice September 19 2015 Written by Steven Moffat and directed by Hettie MacDonald. First of two parts.

 

The Doctor arrives on a war torn planet to save a young boy from a mine field but runs off when he learns the boy is Davros. On Earth all the planes freeze in the sky and UNIT calls Clara at work.

 

They discover it's Missy, she's got the Doctor's confessional dial with his Last Will and Testament. With Unit's help they find the Doctor in 1138. They travel to meet him and all three get a free trip to see the dying Davros on an invisible Skaro. The episode ends with Clara and Missy killed by the Daleks.  

  

The Witch's Familiar September 25 2015 Written by Steven Moffat and directed by Hettie MacDonald. Second of two parts.

 

Of course Clara and Missy aren't dead and Davros is up to his old tricks. Missy hides Clara in a Dalek and Davros piles on the pathos for the Doctor. The Doctor is already feeling guilty for abandoning Davros.

 

The Doctor uses some of his energy to restore Davros but it's a trick and that energy goes to the old and dying Daleks, energized they want to kill the living Dalek's cause they are the universe's dicks. Missy almost gets the Doctor to kill Clara in the Dalek suit, putting her into pole position for being a POS. The Doctor lets her get away and then he goes to rescue Davros.

There was almost 8 months between the Christmas episode and the start of Series 9, there were a couple of prologue teasers before the Series started airing. They are in the DVD set, along with a commentary for the Christmas Episode and 20 mins of behind the scenes material.

Friday Night Movies 944

A Boy And His Samurai 2010 Based on Fushigi no Kuni no Yasubei by Gen Araki, screenplay and direction by Yoshihiro Nakamura. Yoshihiro is the director of Fish Story. That's the only other movie of his I've seen.

This movie is a fish out of water comedy, a samurai from late 1800s Edo is transported to modern day Toyko. Kijima's there for a few months and he learns a different life style. A lady named Yusa takes Kijima in and her son Tomoya bonds with him.

Kijima learns to bake delicious desserts and he gets a job after winning a contest. He becomes too attentive to his job and neglects the family. Things go bad before they get better.

It's a charming movie. It's a bit slow going but I was entertained. It's got a few laughs and some jeopardy. Things end on a good note. You can see a nice copy over on Dailymotion.

The Hyperions 2020 Story, screenplay (with additional material by Mike Timm) and direction by Jon McDonald.

There's way too much dysfunctional family in the story. In 1960 Professor Ruckus Mandulbaum invented a badge that gives the wearer a superpower. He chose two orphan children and a slightly older woman to be his super hero team. Vista didn't adjust well and she ran off after using her power to control people's minds to force the Professor to give up a pile of cash and a special device. She left the Professor her badge.

The Professor got rid of Ansel, taking his badge away, and found more youngsters to replace them. That was in 1965, fourteen years later Vista and Ansel are trying to steal the badges from the Hyperion museum. Vista needs them to recover her daughter from another ex-Hyperion who wants his badge back. The baddie was on the second team, they got tossed aside after a few years and the Professor is hunting for a new team.

Everybody's got daddy issues and they are all in a bit of a mess. The movie is a bit of a mess. There's some jokes but they are a bit few and far between. It's rather slow and the characters are annoying at times. It reminds me how good The Specials is and I should watch it again sometime soon. I'd watch that before I'd get around to The Hyperions again.