PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Stargazing Live

Stargazing Live is a fun bit of TV for the astronomy fan. Dara Ó Briain and Brian Cox host this general interest astronomy based program.Though Dara is a comedian by trade he's also a big math and science guy. He's hosted a math based program called School Of Hard Sums that was interesting enough for me to sit though. Professor Brian Cox seems to turn up on a lot of British science programs. He works at the Large Hadron Collider when he isn't on TV.

I like both Dara and Brian, I find them interesting and they do a good job of making astronomy easy to understand. I like their enthusiasm for science and technology. There's plenty of stars and planets and other related material. The show travels to interesting astronomy sites, places you might have heard of, like Jodrell Bank, SALT in South Africa, and Mauna Kea in Hawaii that has 13 big telescopes set up. Brian and Dara are joined by guests like Jonathan Ross and Liz Bonnin. 

Here's some links.

Stargazing Live - Series 1 - 1 2 3

Stargazing Live - Series 2 - 1 2 3

Stargazing Live Back To Earth 1 2 3 - a chat show about the series with Dara, Brian and guests. Lots of audience questions and photographs.

Blast Off Live - A Stargazing Live Special - December 15 2015

Brit In Space - A Stargazing Live Special - December 15 2015

Professor Brian Cox Lecture On The Universe

There are 4 more series and three specials. Here are poor copies of series 3 - 5, plus episodes of Wonders Of The Universe and Science Brittanica. There are many shows about serial killers there. I didn't bother with them myself. It's a subject that I'm lacking interest in. Sadly, the picture on many of these episodes is screwed up and the speed of the sound is a bit off. The sound can be fixed with VLC Player but not much can be done with the light purple tinted and cropped picture in it's frame. Why people upload these screwed up episodes I just don't understand.

Here's a nice looking and sounding program on Cern and the Higgs Boson by Professor Brian Cox. It's a bit dated, 2008, but I learned a bit.

Here's Brian on The Science Of Doctor Who.

UFO Series

I found a page on YouTube with nice 720P versions of the entire series of Gerry Anderson's UFO. Sadly there are Spanish subtitles on the bottom of the image. It's always something. Still, I can take a look at them and find out if it's worth buying. I wouldn't buy the US set, not even if I loved the series, the complete set on Amazon USA is over 200 bucks for the 26 episodes. The British version on Amazon UK is £29.95 which, depending on the exchange rate and shipping, would probably be close to 50 bucks. Still steep for 26 episodes.

Ed Bishop plays Commander Edward Straker and he heads SHADO. That's the Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defense Organization and they fight the aliens that are harvesting humans for their organs. SHADO has their HQ hidden under a movie studio and Ed is the studio head. They used three studios for their settings, MGM-British Studios, Pinewood and British National Studios. 

There's plenty of special effects, miniature sets and space ships. It's the same effects people that worked on the previous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson puppet shows.

I remember watching these episodes as a teen back in 1970-71. I enjoyed them when I first saw them. Decades later I've forgotten everything about them so they'll be new to me. I downloaded them to watch later. Like the Space 1999 series I'll wait to finish the Supermartionation programs first.

The Stuff 1985

I hadn't seen The Stuff for over a decade. It's one of Larry Cohen's better films. Q - The Winged Serpent is a better movie but it's not as funny as this. Both films share Michael Moriarty and Larry used Michael in 2 other pictures that I haven't seen.

Michael is pretty entertaining in The Stuff and he's got a good cast to work with: Garrett Morris, Patrick O'Neal, Andrea Marcovicci, Paul Sorvino, Scott Bloom, Danny Aiello, Alexander Scourby, Brooke Adams, Tammy Grimes, Abe Vigoda and Clara Peller. Keep an eye out for Eric Bogosian, Patrick Dempsey and Mira Sorvino in cameo

In The Stuff a miner finds a white ice-cream like goo coming out of the ground. He tries it and likes it. He thinks it would be a good idea to package it and sell it to people. Things happen off screen and soon enough The Stuff sweeps the nation. The mine is shut down and the company now produces The Stuff.

It's addictive and people can't get enough. People start eating The Stuff instead of most every other food. Big Ice Cream hires Michael Moriarty, an ex-FBI guy and industrial spy, to find out what The Stuff is so they can try to get their ice cream business back. The secret of the stuff is highly guarded, the company controls the town and the police in the area. Michael teams up with an advertising exec, a ten year old boy and a retired general with his own militia. They bring down the company but that hardly keeps The Stuff off of the streets.

It's all pretty silly and I liked it better this time than the last time. I changed my Watched Movie List comment from Crap to Funny. Who knows what I was thinking back then. There's an interesting commentary by Larry Cohen. It was the reason I got the DVD. I've heard one of his commentaries before and enjoyed that. The other extras are a trailer and a Larry Cohen bio.

Science Fiction Sunday 391

The Last Light is an ambiguous movie that has 7 people hold up in a mental hospital after some unknown event has caused the earth to be bathed in continuous light. There are some sort of monsters outside that kill you. We never see them, there is only some noise in the background when there supposed to be there. There's 3 women and 4 men in the group. Edward Furlong hides in the lower basement and only talks to Ed Quinn. Ed's the basic leader of the group. He has the only weapon, a shotgun. Seth David Mitchell is the asshole of the group, always complaining, who thinks he's better than rest. When Molly Hagan goes nuts and grabs the gun it ends with her dead. Seth tries to get the group to make him leader but no one else votes for him and he attacks Ed shortly after that. Ed fucks him up a bit and leaves him for the critters. Typically Seth cries for help now that he's hurt. I see that a lot in movies and don't understand the mentality. You just tried to take over and lost. Now you want some sympathy? I'm with Ed, fuck that guy. That's two down. Jeff Fahey is a quiet guy who maintains the food supply. Yvonne Zima is a bit of a flirty blond. Tahyna Valentina MacManus endlessly works on papers from the hospital. It's not explained why. Not much is explained here, mostly there's talking and sitting. Ed discusses the events with Edward all the time, seeking some advice. The movie's quite slow moving and there's little info about what's going on. People speculate about what the movie means on the IMDb and other sites and there's a common thought that it's some sort purgatory. I'm not sure what's it's all about but that could be an answer that works within the framework of what's presented. At the end we see Edward looking at a file that has a clipping from a newspaper. It's Ed's obituary. When we cut to Ed in a hallway with monster noises. Then we cut to Edward having a bit of a chuckle and then there's a terrible song that plays over the credits. I don't care that much for this sort of movie. There's no way I can possibly know what's in writer and director Andrew Hyatt's mind and after seeing his movie I doubt I would care that much to see either of his other two movies.

Journey To The Center Of Time is a 1967 movie that I noticed on Amazon Prime, like the first movie, and didn't remember seeing it until a few minutes into the film. I looked it up and sure enough, I'd seen it back in 1999, but i watched it to the end on amazon, rather than dig out the low budget DVD that cost me a buck. I bought it for the copy of Things To Come which is a much more entertaining and memorable movie. JTTCOT is about a big time experiment and it's pretty forgettable. It's written and directed by James L Hewitt. He's mostly an effects guy but he did direct 8 films and a short. His first film was The Wizard Of Mars which you can see on YouTube. I haven't see it but I did download it to watch later. I have seen Hewitt's The Mighty Gorga and the comment on my Watched Movie List was: yow - crap, and not in a good way. I suspect that I meant it was just bad and not fun to watch, or that a good poop would be a better experience than watching the movie. Either are valid because they're both true. I made it thought JTTCOT. Thankfully it's only 77 minutes. I certainly won't need to see it again. Hopefully I'll remember that I had seen it. I'd only recommend it to those that really want to see all the SF films there are. Everyone else, move along, nothing to see here.

The Enid Blyton Secret Series

The Enid Blyton Secret Series was produced by the same people, Cloud 9, that made The Enid Blyton Adventure Series. Like the previous series they filmed this one in New Zealand. The DVDs present the story in a series of five 90 minute films which Cloud 9 also makes available in 30 minute versions for syndication. They use the same house the production built for TEBAS, after it's been redressed, as the Arnold family home. Jennyfer Jewel, who plays Peggy is this series, was also a carry over from TEBAS where she played Lucy-Ann.

There's a new set of characters in this series. That's Mr Thaddeus Arnold and his future wife Charlotte (Charlie) Clancy. He's is a widow with three kids, Peggy, Laura and Mike, then the series starts. She's a photojournalist who agrees to travel with him on an around the world cruise in his sailboat. Mr Arnold adopts Jack in the third story. The adult's romance builds slowly until they get married in the last story.

There are 5 books in The Secret Series and the first one, The Secret Island, came out in 1938. It was Blyton's first full length adventure novel. There's also a book by another author called The Secret Valley. I haven't read them but I'm thinking of ordering a set from the UK. From the synopsis on the Enid Blyton site it looks like the novels are quite a bit different. A lot of Enid's books have had several editions and copies can be fairly cheap. There's postage of course but they would still be as cheap or cheaper than a modern paperback Sadly, Enid's books are hard to find in the US.

Here's the list of episodes in the order they appear on the DVD:

• The Secret Island
• The Secret of Spiggy Holes
• The Secret of Killimooin
• The Secret of Moon Castle
• The Secret Mountain

I was as entertained by the series as I was TEBAS. There's some adventure and a bit of danger. The villains are about as hokey as the other series. There's some threat of danger but you know that the kids will survive.

The Saint Series 4

For some reason the 4th series has only 9 episodes and they aired during July and August 1965. The series is still in Black and White. The production switches to color with the next series.

Here's an interesting essay about the British TV shows that appeared on US TV back in the 1950s and 1960s. It's a bit long (almost 18,000 words) but there's plenty of interesting material to be read. I've seen many of the shows, some were favorites when I was a kid and still are. It appears that the shows listed are mostly action and dramas. The Canadian TV stations had most of those shows but they also had a lot of comedy shows. It's from a blog called A Shroud Of Thoughts by Terence Towles Canote. That's where the picture of Roger Moore came from. Terence also has a book on TV out but I haven't read it.

The episodes are behind the curtain with descriptions from the IMDb. Once again they are written by don @ minifie-1.

Friday Night Movies 582

Joe brought the Blu-ray of Star Wars: The Force Awakened and we watched that. It was alright. My only complaint is a common one. Why wouldn't they have made a story that was less like the story we'd already seen. The other thing I got out of the on-going story is that the Darth Vader clan are some of the worst people in the Galaxy. The universe would be a lot better off if they hadn't breed. Oddly enough the two movies we watched both have smugglers as main characters.

The Bees is a 1978 horror film about killer bees. It's written and directed by Alfredo Zacarias. He mostly works in Mexico and this is the first of a couple of films he made in the US. Demonoid: Messenger Of Death was made next and then he was back in Mexico. I haven't seen it. The Bees stars John Saxon, Angel Tompkins and John Carradine. The two John's are scientists who study bees and they are working on the killer bee problem in South America. Angel and her scientist husband have a bee farm in South America where they're studying the killer bees and have some KB hives in a locked netted enclosure. A father and son sneak into the farm hives to steal honey. Unfortunately they break into the killer bee hives and the bees attack. The son dies and father stirs up the villagers. They get violent and attack the farm. Angel's husband is killed but she's saved because he hid her in the walk in freezer.

In New York the two John's appeal to the UN for money and help to study the bees. They can't get the different countries to agree and Carradine busts a jar of the killer bees to chase the men out of the room. He's a character and it turns out that he's Angel's Uncle. She's smuggles killer bees in her luggage so that the two John's can carry on more research. Of course she's mugged in the elevator of John Saxon's apartment. The muggers open the KB case and die from the stings. Angel retrieves the case, luckily the queen and drones are safe, but some of the bees have escaped. She works with the John's to set up a research center. The random escaped bees colonize and breed like rabbits. One of the things the movie fails to do is establish is how much time has past. You get some clues from what you see on screen but they are as vague as the science in the film. Some greedy businessmen have also tried smuggling bees into the country. The bees escape in the plane and it lands in Mexico City. Now even more bees on the loose. Things get worse and worse as the bees increase their numbers and start attacking people everywhere. There's more villainous activity.

Poor John Carradine is killed by a greedy politician who was secretly skimming money from the KB research programs in South America. John and Angel start a romance while they continue to work on Carradine's communication with the bees. They eventually succeed and the US is saved but not before the bees get their revenge on Carradine's killer and the evil politician that sent the hit man. It all ties up pretty well and that's saying something for a movie as poorly written and directed as this one was. Occasionally some of the dialog made me laugh. It scores a 3 on the IMDb and that's about what it should be. It was still fun to watch and we all got a laugh out of it. The odd choices for music had me giggling at times. The ending made both me and Joe have thoughts about M Night Shyamalan's The Happening. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who doesn't like this sort of thing. A couple of the other fellows thought it was better than The Swarm, no where near as boring. The Wikipedia says that Warner Brothers paid New Line Cinema to delay the release of The Bees so it wouldn't be out the same time as The Swarm.

What I Read in July 2015

Somehow I got even further behind writing up what I've been reading. Here's the 7 books that I read last July. I'm going to pretend that I'll get to the rest of the year soon.

Christopher Syn by Russell Thorndike and William Buchanan was the only book in the series in our local library system and it was a large print edition. It was a huge book but easy to read. The novel is a reworking of the Further Adventures Of Doctor Syn by Buchanan and it came out in 1960. It was used as the basis for the 1963 Disney production The Scarecrow Of Romney Marsh. The novel was fun enough and I plan to read the whole series from the beginning. I picked the lot up for my Kindle but haven't gotten to them yet.

The Casual Vacancy by J K Rowling sure wasn't much fun to read. It took me ages to finish it. The writings fine but the story is just a drama about some people in a village in England. I wouldn't read it again.

House Of Many Ways by Diana Wynn Jones is highly entertaining. A young woman named Charmain goes to house sit the cottage of her Uncle and has an adventure. Her uncle is a wizard and Charmain takes to magic right from the get go. There's plenty of interesting characters popping in and plenty of stuff to read about. I haven't found a DWJ book that I haven't liked and this one is just as good as any of them. I've started to re-read her books and plan to work my way through the lot a bit at a time.

Bridge Of Birds by Barry Hughart is a novel set in ancient China. It contains the first adventure of Master Li and Number Ten Ox. There are two sequels and sadly no more. A plague strikes the silkworms of the village of Ku-Fu and all the children between 8 and 13 are in a coma. The head of the village sends Number Ten Ox to find a wise man, in the hope he could find a cure. Ox travels to Peking and stumbles onto Master Li, an ancient reprobate with a slight flaw in his character. Together the two travel around the country and meet all sorts of wonderfully colorful characters. Master Li finds the cure and the villainous creeps behind it. There's plenty of humor and the writing is really good. I've read these books 3 or 4 times already and plan to tackle them again in a few years.

Abhorsen by Garth Nix is the final book in the series. I was glad to get past them. Now they can go on the sell pile. After reading this series and the Falling series I didn't become a Nix fan.

Don't Point That Thing At Me by Kyril Bonfiglioli is the novel the movie Mortdecai was based on. It's the first of a trilogy and the Mortdecai in the books isn't much like the movie version. Mortdecai is an art dealer and thief. He's got a hot painting, the cops are suspicious of him, and he's got a buyer in the US. According to the  Wikipedia Bonfiglioli was a Wodehouse fan and Mortdecai mentions Wodehouse in the novels. There's a bit of the Wodehouse breeziness in the books but they are much darker than Wodehouse at his darkest and the body count in Kyril's book is very high. People get killed just by associating with Mortdecai. He's one of those wrecking ball sorts of fellows, breakable things suffer dearly in his presence, best to avoid him if you can. It was fairly entertaining, I have the rest of the trilogy on my list at the library but haven't asked for them yet. Too many books coming in lately to want more from the library. I'll get to them eventually.

The Secret Of Wildcat Swamp by Franklyn Dixon has the Hardy brothers in their 31st adventure. The boys are out west on a paleontology trip when they get involved with a group of freight train robbers. There's also an escaped convict to complicate the story. It's about average for the series and I enjoyed it. I have 24 of the first 38 books in the original series. The publishers changed the series after that book, making the stories tamer and shorter. The chapters per book changed form 25 to 20. In the original series the boys drive cars, motorcycles, speedboats, carry guns, and travel all over, nearly getting killed on a regular basis. No one believes that they will die and the villains are more entertaining. It's a fun series and I'm glad I've been reading them. I need to get onto ABE Books and look for the rest. The local stores occasionally turn up a book or two but that's pretty hit or miss. Too often the ones they get are the ones I already have.

Not too many books for the month. I have been upping the number of books per month in recent times. I've read 56 books so far in 2016. Much better chance of getting partly through the pile of unread books that have accumulated over the years. I also plan to re-read some of the already read books I have squirreled away in the attic.

Fantasy Collection - 8 Movie Pack

I picked up this 2 movie collection for less than 3 bucks. It's got 8 movies and this horrible wrap around cover. If you click on it you can see a huge version and get right into it. Not that makes the picture better but you can really see how awful it is.

The 8 movies are on 2 discs which makes the bit rate pretty low. It's pretty much standard with a company like Echo Bridge Entertainment. They're a step below Mill Creek Entertainment.

It's heavy on Merlin and Arthur stories with 7 of the movies featuring one or both. Here's the list of movies, with the descriptions from the Amazon page, for the 2 disc set:

 

Merlin: The Return 2000

Armed with a devious plan, scheming scientist Dr. Maxwell is doing everything in her power to bring evil sorcerer Mordred into the present day. Aware of her plot, Medieval times' most famous—and aged—magician, Merlin, will stop at nothing to prevent Maxwell from summoning his malicious enemy.

I was interested in this movie because it's got Rik Mayall as Merlin. It also stars Patrick Bergin, Craig Sheffer, Adrian Paul, Julie Hartley and Tia Carrere. It's written and directed by Paul Matthews. Sadly it's not very good. Other than Rik who seemed to be having some fun.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice 2002

When Ben and his family move to a new home, the young boy reaches out to his aging neighbor, Milner (Robert Davi). Little does Ben know, Milner is actually the wizard Merlin and he is destined to be his apprentice.

The only really interesting thing about this kid's movie is that it was filmed in South Africa, pretending to be England. It was nice to see Robert Davi playing a good guy for a change.

 

Merlin's Apprentice 2006

The great sorcerer Merlin has returned to Camelot, a kingdom now vulnerable since the theft of the Holy Grail. With the help of a young beggar-thief, the fight to find the Grail and return Camelot to its glory days begins.

This is a 3 hour TV mini-series, for Hallmark, with Sam Neil as Merlin. It's the sequel to the 1998 Merlin with Sam and Miranda Richardson. Merlin got tricked into sleeping for 30 years and in that time Camelot has fallen on hard times. It's about average but the 3 hour running time makes the movie drag.

The Magic Sword 1962

Sir George is a young knight who has long admired the beautiful Princess Helene from afar but hasn't had the courage to profess his love for her. When the princess is suddenly kidnapped by the evil sorcerer Lodac, the valiant knight sees it as a golden opportunity to win her affections and prove his undying love by rescuing her.

I actually like this movie a fair bit. It was a Mystery Science Fiction 3000 selection and the guys on the show later said they thought it was actually a "pretty good movie". It's got Basil Rathbone, Estelle Winwood and Garry Lockwood. There's plenty of action, magic stuff and silliness. Worth a look.

 

Sword of Lancelot 1963

A passionate, secret romance blossoms between a knight, Sir Lancelot (Cornel Wilde), and Lady Guinevere (Jean Wallace), causing King Arthur (Brian Aherne) to wage a deadly war.

I'd seen this a few years ago but had forgotten a lot of it. Cornel Wilde co-produced, directed, co-wrote, and played Lancelot in this British adaptation of the Arthur Legend. It's better than the other films in the set. Wilde is excellent in the sword fighting scenes. Worth a look. You can see it on YouTube in 2 parts: One & Two.

Merlin and the War of the Dragons 2008

Britain, 420 A.D. An exceptional wizard, Merlin, goes head to head with the evil Hengest, who threatens to conquer Britain with his fleet of dragons.

I don't know which is sadder, The Asylum doing a Merlin story or that Jürgen Prochnow is in it. Well below average and not worth bothering with.

King Arthur, the Young Warlord 1975

This is the inspiring, epic journey of a noble warrior's quest to prove his worth, his might, and his destined fate to become the next ruler of Britain.

I was somewhat entertained by this 1975 British film which turns out to be chopped out of episodes of the British TV series Arthur Of The Britons. Oliver Tobias is King Arthur in a rather gritty adaptation. It's the 5th century and it's been a 100 years since the Romans left. Arthur doesn't live in a fancy castle. He's a leader of a group of Celts and he tries to gather other Celts under his banner to help keep the Saxons from taking over. Brian Blessed co-stars as Mark Of Cornwall. I'm looking forward to see the series at sometime. I've also got a documentary on the Celts at the library to pick up and watch. I'm curious about that.

The Excalibur Kid 1999

Fifteen-year-old Zack is transported to a medieval world by an evil sorceress. Now he must team up with Merlin to right her wrongs and restore King Arthur to his throne.

It's a pretty sad adaptation. Not worth bothering with.

All in all not the worst collection that I've seen and it did lead me to what could be an interesting series in Arthur Of The Britons.

Sean Lock - The Complete Live Collection

I really like Sean Lock. I've been seeing him on 8 Out Of 10 Cats, Qi, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown and other British TV shows for some time. I found he had three stand up DVDs which had been packaged into a set for under £10. Good value for several hours with Sean Lock.

He's an observational comedian with a dark surreal edge. One of my favorite of his jokes is: I hear voices in my head, but I ignore them and keep on killing. On 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown he does some goofy prop comedy but there's very little of that in his stage show. He's rather active on stage, he moves around a lot, and there's a certain amount acting things out. He's not too edgy, at least compared to Jimmy Carr, but there's a nice bit of swearing. I like the swearing.

Sean's done a lot of writing for other comedians. He created a TV series called 15 Storeys High out of a radio show called 15 Minutes Of Misery. The radio show also featured Kevin Eldon and Hattie Hayridge. You might remember Hattie from Red Dwarf. 15 Storeys High is a brilliant piece of work, according to Bill Bailey, and I quite agree. It's not going to appeal to everyone but I sure liked it. I saw it on YouTube and then bought the British DVD. It's not available here but that isn't any reason not to have it.

Sean Lock Live is from 2008 and it was recorded at the Hammersmith Apollo. He does a nice 81 minute set with a fair bit of humor. The Extras: A short appearance from the Live At The Apollo TV series and a documentary called "This Is What I'm Like." They total about 45 minutes.

Sean Lock Lockipedia Live  is Sean's 2010 DVD. Sean's back at the Hammersmith Apollo for a 98 minute show. The extras: Sean's bits from Live At The Apollo and Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow. There's also some images from Sean's Lockipedia segment. They total about 63 minutes.

Purple Van man Live is Sean's 2013 stand up DVD. Returning once again to the Hammersmith Apollo Sean turns in a 79 minute set. This time in a purple suit. The extras: Sean's segment from Live At The Apollo. There's only 17 minutes of Extras.

That's about 6 hours and 20 minutes of Sean. Since he's in England some of the jokes might need a bit of help from the Internet to find out who he's slaggin' off but for the most part the material is accessible to most anyone. Now that I'm done I'm sure glad that I got the DVDs.