PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Partners In Crime Series 1

Partners In Crime was a 6 part series that aired in 2015 on the BBC. It only lasted the one series and was cancelled. The library sent it over so I could see if I wanted to buy it. David Walliams and Jessica Raine are Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, the heroes of our story. Agatha Christie wrote a series of novels about the pair. I haven't read them but back in 2014 I watched the 1983 London Weekend Television adaptation. It has James Warwick and Francesca Annis as Tommy and Tuppence. It was OK but I wasn't that enamored with the main characters or some of their antics.I thought I'd check out the DVDs before sinking any money into them.

I like this version of Timmy and Tuppence much better than the 80s version. I liked David Walliams but I usually find him entertaining. I'm also a big fan of his books. I wasn't sure that I had seen Jessica Raine before. I looked, she was in An Adventure In Space And Time, but I did not remember her. I also did not remember her from The Woman In Black. She's A-OK here.

The stories are set in 1950's with Tommy and Tuppence already married. They have a boy about 8-10 years old, he gets sent off to school in the first episode. The sets, props and costumes are really great.There's plenty of period locations and plenty of great looking cars.

The stories are cold war related. Because Tommy and Tuppence are on the same train as some spies they get caught up in that drama. There's a bit of humor but the couple are often in danger. James Fleet, you might remember him as Hugo in The Vicar Of Dibley, or Reverend Wakefield in Outlander. He plays Tommy's Uncle in Partners In Crime, and he's in the Secret Service.

On their own Tommy and Tuppence do some investigating, once they get a bit scared they go see Uncle. He uses them to gather info but then he wants them to stay home. Of course, they can't stay out of the investigation and things get kind of hairy. The baddies are murderous weasels that need a good bit of stringing up. Tommy and Tuppence escape death on several occasions through the 2 stories. In the second story different baddies have an atom bomb and the detonation keys are much sought after.

It's too bad they aren't doing anymore. Not sure why, the episodes were entertaining enough, somehow it didn't click. The series only scores a 6.4 on the IMDb, not too awful or anything, but not a big score. Only 1258 people have voted. That's not a lot of votes for a couple of years. I gave it a 7 but I like DW and it's not quite an 8 really. By comparison the David Suchet Poirot series scores a 8.6 with 26,625 votes. Even though it's no Poirot I'll still probably pick up a DVD of Partners In Crime, I liked it well enough to see it again.

Science Fiction Sunday 442

The last season of The 4400 played out and ended without an ending. It's just reinforced that I won't be buying the TV series on DVD. I think it's just about average. There's nothing special about the series enough to want to watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 633

The Void is a 2016 Canadian production that looks great for a movie that costs slightly less than $150,000. It's written and directed by Steven Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie. The guys are part of the Astron-6 Production Company. We'd watched 2 or 3 of their films at movie night in the past. You might have seen Manborg, Father's Day or The Editor.

The movie is a somewhat Lovecraftian type story. A cop drops off an injured man to a hospital that's in the last days of being open after a big fire. There's only a couple of patient's waiting to be moved. While the action unfolds in the hospital a group of figures in white robes arrives and attacks. The siege at the hospital turns out to be caused by of one of the doctors there. He's got some other world action in mind. He must be fairly powerful, he rises from the dead to continue on with his plan.

The doc wants to open a portal, evil, new world, monsters, blah. blah. It was a fairly good production, a little gory when the surgery stuff is going on. There's a good script, that works even though you might feel you've seen some of the story before.

Bad Milo is a fun comedy horror film about a guy who has a creature living in his digestive system. It's got a nice mix of laughs, violence and goo. It came out back in 2013 and it was written by Benjamin Hayes and director Jacob Vaughn. Vaughn had directed another movie back in 2009. The movie has Ken Marino in the hot seat with that demon thing up his ass. Other cast members that I know are Mary Kay Place, Patrick Warburton, Stephen Root, Peter Stormare and Toby Huss.

When the stress in Ken's life gets great Milo comes out to murder the person causing the most stress. First it's Ken's co-worker. He was a pretty fuckin' stupid guy but he didn't deserve to die. Peter is a therapist that Ken gets some help from. Peter is well up on bottom demon knowledge. He explains it's the physical manifestation of the stress. Peter says Ken has get Milo out and bond with him. Milo keeps on killing until Ken gets him calmed down.

Most the victims were dicks. No one will miss the evil boss that Patrick played. Luckily for Ken the news media thinks it's a racoon doing the killing. Once more a movie helps to remind me of the dangers of forest critters. And demons. Especially ass demons. Ken can't kill his ass demon without loosing something of himself so he has to make up with it and keep his anxiety down to keep the demon inside. It all made me laugh and I was glad to have seen it. I might pick up the DVD when it gets cheap enough. I'd certainly watch it again.

The League Of Gentlemen - Live At Dury Lane 2001

The League Of Gentlemen - Live At Dury Lane came out in 2001. That was after the 2nd series of the TV show and before the 3rd series was made. Mark Gatiss, Reese Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton play a variety of parts in a series of sketches inspired by, or connected to, the TV series. There are some new characters and some old characters. Same with the sketches, some are new and some are based on sketches from the TV show.

Starting six years before the TV series the trio had preformed a lot as The League Of Gentlemen, so it seems only natural to go back to the theater. The show toured around the country for 7 months before they recorded at Dury Lane. They used those 100 plus shows to refine the production and add or change material based on audience reactions. They talk about this in the documentary piece in the extras. There's a commentary too.

I've seen other TV shows turned into stage shows. I remember seeing the Monty Python cast in a live Monty Python show in Winnipeg in 1975 and I doubt they were early adopters. Little Britain toured with their own stage version of the show. It was pretty funny. The guys from Trailer Park Boys have done several tours of their stage show.

There's only a minimal stage with few props and backdrops. There's plenty of costume and makeup changes. They put on a good entertaining show. I was quite pleased to see it.

Ideal Series 3

There are 8 episodes in the 3rd Series of Ideal and they first aired March to May of 2007. Johnny Vegas continues as Moz, the Salford dope dealer who has a difficult time getting some peace and quiet. That's PC, Moz's doper copper pal. Moz has a broken leg from falling off the roof last series. There's the new baby and in the first episode Moz's landlord sends over some Christian builders to work on the bathroom. Moz hides the drugs and digs himself a deep pit pretending to be a Christian to hide the reason that people come over to the flat all the time. That doesn't go so well in the long run. In fact it drives one of the Christian builders crazy. That and the wasp stings. Moz lets the builders talk him in asking Nicki to marry him. She says yes but they both have second thoughts.

Judith gets a job in a funeral home and Moz worries when she brings home large sacks full of something heavy. Turns out she's making that large clay head that Moz is holding. Johnny said on the commentary that he took that head home. He wished he had another to put on either side of his driveway, just to make the neighbors wonder about him. Moz's ex-girlfriend Tanya shows up, she's the new baby's health visitor from the government and Moz's friend Colin's sister. She's also a thief who steals from her clients and sells their stuff on eBay. Nicki hates her and Moz's mom catches her stealing.

Psycho Paul continues to be a thorn in Moz's side. Ryan Pope plays the part and he's great. David Bradley plays Stemroach, he's a heavy gangster and Psycho Paul's boss. I'm a fan of David in most anything, you might remember him in the Harry Potter films as Argus Filch, the Hogwarts Caretaker, or that murderous scum Walder Frey in Game Of Thrones. Psycho Pal takes over Moz's bathroom to shoot a porn film with Cartoon Head and a couple of gals. One of the gals was China. She was PC's girlfriend but she dumped him without mentioning it. Now she's taken up with Stemroach. She's spent the whole three series changing boyfriends. She's slept with everyone but Moz. The other gal is Colin's girlfriend Carmel. Colin doesn't know that she's doing a porno. Hardly anyone catches a break in the show. Steve briefly takes over as leader when he beats Psycho Paul and Cartoon Head but it doesn't last and PP plucks one of his eyes out as punishment.

When PC finds out China has dumped him for Stemroach he vows to bust the gang leader. As a result of that move Judith winds up with a wasp head mask superglued to her face.  There's still Moz's stag night, what a mess that was; the wasp's nest that lead to Brian being tied up and a mad Christian builder nearly setting him and Moz's flat on fire; and Lee being stuffed into the hot water heater by that crazy Christian builder. It's a tough life selling weed in Greater Manchester.

Of course all the agro in Moz's life gives me some giggles. The writing continues to be clever and very funny. I like the characters a whole lot, even the horrible ones have something interesting about them. Everyone works really hard on the show and it really makes a difference. There are a half dozen entertaining commentaries on this series and some outtakes and interviews. They do give good value for the money. So many TV shows are showing up with little or no extras.

Ideal Series 2

Ideal Series 2 continues with Moz's life a few months after the events depicted in the Christmas Special. The series is written by Graham Duff who also appears as Brian. Johnny Vegas is Moz, a pot dealer in Salford in Greater Manchester. He lives in a small flat with his girlfriend Nicki. He's home all the time and all sorts of people come to call.

Over the 8 episodes, which came out in early 2006, Moz gets asked to be Best Man at Derrick and Yasuko's wedding, is forced to hold onto 200 pairs of stolen trainers by Psycho Paul, falls for his new next door neighbor who turns out to be a necrophiliac, has a séance in his flat, sets up a grow op in his attic, gets forced to store Psycho Paul's kidnap victim, and experiences a drug bust. Luckily his doper cop pal tips him off and he can clear out his stock.

His relationship with his pregnant girlfriend Nicki is in shambles, at the start of the series she moves out of the flat. She moves in with her best pal Sangita and they have a relationship for a while. Near the end of the season she has the baby and moves back in with Moz. The baby turns out to be Kuldip's and that puts a strain on the relationship. Kuldip leaves for Barcelona. There's plenty of gags and funny stuff, plenty of weird stuff, and a bit of violence. A man sets his head on fire. I'm having a great time watching the show. Can't wait to get onto the next series.

Western Wednesday 21

Four more Westerns, this time they're of the Italian variety, and not surprisingly they're all about average. All of these movies are in a 12 movie set called Ten Thousand Ways To Die - The Spaghetti Western Collection. It's from our old pals at Mill Creek and it came out in 2010. The movies are paired two a side on three double sided discs. These older Italian Westerns are plentiful and many of them have been collected in these movie packs. I have some other collections I've either watched or will watch. One of these days. The quality of the transfers is often pretty poor. There's a second volume in the series, with another dozen movies. I don't have it but I would pick it up if I see it cheaper than the 7 bucks it's currently listed for on Amazon. Nowadays it's likely that these low budget sets will turn up used, for cheap.

Now They Call Him Sacramento 1972 Michael Forest plays a train robber named Sacramento, he's joined by his brother Big Jim, played by Fernando Bilbao, and his father Old Tequila, played by Luigi Bonos, in robbing a train. Old Tequila runs off in the night. He starts freely spending the money at a cantina. He's robbed soon after That. The sons catch up to him and they all go after the money. It's light hearted with plenty of fights, shoot outs and explosions. In fact, they blow up or burn down most of the town. It's very much like a Terence Hill and Bud Spenser type movie. The most famous films from the two are the Trinity series. Worth checking out and much better than this movie.

Four Dollars Of Revenge 1965 Robert Woods is a Captain in the US Cavalry. He's guarding some Confederate gold coins when the shipment is attacked. He is the only survivor and the military suspects him to have engineered the robbery. He gets put into jail for life. He escapes and finds the guilty party to clear his name. I didn't find it very interesting and my mind wondered. I think it was mostly the characters.

Seven Guns For Timothy 1966 Sean Flynn is the son of Errol Flynn and Lili Damita. He made 10 movies between 1960 and 1969, in 1970 he was in Vietnam as a journalist when he and Dana Stone disappeared near the Cambodian border. They were never seen again. Some say that the Dennis Hopper character in Apocalypse Now loosely based on Flynn but others say it's based on the English photographer Tim Page. Seven Guns For Timothy is about a group of gunslingers that join Timothy to protect his gold mine from a scummy villain. It's got all the usual stuff that you'd expect and I liked the characters. It's like a fun version of The Magnificent Seven but nowhere near as good.

The Last Gun 1964 Cameron Mitchell is a big name gunslinger who gives it up. He settles into a town that eventually has some trouble with baddies and he has to get his guns out. It wasn't that interesting.

Tinselworm 2008

Tinselworm came out in 2008, that's the year before the orchestra show, and it's mostly like Bill's other stage shows. Nattering and music appreciation. Some of the material from Tinselworm was used for Bill's next tour. Tinselworm was filmed at Wembley Stadium, Bill says it's his largest audience show ever. There's plenty of on stage antics and music but this show has interesting interactive video from Joe Magee. There's also a wildly entertaining duet between Bill and a guy on a sitar. There's some extras with 15 minutes of live footage from earlier Tinselworm shows. Fun stuff.

Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide To The Orchestra 2008

In Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide To The Orchestra Bill takes stage with the BBC Concert Orchestra, under the baton of Anne Dudley. Bill and Anne have written music for the program. Bill introduces the instruments in the orchestra and they all play some music. There's a few gags and the like, plus a chance to learn about some music. I picked up the DVD from the UK for a couple of pounds. I see there's one on Amazon US used for 32 cents. It was fun to watch.

Baboons With Bill Bailey 2010

Baboons With Bill Bailey is a 2011 ITV program on the Baboons in Cape Town South Africa. It's a 6 part program about 3 groups of Baboons that live in different areas. It's got a bit of humor in it but it's more about the hard life the baboons have in the city. The people have taken their land and one tribe of baboons lives on the top of an apartment building. No one sleeps there at night and during the day they have to watch out for the baboons. The critters cause a lot of damage as they think everything about needs to be taken apart encase there's food inside. I'm glad that we don't have baboons around here. Not as much fun as one of Bill's stand up shows but somewhat interesting.