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Frankie Boyle's Tour Of Scotland 2020
Frankie takes a bit of a tour around his homeland while trying out bits of his new tour. He visits people and places. There's plenty of social commentary and scenic beauty. There's plenty of jokes too. It's a 30 min long episode and I was laughing out loud 3 or 4 times per. It's no wonder Frankie is my favorite comedian.
Doctor Who 2 Series 5 Episodes 11 - 13
The Lodger June 12 2010 Written by Gareth Roberts and directed by Catherine Morshead.
The Doctor gets stranded in present day Colchester while the Tardis carries Amy off in a time vortex. It turns out there's something going on in the 2nd floor apartment of Craig Owens. The Doctor sets that right and helps Craig declare his love for his best friend Sophie.
The Pandorica Opens June 19 2010 Written by Steven Moffat and directed by Toby Haynes. First of two parts.
All the baddies in the Universe gang up on the Doctor and trick him into a prison cube. The Tardis blows up and the Universe starts erasing itself.
The Big Bang June 26 2010 Written by Steven Moffat and directed by Toby Haynes. Second of two parts.
The Doctor from the future comes to help and the Universe is saved. They even bring Rory back to life. Amy and Rory get married and the Doctor invents a new dance. At the end of the episode Rory and Amy join the Doctor for some more adventures.
A good wrap up to the series. There was a video commentary on this disc and a couple of featurettes. The last disc in the set is as usual the Doctor Who Confidential episodes, three solid hours of behind the scenes. Near the end I was finding I was less interested in that sort of thing. It's a lot of Doctor Who of an evening. I'm thinking I should watch the Confidential episodes with each weekly show. We'll see.
Curucu, Beast Of The Amazon 1956 Written and directed by Curt Siodmak.
John Bromfield is a plantation owner called Rock Dean and he's having trouble with the locals. They are leaving the plantation to go back to live in the jungle. Rock travels up the Amazon to try to get his workers to come back to the plantation. He had a guide in mind but Dr Romar, played by Beverly Garland, hired him first. She wants to go into the jungle to find a drug the natives make.
Rock is of the opinion that where they are going is no place for a woman. Rock's partially right as far as I'm concerned. I'd go as far as saying that it's no place for anyone.
Rock finds out that a monster is scaring the natives back home. It's some sort of giant bird like creature with sharp claws. Rock's bullets don't seem to have any effect on it. We soon learn that it's the guide, he's been scaring his people back home for his own selfish reasons. He'd also loaded Rock's rifle with blanks. The guide sentences Rock and the Doc to death.
Luckily for Rock and the Doctor some nice natives set the guide's village on fire allowing them to escape on a raft. All in all it's a below average B movie. I wouldn't need to see it again. The most interesting thing about it is that the jungle scenes were filmed in Brazil. The IMDb trivia pages says: Director Curt Siodmak said of this film, "I shot it down there [in Brazil], in the jungles. I never recovered, physically". I always say it's best to stay out of the jungle.
We Are The Night 2010 Story and screenplay by Jan Berger and Dennis Gansel, directed by Dennis Gansel. A German vampire film.
A thief has an encounter with a cop called Tom during robbery. She manages to escape and get home. Later she meets a trio of vampire's at a nightclub. The vampire gals are absolute scum who leave a trail of corpses wherever they go. The leader turns the thief. There's a lot of crying about it, despite one of the side effects of being turned is an improvement of the body. The thief's skin clears up, her wounds disappear, her hair grows out nice and fluffy, she's now much hotter looking. The thief isn't much into the killing and the vampire gals enjoy it way too much.
The vampires hide by day in a big fancy hotel, going out at night to have fun in nightclubs. The police find a living guy at the scene of an encounter with the vampires. Tom connects the thief to the group because he'd seen her in the survivor's stolen car. The cops have no idea they are up against vampires but they raid the hotel and get many get slaughtered. One of the vampire gals gets burnt up by the sun. The other vampire gals manage to escape and hide out with the intention of escaping to Russia the next day. Another of the vampire gals kills herself.
The thief and the cop meet up , are arrested and tossed into jail. The leader of the vampire group comes calling, kills all the cops at the station and rescues the thief. Lena is given a choice, come with the leader or spend a short time with a live man. The thief kills the leader and disappears with Tom. The movie ends.
I'm not much of a fan of vampire melodrama. Too much crying and woe for me. I'll not need to see this one again.
No Blade Of Grass 1970 Based on the 1956 novel The Death Of Grass by John Christopher, screenplay by Sean Forestal and Jefferson Pascal (Cornel Wilde), directed by Cornel Wilde.
The movie starts when the grass destroying virus finally gets to the UK. It's already decimated Asia, Africa and parts of Europe. Nigel Davenport is a guy who's leading his family on their journey from London to his brother's farm in the north of England.
Nigel tries to buy some guns but the seller says they have to wait for paperework to get signed off. Nigel tries to take the guns and leave some money but the seller gets the drop on him. Nigel tells the seller he needs the guns to get out of town and resettle at his brother's farm. He needs to go now, he knows the government is going to be locking down the city in the next day or so. He offers the seller a chance to go with them but the guy doesn't want to leave. The seller's assistant Pirrie shoots him dead and joins the group.
They rest of the movie has a series of encounters with people along the road. Nigel and Pirrie shot a lot of people before they get to the farm. They've also picked up a good number of people along the way. At the farm's barricade the brother is happy to see Nigel but he won't let them all in. He says the valley can't support that many people but Nigel and the family can join the farm.
Nigel rallies the group into attacking the farm, he's sad when his brother is killed. I was sad that I watched the movie. I bought a cheapish DVD, I'll keep it but it's doubtful that ever watch it again.
Dead Canny 2022 Pilot aired on Dave August 24 2022. Written by Anna Costello and directed by Theresa Varga. Dave had commissioned four TV pilots at the end of 2021. The other three are Perfect, Holier Than Thou and The Other Half. I should get around to those eventually. I've not run across any info on any of the shows getting a series.
That's Sarah Balfour in the picture, she plays Kay, and Kay can see and talk to dead people. Kay makes a bit of cash from people who want to converse with their loved ones, at least, until she's threatened with fraud charges by the local authorities. She gets her job back in a card shop but screws that up. Kay's not to good at being a success, she sadly lacks cleverness and knowledge, by the end of the pilot the ghost of a bully from school has made Kay into a suspect in her murder.
It was kind of funny, especially the end where Kay is threatening the dead bully in front of the police. I'm not overly enthused about the pilot but I would give a series a look see. They might change something a bit and it would be more interesting.
Rev Series 1 - 3 Created and written by Tom Hollander and James Wood, directed by Peter Cattaneo.
Tom Holland plays a Anglican priest, Olivia Colman plays his wife, Miles Jupp is his lay reader. Tom used to preach at a parish int he country but he's been assigned to a run down church in Hackney, East London. He doesn't react well to the location or the people. He's not a nice person at heart and everyone suffers for it.
Things get exceedingly worse each series until the Rev finally has damaged his rep enough that he retires. The Rev is an unpleasant person to be around and I had a bit of a struggle getting to the end of the series without the help of speed augmentation.
I did like a few of the parishioners but would not want any of them coming around here. Despite all the good performances I was sorry to have sat through it and wouldn't watch it again.
Doctor Who 2 Series 5 Episodes 8 - 10
The Hungry Earth May 22 2010 Written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Ashley Way. First of two parts.
Deep drilling in Wales disturbs the Silurians. They send some soldiers to take a look at what's going on. The Doctor, Rory and Amy arrive just time time to get stuck in the middle of the conflict. Amy gets sucked into the ground along with some locals. The Doctor captures a soldier and tries to contact the Silurians to do a prisoner exchange and broker peace. Things don't go so well on that end.
Cold Blood May 29 2010 Written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Ashley Way. Second of two parts.
One of the locals kills the Silurian prisoner and ruins the peace negotiation. The Doctor manages to get the Silurians to hibernate for another 1000 years. Sadly Rory is killed and his existence erased by the crack from previous episodes. Amy and the Doctor leave.
Vincent And The Doctor June 5 2010 Written by Richard Curtis and directed by Jonny Campbell.
The Doctor and Amy visit a Van Gogh exhibit at the Musée d'Orsay in 2020. They see an evil creature in the window of a church and go visit the artist. Turns out the creature is a Krafayis warrior that's been blinded and left behind by his warrior pals.
Vincent is the only one who can see the creature. He kills the beast with his easel. The Doctor takes Vincent into the future to see how much the world still loves his paintings.
The Silurians story was pretty good but but I really liked the van Gogh story a whole lot.
There was a video commentary for episode 9, a featurette on the Silurians and a video diary.
The Ghastly Love Of Johnny X 2012 Written by Steve Bingen, Paul Bunnell, Mark D. Murphy and George Wagner, directed by Paul Bunnell.
A musical SF comedy that's filmed in B&W to make it look like a 50s SF film. It's the last film appearance of Kevin McCarthy. It took ten years to film and Kevin died two years before it got released. It was the lowest grossing film of 2012. It ran in two theaters for a week, it's weekend gross was $86 and the week total came to $2,436.
Johnny X is an alien who's banished to Earth as a punishment. Some woman steals his Resurrection Suit and Johnny goes after her. They get involved with Reggie Bannister in a roadside diner and wind up at his house. They use the Resurrection Suit to give life to a dead singer. The story is mixed in with the musical numbers. Some of the songs ground the movie to a halt. In fact, it's mostly entertaining when there's no singing going on.
I didn't hate it but I wouldn't bother with seeing it again. Thanks to the local library for saving us from buying it.
The Dark Sleep 2012 Based on a Lovecraft story Dreams In The Witch House, written and directed by Brett Piper.
A horrible woman gets her ex-husband to give her a house. She moves in, only to find there's supernatural things going on. There's a lot of yelling from the annoying woman. We were all hoping a monster would get her but it never happened. The annoying woman travels to another dimension, some of that was sort of interesting but not a lot else was. In general it was mostly disappointing and not something I would need to see again.
Deadly Nightshade 1953 Screenplay by Lawrence Huntington, directed by John Gilling, produced by Robert S Baker and Monty Berman.
Emrys Jones plays two parts, a convict on the run and a landscape painter. The convict kills the painter and tries to take over the man's life. It doesn't go so well when the painter's past catches up to him.
It's short, only 61 mins, and pretty much average. I did like it's sense of humor. I was happy enough to see it and I'd probably watch it again someday. I got the DVD cheap somewhere and finally watched it. I've been pulling the classic British films out of the To Be Watched pile and I've watched a few now.
The Big Chance 1957 Based on the novel The Big Chance by Pamela Barrington, screenplay by Barbara S Harper and Peter Graham Scott, directed by Peter Graham Scott.
William Russell is a travel agent, he's not a happy guy, he doesn't care much for his job, he's not happy at home. He gets a chance to steal a big pile of cash and a ticket to South America. The flight get delayed and William meets a woman, they have a fling.
The ending is a bit weak but the film is good on average. I'd watch it again but not for a while.