Mystery Photo #2

Where did I photo this cute wee thing (it's not a rat, it's a possum).

Hint: think ironically.
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Mystery Photo #1

Where and what is this?

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I've Been Watching...

Not Doctor Who this time, but Torchwood. In particular, rewatching Children of Earth.

I can't remember if I complained about this last time, but I do want to focus on one point, in the hopes that we won't be seeing this in Miracle Day. (Actually, two points, but first...)

RTD tries to tell the big story by focusing on a few key people and showing the impact on them (a not uncommon technique). To see the horror of all the kiddies being taken over, we get the reactions of government guy (who's name I've already forgotten), the daughter, and the sister. As if we're supposed to care about any of them. The government guy has already been painted as evil, the daughter is a complete nothing, and the sister is just annoyingly Welsh. You need to have characters we give a damn about in order to side with them and feel the big threat. So far, this hasn't happened in Miracle Day.

(RTD also likes to show the big picture by cutting across many, many news readers looking at the camera and talking. Probably because this is cheap, and tries to get the bigness across. Only, these are all impersonal people, so why should we care? And yes, we do have this already in Miracle Day. Oh joy.)

The other point is the padding. Because time is supposed to pass, episode two is a complete filler where Torchwood team is taken apart, and then reunited. Without that much trouble it seems. Apparently getting your hands on a large forklift and driving it into a secret government facility without anyone noticing isn't even slightly a problem. You could skip episode two and not miss a thing. And in Miracle Day, the entire first episode is... reuniting the Torchwood team. Oh happy day. Sigh.

Series One and Two were not sole RTD run productions, so had variety. But now RTD is calling the shots, and this is someone who wants to write the personal stuff and can happily flag away the science with a badly thought up sentence. It happened in Children of Earth, and is threatening the same in Miracle Day.

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Return to House of Pants

Now, I enjoyed the House on Haunted Hill remake. (It was actually worth watching, unlike the other Haunting related movie that came out at the same time.) So when I found out there was a sequel, I wanted to check that out. However, since it was direct to video, my expectations weren't high...

...and I should have lowered them.

A group of people return to the House, in order to... get a statue of Baphomet. Seriously. That's the explanation they give for why the House is screwed up. Really? So, in order to get the statue, two groups of archeologists enter the house, one group with (really) mercenaries. Guess the world of archeology is really cut throat. And there may have been some whining from other characters for other reasons, but once you've got mercenary archeologists, who cares? And when one character manages to escape, she goes back in, based on a relationship formed in five minutes. Er, no.

Although it takes a while to get into the House. Half the movie is build up before the House really takes off with being eerie. (Some minor characters are killed, but they're minor, so meh.) One interesting aspect is that victims experience what happened back in the day when it was a mental hospital before dying, but the deaths themselves are stupid. And there's a big plot hole about why the ghosts are attacking and yet helping... huh?

The stars of this movie are Amanda Righetti, before she was in The Mentalist. And Andrew Lee Potts, before he was in Primeval. And Steven Pacey, long after he was in Blake's 7. So, basically, no-one when their career was worth noting.

This should have been better, but the need to give an explanation in horror sequels kills it.

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Let Those Bullets Fly

I don't watch a lot of Western. Nor Chinese movies. But, hey, why not watch a Chinese Western Action Comedy movie?

A group of bandits hijack a mayor on his way to a new town, and take his place while the mayor pretends to be an adviser to protect his life. While in Goose Town, they encounter Huang, the local head bad guy, and clash over who's the biggest bad-ass around.

This is a pretty good movie. Great action moments, quick pacing, doesn't take itself seriously, wonderful. However... I can easily tell that there's a lot I'm not getting due to the culture. Why did certain characters act that way? I'm not sure, but I am sure there is a reason that are probably cracking up Chinese audiences as we speak.

We have Wen Jiang (star, writer and director) up against Yun-Fat Chow in an effort to out suave each other, and their scenes together are great moments in the movie. You Ge also has fantastic moments as the mayor.

Thumbs up for a film worth watching.

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Shotgunning Hobos

(As in: hobos that go around shotgunning, not getting shotgunned. Although there's that too.) This is apparently Thing That Must Be Seen. So... I saw it, or rather, I Seen it.

Another of the grindhouse-movie-ad-spoofs-turned-into-actual-movies, this is the heartwarming tale of a homeless man that wants his own lawnmower, and the prostitute that loves him... or, at least, puts up with him when he says her life a few times.

This is proper Grindhouse. People are nothing more than weak bags of blood, and no-one is safe from being hideously killed. And I do mean no-one. A very rare instance of death coming to all regardless. Yeah, that'll happen, so congrats to Jason Eisener for going that far. (I don't know what rating it got in the USA, but anything under NC-17 just shows the rating system is a mockery... actually, it looks like it was released unrated.)

Rutger Hauer is indeed, as you would expect, excellent as the hobo. Molly Dunsworth is fairly generic as the 'prozzie with a heart of gold' (generic in character that is), although she does end up getting to display wicked shop skills. Brian Downey tries hard as the Drake, and gets most the way (and this isn't the first time he and Rutger have worked together).

Of the various Grindhouse movies that that double feature either featured or inspired, this is my favourite so far. (That said, I haven't seen Planet Terror.)

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Torchwood: Miracle Day One

How long before someone repurposes this song to be "It's a Miracle Day!" :) Ah, right at the beginning we get the line "she should have run faster" and I thought "Welcome back, Russ T."

Ah, Torchwood is back. Do do doo doo do do. Jack is back without any mention of being off planet. Gwen is even more of a bad ass than before. And we get the cute Esther Drummond and aggressively American Rex Matheson.

And no-one can die. Now, given RTD is in America, there is a really obvious point that he missed in this episode. He did address the issue of being blown up, of having the head separated (although not yet of having the head pulped), and of war around the world. However... and certainly, definitely in America... when talking about this, every other world would be 'god'. Or 'gawd' even. Politicians and church leaders would be all over tv claiming praise for what god has done. (And only freak knows what the anti-abortion crowd would be doing about this...)

Anyway, although we get the set up of 'no-one dying', the bulk of the story doesn't really address that, but the slow process of getting Torchwood back together. That takes ages. Yes, it's nice to build up moments of Jack turning up (and there's more than one), but, dear grief, get on with it! Instead we get that Gwen doesn't want to be involved, and we have to watch scene after scene of that point. Is that padding I spot?

And Jack can be hurt. The moment between Gwen and Jack acknowledging that is an amusing nod to what Torchwood fans would be doing at that same time. However, what of the Face of Boe? Eh? Eh? Meh, like RTD cares that much about continuity... and like Jack won't get his immortality back anyway.

I need to rewatch Children of Earth, but I'm going to say that I think, on the whole, this episode is a better first episode than CoE got.


Next week: looks like the next episode progresses about five minutes. And there may be a more boring explanation to it all.

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