The Knights and Knaves of Swords

Here we go, with the last book. And Neil is back! Although I did wonder if his intro was meant for the sixth book, because it could have easily worked for that.

We have four stories. The first is Fafhrd dealing with a random goddess. Then the Mouser gets a go. Then they both deal with old age. Finally… it’s back to being about the Mouser as he goes underground, and we get a bit of a hit parade of the previous stories as Fritz takes us around his favourite settings.

And shows, and I’m going to go ahead and say this, Fritz is a pervert. He spends an unhealthy amount of time talking about very young women (barely teens in some cases), and lovingly describes their bodies with focus on their breasts. No, Fritz, just no.

Overall, not a bad wee series, and as is pointed out, one of the defining set of stories. But I feel like I’m glad it’s over.

[END]

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Harry Price: Ghost Fraud

This was a TV movie about Harry Price, a ghost hunter from back in the day specialising in psychical research. In particular, this is one case that brings him back into the ghost fold.

He was a ghost debunker, then gave into fraud because it was more pleasing. But then an incident happened that made him give up the job. But now, a politician's wife is in trouble, so he is brought in to find out what's going on. And, of course, there's an actual ghostly presence, and Harry has to struggle with his own skepticism to help solve the problem.

Rafe Spall plays Harry Price, and does a decent job. But he could largely be anyone, there's no real need for this is be about Harry at all. The rest of the cast are also decent, but... it just feel like a special story. Why was this movie made? What point is being told? Why Harry Price? I just don't get the meaning of any of this.

Although I am reminded of another British production from earlier in the year... but I'll talk about that next week.

[END]

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The Live of Superman Deaths

A documentary that came out this year was one that was crowd funded, but not by me. It was about that movie that Kevin Smith got anecdotes about, The Spider That Ate Superman.

And this is largely about that movie. We get the slow start to it, then it gets handed off to Tim Burton and Nicholas Cage. There's some discussion about the content of the movie, and we see some bad video test of Cage wandering around in various suits. Eventually, they do address the death of the movie, but that's only about five minutes, and can basically be summed up with "money".

It isn't surprising that this is mainly face to face interviews, although there are some sections animated. What is surprising is the number of big names they get, Jon Peters, Kevin Smith, Tim Burton (but not Nicholas Cage).

To be honest, there doesn't feel like there's enough to this to make a full documentary, although this is over ninety minutes. The movie got killed before it could be fully developed, so they are making a lot out of a little. It feels thin.

It's nice to know the answer around this movie now, but I can't say we needed this full of an explanation.

[END]

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Doctor Who 9.Xmas

I don't know what's worse here. That it's another Moffat mess of a script, or that it's a Komedy Kristmas Karol! Either way: Kringe!

Hey, it's River Song... who gone from "Spoilers" to the stupidest woman in the universe who can't recognise the man she loves and treats the Doctor as just 'this guy I know' rather than loving him, which she still does... uh, what? Moffat, did you even read the earlier parts of the script when doing the latter parts? I know you don't care about continuity, but this is going too far. At least now with the passing on of the sonic we can never worry about her in the series again... yeah?

Not that it isn't nice to Alex Kingston again, and she could probably pull off her own spin-off series (this isn't an actual thing that's happening, is it?), but we don't need her to continually pop up in this show. How much does Moffat plan on just drudging up the past? (Speaking of drudging up the past, I thought we were past the sonic shades!)

So, this was supposed to be a Christmas romp? But it's going to take more than Matt Lucas to make this amusing.

Next time: Oh, there was no next time. Hey ho, time to wait for another eight/nine months I guess.

[END]

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Gril Genuis

This is a classic web series, and I finally got around to dealing with it when a Kickstarter for the next volume of stories (or whatever they are) about to begin. So I went and picked up all the previous compiled volumes.

This is one of those stories that try to twist the usual paradigm by having a female engineer/mad mechanic genius. Oh, and she’s really stacked. And has two different guys after her.

Aside from that, there are mecha and flying vehicles and a carnival and Jaegers… and a partially sentient castle. It really is quite involved, although at times it feels somewhat padded and I just wanted to yell ‘get on with it’, but the writers had to keep throwing in one obstacle after another. it was frustrating, not a chance to show off the characters overcoming a problem.

I can definitely see why people like this. Heck, I like this, and will hopefully remember to pay attention. However, I just hope they pick up the pace this time.

[END]

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Friday the 7th

Is this just more of the same? Or more of the same?

Jason is released from the lake because of a young woman with psychic powers. Yep, the movie is going there. Fortunately, there are a group of uninhibited youngsters around so Jason can get his killing on. But it’s not until her mother is killed that the woman snaps and starts psychicking Jason around, and totally defeats him. Yep, there’s no way he’s coming back from this. He’s been shot, killed, and tied to a large rock. Being pulled under the water by a dead man is the final capping moment.

Hey, we finally get Kane Hodder as Jason! He’s the one often cited as the Jason to go to, but it takes until movie seven before he takes on the role. But otherwise this is typical Jason, with lots of killing, and him teleporting around the place (even worse for one particular scene). And now we have psychic powers. Well, why not? We are already in supernatural territory with Jason, so let’s throw magic into the mix. It’s not like we’re going to get any more realistic.

However, what we do have is Freddy taking more of the lead.

[END]

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Hamish MacBeth Act 3

Given the events of season 2, it’s less soap opera now, although there’s still some.Instead, we basically ramp up the comedy.

Even the crimes are lessened and it’s more just people doing things in villages. Two episodes are around competitions with a nearby village, and the final one is more of a climatic battle involving someone with comedy bad luck versus others running after them. There are a few more character moments, but by and large it’s middling of the road stuff.

Instead of Robert, I’m going to talk about Ralph Riach, who plays TV John (so called because he was the first to own a TV in the village). He’s a great character, and is basically Hamish MacBeth’s mentor figure. He has a lot of fun in the series, and this series is worth watching just for him alone.

Not a bad series overall, but nothing spectacular either.

[END]

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