Fan Redemption

There are two fan films that came out that have a connection. See if you can spot it...

Browncoats: Redemption. After Miranda, the Alliance has taken a reputation hit, so decide to hit back. One officer is assigned to make an example of a Brown Coat crew, but there's a lot of history there, and more than one person is wanted... Redemption! This is definitely a fan crew. You can tell by the amount of enthusiasm some of the actors display, overcoming their lack of acting ability, and their ability to do a second take. (Seriously, there are a few scenes where you do wonder why they couldn't try it again...) It takes a while to get going, but the story and characters are nicely intertwined by the end. Also keep an eye out for a few famous faces... You know, seeing this, you'd think I'd be pining more for Firefly, but, no, it's hard to see how they could come back to the crew we know. The time of Serenity has passed. Time to move on... but still, time for some more fan movies...

Dragon Age: Redemption. Apparently enthralled by her time on Dragon Age, Felicia Day penned a wee storyline about her character and, with her connections, got it made. Certainly it looks impressive, however the storyline isn't the complicated. A party comes together on the trail of a bad guy mage, and they must overcome their own histories to overcome him. Although there doesn't seem to be that much Redemptioning going on, more like just Revening. Certainly this has a lot higher quality of actors than the above, and more make up, etc. This was done with Bioware's permission, and I'm suspecting money, so there is that. Since I haven't played the game, I have no idea how much it links in with the universe, certainly there is some info-dumping and a lot still not said. It's a wee fantasy movie on its own, but playing the game would make it make more sense. I have it (Origins at least), so... some time...

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The Evangers

Interestingly this seems to have been released here a week before America. Don't know why, don't care, all that matters is that I went to see it yesterday.

So, anyway, Sean Connery creates a device to control the weather and the Avengers... no, wait... Loki does some stuff, and the big names from other movies fight each other for a while and a lot of CGI happens, and everyone cheers! What, what do you think happens? It's a big action superhero pic! Go, go, go! Boom, boom, boom!

But, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Tom Hiddleson, all excellent, we've seen them before, and they do their roles right. (The first Black Widow scene you know exactly what will happen because this is a Joss Whedon film.) As Bruce Banner we have Mark Ruffalo... eh, I'm not convinced, possibly because we haven't had a whole movie with him in, maybe because I don't think Joss (yes, I'm critising Joss... or possibly the numerous script doctors he inevitably had to deal with) got the character quite right.

It runs over two hours, and there's a lot packed in, but I'm not seeing this as the culmination of the recent Marvel movies. I prefer to see this as the start of the big cross-over movies, actors willing. This could be the start of a very expensive friendship...

(BTW, last line of the film... spot on humour for the hard core nerds! I laughed! [Not counting the post-credits bit which isn't in the International version because: America!)

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Holy F-ing Circus

This is a dramatisation (or comedisation?) of the events the Pythons faced having recently completed Life of Brian. It involves casting people to look and sound exactly like the Pythons, and act out scenes that parallel moments from the film or other Pythonic moments.

The film does focus on Michael Palin as the main Python to follow, with John Cleese in second place. Terry G doesn't really fair well, Graham Chapman is fairly generic Graham, and Terry J is more Palin's wife than Terry J. It is rather odd seeing them via different actors, as there is definite moments of dissonance when they do replicate the roles accurately, and yet something is always sitting not quite right.

The main event the movie builds up to is the 'debate' John and Michael have on the Friday Night, Saturday Morning show. I haven't seen the actual interview, but I thought they fared better than presented here, although the outcome is probably right. Which pretty much applies to most of the scenes: not exactly as written, but close enough.

It's a decent enough take, but it does come more from 'let's do a love letter to Python' than 'let's tell this particular story'.

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2525

I'm watching Futurama, and came across their version of this song. Remember it?


Yeah. I think I first came across this when swapping mp3s with a friend years upon years ago. (And I mean so long ago, the best way to get any decent sized media storage was to actually take your 200MB hard drive over and plug it into their computer - yeah, I did that to!) Anyway, I think I got part of it then, and it's a hell of a song, instantly catching, so wanted to hear the rest of it. And this was before the whole internet to easily browse on (or even difficultally browse on). Let alone download something over the ol' 300 baud modem...

However, there is something haunting about this song. In many ways, it's a science fiction novel in three minutes. Certainly it evokes various works by Clarke and Asimov. The imagery just sparks with only a few words.

And there aren't many songs that can do that... but can you suggest any?

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DW: Shada

This is the fourth (I think) adaptation of Shada, and it's the most Gareth Roberts adaptation of them all! There are definite moments when he is channeling Douglas Adams, and there are more than a few overt references to DNA's work, but a lot of it is Gareth.

The basic plot involves Professor Chronotis calling the Doctor to Earth because he (Chronotis) has a dangerous Gallifreyian artifact. However, Skagra (with full, sensual lips) is also looking for the artifact for his own nefarious schemes that will change the nature of the universe... Of course, Gareth follows the basic plot line of the story, but throws in quite a few scenes we haven't seen before, mostly made up by him. In most cases these extra scenes work well, however the ending involves wrap up that would never have been so pat in the actual series.

To be honest, some moments are trying to hard to replicate DNA. Gareth established his own style of writing the Fourth Doctor (which is why, I presume, he was the one tasked to do this), so when Gareth goes full Douglas it sticks out. On the other hand, it flows well when Gareth is writing his normal way, so it's a shame there are clunker segments in the story. While it's nice to pay homage, there is a consistency note.

Hopefully now, this will wrap up the Shada merchandising... at least until the Special Edition DVD comes out...

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Emerging 143

In Spain, it is Emergo, in the US, it isn't. It starts out with many strikes against it. The main one being this is another entry in the 'paranormal investigators investigate a weird place with fixed and handheld cameras'. Which means that a lot of camera angles are strangely positioned, or else jump around too much to make out
what's happening on screen.

As said, this is an investigation. In this case of a particular apartment, where strange things are going on. And, to the movie's credit, it gets weird straight away with lots of loud thumping and such, and doesn't muck around with a slow, slow, slow build up of very small things. (Although one moment does involve the slight movement of a wooden bench, which is the sort of ridiculous thing we've come to expect.) Indeed, there is so much actually happening, you wonder why they are either a) staying there, or b) haven't called in much better scientific investigators. But in this world it seems there is no supernatural, only things that haven't been explained, because everyone knows about psychokinetic energy and... a whole bunch of completely spurious pseudo-scientific claptrap various characters spout like it is supposed to mean anything. Although the 'explanation' is more interesting than 'oh, look, it's the devil'.

Which is where the movie should be rated better. While the set up is very familiar (too much so), it does try different things, such as actual phenomena happening, and a non-standard acceptance of the strangeness. This should make it nouveau, but the expected familiarity is working against it. There even are a few actual effect scare jumps (although I admit I wasn't paying complete attention, make it easier to be startled). Being a Spanish film, this isn't an American cookie-cuttered reproduction.

All of which means this is worth more watching than other 'paranormal reality' movies... just a shame this is another 'paranormal reality' movie...

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Why aren't you watching this?

Two Best Friends Play is a hilarious version of Let's Play, in which Pat and Matt play video games. Or rather, Matt plays a game while Pat bitches about how bad Matt is. (Which he does seem to be, to be honest.)

Aside from one offs, they also do full Let's Plays, in this case of the Silent Hill game Downpour. And it (the game) is really, really bad. But their playing is really, really funny! Up to thirteen parts now!



I'll have to go back at watch them play Raccoon City.

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