The Union

Many-jane. Pot. The good stuff. Call it what you will, two facts remain: It is illegal. It is harmless.

The Union is a move all about it. It covers the legal history about marijuana, which is just weird, then goes on to how the prohibition against marijuana doesn't work in any way you examine it, which also doesn't make sense. And nothing about how pot is managed makes sense.

Let's name one drug worse than this. Tobacco. Okay, okay, let's go for a second. Alcohol. Seriously, these should be class 1 narcotics, not marijuana, and yet since tobacco and alcohol have been around for so long, and so prevalently, they are fine. And yet there is a huge market for pot that needs to be fed that has led to the dubious set of collections of people, called Unions, that deal into this. This extraordinary money making market that would be ruined if it was legalised and regulated.

This movie covers all this well, and presents a wide range of people, and shows actual illegal pot growing operations. I suspect being Canadian made it slightly easier to deal with certain practicalities of access than would happen in the United States. It's a decent picture, and an entertaining watch.

But don't take my word for it. Watch it for yourself on YouTube:

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The Corporation

Here's a fairly obvious statement: corporations put profits first. A lot of people would agree with that. Corporations would try to spin that. And this isn't saying that corporations are bad or good in and of themselves, just that they have this overriding incentive behind everything they do.

The Corporation is a look at what they are doing, and how they behave. Not surprisingly, corporations do not fair well. The movie starts with how corporations are people (well, they don't explain that, the movie just uses that), then shows that corporations are psychopaths. It shows that their image matters more than what they actually do. And, to be honest, there isn't a lot presented about what we could do to stop the corporations from doing what they want.

Some corporations, such as Monsanto, are picked on more than others. So yeah, it's easy to hold up examples of corporations gone bad. A lot of them, especially the larger ones, are, because that works for them. What we don't see in this is the flip-side: how do corporations work well? Can they work well? Do we need to get rid of them entirely? That is addressed... not at all.

Not an unpredictable look at corporations, but with a big focus missing.

But don't just take my word for it. They have the entire movie on YouTube:

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See the nerdery!

Have you heard of Acquisitions Incorporated? It's the D&D group run by the Penny Arcade crew, and GM'ed by Chris Perkins of WOTC himself. And it's funny. And... it also stars Wil Wheaton!

But after a few series, they weren't really able to get together for podcasts, but they now pretty much meet at PAX meetings and have two hour games... which are podcast but also videod. So you can see them...

While the 2010 session is available, I'm going to add in the 2011 session as it is somewhat more independent of what has gone before (whereas 2010 leads directly on. Certainly watch that, but if you haven't listened to the podcast yet, 2011 is easier to start with).

And continuing on from that is the 2012 session, so also check that out.

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Ten-Forty!

Since we are talking about Gerry Anderson (and we must right now), I'm going to bring up Terrahawks. The series most likely to be mentioned as "oh, yeah, he did that as well". (I think even The Secret Service gets higher billings!)

Anyway, we have this epic battle between evil aliens (who were ugly of course) and the attractive team of the Terrahawks, with the heroes having names like Kestral, Falconer and Hawkeye... because that's what you do when you name the series 'terrahawks'. Although of course the star of the series was really Windsor Davies as Sergeant Zero and the whole Zeroids crew, battling the Cubes... leading to the excellent series closures of the zeroids and the cubes playing naughts and crosses... and who won varied across the episodes!

Some of the more bizarre moments (give the above): actually daring to kill Ninestein, the leader. It-Star... just It-Star. And there's a live action version of SOS by Kate Kestral (sung by Moya Griffiths, the singing voice of Kate, presumably)...

This is the iconic opening:


And here are some moments from it:


And to prove that everything sounds better when a full orchestra is behind it:


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DW: 2012 Christmas!

Okay, is this S07E06 or S07EX? ...okay, it looks like E06, all right then, all questions have been resolved... except perhaps of how this is the best Christmas story and yet still fails...

Lots of great little touches in this script, but nothing subtle. The Great Intelligence is hammered home (despite the Doctor not being able to 'get it' like a large part of the audience did... although to be fair a lot of the audience probably didn't get it either) [And no little golden balls! Points off for that Moffat! Just think of the decoration references you could have done!]. And yet... lots of character whittling around, but nothing really important happens. Just people talking, taking up time on screen. And the ending is a total washout in whatever way you want to looks at it.

And now Clara is "the girl who died twice"? What is it with giving people titles, Moffat? Can't you come up with actual proper characterisations that you need to give them some hook and hope people stick around because of that? Let alone Moffat looks to be going further than Rose/Doctor shipping did. Oh the fanfiction that awaits...

Still Jenna-Louise Coleman is nice to look at... although I keep getting Summer Glau moments, especially when she does her special voice [I would like to that moment in Shindig, but can't find a clip of it.]
Richard E. Grant is wasted here, and the less said about the Veiled Lady and her lackeys the better.

In all... it should be good, and yet, it wasn't.

Upcoming: Lots of returning monsters because... because!

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Bonus Video

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Because... Christmas!

It's still Christmas somewhere, so... here you go. You want to Visit Santa don't you? DON'T YOU!!!! NOW VISIT HIM!!!!!! AND BUY TOYS!!!!!!!!!! Or, again, the Rifftrax version.

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