Lady Uranus - there are a few very odd things which were made purely for the European market. There's an ALF Feature film which was only theatrically released in Germany and Austria (to boffo box office business, those Teuton's love ALF).
Lady Uranus - there are a few very odd things which were made purely for the European market. There's an ALF Feature film which was only theatrically released in Germany and Austria (to boffo box office business, those Teuton's love ALF).
The Man Who Heard Voices
Has anyone else read The Man Who Heard Voices - the book on the making of Lady in the Water. Night himself commissioned it and it features hysterical levels of hagiographic fawning and uncut hubristic ramblings from the man himself. He's regularly quoted throughout saying things like "To be…
Botswana - one thing did puzzle the hell out of me about Underbelly and maybe you can enlighten me. At one point one of the female characters get a waitressing job which seems to involve serving customers whilst wearing only lingerie. Is that an Austrlian thing?
Brian Blessed!
I should point out that Atlantis features some sterling scenery chewing from noted nutos-cuckoo British Thesp Brian Blessed. His exasperated delivery of the line "I wish I'd never heard of Atlantis" is right up there with his "Gordon's Alive!" from Flash Gordon and his infamous "Has anybody here not…
W. H. Y. Question mark.
I've seen the original Underbelly and certainly, by the low standards of Aussie telly, it's not too bad. It also, as it happens, caused some controversy Down Under. Transmission was blocked in Victoria on legal grounds, one of the real life folk depicted was still awaiting trial at the…
Sequence, there are a coiuple of factors as to why some 80's sitcoms will look awful. Yes, lots of shows in 70's and 80s were shot on tape. Many, such as Cheers and Taxi, were still shot on 35mm. But from the mid-80s onwards there's an awful epoch in which a lot of US TV is being shot on 35mm, then telecined to…
Edge of Danrimage
Ah, if only Danrimage where here to rant fluently about the awfulness of Braveheart and its hacky mangling of Scottish history and to wax lyrical about the awesomeness of the BBC's original Edge of Darkness mini-series.
Yes, Arnold's not quite in the same league as Ramsey, but the former earns all kinds of bonus points for her seminal work as the Titian haired roller-skating rebel Dawn in the 80's British kids TV show No. 73.
Wolfe
I know most critics read Zero as a modern day Holmes, and there's no denying the Great Detective's influence here. There is however also quite a lot of Nero Wolfe in Zero. His refusal to leave his house and reliance upon a leg-man both seem awfully reminiscent of Rex Stout's corpulent shut-in.
Damn
Oh this is depressing news. I always though she merited a lifetime pass based on her work on King of the Hill and her splendid supporting turn in Freeway.
Yes, there were also the gawd awful attempts to create British versions of Married with Children and Golden Girls. The British take on that 70's Show was truly painful. I'm not a huge fan of the original but at least it extended its comic remit beyond obvious observations about dated fashions and technologies. …
Sean's Show was such a transparent rip-off of Shandling's I could never watch a whole episode without feeling enraged. Not so much at the show itself but at the myriad folks I knew who kept raving about how original it was.
Deja Vu
We've been here before. CBS tried a similar reboot in the 90s, with Gary Busey in the lead and Steven J Cannell overseeing. It didn't get past the pilot stage but, because this was announced at the same time as their Magnificent Seven series the stories in the trades had one CBS exec crowing about how…
Castellari
The downside to Tarantino borrowing Castellari's title is that it might encourage people to sample some of the Italian hack's filmography. I've a high tolerance for a trash and a major weakness for Italian Westerns but Castellari's directed some of the worst exploitation films I've ever had the…
One resonance likely lost on viewers outside Northern Ireland is that the two leads are playing characters from each other's side of the sectarian divide. So the Catholic Neeson is playing a Protestant and the Protestant Nesbitt is playing a Papist. It's clever piece of casting which forces Northern Irish audiences…
More death, alas…
Just hopped over to Variety to see Budd's obit and was greeted by this. John Hughes has passed on.
I have to second all the Face in the Crowd love here, it's a wonderful film. Dark, perceptive and utterly rivetting . It's also a deeply prescient film, Lonesome Rhodes' faux bubba-isms and down home pandering pointing the way to the Southern Strategy, Dubya and Fox News.
Confess is certainly the right word, people who like that movie and are willing to admit it publicly are probably about as numerous as surviving WWI veterans.
The Avengers
I know much was made of the eclectic pop cultures which peppered each episode but I was amazed that no-one else seemed to be picking up on the show's evident debt to The Avengers. Dubby and The Middleman seemed to be a modern Mrs Peel and Steed, one being a very hip and resourceful heroine, the other a…
Hap & Leonard
Joe R. Lansdale's marvellous Hap & Leonard books are begging to be turned into a made for cable TV series. There's a deplorable lack of shit-kicking Texas Noir on the telly.