h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

500 Days of Summer

I added this to my list solely based on it featuring Zooey Deschanel. I wasn't expecting much as one shouldn't when watching anything that might be described as a romantic comedy. But I could watch wallpaper dry if it had Zooey Deschanel on it. So far though, I've actually enjoyed every film I've seen her in. She picks good roles, lots of indie quirkiness. Anyway, as I was watching 500 Days, I started to suspect this might be one I wasn't going to like. Some of the scenes of the couple's blossoming romance seemed really hokey, trite and saccharin. Especially when Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) fantasizes a Broadway dance number after their first night of lovemaking. BLEAGH! I think to myself, what is this sappy scene doing here? A bit later and I realized exactly what it was doing there. The 500 days in the title aren't sequential. They're memories presented through Tom's mental filter, idealized and carefully edited. As the introductory voice over tells you, this isn't a love story. Tom doesn't end up getting the girl and living happily ever after. Sometimes life sucks.

This is my kind of "love" story.

Agora

Quite liked that one. It's described as a historical fiction and I'd say that's about right. It tells a very personal story of Alexandria focusing on Hypatia. At the end of the film it states that there really aren't many details about her today other than her great reputation. So, pretty much you have to assume any actual events in the film and most of the characters are fictional. The main theme of the film concerns religion and intolerance. It quite well depicts what can happen when religions control society and when they clash. It's not pretty.

This film was pretty much unseen in the States. It opened on only 2 screens in the US. It grossed less during its entire run in the US ($617,840) than it did in its first week in Italy (€656,047). It didn't get much in the way of distribution nor publicity. I think the distributors were overly concerned with stirring up religious controversy here. If it had received any significant advertising I'm positive the Catholic League and other religious groups would have been calling for boycotts. It troubles me that I live in such a repressive culture where there is little room for religious criticism or differing viewpoints. But at least we aren't killing each other in the streets as they did in Alexandria.

Added to the queue

Which reminds me...

I was going to watch Crazy Heart yesterday but gave up. My Blu-Ray player was a very expensive and very early model. I've had to update the firmware at least three times so far. I'm used to it taking 5 minutes or more to load the discs, but last night was just too frustrating. After waiting at least 10 minutes for the disc to load and to skip past all the preview trailers to get to the main menu, I started the film. About 10 minutes into it I decided to put the subtitles on... the player STOPPED! I hit play and basically went back to loading the disc. I went out to do something else while it reloaded and when I got back I made sure to select the subtitles from the onscreen menu. Luckily it did start from where it stopped the first time. (yay) About 5 minutes later I paused it for a few moments to get something from the kitchen. Blu-Ray discs don't like to be paused for very long so by the time I got back to the couch, the player had reverted to its screensaver mode... Yep, when I hit play it went back to loading the disc.

EJECT!

I'll just wait until it's available for streaming.

I think I may be shopping for a new (much cheaper and much more advanced) Blu Ray player soon.
The perils of the early adopter.

OK, this isn't really a flick, it's a tv show. I'm watching the premiere of the US version of Top Gear. The US and the UK have a long tradition of remaking each other's shows. Sometimes it works out relatively well like Sanford and Son or The Office. Sometimes it's pretty horrid, like Coupling or The IT Crowd (didn't even get past the pilot, find it on YouTube and see for yourself.)

How successful will Top Gear do? I'm not optimistic. So far it's been a humorless copy that's seems to try too hard to be "edgy". The Jeremy Clarkson spot has been filled by a comedian, Adam Ferrara. He's known mostly for a role on Denis Leary's dramatic series, Rescue Me. I've seen his comedy a couple of times and invariably changed the channel,
It didn't take long to see how they invariably dumb down shows for US audiences. Apparently they were afraid that they might confuse folks if they didn't specifically state that they won't tell the name or show the face of their professional (tame or not, wasn't mentioned) race driver.

The other two guys on the show are unknown nerdy types. I expect they'll eventually try some insincere apery of the high jinx that Hammond and May get up to but that kind of thing just stinks on ice when it's obviously artificial and contrived.

I'll probably watch a couple more episodes before I delete it from my schedule.

You remember a few years/decades ago when folks would grouse about how little music there was on MTV? Well, we seem to be in the same phase of the life of The History Channel.

OK, back to flix. Just finished El Orfanato (The Orphanage). As often happens, I had no idea what this film was or why I put it in my queue. But the why quickly answered itself when I saw that it was a Guillermo Del Toro film. What it is is an old fashioned spooky story. Not a horror film, not at all. Well, at least not what passes for horror these days. No, this is more in the vein of The Shining. There are no monsters or sadistic torture chambers, definitely no sparkling vampires. Just a few ghosts. There's plenty of frights in the film. Children's games can be quite chilling. But best of all it's a touching spooky story. Guillermo Del Toro has yet to disappoint me. In this case as producer rather than director (Juan Antonio Bayona) but it is very much in line with del Toro's previous work in tone while not as fantastic in its visual style as Pan's Labyrinth or The Devil's Backbone.

Have you ever choked up a bit while watching a scary movie? I just did.

This what Top Gear used to be like before Clarkson turned it into a damn circus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPsn1yUxVXY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dtKRtt574M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hwI_Ej0lLM

Check out the early satnav in that third piece

In the 80s and part of the 90s it was very BBC, very English, very "I say chaps, here's a super new car, let's take her out for a spin and see what she can do ". I especially liked Quentin Willson and his tips on buying a second hand car, partly because I like anyone who knows his business inside out, but mostly because he looks like a spiv who's about to sell you a dodgy watch, a pair of nylons... or London Bridge

It was awfully laid back and understated, and very, very informative. Now it's just awful.

Tiff's quite funny though

If Clarkson turned it into a circus, the US turned it into a washed up lounge singer playing weeknights at the Motel 6 on the HWY 9 bypass.

That's pretty bad

I've never seen an episode of Sanford and Son or All In the Family. Have you ever seen Steptoe and Son or Till Death Us Do Part?

I think I've seen a bit of Steptoe & Son. Currently I've got The Good Life at the top of my streaming queue. For some reason they renamed it "The Good Neighbors" for the US market. Every time I pull it an episode though, I'm instantly reminded of that episode of The Young Ones. I expect Vyvyan to burst through the opening logo.

"Pull UP an episode". Bad edit.

BBC Radio 7 is currently webcasting some Steptoe radio episodes from the early 70s. They're exactly the same as the original TV episodes as far as I can tell, maybe with a small amount of adaptation for the radio, but the Galton and Simpson writing was so good that it translates to radio perfectly.

I need to watch The Young Ones Again - haven't seen it for at least 15 years, but I have been working my way through all three series of Bottom, which I think I prefer in some ways. The Young Ones is iconic but very much of its time because of all the politics, whereas Bottom is just a very bizarre sitcom with Rik and Ade reprising a lot of their old Dangerous Brothers material.

And 'Edward Elizabeth Hitler' is just the best character name ever

Yea, I might watch Bottom again. It ran briefly on BBCAmerica years ago before it got taken over by Gordon Ramsey. Now BBCAmerica has given up any pretense. They're showing Star Trek: Next Gen five nights a week. I guess since Picard has an accent, that's good enough. Seriously, even the films they show, once featured as "Brit-Flicks", now are often American, as long as there's a Brit in it somewhere.



Oh for BoB's sake. I just pulled up their schedule.

This weekend's featured film is Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. What the hell is British about that? Certainly not Kevin Costner's accent.

I guess I caught BBC America during its golden period, before it became the makeover/reality channel and when it showed The Royle Family, The Fast Show (called Brilliant here for some reason ), The League of Gentlemen (I think), Father Ted etc. Then they they started showing Ground Force and Changing Rooms, and before we knew it BBC America was almost nothing but bloody makeover shows and stuff like Cash in the Attic and Bargain Hunt

Yep. Loved it back then. Still fondly remember their hot air balloon bumper spots, those things between shows and ads.

Oh, and thanks, I didn't know that "Brilliant" wasn't its proper name.

I sort of understood when they renamed Men Behaving Badly, "British Men Behaving Badly" since there was an American knock off. And the new logo was just the original with a "British" stamp on the corner. But they don't do that with The Office or several other shows now. Must be some complicated legalities involved.

I've often wondered how this one would translate to the American audience
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFPWbh4E6m8

And I really do mean 'translate'

I'll have to wait til I get home to watch that and the Top Gear ones unless I want to brave the Nanny filter at work. If the BBC/h2g2 didn't have that redirect in their links, I could watch them embedded with a greasemonkey script I use. Oh well.

Couldn't you just copy and paste the link into your browser and remove everything except the YouTube url? Or does the work filter stop you from going to YouTube?

Yea, I can't go directly to youtube without having to "accept" that I'm going to a streaming site. (Oddly enough, NASA has its own YouTube channel). Some sites I can't go to at all. Most are reasonable, for instance sites that my have adult material or that host possibly pirated material. But for YouTube or Facebook(I quit it anyway) I have to click to get through the first time. I figure that somewhere that will be added to a log of such click throughs and if they see too many it might be an issue. Technically, they can log every thing I do of course, but I'm not that paranoid. I figure as long as I'm not abusing the system more than everyone else, I'm OK. Of course I only have to click through for the first page view of the day. After that it skips right to it. If I happen to find a NASA related video today then I might check those links out sooner.