Dreams

Last night there was a long, complicated, plotty dream where Jack was secretly from Caprica, thus explaining the accent. He had a very small ship stored somewhere, like a civilian version of a single person fighter, in yellow and blue and cream colors. When invading demons said we had no weapons at this time that could destroy them, Jack ran away, got the fighter out, and blew them all up.
Which was about when the BSG lot arrived. Since they'd seen Jack launch they went to the Torchwood base first (only the never before seen spaceship launching bay section, which is lighter and a bit more 70s SF than the rest of it). The only one there was me, recently returned from running away from demons. President Roslin was not impressed.


I think the alarm is still set to go off at ten to seven, but I do not recall that happening.

I do recall a completely different dream where there was a car that didn't need a driver yet didn't really pay much attention to the laws of the road, or indeed gravity. It turned into a shiny silver... well, car proportioned bathtub, really, but it was very shiny and smooth and therefore not as ungainly as it sounds. It also started suggesting bits of spacetime we could visit. Because it was a half grown TARDIS that hadn't quite woken up yet and needed a partner to get it properly started.
There was a whole thing about how the Doctor keeps the TARDIS alive by sharing his life with it, not just in the breathe on it sense but in the simpler hanging around with it sense. TARDIS needs partner.
So then the Rani stole mine new one.
And also turned out to be my clone-mother, with my mother-that-raised-me being her last regeneration. Which made me 100% Gallifreyan, though not a Time Lord as such on account of not having studied.
And then there was a baby that wasn't a baby later, turned out to be a replacement made out of crumbly florist stuff. Only, you know, realistic. I didn't like that part. But the real baby was just somewhere else. Probably stolen along with the car.
There was a slight worry about possibly being a human sacrifice to wake up the car, but since the baby was only as human as I was, that would not in fact have been a very final problem.
Unless baby regeneration means getting a grown up person with a baby brain, which could have been rather awkward. Or possibly setting the clock, sort of thing, so like immortals they stay baby sized. But neither seemed likely.

There was also the thing where I bet very large sums of money that someone would bet The Doctor was the father. I wasn't betting that, but I was betting someone else would think so.
The Doctor was only mildly intrigued and more interested in getting teh car back before it caused any more reality crashes. Also we'd only just met and he didn't trust me at all. Possibly on account of not being 100% sure I wasn't my clone-mother. Who wasn't trustworthy, on the whole.




And yet, after all that? Feeling relatively relaxed and refreshed.

Doctor Who: Vengeance on Varos

6 is quite a bit more annoying than the others. And more insane. Which takes some doing.
And aside from having a very silly full name his companion is sort of a blank.
There's the shorts and the thin top. Why she's wandering around alien planets in shorts... well, a lot of the locals are in random bits of cloth or wandering around shirtless, so it's obviously the weather for it.
There's a shirtless prisoner and a couple of servants wearing straps.
Straps are a popular costume choice for the powerless.

There's also some fairly obvious inspirations for new series episodes - bad thing that needs moisturising, acid (bath rather than spray, and I have now seen the acid bath bit in context, instead of as a section people always use when they complain about DW violence. but it was the other bad guy who pulled the guy in, not the doctor pushing him only.), and reality TV. Okay, more like court TV. Or not. Er, the new version was funnier, but the old version had much the same point.
I quite liked the vote-and-die thing.

The element only Varos has is required for space-time ships. So unless sluggy there is selling to Gallifrey, there's enough space-time ships in the galaxies to need a planet's worth of zeiton-7.

This one had some nifty deathtraps, variety in costumes, social comment, and slight meta in the watching TV about watching TV way. So lots of good elements.
Unfortunately it also had 6 and Peri, who I consistently find charmless. Or possibly anti-charming, in that they suck the charm out the other elements.
Sorry anyone that likes them. Each to their own.

Also there was, once again, ugly=evil and scars=evil and the pretty ones were consistently the ones who turn out to be good guys. I *facepalm* and wish to write about some properly messed up heroes. Not like they'd even need makeup, just some actors that actually have scars.


Makeup in the excellent but bizarrely underused department: That transmogrifier sequence. What little we saw of the feathers makeup was kind of awesome. Pretty shiny feathers everywhere. But only really clear in the photos section. On screen they barely used it, just had her lying there.

So she got tortured, called out for the Doctor at bad moments, wandered off and got in trouble, and was singularly useless and flappy when trying to talk to bad guys. I mean, why tell them they won't believe you? Why tell them you're from another century at all? Couldn't a little fast talking go a long way?

I like Leela and Romana and Ace and getting things done.
Shorts do not make up for much.

Underworld: Evolution

Vampires and werewolves and clothes, oh my...

You know, there's a bit of a contradiction in the middle of this one. The whole 'evolution' concept is used in a 'young ones is better than old ones' way. Yet the vampire myth is pretty clear that old ones is more powerful (which lines up with many forms of power in everyday life, specially political like they play with here). So how to resolve that?
Eat the ancestors! Gain all their power in your younger shinier form!

... *sigh* ...

see I can't even muster up a *facepalm* there.

It's another one where the old looking vampires are teh evol.
the young, hot, wearing latex and/or being naked a lot ones are otoh obviously in the right.

It's not that I'm complaining about the eye candy - pretty women in corsets kicking arse, I'm not going to get tired of that - but if I fail to turn off 100% of my analytical brain it do get a bit weird.

The clothes were spectacular, again. Also the set design. And incidental bits of shiny.
Pity they couldn't pour the same attention to detail into a script. I swear there isn't a single line in the whole thing that I can quote. Quoteables severely absent. And as for plot? *fight fight fight fuck fight fight fight* about covers it.
Okay, so there was some twisty Chosen One type politics in the middle, but really, there's a sort of absence of story there.

Also, absence of color.
My TV does colors. Put it on a nature show and it does *spectacular* colors. I've been known to end up all *ooooh, shiny!* distracted by pictures of a waterfall or a tree, because they're just that gorgeous.
This film? If it has colors? Is hiding them very well.

I need to start a campaign. Dark subject matter does not mean you can save money on lighting.
And being goth does not in fact mean being unable to see anything interesting.


in conclusion:
wants their wardrobe
pretty lead couple
...
...
why did I buy this film?

Aspect ratios

My TV says not to leave black gaps around the picture or it'll burn in and go stripy
which is daft, but I tend to follow instructions, so very rarely watch without stretching the picture to fit
(usually when there's subtitles - they need to invent a way to keep them on screen. seriously.)

This means
everyone in modern movies is veryvery skinny
and
everyone in classic TV is, er, cuddly widths


classic TV is therefore made of win.

Brotherhood of the Wolf

Now that is a film worth seeing.
And owning. Which is why my brother already had two copies when someone bought it for him for christmas, hence the particularly successful present swap.
I should probably, you know, buy him presents, at some point.

ANYways

This film had the visuals - landscapes that made me want to pause it and go 'oooooh, my TV rules!', castles, and *clothes*... or selective lack of clothes managed in a fairly artistic way. I mean, lots of naked people around, yes, but always for an effect that adds to the story, not one that could be taken out and have the same story.

And what a story! Told you exactly what it was going to do and then managed to surprise and be satisfying when it did it.

And the way it used the fight scenes was *gorgeous*. Each one was a story in and of itself, and they add together to a larger narrative, and while the moves were spectacular they also said stuff about characters and what they were doing and why they were doing it and stuff. Now that is what a fight is about.

Same with the sex scenes.

And the way it looked at bodies was fascinating. There were almost as many dead bodies as live ones, felt like, and they all got respect.

I watched it in foreign with the subtitles on, and I only had to rewind once to catch what they were saying. No, not in a naked bit, rather when I realised I knew that necklace and where to buy it. I'm detail oriented.

The DVD wanted to be in English. I find this irritating. If they made it in foreign I want to see it that way. Not like reading it is any hardship.

I read a review on imdb that calls it horror, and that seemed weird to me, though I couldn't tell you what I'd call it instead. There's a huge great monster and everything.
Though it has moments of weird, it uses them real carefully, to enhance a human story.
It felt more like the way the costumes were big and the reds really red, you know? Just... extra.

I'm going to watch it again in a bit when it's had time to settle in my head. There's lots of cool going on and I'll see it better seeing it over again.


Also there's moments like one with her from Matrix sequels and the bladed fan. That's just very, very pretty. You know, for a messy death.


... yeah, I'm a bit strange ...



So: Good film. Glad I own it. Would have actually paid money for it even.