Inadvertently funny line from a press release for the new Americanised Torchwood:
His choice of career is significant. Someone like Rex could make a fortune in Wall Street, or Hollywood. But choosing the C.I.A. says a lot about him: that for all his swagger, he does believe in justice.
In 1972, when I was eight, I wrote a series of stories (or four “books” – 186 pages’ worth, though typed up and without the original drawings they come to a mere 25 pages total) collectively titled Oscar of Oscarville, about an eight-year-old boy who flew around on the back of an enormous hummingbird while whacking off the heads of monsters with his enchanted sword, in a magical land whose chief characteristic seemed to be the elicitation of various sorts of gigantism in everything from bats and butterflies to houses and hair tonic. (I then had no idea that there were actual places named Oscarville – in Alaska and Georgia, for example.) This was my magnum opus up to that point.
I hadn’t seen the Oscarville stories since 1981 and had feared they were lost, until I rediscovered them going through old boxes last week. As a break from more pressing but less enjoyable work, I’ve transcribed Oscar’s adventures and self-indulgently put them online. Lo, he is risen!
A never-before-seen deleted scene from the very beginning of Return of the Jedi, scheduled to be included on a future blu-ray release. (CHT AICN.) Watch it now before it’s taken down:
Some news on the Americanised version of Torchwood that’s coming to the Starz network. (Do I even get that? Let me check. Yes, I get it.)
Here’s some news about the Atlas Shrugged movie, plus a cast list.
The news looks slightly better than I originally feared – i.e. the budget is more than the initially reported $5 million, they plan to make more than one movie, Francisco is in the script after all, etc. Still not especially optimistic.
I’ve just seen the first episode of Steven Moffat’s new Sherlock Holmes tv series, and quite enjoyed it. There’s more than a little resemblance between the way Moffat writes Holmes and the way he writes the Doctor (in fact the Holmes actor is rumored to have turned down the role of the Doctor).
Doctor and Companion in front of the TARDIS -- no, sorry, I mean Holmes and Watson at 221B Baker Street
This is also one of the coolest versions of Watson ever. (I hate versions that make Watson stupid. What makes Holmes impressive is that he outthinks smart people, not that he outthinks stupid people.)
Despite being set in the present day, the show is a lot more faithful to the spirit of the original (IMHO) than the recent Downey/Law film (though the two share in common the rather neat gimmick of displaying Holmes’s thought processes visually; of course Moffat did something similar in “The Eleventh Hour” as well). At the same time, it’s both lighter and darker than the original – in typically Moffatian ways.
My only real complaint was that I figured out the major plot point before Holmes did; admittedly, the audience has some information Holmes doesn’t, but still I thought he was a bit too slow on the uptake on that point.
Anyway, I recommend it; and the opening episode is on YouTube (at least for now) in ten-minute increments:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9