The world keeps spinning. here’s what I will be doing with my time instead of finding the antidote to death or jogging OR EVEN YOGA:

Caprica:

The prequel series to Battlestar is so weird I can’t figure out whether I like it or not. I appreciate that it is not, by any standard, normal American TV. That is a good thing. Beyond that I don’t know. It confuses me in the same way that Lady boys are confusing. Maybe not quite. All I’m saying is I need to see more of it to be convinced. It is science fiction at such a personal level (It’s about parents dealing with the death of their kids) that it doesn’t just turn the tables on our expectations, it tips the table right over so that the table legs are sticking up… then it impails you on one or more of the legs of this metaphorical science fiction table I’m talking about until you bleed confusion… but that is kinda awesome. So Caprica gets my time. Glad to hear it may be getting a second season.

William Shatner:

Bilbo Shat is still alive. Therefore I choose to live another year…

Ashes to Ashes

Returns on friday on BBC 1, I am lead to believe. The great Gene Hunt back on my telly box will be great. A final series!?! Will John Simm make an appearance?? Doubt it. Will Keeley Hawes get naked?? No. That would be an “In my head only” event. And I wouldn’t even be invited.. because I’m not dressed properly for “ridiculously sexy”…

 I also want to check out the American version of Life on Mars which features Colm Meany, A Star Trek TNG and DS9 regular, therefore someone whom I consider close family for geeky reasons (my geek family or ‘geekamily’ is extensive, but loving).

Dr Who:

  No one will be surprised to know that I am not only going to be watching the new Dr Who, but I may be expelling all my bodily fluids all at once whilst I am doing so. That’s the way I roll… excited and grubby. From the little I’ve seen, Matt Smith looks great, and the loss of Russell T Davis and David Tennant will be slightly less painful in the knowledge that Stephen Moffat is now in control. Only slightly.

I don’t know what is best about this; that it is a funny ’rap’ (?) music video fused with Star Wars, or that I know that the song this is based on is about a place called ‘New york’ and sung by Alicia Keys. I know something about contemporary life!! One point to me….

Thanks to Topless Robot for the steal, as always.

I strongly recommend everyone check out the really amazing flash animation by artiste Fotoshop over on newgrounds in which you can slide a scale and see the size of things from the universe itself down to quantum particles, seeing various objects on the way, from stars to humans to rubicks cubes (both solved and unsolved). Not, however, my wang.

I also strongly recommend that I never post a post that mentions my ’wang’ ever again. Hi mum! (Also people who ‘know’ me know that anything makes my wang look small. Stop writing now? Yes please).  

Frakking awesome?? I do believe so…

Thankyou Edgar Wright, where ever you are….

He’s a well known super fast crazy shredder from the world of hair-metal. Or should that be crazy fast super shredder? Or is he just crazy?

crazy fast that is.

I watched Avatar hoping I would hate it (because I’m a snob or something). It ended up making me smile, which is a win that eludes any kind of 5 star rating system. I knew what I was going to watch I’d have seen before, but I forgot that the reason the story is so familiar is that when it’s done right it’s so emotive that you can’t help be drawn in. Damn the Blue Cats. Also the epic gunship was cool as.

via myextralife

The general reaction to  ’The Room’…

EDIT: User removed video, so instead enjoy this clip of random cat comedy…

I saw it first on DVD. Then for no reason I can fathom I watched it in a cinema near me, and now a month after that it is showing again…and I will be watching it again. I strongly urge everyone to watch this…thing. It is…The Room. There is no reason for it to exist, but it is the most fun you will have in a cinema, because everyone around you is so angry.

Below is an interview by maholo daily with the elusive writer/director/producer/star/oddity behind the film Tommy Wiseau.

Don’t watch this trailer for Czech film ‘Kuky Returns’ if you are feeling a bit weird, because it won’t make you feel any better. It looks like a certain kind of nuts… the kind of crazy nuts that only grow in mental forests and taste like dribbling insanity. I need to see it. I love the look of it, and the little awesome flaming car chases…

 Directors webby here

via neatorama

If we can ignore their amazing name just for a moment, Pomplamoose are a great musical duo who seemingly live in the tubes of youtube, in a small studio with a variety of quirky musical instruments and various breakfast cereals. These guys are now the face of youtube musicians wanted partnership scheme, where apparently musicians can sign up, post some videos and make money out of them. Sounds nice.

It took me a while to decide which of their videos to post, ’cause I like them all, but I went with this cover of Earth, Wind and Fire’s September, ‘Expiration Date’.

Alex Chilton started out in Memphis and moved to New Orleans. He recorded a jazz album there and later was evacuated from his house after Hurricane Katrina. So like a virtuoso piece of improvisation this brings me round to an exciting new HBO TV series ‘Treme’ created by David Simon (writer of so-critically-raved-about-I-wouldn’t-blame-you-for-deliberately-not-watching -it-now-if-you-haven’t-seen-it-already-but-it-really-is-very-good  ‘The Wire’). It’s meant to chart a post-Katrina N’awlins and the inhabitants struggling to rebuild it and get on with their lives. It sounds like the kind of thing Simon does very well. And if nothing else, the music should be amazing. And John Goodman is in it. Here’s a trailer;

Talking of Big Star and Memphis more generally reminded me of awesome Memphis-born photographer William Eggleston who turns the ordinary into the extraordinary. I only really found out about the guy from a BBC Imagine documentary last year but had unwittingly admired his work on these aforementioned Big Star and Alex Chilton albums;

And this album by extremely awesome band Silver Jews;

And now it seems a highly rated new album by one of my other highly rated bands- Spoon- also features an Eggleston photo.

His pictures are to photography what rock and roll is to music- taking everyday boredom and isolation and making it beautiful.

The world just lost a big star, though not enough people have heard of him. Alex Chilton was from Memphis, Tennessee and scored a US number 1 with The Box Tops in the 60s. He then formed Big Star who were a huge inspiration for bands including REM, Teenage Fanclub and The Replacements (check out their tribute song in the second video). He went on to have an eclectic solo career. I’m a personal fan of his solo album (‘lo-fi classic’ or ‘druggy mess’ depending on your tastes) ‘Like Flies on Sherbert’ where he demonstrates his developed but still rooted in rock and roll influences of his Memphis youth by covering a load of obscure songs.

He also wrote beautiful songs like this which I urge you to seek out. The man had soul.

That Replacements song I was telling you about…

The Replacements Alex Chilton
Uploaded by Celtiemama. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

It is no big secret that one of my favourite TV shows is Canada’s ‘Due South’, a quirky action/comedy hybrid about a Mountie who moves to Chicago on the trail of his father’s killer, and for reasons that we can’t go into at this juncture has remained as liason to the Canadian consulate. The show opened the door for me in terms of Canadian TV, film, humour and my general interest in the country. Paul Gross, the star of Due South, has written, directed and starred in various projects which have been great (more recent of which was his epic war film Passchendaele)

If anyone knows Due south…I shall say this; Fraser and Ray 2 are in a film together. And it is a western. Set in Canada. It looks amazing, because none of the Canadians can understand what gunslinging is. It is called ‘Gunless‘. I want its babies.   

Yes please.