Goodies! Goody-goody, yum-yum!
I love shopping for DVDs from England. Everyone should get a multi-regional DVD player!!!
::Waits while everyone runs out and buys a multi-regional DVD player::
I just got a note from Bensons World, a lovely online media-seller based in London, letting me know they're shipping me some DVDs you cannot get in the US, and I got 'em comparatively cheap, too:
Doctor Who - The Five Doctors (DVD)
The Goodies At Last! (DVD)
The Goodies - At Last A Second Helping (DVD)
Mammoth (DVD)
The Five Doctors is, well, The Five Doctors. It was a special feature-length episode of Dr. Who, in celebration of the show's 20th anniversary. (Fun Fact from Wikipedia: it originally aired in the the UK on November 25, 1983, but had its world premiere in the US on PBS on November 23, which is the actual anniversary date.) Made with SO MUCH LOVE, it begins with archive footage of the original First Doctor and ends with the Fifth Doctor on the run yet again from the Time Lords in the TARDIS because, "Why not? After all, that's how it all started."
::smishes the "Tristan Farnon" Doctor for being so damned adorkable and sweet::
I only wish that Tom Baker & Lala Ward had been in it for reals instead of in archive footage from Shada (1979.) Oh, and I also wish Russell Davies had written it, because I would have liked some more emotional resonance to the fact that someone's freakin' granddaughter had shown up out of the blue, instead of a mere moment's kvelling, "So, this is Susan, eh?", before everyone starts running around like chickens with their heads cut off; i.e., the plot. But for the most part, it's a lovely, lovely tribute to all the doctors and several of our favorite companions up to that time; quite fun, even if the idea that there's a "Death Zone" on Gallifrey is kinda silly. Both the Brigadier and The Master are in it, and at one point the day is saved by reversing the polarity of the neutron flow! HEE!
Off the top of my head, some of my favorite lines include:
"She has bad ankles!" (a comment by Tegan about Susan, who constantly falls down as she runs from various classic baddies.)
"I didn't even know he was musical!" (a comment by the Fourth Doctor with regard to The Harp of Rassilon.)
"But! You were all..." ::makes fluffy hair & teeth gestures::
"Teeth and curls? Well, not just yet." (Sarah Jane commenting to the Third Doctor that he isn't the Fourth Doctor, and his response.)
By the way, if you want to see Shada, the BBC has cleverly re-created it as a limited-animation webcast starring Paul McGann and Lala Ward. You can also listen to it as a podcast, if you are on dial-up and can't do streaming video. Go here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/webcasts/shada/index.shtml
THE GOODIES, omigod. From Wikipedia: The Goodies are a trio of British comedians (Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie), who created, wrote, and starred in a surreal British television comedy series called The Goodies during the 1970s and early 1980s combining sketches and situation comedy. Yeah, "surreal" is truly the operative word here. I remember episodes that featured a giant kitten that attacked London (much as Godzilla might attack Tokyo) and the time Graeme was possessed by the soul of a deceased gibbon after the gang consulted with an animal medium (she could only "talk" to dead animals' souls.) I always thought of the show as a cross between The Monkees and Monty Python.
I've been thinking about The Goodies a lot recently, because of the White Stripes' new song and CD, Icky Thump. From Wikipedia: The name of the track comes from the Northern England exclamation, "Ecky Thump," roughly meaning "what the heck?" The title was then changed to "Icky" so that "teenagers would understand it better back in America..." The reason it reminds me of The Goodies is because they did an episode spoofing the TV show Kung Fu, wherein Bill Oddie is the master of an obscure martial art called "Ecky Thump". Ecky Thump mostly consisted of hitting your opponent over the head as hard as you could with a black pudding. Yes, I love me some Goodies. The show never got the respect it deserved, the way Monty Python's Flying Circus did, and by rights should be a cult favorite today. (Go read the "Fatal effect" part of the Wikipedia entry on The Goodies and you'll see what I mean.)
I want to walk around saying, "Ecky Thump!" instead of "What the heck!" now! The "Thump" is pronounced "Thoomp", by the way.
Speaking of cult favorite, Mammoth is a deliciously bad Sci-fi Original movie starring Vincent Ventresca (from The Invisible Man), Tom Skerrit (Alien), and Summer Glau (Firefly), concerning an evil alien that falls to earth and inhabits the hulking remains of a deceased mammoth being studied by a scientist (Ventresca.) The alien-possessed cadaver can suck out your life-force (like an SGA Wraith) with its trunk. No, really. LIFE FORCE-SUCKING ALIEN-POSSESSED ZOMBIE MAMMOTH!!!
Bizarrely, this movie was nominated for an actual Primetime Emmy(TM) for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special, which kinda blows my mind a little. I mean, if we were in some sort of strange alternate universe where it had won, they could have called this movie an "Emmy-award Winning Movie" in the adverts, and that would be just so wrong.
At any rate, someone took Sci-fi's money and instead of making the usual action-oriented crap-fest you get with Sci-fi Original movies, they made a wonderfully satirical movie that spoofs '50s B movie cliches rather adorably. That someone would be Tim Cox, who directed & wrote this thing. He even has a good Avengers joke in there, which is ruined in the next scene because he had another character explain said Avengers joke, presumably to tutor a klewless audience, but still--AVENGERS JOKE! IN A MOVIE! SO COOL! The bottom line is, the script could have been a bit less clunky, a tad wittier & a smidge sharper, but on the whole, considering this is a Sci-fi Original movie that was filmed in Rumania or something, it's a pretty awesome flick.
The Avenger's joke, by Grandpa (Tom Skerritt) and granddaughter (Summer Glau), in response to something terrible happening:
Tom: "What would John Steed do?"
Summer: "He'd let Emma drive!"
::Grandpa flings Granddaugher the car keys, she catches them in mid-air, and they drop into their car exactly the way Steed and Mrs. Peel would have done in the 60s, which is to say in a totally cool manner::
Warning: my biggest problem with this movie is how it ends, wherein the characters all pretty much betray their characters in service of the plot, and we get something of a downer ending. But it's a crazy-fun ride up until then.
Ecky THUMP! When I ordered Mammoth from Bensons a couple of weeks ago, the DVD was unavailable in the US, but I just checked Amazon before I posted this entry, and it says: Available for Pre-order. This item will be released on Jan 8, 2008. How frickin' annoying! It's billed as the "uncut" version, too -- my DVD better be uncut or I'm gonna be super-pissy about this. The *really* sad thing is that it's not even out, and Amazon has a chunky discount on it already! Buy it, it's cheap and I swear you'll enjoy it!
::Waits while everyone runs out and buys a multi-regional DVD player::
I just got a note from Bensons World, a lovely online media-seller based in London, letting me know they're shipping me some DVDs you cannot get in the US, and I got 'em comparatively cheap, too:
Doctor Who - The Five Doctors (DVD)
The Goodies At Last! (DVD)
The Goodies - At Last A Second Helping (DVD)
Mammoth (DVD)
The Five Doctors is, well, The Five Doctors. It was a special feature-length episode of Dr. Who, in celebration of the show's 20th anniversary. (Fun Fact from Wikipedia: it originally aired in the the UK on November 25, 1983, but had its world premiere in the US on PBS on November 23, which is the actual anniversary date.) Made with SO MUCH LOVE, it begins with archive footage of the original First Doctor and ends with the Fifth Doctor on the run yet again from the Time Lords in the TARDIS because, "Why not? After all, that's how it all started."
::smishes the "Tristan Farnon" Doctor for being so damned adorkable and sweet::
I only wish that Tom Baker & Lala Ward had been in it for reals instead of in archive footage from Shada (1979.) Oh, and I also wish Russell Davies had written it, because I would have liked some more emotional resonance to the fact that someone's freakin' granddaughter had shown up out of the blue, instead of a mere moment's kvelling, "So, this is Susan, eh?", before everyone starts running around like chickens with their heads cut off; i.e., the plot. But for the most part, it's a lovely, lovely tribute to all the doctors and several of our favorite companions up to that time; quite fun, even if the idea that there's a "Death Zone" on Gallifrey is kinda silly. Both the Brigadier and The Master are in it, and at one point the day is saved by reversing the polarity of the neutron flow! HEE!
Off the top of my head, some of my favorite lines include:
"She has bad ankles!" (a comment by Tegan about Susan, who constantly falls down as she runs from various classic baddies.)
"I didn't even know he was musical!" (a comment by the Fourth Doctor with regard to The Harp of Rassilon.)
"But! You were all..." ::makes fluffy hair & teeth gestures::
"Teeth and curls? Well, not just yet." (Sarah Jane commenting to the Third Doctor that he isn't the Fourth Doctor, and his response.)
By the way, if you want to see Shada, the BBC has cleverly re-created it as a limited-animation webcast starring Paul McGann and Lala Ward. You can also listen to it as a podcast, if you are on dial-up and can't do streaming video. Go here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/webcasts/shada/index.shtml
THE GOODIES, omigod. From Wikipedia: The Goodies are a trio of British comedians (Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie), who created, wrote, and starred in a surreal British television comedy series called The Goodies during the 1970s and early 1980s combining sketches and situation comedy. Yeah, "surreal" is truly the operative word here. I remember episodes that featured a giant kitten that attacked London (much as Godzilla might attack Tokyo) and the time Graeme was possessed by the soul of a deceased gibbon after the gang consulted with an animal medium (she could only "talk" to dead animals' souls.) I always thought of the show as a cross between The Monkees and Monty Python.
I've been thinking about The Goodies a lot recently, because of the White Stripes' new song and CD, Icky Thump. From Wikipedia: The name of the track comes from the Northern England exclamation, "Ecky Thump," roughly meaning "what the heck?" The title was then changed to "Icky" so that "teenagers would understand it better back in America..." The reason it reminds me of The Goodies is because they did an episode spoofing the TV show Kung Fu, wherein Bill Oddie is the master of an obscure martial art called "Ecky Thump". Ecky Thump mostly consisted of hitting your opponent over the head as hard as you could with a black pudding. Yes, I love me some Goodies. The show never got the respect it deserved, the way Monty Python's Flying Circus did, and by rights should be a cult favorite today. (Go read the "Fatal effect" part of the Wikipedia entry on The Goodies and you'll see what I mean.)
I want to walk around saying, "Ecky Thump!" instead of "What the heck!" now! The "Thump" is pronounced "Thoomp", by the way.
Speaking of cult favorite, Mammoth is a deliciously bad Sci-fi Original movie starring Vincent Ventresca (from The Invisible Man), Tom Skerrit (Alien), and Summer Glau (Firefly), concerning an evil alien that falls to earth and inhabits the hulking remains of a deceased mammoth being studied by a scientist (Ventresca.) The alien-possessed cadaver can suck out your life-force (like an SGA Wraith) with its trunk. No, really. LIFE FORCE-SUCKING ALIEN-POSSESSED ZOMBIE MAMMOTH!!!
Bizarrely, this movie was nominated for an actual Primetime Emmy(TM) for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special, which kinda blows my mind a little. I mean, if we were in some sort of strange alternate universe where it had won, they could have called this movie an "Emmy-award Winning Movie" in the adverts, and that would be just so wrong.
At any rate, someone took Sci-fi's money and instead of making the usual action-oriented crap-fest you get with Sci-fi Original movies, they made a wonderfully satirical movie that spoofs '50s B movie cliches rather adorably. That someone would be Tim Cox, who directed & wrote this thing. He even has a good Avengers joke in there, which is ruined in the next scene because he had another character explain said Avengers joke, presumably to tutor a klewless audience, but still--AVENGERS JOKE! IN A MOVIE! SO COOL! The bottom line is, the script could have been a bit less clunky, a tad wittier & a smidge sharper, but on the whole, considering this is a Sci-fi Original movie that was filmed in Rumania or something, it's a pretty awesome flick.
The Avenger's joke, by Grandpa (Tom Skerritt) and granddaughter (Summer Glau), in response to something terrible happening:
Tom: "What would John Steed do?"
Summer: "He'd let Emma drive!"
::Grandpa flings Granddaugher the car keys, she catches them in mid-air, and they drop into their car exactly the way Steed and Mrs. Peel would have done in the 60s, which is to say in a totally cool manner::
Warning: my biggest problem with this movie is how it ends, wherein the characters all pretty much betray their characters in service of the plot, and we get something of a downer ending. But it's a crazy-fun ride up until then.
Ecky THUMP! When I ordered Mammoth from Bensons a couple of weeks ago, the DVD was unavailable in the US, but I just checked Amazon before I posted this entry, and it says: Available for Pre-order. This item will be released on Jan 8, 2008. How frickin' annoying! It's billed as the "uncut" version, too -- my DVD better be uncut or I'm gonna be super-pissy about this. The *really* sad thing is that it's not even out, and Amazon has a chunky discount on it already! Buy it, it's cheap and I swear you'll enjoy it!