By Roy Mathur, on 2024-04-16, at 23:52:35 to 01:13:45 BST, for Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show
Last week I pointlessly shaved, poisoned myself with Beconase, did my monthly London walk and attended my club meeting, podcasted too much, and contended with a lot of other minutiae. In fact, if you haven't already done so, please listen to 533 Doctor Who: The Awakening and 534 Hammer House of Horror: Children of the Full Moon.
The point is I'm very very tired, so bear with me as we partake of a laid-back rambling ride on the motorway of geek life.
NB No amount of eq is going to remove the Shure SM7B mud from my bunged up pipes, so tonight I'm back on the Shure SM58.
In 532, I proposed the career of a Dune spece smuggler for myself, having completely forgotten that they are slaughtered out of hand by the Fremen. Bugger.
More than a week ago, Torrentfreak reported that high quality copies were leaked before the film's streaming release.
That is a bugger. I could have save myself from that cold uncomfortable cinema experience.
ITVX UK. The second 2021 reboot/sequel (requel?), in which kids discover they are Egon Spengler's descendants and that Gozer is still a threat.
The charming cast, including the surviving original stars, Stranger Thing's Finn Wolfhard, and the excellent Mckenna Grace, were squandered on rehashing the 1984 film.
The franchise continues this year with Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.
I have seen the whole of the first season, reviewed halfway through in 531.
Despite the grotesque GoT moment of episode 5, my view hasn't changed that... much, "Netflix's first season better explains the story, is better acted, and has better SFX, though it feels shallower in intellectual and emotional depth than Tencent's attempt." Except the last bit about emotional depth. The strong suicide scene put paid to that.
I about boxsetted season 2 part 2 of Robert Kirkman's Amazon Prime Video animated series. Invincible returns to Earth with a new brother in tow and college and romance to sort out too. It's messy.
It's still the great and gorey and clever and tragicomic take on superheroes, especially Superman, imperialism, and the corruption of power, though I still wonder at the necessity of celebrity voice casting, i.e. stunt casting. It's a nice little earner for overpaid celebs, but why not let the professional voice actors do their jobs and earn a decent crust?
MGM+'s 2023 science fiction series in which a ship is wrecked a near a lighthouse with a single survivor in a lifeboat. Gothic psychodrama ensues between the survivor and the mad lighthouse keeper... but it's in space! They contend with distrust and shortly thereafter, space pirates.
Highly original unconventional idea, cheaply made and conventionally filmed, and the leads, Stephan James and Lena Headey have zero chemistry. I will say, as far as sci-fi goes, I liked the way gravity inverted at the centre of the lighthouse, so that's something.
In this Max 2023 science fiction animated series, starship survivors are wrecked on Vesta, a beautiful alien planet, but horribly organic, alive, full of dangerous parasitic and some saprophytic organisms, with a near incomprehensible biosphere. Imagine a Hayao Miyazaki rendering of pre-colonial planet Belzagor from Robert Silverberg's Downward to the Earth and throw Pandora into the mix too.
As someone born in North Western Europe of parents with a tRopical background, I get a inkling of this strangeness each time Mum leaves a piece of a weird tropical fruit for me in the fridge, e.g. jackfruit, nisperos, i.e. delicious, but so alien.
It's science-fiction, but so unsettling, upsetting, and perilous is this garden of Eden ecosystem, with it's bizarre flora and fuana that is disturbingly bio and cyber compatible with human bodies and our tech, that the series strays deeply into body and Lovecraftian horror too.
Of course, our own planet, with zombie-ant fungus, parasite wasps, and insanely murderous humans, would also probably make alien visitors rapidly reverse course in their flying saucers.
A young deaf Choctaw girl, Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox), loses a leg and her mother is killed, when a criminal rival of her father cuts the brakes on the family pick-up truck. After her father is killed by Hawkeye, Maya is taken under the wing of Kingpin, who grooms her to kill for him. Eventually, she finds out that Kingpin's betrayal led to his death and she shoots Wilson Fisk in the head. She returns home to the Choctaw reservation, connects with her cultural and mystical roots, while planning to take down his empire and set herself up as the new boss.
I like the non-traditional anti-hero; a deaf amputee---not overtly sexualized for a change---not that I mind hot women in tight outfits, but sometimes you want a change from the samey samey. As a beginner biker myself, I like that she's a biker, though some more stunts involving motorcycles would have been welcome. The fighting and action was surprisgly fast and unique-looking too.
The Marvel Spotlight miniseries is an exciting, absorbing, occasionally sad, riveting drama, with a fair bit of Choctaw culture thrown in too. I particularly liked the creation myth in the first episode, which reminds me very loosely of the Coastal Salish's orgin myth from British Columbia. I often say that a long series would have been better served as a miniseries. This is the exception. It feels rushed and ends too soon.
UKPlayTV 2024 cosy murder mystery set in idyllic Thamside town.
The characters are great---an archaeologist, dog walker, and vicar's wife---though I hated being teased for so long about the lead's background. Ex-archaeologist whose career went phut parallels some of my own life. The copper is uncharacteristically non-aggressive and actively works with her irritating colleagues and the amateur sleuths, while balancing a family life and not losing it. She's more Poirot's Inspector Jap, than Morse or Reagan.
The plot devolves into an overly familiar combo of Strangers on a Train's criss-cross, criss-cross and Agatha Cristie's The ABC murders, and the pacing at the denouement is absurd. In it's favour are the acting, location, extremely likeable protagonists, and it's similarity to Rosemary and Thyme; a series I love.
Netflix 2024 series about the serial killing con man of Patricia Highsmith's pentalogy/quintology of novels, Tom Ripley, played by Andrew Scott. His deep love of art and the finer trappings, combined with cold amorality is fascinating. An outsider with his nose pressed hard against the glass is why we empathise, not sympathise, with the vicious thief, and the fact that his victims are appallingly shallow, talentless, dilettantes.
Although I can find no mention of it in my shownotes, I've probably already flattered Matt Damon's scintillating The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) many times. Other adaptations across the Ripliad have been poor, so I had hopes for the latest, though I wondered how they would handle Andrew Scott's far greater age than the 25 year-old Ripley of the first novel. They don't, instead they make the characters several years older, though still not quite up to Scott's actual years. John Malkovich has a fanservice cameo as a crooked art dealer and criminal fixer, thanks to his role as the older Ripley in Ripley's Game (2002).
Dingy industrial New York is Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Winston's Smith's totalitarian London, where life at the bottom of the pyramid is drab and harsh. Italy's endless steps, echoing the steps in the Dickie's Picasso, should be an escape, but it's the circuitous Escher step maze of Relativity.
The comparison with 17th century Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and Tom Ripley is cool, but simplistic and ill thought. Carravagio was an incredible artist, brawler, and bedder, whilst Ripley is a forger, a cold blooded killer, and rather asexual. If the idea is that we're supposed to think that it's Carravagio Ripley aspires to be, then that is a sad and unrealistic expectation on Ripley's part.
The look and feel, Andrew Scott's excellent acting, and Steven Zaillian's direction and writing makes this compelling television.
I couldn't sleep again, which was what also spurred my watching of Ripley, so I watched this BBC drama about a young poet in 1981 Coventry of Maggie's boot boy police, strikes, the IRA, squaddies, spies, gangsters, Birmingham City Zulus, ska, two-tone, rudies, skins, etc.
There's a good soundtrack featuring Desmond Dekker, Selektor, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Blondie, but weirdly no Specials, perhaps because that would have been too obvious? Or maybe they didn't manage to negotiate the rights. If you're interested, the special features goes into wardrobe selection.
Funny, enjoyable, depressing, plotitis, starts to feel like The Commitments in the Midlands, but a happy ending.
It was my umpteenth rewatch of Star Trek: Into Darkness yesterday, over a veritable Indian banquet (Indo-Mauritian, actually), when I noticed the many cuts to the film on ITVX. It is strange because I have seen the same film before on ITX without cuts. What is going on? I have an account with ITVX and I am, I believe, age verified, so how is this happening? Did they surreptitiously change the version at some point? Why? This further confirms my hatred of reliance on on-demand or streaming services, instead of ownership of physical media.
Recently, I erroneously bought another second hand copy of Inception. My first thought was to get a refund. Then it occurred to me that I paid only pittance for the duplicate. I also own two copies of Alien and Polar Express; all excellent movies, not to mention some extra copies of genre novels via library sales, so why not squirrel them away for the day when they are suddenly in demand again, then eBay them? So that's what I'm doing. It's just another aspect of my digital prepping.
Don't spend too much or too little on your first. A Lamy Safari is ideal. Like Apple is supposed to, it just works. It is robust and can withstand the ham-fisted amateur. I wish I'd had one as a child, instead of a string of overpriced broken Parkers.
If, after enjoying the included refills, you decide to continue, buy a converter and bottled ink. Parker Quink or Herbin are ideal and not pricy. Diamine is nice, but the smell might put you off.
No matter what pen you buy, never ever carry it in a trouser pocket or loose in a bag. Respect the pen or incure the wrath of Thoth, the ancient Egyptian god of scribes.
In the last podcast, you can hear me taking a break to use Beconase to clear my sinuses. Unfortunately, I snorted too much and made myself sick from over-dry eyes and nose. I was also phyically wrecked by joint pain from regular 10 km+ walks thanks to un-nuanced medical advice from a physio who told me to just go for it. Despite that, I made my monthly trip into Central London on Saturday to socialise and to enjoy the city.
I was done-in all day, but I got a demo of the SP-404 sampler in the Roland shop on Denmark Street, something I've been wanting to do for ages. I also enjoyed the sun andd blooms in Embankment Gardens (and the overcrowding and the Instagrammers), before going on to my club meeting.
Regarding negative feedback, if someone irritates me, the ideal response I aim for, though not always achieve, is no response at all because I enjoy frustrating my enemies. In UNIX parlance:
echo complaint > \dev\null
Of course, I like good reviews and ratings, compliments, and genuine interest in my show. However, even barbed comments spurred by a mistake I make, I regard as a learning opportunity, so go ahead.
Regarding less than favourable interactions in general, I'm a working class, gen x, brown man from the UK, so rest assured, I've heard worse from nastier.