By Roy Mathur, on 2025-02-11, at 02:00:44 to 02:59:16 GMT, for Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show
If you are wondering where I have been, I literally busted my backside sitting too much while applying for a job and from the previous podcasts editing sessions. That's not the worse of it. Since we last spoke, I had a thoroughly rotten day on the 20th of January. So terrible was it that, to prevent total insanity taking a foothold, for the first time in many months, I visited Cineworld at Xscape and watched Nosferatu.
Robert Eggers' (The Witch, The Lighthouse) fourth remake of the film which should have been Dracula, but F. W. Murnau was sued by Bram Stoker from copyright infringement, hence the changes of names and places. Bill Skarsgard is Count Orlok (Dracula), Nicholas Hoult is Thomas Hutter (Jonathan Harker), Lily-Rose Depp is Ellen Hutter (Mina Harker), Simon McBurney is Herr Knock (Renfield), though in this, he is Hutter's boss, and Willem Dafoe is Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz (Professor Abraham Van Helsing) (Dafoe also starred as Max Schrek in Shadow of the Vampire, a heavily fictionalised story of the making of the 1922 film, which supposes that the vampire Orlok was real). As in Dracula, we first meet the Count at his home in the Carpathian Mountains, but Germany replaces England for the rest.
Ellen Hutter, Thomas Hutter's wife, yearns for love forges a psychic connection between her and Orlock. Knock, Thomas's manager at an estate agents, sends him to Orlok to finalise the sale of a crumbling mansion. On his journey, he encounters supercilious locals and gypsies, until finally what appears to be a horseless carriage brings him to a castle in the mountains. Thomas sickens, but finally escape escapes, while Orlok arrives in Germany on a boat full of corpses of the crew that he has snacked on. Ellen, also sick, comes under the ministration of mad scientist Albin Eberhart von Franz, who believes she is possessed by Nosferatu, but the creature can only be killed by her sacrifice. Swearing eternal love to each other, Helen dies as Orlok feeds on her and he also dies as the sun rises.
FX, creature design are all excellent and the camera work, lighting, and sound design (though tyhe sound track was played far too loud in the cinema) make the atmosphere cold, dark, and foreboding. It isn't terrible, it is certainly better than all remakes thus far, especially Werner Herzog's appalling Nosferatu the Vampyre, but the problem is that I'm a fan of the original Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922). Most of the acting is good, particularly Depp and Hoult. However, I found the usually excellent Dafoe's portrayal too lightweight and lacking gravitas for the Van Helsing-like character and, while Skarsgard's monster is interesting, I certainly didn't approve of a moustachioed Count Orlok. Maybe it is more in keeping with historical accuracy; more Vlad, but Max Schreck nailed it in 1922 with the physicality, spider-like gait, long long fingers, and even ear hair. I fell asleep for a few minutes at one point, but missed nothing.
Failing immigrant launderette manager, Michelle Yeoh, deals multi-dimensional villainy in this mildly funny sci-fi film.
As a brown Englishman, there are, of course, situations Michelle's Yeoh's character's family finds themselves in that I can relate to. Going cap-in-hand to pompous government officials, being excessively scrutinised, and receiving substandard service are all things that happen all the time and I've talked about on the pod before.
Appalling Neflix film cobbled together from an install TV series, downgraded to mini-series, and finally this pilot for an unmade series.
It is about Mirror Universe's cannibal Emperor, now running a space bar, recruited once again into Section 31's Dirty Dozen to stop the sale of a doomsday weapon of her own making.
Apart from the Michelle Yeoh's horrific GoT-like backstory opening, the story is boring and the acting is bad. Especially terrible are every aspect character design, script dialogue, and acting of the preppy Star Fleet officer, the mechanical man and, worst of all, the Vulcan robot driven by a minuscule alien with a broad Irish accent. At least we'll always have TOS.
Disappointingly, the Emperor's Bashar and first Sardaukar is a walking biological microwave oven, but not actually a robot.
Again disappointingly for exactly the opposite reason, At Attin's supervisor is not a Sith overseeing a secret Imperial stronghold, but a simple robot who is immediately blasted. Republic X-Wings drive off the pirates and that's it. I can't see a second season, but in my head I can see the stranded pirate captain turning a new leaf as the new supervisor.
At the end of season 2, Juliette finally leaves the survivors of 17 at peace, makes it back to 16, where she warns her Silo mates not to come out at the cleaning window, but struggles with the mayor on his way out and sets off the airlock incinerator. It ends on a prequel in contemporary Washington DC, where two people associated with the future Silo meet.
It's still intriguing, but I already feel the audience deserves less teasing and a conclusion.
Paramount+ with Showtime 2024 re-adaptation of French thriller, in which love-struck CIA spook comes back from the field to make up with estranged daughter and train a rookie, until international intrigue ensues when his love-interest suspiciously turns up in London.
We linger over shots of the US Embassy's 2018 billion dollar sugar cube; a semi-moated castle slap bang in Nine Elms. Of Michael Fassbender (spy) and Richard Gere (boss), are there any other kinds than the brooding, preening kinds? I was entertained, but barely remember what happened.
I stopped using loopback audio from PC with Creative Lab Sound Blaster Play! 3 USB dongle because it sounded too good---it sounded too Hi-Fi---which is exactly what you don't want when editing. Instead, I'm back to my PC's dreaded, noisy 3 mm line out. Similar to the Behringer UMC204HD USB interface I also bought from Amazon, I'm not returning it because it is cheap, works well, and I will find a use for it.
I tried out Windows 11 and found it not too bad. Of course I had to hack it with Rufus to install it on my creaky old i7, but hardware drivers for everything just worked and so did most software. It also booted faster than Ubuntu, Raspberry Pi Desktop (for PC's because I like LXDE and I miss Lubuntu), and even Anti-X.
However, it was intrusive and quite a lot of old 16 and 32 bit software I use either didn't work, or did work, but did not match the look of the Windows 11 default dark theme. Also, and this is the big one that turns me off both Windows 10 and 11, it made my eyes hurt. Something about the use of blazing white, negative space, flatness, and the look of non-64 bit apps, fonts, and windows controls in dark mode (the only bearable theme I can use) made my eyes water. Maybe it's a genetic thing because my Mum can't deal with Win 10/11 for the same reason.
So I Rufus 3.22'd my PC back 32 bit 7.
Sticking with an obsolete OS means video editing is problematic. While I know plenty about photography, I know bugger-all about video editing, so I have been trying to edit my new footage