The Sound Of Music (film)

What can I say about this classic that hasn’t been said already?

I mean everybody loves The Sound Of Music don't they. Even if you've never seen it in your life, you already know what it's about, who it stars, and even half the songs. I mean what else does that leave to say, huh? HUH?

Well, er, criticism I guess.

Even so, the best that I can manage is that it's very slow at the beginning, rather long throughout, and suffers from a large amount of echoing outdoors (=dubbing), but really what does that matter?

Even the story - of a nice catholic girl falling in love with a guy who she has such a major personality clash with - is hardly anything to act surprised about in a movie.

All the same, although I know that I did enjoy this in retrospect, the guilty truth is that I spent the first two hours sitting there uncomfortably checking the clock. Even at the start, it already seemed so long that I actually wanted it to say farewell.

At one stage, just after Maria and Georg had wed, it really looked as though it was all going to finally end, but - d'oh - then there was another half-an-hour. However since this wound up focusing more on gun-toting Nazis, here I have to admit that I started to take a much greater interest. (I was rooting for the von Trapp family to escape, what did you think I meant?)

In fact, having just read the Marvel Comic The Life Of Pope John Paul II #1 immediately beforehand, my whole morning was now quickly becoming about catholics vs. Nazis. They were certainly no idle Reich.

In summary, The Sound Of Music looks and sounds great all the way through, but with so little story I'm sorry to confess that it did make me feel quite restless.

So how do you solve a problem like inertia? Well, now that I have a better idea of what to expect, I have confidence that repeated viewings would probably make it all feel pleasantly familiar. Not quite one of my favourite things, but at least something good.

Yes, that sounds like music.

Available here.

The Life Of Pope John Paul II #1

Writer: Steven Grant
Penciler: John Tartaglione
Inker: Joe Sinnott
Letterer: Jim Novak
Colorist: Marie Severin
Editor: Tom DeFalco
Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter
Consulting Editors: Father Mieczyslaw Malinski, James Salicrup
Assistant Editors: Linda Grant, Lance Tooks
Traffic Manager: Virginia Romita
Special Thanks to: Gene Pelc
Production Manager: Danny Crespi
Production: Ron Zalme, Rick Parker, John Morelli, Andy Yanchus, Joe Albelo, Rob Carosella, Harry Candelario, Bob Larkin
Editorial: Lea C Sapp, Robert Harras
Typesetting: Eliot R Brown
Interpreter: Lucy Mazareski
Additional Translations: Joseph Pelc
President: James E Galton
Publisher: Stan Lee
Vice-President, Publishing: Michael Z Hobson
Vice-President, Production: Milton Schiffman
Vice-President, Circulation: Ed Shukin

Despite the reputation that educational comics have, I found this one-shot from 1982 to be astoundingly good.

In its execution, it bears a great deal of similarity to the later Mother Teresa Of Calcutta biomic. Both feature a present-day reporter recounting their subject's life in flashback, both then show a near encounter in the present, and both close on the effect that this remarkable individual regularly has on us mortal folk.

Where the Pope's life has the edge over Mother Teresa's though, is that he lived through World War 2 in Poland. As a result, as well as his personal tragedies, we get to see this real-life superhero pitted against the oppression of the Nazis, and who among us can fail to stand beside him in that?

The bulk of these 62 pages is therefore concerned a little more with who the mild-mannered guy inside the red cape is, than merely his CV.




The result is a portrait of an everyman who, in discovering how to apply his faith to his own extraordinary situation, along the way learnt out how to apply it to others', no matter how different their individual circumstances.

Not only does Steven Grant's script pack a whole lifetime into these pages, but John Tartaglione and Joe Sinnot's art positively shines throughout. This guy is easily recognisable as the famous pontiff throughout his long life, and even as a baby you can't mistake the man who little Karol Wojtyla is to one day become.


This one-off comic is supposed to have sold millions of copies worldwide, doubtless because of the popularity of its star, however I have to wonder just how much of that was due to the quality of the actual comic?

Available here.

Vortex - The Big Finish Magazine #24

Latest free advertising periodical for Big Finish's range of sci-fi audio stories on CD.

Well, I say sci-fi. One of the big plugs in this issue is for a new range of more down-to-earth productions entitled Drama Showcase. That this is such a big deal highlights the huge success that the team has had with its more Doctor Who-related range over the past decade, not that things are looking very run-of-the-mill with those either, apparently. Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor Adventures for BBC Radio 7 is coming to a close after four seasons, and with it a now long-running companion is leaving.

Oh, and the editorial says that Tom Baker's finally coming on board! Woo-hoo!

Clearly designed to hold onto existing customers rather than hook new ones in, it's encouraging to read of so many people obviously enjoying their work, and customers who apparently feel the same way.

Available to read online here.

Josie and the Pussycats

40!

Doctor Who: 16th National Television Awards

Barking pre-filmed sketch to open the above ceremony, featuring the eleventh Doctor's repeated attempts to transport presenter Dermot O'Leary to the opening on time, via TARDIS.

O'Leary seems a surprising choice of guest-star. Ten years ago I was hearing various negative reports regarding the condescension with which he would routinely introduce any science-fiction show on T4. (Angel, Babylon 5 and Enterprise if I recall correctly) Still, even if merited, those complaints were a decade ago now.

Here he seems to make his peace with the genre however, although one has to wonder just how much of this is down to Doctor Who's return having made science-fiction cool in the UK again. The former Big Brother presenter plays himself extremely well, and there's nothing about him here not to like. This then might just be the first thing he's done that British SF fans have felt permitted to enjoy.

But let's not forget the rest of the creative team here. The frantic pace, smart script and enthusiasm of both leads make these four minutes a rollercoaster of fun, as again and again the bumbling eleventh Doctor drops O'Leary off in the wrong TV show. Even Graham Norton gets in yet again! I'm mightily relieved that, 100 years in the future, BBC Television Centre hasn't been sold off after all.

Although transmitted after A Christmas Carol, at time of writing this entry makes more sense just before it, while Amy and Rory are still away on their honeymoon as per the preceding Death Of The Doctor.

Except of course that this madcap short is obviously not canon, it's all just too silly. Then again, that's what we all assumed 20 years ago about the chaotic telethon sketch Dimensions In Time, and look how prophetic that fuzzy style turned out to be...

Today's celebrity Bible-reader is... Jamie Oliver

Get a large bowl. Then mix together wheat, barley, beans, lentils, and millet, and make some bread.

- Ezekiel 4:9a (CEV)

Space Jam

One of those rare team-ups which, like Frank Sinatra and Bono, you would never in a million years otherwise think of: Looney Tunes and basketball.

Indeed, if you entered the cinema at just about any moment during the first third of this, within moments you'd probably be wondering if the projectionist had accidentally spliced two entirely different films together.

In some scenes, Michael Jordan stars in a cynical modern-day drama about himself throwing-in basketball to pursue his lifelong dream of a career in baseball.

In others... well it's Looney Tunes, but with a lower frame-rate and somewhat different voices.

When the two genres finally meet, the film at last gains some, uh, legs, and the whole thing becomes a fluffy tribute to the US sporting celebrities of the day. Over 20 (for me) complete strangers line up to play themselves in here, ensuring that it's either lost or gained something since its release in 1996.

Despite its pedigree, this is another Looney Tunes outing which flatly ignores the contemporary casts of Tiny Toons, Animaniacs etc., which is a shame given the amount of respect which those shows routinely paid to the classic characters here.

Space Jam also wants to be a lot funnier than I found it, but the occasional line did still get me laughing.

Daffy: "Just how did you get here, anyway?"
Bill Murray: "Producer's a friend of mine."

Mr. Swackhammer: "Whoa, whoa, whoa! I didn't know Dan Aykroyd was in this picture!"

Psychic: "I see aliens. Little aliens from outer space. They forced their way inside your bodies. They need your talent to win a basketball game against Bugs Bunny. I also see Michael Jordan being sucked down a golf hole by furry creatures."
Unknown famous client: "That's it, we're going."

It might be a fun movie if you love basketball, but probably not if you're into the Looney Tunes who, it can't be avoided, are just not on form here.

Still, a pleasant way to pass 88 minutes, and even better, it ultimately gave us the fantastic sequel Back In Action!

Available here.

The Birds (film)

Someone at ITV must have been having a laugh when they scheduled this famous Hitchcock horror on Valentine's Day.

I mean, in some ways it's an anti love-movie. Boy and girl meet. Boy and girl fall in love. Boy and girl get pecked to bits by crows.

Alfred Hitchcock is famously known as "The Master Of Suspense", yet to watch this 1963 film in 2011, you have to wonder why today's producers don't venture to take a few more leaves out of his book.

The Birds features strong characters, fantastic acting and beautiful photography. These ingredients should make for compelling viewing on their own, but I think the reason why they soar in this is because they are so well enhanced by two further ingredients:

1. An unusual story.

2. No incidental music, which makes the whole thing feel extremely believable.

Granted, a few of the effects haven’t aged so well, but plenty of others had me quickly giving up wondering how they were done.

The narrative does suffer from a few instances of characters heading off into danger purely so that they can then get attacked for the next couple of minutes, but the film's other strong elements easily overcome these conceits.

The whole thing also ends very abruptly without any explanation of events, which on the one hand feels lazy and dissatisfying, but on the other left me with plenty to think about.

It's easy to watch any well-liked movie and join others in gushing about how wonderful it all is. It's equally easy to knock those who do so in order to feign superiority over them.

However I've now reviewed over 250 films on this blog, and this one has gotta be in the top ten.

Elvis Love Songs

Free with The Mail On Sunday a few weeks ago, this represents a bona fide compilation album of Elvis' songs about his favourite subject.

I'm not sure quite why rights holders give their approval for freebies like this. If you already have a free album of a particular artist's most famous love songs, then why would you go out and buy another one?

Not that I'm complaining. Even to those of us who remain single this Valentine's Day, Elvis' croonings contain a sense of humour that somehow lifts even the sad ones up to a level of fun.

If you're both single and a cheapskate, then this is definitely an album with which to both celebrate Valentine's Day, and sidestep its consumerism.

Track listing:

1. It's Now Or Never
2. Are You Lonesome Tonight?
3. Heartbreak Hotel
4. One Night
5. I Need Your Love Tonight
6. (Now and Then) There's A Fool Such As I
7. As Long As I Have You
8. Any Way You Want Me (That's How I Will Be)
9. Love Me
10. Blue Moon
11. True Love
12. Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?
13. I Love You Because
14. I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine
15. I'm Counting On You

Sound Of Superman™ - 14 Incredible Originals and Powerful Covers Honoring the Legend of Superman™

Every Christmas I hide all of the presents that I've bought in the same place.

I won't tell you where - that would defeat the purpose. You'll just have to imagine it from the description in the next two paragraphs.

So, just before the Christmas just gone, I dutifully emptied said top secret hideaway of gifts to begin wrapping them up. However, then I thought I'd better double-check, just to make certain that I hadn't left some forgotten item behind. So, I once again thrust my arm back into the darkness, scrabbled around a bit, and found my hand alighting upon a suspiciously unfamiliar plastic bag.

Now without giving too much away, the bag itself was just too big to extract in one go, so instead I slid my out-of-sight fingers inside it, and found myself feeling… a CD?

Now this was odd. I had no recollection of buying anyone in my family any CDs for Christmas, other than the ones which I had already removed and accounted for, so what the heck could this thing be? Wrangling it from the bag, I retracted my hand and gasped...


It had a Sounds price tag on it, had come out of a Sounds carrier bag, and coincidentally enough was entitled:

"Sound Of Superman™ - 14 Incredible Originals and Powerful Covers Honoring the Legend of Superman™"

Well, I just stood there for about a minute, gawping at it. That's what we TV characters do while we're having those flashbacks that the rest of you get to watch in the third person.

As far as I was concerned, the first and last time that I had seen this CD had been when I had briefly examined it in the old Sounds branch in Botany in 2007, back when they had been doing their whole closing-down stock-clearance thing.

Now, on the basis of the evidence, I was forced to suppose that I must have bought this for best mate Herschel, brought it back home, and then forgotten all about it. For the whole of the next three years.

Oops, sorry Herschel.

There can't be many superheroes who have had an entire album recorded in their honour (or honor), so if any of them deserve it, then I guess Superman would have to be top of the list.

Not that the big names of rock exactly lined-up to play on here. I'd like to say that we instead have a diverse collection of different styles each paying their own tribute to the man of steel in their own unique way, but the fact is that the album maintains a steady grunge tone throughout. Two of the tracks even have the same fairly generic title of just Superman.

Not that any of that is really a criticism. This is one of those wallpapery albums whose consistency ensures that it can be happily left to run in the background while you're getting on with something else. (like wrapping)

One exception would be Meet Me At My Window by Jack's Mannequin, which allows the collection to breathe a bit with a breezy style somewhere between classical and easy listening. Also Royal's Braniac's Daughter, which is batty and poppy like it's also paying tribute to Superman's pal Paul McCartney.

This whole 2006 release looks like it really wants to be a more obvious tie-in to the Superman Returns film of the same year, complete with foreword by that movie's director Bryan Singer, and final track by the sister of its star Brandon Routh. However for me I'm afraid that, overall, the love didn't really come through.

"Superman on an aeroplane,
Sitting next to Lois Lane,
You got that woman but you want her gone,
So you can sleep with a teenage blonde"

Like the movie, a bit bleak.

At time of writing, Herschel hasn't yet told me what he thinks of his 2010 Christmas gift, which I told him I'd gone out and bought specially. Well, maybe I should have removed the bag.

I might have got something for it on trademe.


Track listing:

1. Superman - The Academy Is...
2. It's So Easy - Plain White T's
3. (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman - The Sun
4. The Worst Part... - Motion City Soundtrack
5. Sunshine Superman - The Films
6. Save Me - Maxeen
7. My Hero - Paramore
8. The Rescue - American Hi-Fi
9. Saved - The Spill Canvas
10. Meet Me At My Window - Jack's Mannequin
11. Waitin' For A Superman - Nightmare of You
12. Superman - The Receiving End Of Sirens
13. Brainiac's Daughter - Royal
14. You're Never Gone - Sara Routh

Available to sample and buy here.

Iron Man 2

If you've already seen Iron Man, then this follow-up is very consistent with it. On the other metallic hand, if you didn't see Iron Man, then you'll probably find little reason to sympathise with this film's central arrogant character of Tony Stark.

For this is quite definitely a sequel.

Some sequels work very hard to better their inspiration's popularity. (eg. Spider-Man 2) Others relax and depend upon it. (eg. The X Files: I Want To Believe)

This one falls into the latter section.

However, although Iron Man 2 runs on lower-powered batteries, I find these slower-running movies to be such a pleasant relief from the usual superhero chaos. The scene in which Vanko attacks Stark while racing at the Circuit de Monaco has the heavy pace of real time, even if said bad guy does take so long that he seems to actually want to lose.

Funnyman Garry Shandling turns in a great performance as Senator Stern, but in so doing breaks the film's believability, unlike Larry King's appearance as Stan Lee, which is only a cameo:


However the biggest problem I had here was Stark's father having hidden details of a new element in some model buildings, without apparently even knowing why his son would one day need it. Surely I must be missing something there...

By sticking to its source material, Iron Man 2 fails to reproduce its originality, however since the first one was so good, that's not such a bad plan, Stan.

Available here.
Review of Iron Man here.
Review of The Avengers here.
Review of Iron Man Three here.
(with thanks to Alistair)

Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol

For a story that has been so openly lifted from elsewhere, I found this refreshingly original.

There's a spaceship about to crash on an alien planet, a disaster which the local Scrooge character refuses to avert because... well, because he's the local Scrooge character. Making the connection between the current festive season and the famous book by Charles Dickens, the Doctor has one hour in which to literally confront Kazran Sardick with his past, present and future in order to change his mind.

But not by simply whisking the old moaner around in the TARDIS. That would be too easy.

Instead the Doctor himself flits back and forth throughout the guy's whole life, tweaking events all over the place in order to nurture, or maybe manipulate, the man who he will ultimately become.

This is reflected throughout by our constant cutting back to Kazran in his updating present, as he watches past events re-unfold not just in his videos, photos and paintings, but also apparently his own memory.

The ease with which the Doctor keeps popping back to the old man for information, sometimes for just one sentence, reflects just how prolific the Doctor has at last become at travelling in time. Forget rules about non-interference, changing ones' own history, or even meeting oneself - the eleventh Doctor has a time-machine and he's going to use it, so there. That we never even see him making these journeys, but rather just cut to him already in each new location and time, just makes the whole thing fly along.

Throw in really excellent performances from everyone (especially Laurence Belcher as young Kazran), the beautiful singing of Katherine Jenkins, and no end of funny dialogue, and we have the greatest Doctor Who story in years. This is what I've been saying these guys are capable of!

Perhaps the aspect that most impressed me here was, paradoxically, that this misty steampunk world was nothing like Doctor Who, old or new. Although there's a Disney-esque sequence in the middle with the Doctor, young Kazran and Abigail soaring through the clouds Santa-style in a cart pulled by a giant flying fish (shark, dolphin, whatever), for the most part this felt much more like an indie movie. Specifically, like The City Of Lost Children, which as I said in my review I found far less comprehensible.

So, after all that praise, here's where I segue into what for me were the 2010 Christmas special's shortcomings:

1. The picture quality is possibly the worst in the show's 31-series history. Black-and-white telerecordings from the 1960s look clearer than this, and on occasion contain more colour. Made in 'high definition'? You must be joking.

2. The dialogue needs recording clearer to stand any chance against the almighty incidental music. The booms are dying out there.

3. The almighty incidental music. Please turn this off for at least two-thirds of the programme, so that we can hear what the characters are saying to each other and develop some empathy with them. Sorry Murray Gold, you're a good musician and all, but the show would actually be better off if you were let go and not replaced. That's no reflection on you, you work hard, far too hard in fact. They should give you breaks. Like, whenever someone speaks. Alternatively, bearing in mind points one and two, how about keeping the great music and getting rid of the picture and dialogue?

4. Amy and Rory both wear costumes which, according to the preceding episode, they cannot possibly have with them.

5. In this story, while an hour passes for Amy and Rory, about a week passes for the Doctor and Abigail, and a lifetime passes for Kazran. Thanks to the TARDIS, this is all well and good, except that old Kazran seems to witness the Doctor's changes unfolding in his memory in real time.

For example, as we see young Kazran enter the TARDIS, we also see old Kazran wondering out loud the same question about its size, apparently unable to recall the Doctor's answer until 'after' he has spoken it in the past and created that memory. Well, that's the way it looks to me. So on that basis, as maybe a week passes for the Doctor and cumulatively for Kazran's many younger incarnations, so a week of remembering ought to pass for old Kazran too.

It is also hinted however that old Kazran has his memory updated in chunks. The total changes of each journey that the Doctor makes could be recalled by Kazran in a separate instant. For example, old Kazran seems aware of the Doctor's imminent attack by the giant fish, before the narrative has shown us this, but this isn't made explicit either.

Basically the script could have been clearer regarding which dynamic the laws of time were following this episode.

6. Just while we're here, obviously old Kazran shouldn't continue to remember any version of his life which the Doctor has overwritten, including his many subsequent meetings with the Time Lord in the present.

For example, by the end of the episode, the Doctor's first chronological meeting with old Kazran would have changed to one of being recognised by him, and assisted immediately. The Doctor would also have changed his own history and memories, and not had any reason to go back and change any of Kazran's life. They should at least each recall different versions of this 'first' encounter.

But hey, it's science FICTION, and I'd love to see this state of limbo flux explored by this author more. Go on, Steven Moffat, make this idea work. We all know you can.

7. When, towards the story's end, the Doctor realises that he has changed history so much that Kazran's machine no longer recognises him, it should actually have updated along with the rest of history. Kazran's dad would have programmed it for the man who Kazran was now to become.

8. Big problem this - when the Doctor moots releasing Abigail from cryo to spend the final day of her life singing, he also suddenly forgets that he has a time-machine. Doh! Even with young Kazran there, it still never occurs to him to borrow her from an earlier point in her life, or even to go back in time and just record her voice. I don't mind the programme makers wanting to give the story an emotional punch at the end, but I do mind them breaking the rules of the very same episode to do it. They could easily have had the exhausted TARDIS overheat or something to remove that option.

9. He doesn't take the dying Abigail to the hospital in New Earth to get better either. Yes, I know that if he did then he would have to also do so for every character who dies in every story ever, but given the freedom with which he wields the TARDIS in this one, I thought it noticed.

Overall though, wonderful. It was even set on an alien planet!

I may have missed watching this on Christmas Day, but for me this made a fantastic 40th birthday special instead.