It had previously been a pretty long dry spell on Jackson Publick's livejournal, which meant I wasn't checking it frequently. And jeez oh man did I miss a great update on March 8...

Continue reading "The Venture Bros. season three news..." »

In this edition, with the title "Laceyvision" that being an egomaniac I think may be the best yet, we spunk criticism up the back of Lost, which if recent plans to cap the story at five seasons are to be believed, has just passed the halfway point in it's epic mystery. Also Paul Rose of Digitiser fames "Biffovision" pilot, which snuck onto BBC3 in the middle of the night, and ridiculous computer game movie "Doom". Which has got The Rock in it.

Continue reading "Laceyvision" »

Daleks zipping through the air, terrifying-looking scarecrows, wedding, "I am not the Doctor", Captain Jack salutes, Sir Derek Jacobi, and JOHN FUCKING SIMM...

Another column, another new title. This one is a pun on "Screening Room", reflecting my unusual choice to watch most of my television inside a womb, while I scream incessantly at the top of my voice. I find it helps to relax me. Today in Screaming Womb, I'll be kidnapping the BBC's 2000 mini-series Gormenghast based on the novels (Titus Groan and Gormenghast - the last entry in the trilogy was wisely excluded) by Mervyn Peake, before making hot steamy criticism with it and leaving it out in the woods.

Continue reading "Screaming Womb - Gormenghast" »

With the unarguably disappointing Torchwood out of the way, it's nearly time for Doctor Who Series 3, which starts this Saturday (March 31st, 7pm, BBC1). The first episode, "Smith & Jones", sees The Doctor investigating a London hospital which has been transported to the moon, and meeting his new companion Martha Jones, played by Freema Agyeman. Who I already really, really fancy. Not a great deal has been revealed about the series (we don't even know all the episode titles, although they will apparently be revealed in this weeks Radio Times) compared to previous years, but we have had some tantalising glimpses of what lies ahead over the next 13 weeks. If you want to go in completely fresh, I'd advise against reading this article - which rounds up some of the more interesting rumours, ruminations, previews and publicity...

Continue reading "It's nearly here!" »

As absolutely nobody suggested a better title than "Cineblahblah" for this column, and the fact that I decided this entry would contain TV aswell as film, rendering the cinema element inaccurate, I've decided to give it the even worse "Projectionz". The "Z" at the end is hilariously ironic. Suggestions for new titles remain welcome.

Tickling my criticial frenulum this entry are Eddie Izzards new American vehicle The Riches, the accidentally rented crapfest Dreamland, and Sienna Miller in "1960's film" Factory Girl.

Continue reading "Projectionz" »

Straight out of Russia comes part two of the hit fantasy trilogy by Sergei Lukyanenko and directed by talented visionary Timur Bekmambetov, "Day Watch." If you didn't see "Night Watch" which was released early last year, I recommend you go out and rent it straight away. That is if you like fantasy epics set in modern day Moscow and involving vampire-like creatures that can morph, teleport, and do all sorts of cool tricks.

Continue reading "Russian Cinema Makes Me Feel All Warm and Fuzzy Inside" »

R2-D2 to become a mailbox in the US. Temporarily, anyway. You have to wonder just how long these things are going to last before some fanboys take the law into their own hands and start stealing them...

From here.

First of the Futurama films.

Bender's Big Score.

December 2007!

That is all.

(No, wait, that's not all. iF Magazine gets to interview Matt Groening but they can't even proofread the result for basic spelling and grammar? Come on, now...if you're going to post an interview like that that'll cause an influx of visitors, at least make an effort to look professional for them. That is all.)

A complete technical disaster on every level.

But: it's such a joy to see regional news veteran Wesley Smith deal with things so wonderfully. The bit near the end where he has to fill time reminds me of old IVC. I half expected him to get his TV Times out. A pure joy.

When things go wrong is when you really earn your money as a presenter.

Continue reading "Philip K. Dick - The Man in the High Castle" »

Feel free to suggest a superior title for this newly semi-regular film column of mine, which is at present supposed to be a pun of Cinerama, although evidently not one so good as to not require me explaining it. This time, Cineblahblah sprays it's critical fluid up inside droll satire Thank You For Smoking, popular epic Return Of The King - Extended Edition, pene-drama Shortbus, and the Oscar-nominated drama Venus.

Continue reading "Cineblahblah" »

Here.

Piccies here.

A shame this didn't go into production, as it could have been pretty good. I love the set especially.

Reuters News publish a compliation of the feedback from their online readers every couple of weeks or so called 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly'. Check out the first complaint in this issue.

Pass it on.

Continue reading "Alternate Cover #45 - Top 10 Deaths in Comics" »

ITV Play went off air on Tuesday.

For the EPG on ITV1 to be telling me that it's still on is nothing short of embarassing in its ineptness.

Hooray!

Broadcast on December 22nd 2001. The full series came the year after, and started on November 14th 2002. I'd completely forgotten it had started so long ago...

Well for starters, if you're a major UK newspaper read for free by numerous commuters and left lying around trains and buses everywhere, not putting it as the big story on page three before all the UK-based comic shops have actually had a chance to open their doors and sell the blasted thing might be a help.

Spoilers in the above link and in the rest of this post...

Continue reading "How Not To Report On A Massive Comics Event" »

Well, well, well. The more excellent among you will remember a few years ago, talented writer and producer Dirk Maggs, as part of Above the Title Productions, adapted the final three Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books into shiny new radio series, complete with the original cast and some excellent guest starts. I was a big fan of these adaptations as, where they might not have been as funny as the original two, the cast where such a joy to listen to, I didn’t really care much.

So, imagine my excitement now it has been revealed the BBC have commissioned Maggs and his team to adapt the brilliant Dirk Gently books to radio. Feel free to let out a yelp of cautious glee at any point.

Continue reading "Maggs does Gently" »

Fantastic.

(Via The Icon Bar.)

Continue reading "Booktext, March 07--One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" »

I am, of course, talking about the region 2 Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG boxset, containing another 26 episodes of Ghost in the Shell goodness.

Now, I'm sure I don't need to devote this article to telling you exactly how and why Ghost in the Shell is so good, and I'm certainly not going to spend my time revealing plot spoilers, so the only real thing left to do is discuss it in terms of what came before.

Continue reading "It's here! It's here! It's here!" »

Series 2, Episode 6..

I'm a bit of latecomer to this series, but bloody hell, this an amazing piece of radio. Just make sure you listen to the whole thing, as it really kicks off in the last ten minutes. I can't say any more without spoiling it...

Until recently, I used to play spot the voiceover in the ad breaks during ITV programmes. Now, more and more, I find myself playing spot the ad. You expect ad breaks that consist of nothing but trailers during regional opt-out documentaries, even if they're rather good ones about canals presented by Timothy West. However, even a high-rating Saturday night show like Al Murray's Happy Hour can struggle to pull in the advertisers. OK, the show has a sponsor, who must be paying a fair bit towards the upkeep of the old LWT building, but absence of other advertisers and the preponderance of puffs for things starring Robson Green doesn't bode well for the financial health of the light channel, IMHO.

Go ahead, see if you can make Google laugh.

There's really no value to this device so far as I can tell, but it was fun to plug in different jokes and see what Google finds "funny." For example:

Q: What did the pirate say to Captain Crunch?
A: Arrrrrrr you going to finish that cereal?

Which is, apparently, 89.3617% funny. You can thank my cereal box for that little lump of comic gold.

For the record, I did actually achieve the amazing feat of a 100.00% funny joke. But I'm not sure I should post it here until after you all make your attempts...

Watching the Flight Into Terror episode of Father Ted I was struck by the staggeringly high number of jokes that are met with not only laughter but enthusiastic applause from the studio audience. Applauding at a particularly clever joke isn't anything out of the ordinary, but watch the episode again and take note of just how often it happens. I counted four bursts of applause in the short end section alone.

Continue reading "Applause! Applause!" »