Peter Kay: eat your heart out (an author takes the karaoke format to heart)

This is just sublime.

How can I stand in her way?

Two dead movies (and a double)

Ah, more wine, more music and two dead movies.

That is Dawn of the Dead (the recent remake of the classic Romero anti-consumer zombie film) and Dead Man's Shoes (aka vengeance is mine saith the brother).

In the case of the first, I just want to say that running zombies are VERY scary and re: the second that there is no such thing as just having blood on your hands in the metaphorical sense. Both very fine movies in their different ways. Also, good to see that the kindly doctor from American Gothic is still getting work (American Gothic: much underrated spooky US TV).

All neatly followed up with a dose of double Willow (Doppelgängland), which of course is never going to be a difficult viewing choice for the George. Featuring as it does some fab cute Willow moments as well as the wonderful scene when Willow dresses as the evil vampire alternate reality Willow and looks down at herself:

"Gosh, look at those"

Hee. A wonderful night of fun and freaky screaming.

In Aberdeen

Walked a lot. Cloud got to the real news before I could. have had great food, fab music, live bands and THE BEACH!

Photos and stuff will be posted next week.

In the meantime for the funnies just keep dropping by Struggling Author: she's just my best entertainment at the moment (what will we do for fun after the house-warming party? Apart from beg for invites to the inevitable wedding, where I will of course demand to be a bridesmaid and then proceed to steal the groom's heart...

... not actually, because, like, that would be gross...)

Hee.

... But apparently not from spammers...

Okay, urgent measures called for.

Sorry folks but certainly for the next couple of weeks I'm restricting comments to registered users of Blogger. Am REALLY sorry to those of you who aren't users of blogspot (well, mostly) that you won't be able to comment for that period but needs must. I got seriously spammed and I don't want to check in on a full inbox of spam comments whilst I am away. I've left a sample of the way they're spamming pesudo-messages as "anonymous" but friendly comments to show why I have done this.

Tough love will be reconsidered when I have more regular net access to monitor things.

A small break from blogging

Not cause I'm all depressed from watching Buffy cry fests. We're off for a short break soon (again) - north to see George! Will try and blog tomorrow, but if not see ya later!

Death is not a gift: why "The Body" is still one of the best 45 minutes of TV drama about bereavement

It's draining.

Is it allergy season? Because I seem to have a little something in my eye. Could be cat dander, I suppose. Let me just make sure to pull the box of tissues a little closer.

When George was being tutored in the ways of Buffy, it actually ended up that he watched this episode whilst I was away at a BAAS conference (we were watching them pretty much in order, from the first, finishing on the final one - "Chosen", episode 144 - the day before he moved out: awesome). I called home on the Sunday, I think, to talk to Cloud only to find he was still in bed and it was George who answered. Pretty soon he said "I watched it" and despite not even being in each other's presence, we both started choking up.

"The Body" comes just past the centre of Season 5, and focuses on the death - or rather the immediate aftermath - of Buffy's mother, Joyce from a brain tumour. Nothing spooky, demony. A natural death, ordinary in it's mundane cause. Written and directed by programme creator Whedon, it's pretty much an episode that subverts the usual wasys in which genre TV drama deals with death.

What is it about the episode that makes it work? Well, there's no incidental music (no music at all in fact, apart from the opening titles) which gives it a rather strange edge of surreality, in the sense of beyond the real. Whedon wants to avoid there being any sense of emotional support or guidance for the viewer. It creates a feeling of being set adrift; the emotional numbness of bereavement. The acting is pretty fine too, and avoids many of the usual cliched pitfall depictions of characters dying on TV. The moment when Giles arrives and tries to revive Joyce and Buffy yells at him to stop because the paramedics "said not to move the body" just gets to me everytime. When the words come out, she gasps in horror at her own words: she has just described her mother as "the body" and the reality of the moment begins to sink in. Whedon drew on his own experience of bereavement - of his own mother's death - to go through some of the numbed responses a person can go through. Willow changing her clothes, struggling to find an 'appropriate' outfit, frantic and frozen, focused on this seemingly banal action. On "TelevisionWithoutPity", Sep's recap provides a really good example of how real this action can be:

To my dad's funeral, I wore mismatched shoes and ankle-zip, acid-wash jeans. Shudder. Let me repeat that. I wore acid-washed denim to my father's funeral.Yes, I was grief-stricken. Yes, it was 1988. Yes, I was thirteen. But still. But still.

And as for Anya's rant: Anya. Ex-demon. Not really with the whole 'human emotions' thing. And yet.

It's the kind of episode that makes you feel. And I don't care if it's genre-stuff. It works.

Buy the book

I don't think Casyn is too excited at all.

Relishing in Sherlock Holmes

Over the years I have taken much pleasure in watching the various performances of Holmes on screen (and I still enjoy watching the Jeremy Brett series', even though with hindsight they seem much more mannered, even hammy, than my fond memories had established them). Refreshed from watching the recent television drama about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - hmm, cannot think why? [though it was not his first brush with Holmes] - I was therefore thrilled when Cloud said he had found a trove of Sherlock Holmes Penguin orange cover classic crime books at the West Bridgford Oxfam. A snip of their original price, the six books were brand new. "Get 'em!" I cried.

If I had read any previously, it must have been as a child, because I certainly cannot recall reading them in the last couple of decades. But what a treat! I think that these will keep me out of trouble for at least a couple of days!

Marie counts the days and puts on hold all other news from her life

Just have to keep reading sweet Marie at the moment. The vicarious pleasure is too exquisitely wonderful.

Scrubs: why has John C. McGinley not been nominated for an Emmy?

Okay, this series has always had its best character and performances in the wonderful John C. McGinley, but after watching last night's episode "My Screwup" from Season 3, I'm just wanting to know how the hell this guy hasn't even had nominations for his work on the show.

Scrubs works best when it combines poignant events against the surreal comedy. Last night's turned on a knife to cut me open - and I thanked the stars that I was half distracted by the fact we were watching it with a friend over, 'cos otherwise that would have been me as a big fat puddle of tears all over the sofa.

Beautiful stuff.

Obscure Song No 4: "Return to Innocence Lost"

My fourth in this occasional series is something rather different: a musical poem one might say. The Roots, Philadelphia's finest hip-hop group ever, delivered on their earliest albums some glorious cluminations to their work by inviting Ursula Rucker to contribute. Things Fall Apart - for my money their finest album - ends (well, kinda: Scratch gets into the whole 'hidden track' thing some minutes later) with the heartbreaking "Return to Innocence Lost."

Ursula Rucker is one of the best proponents of the sort of work usually found at a good poetry slam (and having been to one at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, I can assure you that such events can be inspirational - as well as hugely entertaining). Written out, the words can appear almost blank: spoken, they take on another life entirely.

"Return to Innocence Lost" tells the story of the violent birth, life and death of Rucker's elder brother:

Played a different kind of street game now
First Son plunged deep
Speak street-family vows
Espouse no causes but his own
See, he couldn't protect Mommy's neck from Daddy's grasp
Or...protect Mommy's ass from Daddy's wrath
Couldn't shield her ears from...Daddy's foul-mouthed, liquor-breath jeers
His only defense-served be confidence
Brown bottles housed his swift descent
Phones called cops on block frequent for his shenanigans
Now...Daddy and him twins in addiction
Driven to false-hearted heavens and friends
By liquefied demons
Had become what he despised from Conception 'til End

Rucker's solo work is also worth checking out, but for me, Things Fall Apart - and especially this contribution - remains one of her finest moments.

Obscure songs: a recap and return (Listing)

Back at the start of the year I thought about starting up an "Obscure Songs" review. I only did three before events and work and suchlike took over my schedule - I think the Chick Flicks essay was also haunting me at the time!

Anyway, these were the first three, all worth searching out:

Licquorice: Keeping the Weekend Free
The Sixths - Momus: As You Turn to Go
Hazeldine: Tarmac

I'm thinking of digging up some other tracks, some little gems under the boardwalk of sound. I'll probably keep this post as a link to the first three and as a home for subsequent irregular additions to the collection.

Update:
The Roots - Ursula Rucker: Return to Innocence Lost

Throwing a wig across the table: the Death of Mo Mowlem

She was smart, funny and human. Clare Short remarked on Radio 5 Live this morning how saddened she was that yet another politician had died too young, citing the recent demise of Robin Cook, and the previous deaths of John Smith and Donald Dewar.

Personally, I think Mowlem was the nicest of the lot.

Charlie's World

Anna got in a neat review / comment here on the Burton interpretation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (especially liked the note that there was a Rufus-type quality to Depp's portrayal of Willa Wonka: she's not wrong).

Anyway, Cloud and I went with friend Helen Lisette this week to see what the fuss was about for ourselves. After a few works that have been less than impressive from Burton, this seemed to be much closer to his earlier genius (though I do think that trailing Corpse Bride provides a powerful reminder of the ghoulish narratives he started off with: and probably a lot to live up to).

And I'm not saying that Burton only works well with Depp, but it is hard to ignore that the quality quotient goes up when he (JD) is around the gothy one (TB).

Many of the problems with the film stem from its origins: Dahl was pretty misanthropic, xenophobic and all over a rather unpleasant dude. Depictions of poverty are of a quaintly cartoon-like nature. Yet there is nevertheless a lot to enjoy about this film.

Cloud may get in first with this remark, but it certainly reminded us of Barry Levinson's much underrated film Toys. (And that's not intended to be snide - we actually have a lot of time for that film).

So what works best about this new update, given that all three of us who went are very much of the Gene Wilder version generation? Well, Depp turns in a wonderfully bonkers performance, one that seems a little more human and slightly less overtly cruel than Wilder's portrayal. Yes, a little 'Michael Jackson-esque' but done in a very smart way. His Wonka remarks to the prissy James Fox as Veruca Salt's father "you're weird!", which is delivered in such a way as to convey both bewilderment and a fearless lack of self-awareness.

The sets are appropriately eye-dazzling and even the songs work well (there's some great psychedelia in this film, both visually and aurally).

The ending is perhaps overly twee, with the reconcilation of Wonka with his father (an addition to the original book's narrative), but there is a great sense of wonder in this film. If anybody could have superceded the 1971 version, it was going to be Burton: and he hasn't failed.

TV Programmes (my second attempt)

I had a great post worked out in response to this. Blogger lost it. I have just resisted the urge to throw my cronky office computer from the window on a hot sunny day (even though I know its Blogger and not the computer).

GRRR

Recent / ongoing

* Blackpool (these boots...)
* Casanova (a confection of delight and tears)
* CSI (can I have all three versions?)
* Dr Who (recent series... and hopefully the next)
* Green Wing (just bonkers and hilarious: DVD btw anyone... anyone? Channel 4 have you gone to sleep?)
* House (best doctor in years and a smart character)
* Law and Order: Criminal Intent (smart character, again: even if Private Pyle all growed-up has nicked that quirk of tipping his head on one side from Clooney in "ER")
* Scrubs (Dr. Cox... 'nuff said)
* State of Play (script, actors, genius)
* The West Wing (the parallel world)

Past stuff: gone but not forgotten

* 24 (just Season 1: season 2 had its moments, but it going on and on - and on Sky - I've lost track. Prime 'climb-the-sofa' material)
* Buffy (can I have a slice of the Whedonverse - to include "Angel" as well please?)
* Dharma and Greg (I blame having cable TV for a while: I loved this show)
* Northern Exposure (before Dr. Joel and Maggie really got it together)
* Our Friends (in the South - aka "Holding On" / and the 'original' one, "Our Friends in the North")
* Psychos ("Did you like my flowers....?")
* Seinfeld ("Believe it or not, George isn't at home...")
* Spaced (worth repeated viewing: get them DVDs!)
* The Vice (Ken Stott: hangdog and emotionally tortured - just what he does best)
* The X-Files (because in less than a year we watched every single episode - even the end of season 9...)

Honourable mentions

Blackadder, Curb Your Enthusiasm, ER, Father Ted, Frasier, Our Mutual Friend, Quantum Leap, The Sopranos (early seasons), This Life

Further back in time

The Sandbaggers (one of the few programmes I recall from my younger days)