Big Brother

So, is it cruel to laugh at a blind man trying to learn a dance routine on Big Brother? Even when he keeps facing the wrong way?

Oh, and I pretty much despise all the remaining contestants, they really are the dredge of humanity in their now. Well, Lisa is OK, and Rachel is harmless I suppose, but who wants Darnell, Rex or Mohamed to stay in the house? Why have all the fun housemates gone? Am I that out of touch with what the typical man/woman on the streets wants to see in BB?

Bah

A Quickie

If you read my Blog, can you please leave a comment? Even if it's anonymous. Sometimes I like to know whether I still reach four readers, or whether anyone has dropped off. God forbid, sometimes I wonder if I've reached the uncanny heights of five!

A-Team: From TV To Film

TV shows translated to the big screen has been going for years; who can forget the (rather forgettable) film versions of On The Buses, Are You Being Served, Steptoe and Son, and many others? These films always tended to be more of an extended episode than a film standing in it's own right. But they were, for the most part, enjoyable hokum that whiled away a Sunday afternoon when broadcast on normal telly.

Somewhere along the way, film studios thought it might be a good idea to take a tv show and reinvent it for the big screen. Generally these involved taking the existing format, taking a couple of (fairly) high profile comic actors and creating a spoof version. The first one that I can remember seeing was Dragnet, starring Tom Hanks and Dan Ackroyd. I enjoyed this film quite a bit back in 1987, but then I didn't recall the original TV series. Would I have liked it quite as much if I had been a fan of the original Dragnet? Judging by later films of the same ilk, probably not.

Starsky and Hutch falls into the above category, taking a well respected cop show and remaking a spoof, replacing Paul Michael Glasier and David Soul with the comedy duo of Ben Stiller and Luke Owen Wilson. The film makers fell into what should have been an oh-so obvious trap; the original show was a classic, not because of the stories, but because of the characters and the actors that made the characters real. The original show was quite often funny, but the humour came from the characters. Now, Ben Stiller did a fantastic job of spoofing Paul Michael Glasier, and if the rest of the film followed suit, it could have had potential. But, no, instead lots of humour forced from improbable situations does not a good comedy make.

For me, the film really shows it's faults at the end, when Glasier and Soul make a cameo. They showed more humour and style in two minutes of screen time than the rest of the film combined.

Another horrible attempt at making a film from a tv show is The Dukes Of Hazard. In an attempt to "modernise" the premise, the two Dukes are turned from good ole country boys to complete assholes. But why, Hollywood, why? Everyone used to love the Dukes Of Hazard - but they loved the characters (and the car chases, obviously). Taking the two main stars, and turning them into a couple of pretty unlikeable rogues did nothing.

Then again, sometimes, the film makers don't try and make a comedy out of a tv show, but rather try and emulate the original, such is the case with the Avengers. One of my favourite ever tv shows turned into one of my most hated films. Some bits they got right - Patrick McNee playing an invisible man springs to mind; some bits were on the right track, but just didn't work - the bad guys all dressed as teddy bears, for instance (the plot was about weather control - not bears!!); some bits were mildly annoying, such as Steed and Peel always drinking tea, when it should be champagne, dammit! But the worst of all, was the characters in the film beared no resemblance whatsoever to their tv counterparts, and even worse there was absolutely no chemistry between the two leads. Bah.

Let's not even start on Miami Vice, where all the fun was sucked out of the film version in a big way.

The film companies don't always get it wrong, mind. I recently saw Get Smart, the new film starring Steve Carrell, based on the 60's comedy tv show. Now this is a good film; ok, Agent Smart is a different character from tv to film, he's a much more believable and well rounded character in the film. But most importantly, it manages to be funny, partly through the situations, as the tv series, but it also brought along comedy deriving from the characters within the film. Very good stuff, two thumbs up from me.

Now if you examine all the films I've talked about above, and what works in some is always what goes wrong in others - it's called characters. It's important to have likeable lead characters that work within the context of the original tv show. But likewise, don't just spoof the source material, you'll alienate fans who liked the show, and there's a good chance that newcomers won't get all the references.

Now, I hope that the creators of the new A-Team film have already considered this; judging by the rumour mill and the possible cast, the film won't be going the spoof route; but also, if the cast rumour gossip is anything to go by, it would seem that portraying the original characters is something this film is not striving for either.

I can do without a homemade tank that fires cabbages, but please avoid the pitfalls:
1. The A-Team is FUN, and in no way realistic.
2. The A-Team are good guys and do not kill people. They're already wanted for a murder they didn't commit, they don't need to be hunted for murders they do commit as well.
3. I want to see Hannibal, BA, Face and Murdoch on the big screen; I don't want to see a bunch of known actors playing variations on their regular characters (I'm looking at you Willis)
4. I want to see a few in-jokes, but hope the film doesn't get carried away with these. They can be too distracting.
5. No spoofing the genre conventions - this is BAD.

So, if Hollywood bods read this (possible, but unlikely) then please take note, we want an A-Team film, not an A-Team spoof, or an action blockbuster with only the names from the A-Team.

So to finish here's an incomplete list of TV Shows to Films; please feel free to leave a comment with any missing! Maybe even let me know your favourites and most hated? Oh, and it doesn't include cartoons...

Dragnet
The Untouchables
The Brady Bunch
The Addams Family
The Avengers
Lost In Space
The Fugitive
Charlie's Angels
Mission Impossible
Starsky And Hutch
Miami Vice
The Dukes Of Hazard
Get Smart

Alan Moore Knows The Score

Most of my readers (up to four now, I believe!) are not as geeky as I am, and probably have no knowledge of who Alan Moore is. With Watchmen coming to cinemas next year, it's probably time I educated my readers on who this gentlemen is, although I have no doubt they know some of his work.

Alan Moore is a comics writer with a huge output of comics and graphic novels, many of which have been turned into films. A huge amount, as it happens. But before the films, Pop Will Eat Itself featured Alan Moore and some of his comics in a modest hit called Can U Dig It. Don't remember it? Well here it is:

Wel, I liked it anyway (but then I am a geek).

So what about Alan Moore himself? Well, here's a pic:

Yes, he does look like a freak. And in a lot of respects he probably is. Examples:

1. Expelled from school for dealing LSD, he has always alledgelly been a user of drugs, like most great artistic people in fact.

2. He married, like most people, but him and his wife had a female lover for threesome fun, and eventually the wife run of with the other woman. That has to be hard.

3. He is a witch, and woships a Roman snake god. At least it's probably more fun than Catholicism.

4. He is an anarchist. Actually, judging by the way the country is going, this could be the most non-freaky thing about Alan Moore.

5. He lives in Northampton, which while not the oddest thing in the world is pretty strange.

HIs comic output is huge, and while not all successful, most is amazing. I myself was pretty much drawn into comics at a young age reading his Captain Britain run. His more successful work has now been filmed, including:

FROM HELL - the Jack The Ripper film starring Johnny Depp.

V FOR VENDETTA - the film most notable for Natalie Portman shaving her head, as well as having a terrorist as the hero in a post 9/11 world.

THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN - the high concept story of "what if fictional 19th Century stories and characters were real?" starring Sean Connery as an elderly Alan Quartermain.

And THE DARK KNIGHT was more than heavily infuenced by Moore's The Killing Joke.

However, for whatever reason, he hates his work being turned into film, and pretty much has his name taken off the work and accepts no royalties! Not accepting money from these films? See, a bit freakish. He didn't own the copyright on the above works, so they were made quite legally without his consent.

Next up in 2009 is Watchmen, the graphic novel that deconstructs comics. I'm not entirely sure what that means, but a quick Google shows that it basically means that the story turns all assumptions and genre conventions on their head. It's a great graphic novel, the trailer looks fantastic (but probably only if you already know the story).

Oh, and he got to appear as himself in the Simpsons!

HIs latest graphic novels were a series of boks called The Lost Girls, featuring Alice (In Wonderland), Dorothy (Oz) Gale and Wendy (Peter Pan's girlfriend) in a pornographic coming of age story. He takes each story and rewrite it as a sexual awakening of each girl. Never read them, as it sounds a bit too naughty for a comic.

So, that's the background for the genius that is Alan Moore. Now get ready for Watchmen next year, and if you want to read the graphic novel, just ask and I might lend.

Top Films 2008

Latest update to the Top 20.



01. The Dark Knight - OK, I had doubts, but it is the number one film of the year, no question.
02. Iron Man - slipping to no.2, but seriously, considering the no.1 that still rates as awesome.
03. The Incredible Hulk - Hulk still SMASH! but this time at no.3
04. Dan In Real Life
05. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crytsal Skull
06. Harold and Kumar Escape From Guatanamo Bay
07. Get Smart - more on this is another post soon
08. Hancock - despite it's mixed reviews, a decent action comedy with some intelligence
09. Kung Fu Panda
10. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
11. Sex & The City
12. Meet The Spartans
13. Speed Racer
14. What Happens In Vegas
15. The Mist
16. 27 Dresses
17. Cloverfield
18. Juno
19. In Bruges
20. Shrooms


And falling out of the top 20...

Doomsday, Step Up 2 The Streets, Jumper, Sweeney Todd, The Eye, One Missed Call and 10,000 BC (which is like Apocalypto, without the style and substance)

The X-Files is so far out of the Top 20 it's not even funny.

Films I've still yet to see:
Be Kind Rewind
Prince Caspian
Definitely Maybe
Teeth

Next films to be seen include The Mummy 3: Curse of the Emperor's Tomb, and in just over a week, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. Woot woot!

Back soon

I've been away from my blog for a while, due to a hectic end of last week, busy weekend, and then being rather poorly Monday and Tuesday. Normal A-Team service should resume shortly.

Sorry for the delay.

The Con Is On

Day two of our A-Team Casting Call, and this time it's the turn of Templeton 'Face' Peck, the con man of the team. Face is a failry generic character, and thus the possibilities of who to replace him with are pretty much endless (in fact Dirk Benedict himself replaced Tim Dunigan in the role).

Tim Dunigan as the first Faceman (yeah, who is he?)

Dirk Benedict as the second and only recognisable Faceman

Our first choice in this casting call is Matt Damon. He has the acting chops to pull it off, no doubt, and he seems a likely choice. But would he lower himself to an all ages action film?



Second up is Matt Damon's best friend Ben Affleck. I personally prefer Affleck to Damon, as I think he could carry off the charm and sleasiness much better.




Third choice, Brendan Fraser. No, not my idea, I think this is not a great choice. He has the charm, but I can't see him working as any kind of womanising con man.


Greg Kinnear seems to keep popping up over the net. Yes, he has the sleasiness inherent in Face's character, but he has all the charm of a wet rat that's been run over by a large lorry repeatedly. Yucky idea, the complete opposite of Brendan Fraser in fact.



Onto my personal favourite choice, although not a particularly well known actor, despite being in three X-Men films, Superman Returns, 27 Dresses, Interstate 60 (remember, I mentioned this film yesterday) and many others. And that's James Marsden. To me he just has the whole Face package.



And lastly, a woman. But not just any woman - Katee Sackoff, Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica. Wait, I hear you cry - but wasn't Dirk Benedict Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica? Well, yes he was, but in the in the new series he was recast as a woman, and I just think it the perfect of ironies that Face should get recast in the A-Team by the same woman who took his Battlestar Galactica role!

As yesterday, please leave your comments on those above and any suggestions you may have. I may have to skip tomorrow as I'll be having a long work day, but I'll be back with Howling Mad Murdock soon!

I Love It When A Plan Comes Together

So this week myself and several helpers shall be attempting to cast the new A-Team film. Now, we're not actually casting the film, I suppose it's more of a sad fantasy, like Fantasy Football without the competition. Each candidate will be awarded a score out of three, based on the original shows characters, to help my readers work out who should be cast!

Today we'll be looking at Hannibal Smith, the leader of the A-Team. As I'm sure anyone reading this already knows, he always has a plan and loves his cigars, as well as has a job as an actor. Sort of. Played by the late, great George Peppard, who could possibly fill his shoes? Well, here's a list of potential canditates...

The man himself, George Peppard


Bruce Willis

Bruce seems to be the most popular choice on the internet geek boards at the moment. But would he be any good? I'm not so sure, I think the film would end up with John McClane in the lead, being all action-hero-ish, and generally taking over the whole film. Oh, and he might actually something other than a tyre when he starts shooting. A veritable king of mad plans in the Die Hard films, Armageddon, etc.

Chris Cooper


An unlikely choice, but is it inspired? Probably best known for his role in The Bourne Identity, but has appeared in shit loads of films (my favourite is Interstate 60, bet you've never seen it). To me he has that look, and could well pull it off, but may be a bit too serious for the role.

George Clooney


Another popular choice, he definitely has the right look, but would his presence turn it from the A-Team into Ocean's 4? Still, he has the right kind of humour, I can see him getting excited over his over complicated plans, and basically turning the film into a lot of fun. Clooney might be a bit too PC to smoke a cigar, though, which would take him straight out of the running.

Mel Gibson

An interesting choice I stumbled upon on the internet, but I think he has the same problems as Bruce Willis. You'd end up with Martin Riggs leading the team, and who really wants to see Danny Glover as BA?! Of course, with Mel it could go the other way, and he'd insist it's filmed in Iraq, casting Iraquis in the key roles and the whole film being shot in foreign language with subs. Eh.

John Travolta

Very much like Willis and Gibson, except Travolta hasn't had a trilogy quadrilogy of films as the lead action star, and he more than often plays the bad guy. Good choice, and looks good smoking a cigar.

And Anne's choice...

Steve Martin

Um. Yeah. Well, I suppose if it was a comedy... although sometimes the most unlikely of choices works, and he does bear more than a similarity to Peppard...

So who do you think? Any of the above, or do you have any better nominations?

X-Files: I wanted to like it!

Oh my God, just how badly could they have dropped the ball?

SPOLIERS BELOW

Chris Carter, the creator of the X-Files, directed and co-wrote this spin-off film about everybody's favourite supernatural investigators. Didn't it actually occur to him that maybe the audience would have liked some, oh I don't know, horror, suspense, supernatural shenanigans? Instead we get a film that's more like a rather dull episode of generic crime series rather than the ground breaking X-Files. I expected sooo much more.

The villains were plain boring. The case wasn't an X-File at all, and Mulder and Scully only get involved because of a psychic is helping with the case. And exactly what were the vilains doing? It seemed they were involved in stem cell something-or-other, which seemed to involve grafting bits of women to a dying man to keep him alive. Why women and not men? Well, I suppose he was gay, but really I don't know many (any) gay men that actually want one of those trans gender ops.

And how do they find the bad guys hidden base of operations? Well, one of them happens to break down, and Fox simply follows his tracks to their lair. Dull and lazy writing.

At this point in time, I'm not sure this film will even make my Top 20, as I think I'd rather watch Step Up 2 The Streets again rather than this.

A dissapointment.

The Dark Knight

I have now seen The Dark Knight. Does it live up to it's rave reviews?

Well, here are some comments from yours truly:

Heath Ledger/The Joker
Incredible, as amazing as you've heard. Possibly the scariest character to appear in film for, well, years. Easily knocks Jack Nicholson's potrayal for six; more Hannibal Lector than the Joker of previous film and tv outings. It is possible to believe that Ledger's intense performance could result in the tragedy that followed. If Ledger doesn't receive an Oscar for this, then there really is no justice in the film awards. I never liked the Joker in the comics*, there was something that just never clicked with me, but I've now seen the potential of the character, and the sheer terror that he can be. Truly the greatest foe for the Batman.

*he was pretty cool in Frank Miller's graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, where he was also a chaos bringing terrorist, and Alan Moore's The Killing Joke. I'm pretty sure that the writers, director and Ledger himself based the Joker on these comic appearances. If you haven't read these, you really should, and I think I'll dig out my copy of The Killing Joke for my wife.

Aaron Eckhart/Harvey Dent/Two Face
The problem with working alongside Heath Ledger in this, is that Aaron Eckhart's performance will no doubt be forgotten or go unnoticed. However, this is another truly great performance (Best Supporting Actor? Dare we hope?). Compare this to Tommy Lee Jones in Batman Forever (actually, don't - I'm not sure I could watch those films again now) and you'll see the difference betwen campy overacting and bringing a character to fully realised life.

Christian Bale/The Batman
Bale still makes the best Batman yet, but unfortunately when on screen with the other two main characters, he suffers as a result. That's not to say that Bale delivers a bad performance, far from it - he really seems to be someone torn between doing what is right and what is necessary, and you can see that Batman is completely overwhelmed by a situation he cannot control or even fully understand.

Hmm, can I think of anything bad to say about this film? Well, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman were underused, and could have done with more screen time, but that would have meant either a longer film or cutting out something else, and there's really nothing that could have been cut out.

Before I saw this, I really believed there was no way it could live up to the hype, but it does, in every way possible. Full marks, and yes, it will knock Iron Man off the top spot in my Top 20 Films of 2008.

But where can the franchise go from here? They can't have the Joker again, but what other bad guys could they use? The Penguin? Possibly. The Riddler? Maybe, but he's like a poor man's Joker. Catwoman? Not after the Halle Berry film. Deadshot could be a possible choice, a hitman with a deathwish and who is so good he will only use trick shots. I would go for the Ventriloquist, an unassuming man with a dummy called Scarface who is in charge of the criminal. It's never clear in the comics I've read whether the ventriloquist is mad or the dummy actually is alive. It's an intersting premise that could make it on the big screen.

Well, I'll be updating my Top 20 later on, after I've watched 10,000 BC. I somehow doubt it will knock The Dark Knight off the top...

And Monday: The X-Files: I Want To Believe