The Golden Compass movie

If you haven't read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series [The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass], do so right now. When you're done, go watch the new extended trailer for the first film, which is due out December 7 this year.
This series rocks on all points - a great story with lots of adventure, danger and excitement; well written, engaging characters who are deftly fleshed out; and the introduction to a spectacular universe where flashy dirigibles, centuries-old witches, and talking animals are the norm.

The new trailer was released this weekend at ComicCon and it's pretty damn amazing. The world looks just as I think it should look. The colours, the lighting, the costumes and sets and props, all look fantastic. Much of the cast is unfamiliar to me, but I think Nicole Kidman will be great as Mrs. Coulter, and Sam Elliot seems a perfect choice for Lee Scoresby. The girl playing Lyra, Dakota Blue Richards, looks exactly as I'd expect her to look. And while the trailers suggest she has the chops to play what ends up being a pretty heavy role for a kid, I hope I'm not disappointed.

His Dark Materials is an incredible series and if this upcoming movie can capture the spirit of the astonishing world Pullman created, it oughta be awesome.

Geeks, Ho!

Five weeks 'til DragonCon and I'm starting to get pretty excited. Unfortunately, my significantly awesome other can't join me so I haven't posted about it, as I try hard not to rub in the fact that I'll be having an incredible time. Anyway, one of my favourite parts of events like this is the costuming, and my big project for this year's DC is a genie costume. It's...coming along. My sewing skillz aren't entirely weak, but this is definitely a learning project. I'll also bring a sari and something piratey, and possibly some elf clothes if I get around to picking up ears. Elves aren't really my thing, but it's a ridiculously easy costume and more about the spirit of the event than channeling Galadriel.

A long list of all the guests I'm looking forward to seeing would be boring, but I do have to rave about a few people. Back in the day, my ST:TNG holodeck fantasy starred Data & Dr. Crusher; as it happens, Brent Spiner & Gates McFadden are scheduled to be at DC, so I might still get lucky. Haha, I'm joking. Really. Uh, Claudia Christian will be there as well; she played the utterly awesome Cmdr. Susan Ivanova on Babylon 5. If I was willing to pay for an autograph, I'd take my copy of Playboy in which Claudia was featured and ask her to sign it. As it is, I probably won't even talk to her lest her godlike radiance reduces me to blithering dorkiness.

More DC stuff later, if anything comes up. For now, back to the costume-making grind!

The plot thickens

Another satisfying and interesting Eureka, with nice story development alongside some exciting moments & good laughs. Unfortunately, there was also quite a bit of heartache. Poor Jack just can't get a break. That end shot of him standing all alone on the dance floor was almost too much. Also, I'm turning into a sap for Jack & Allison's flirting. He's just so damn cute around her and it's terribly endearing. Now I predict that Jack's ex will go back to LA, Zoe will stay in Eureka, and slowly but inexorably Jack & Allison's relationship will deepen until they realize they have to be together.

Something about Beverly's last scene, when she cleaned the passports & money out of her safe then called someone requesting a debrief, made her quite a bit more interesting to me. Henry's questions during their session about Beverly's relationship to Kim, and Allison's decision to pointedly dismiss her recommendation about Henry starting at Global Dynamics, seem to have seriously thrown Beverly for a loop. Is the jig up??

Now I'm curious to see how that develops, and if the people Beverly is working for have any knowledge of Kevin the wonderboy and his strange relationship to the artifact. That situation, of course, can only bring Allison & Stark closer together, making things that much more difficult for Jack.

Another good Eureka

This week's episode was some pretty good Eureka. It felt like I laughed a lot, which is a good sign. I'm very glad that Henry seems to be catching on to Beverly, and I hope getting distracted by that mystery will help him see the error of his current deception.

The personal bubble storyline included some good laughs, though Fargo isn't one of my favourite characters and I wouldn't have minded if he'd ended up toast. But, I did like Jack's solution and at least Fargo got to be dead for a little bit.

As much as I disliked Nathan Stark through most of season 1, I'm really starting to like the relationship that's developing between him & Jack. It'd ring fake if they suddenly started buddying up, but a little less animosity tinging their competition would be nice. I also think the romantic triangle involving those two & Allison would be more entertaining if it ran parallel to Jack & Stark developing a friendship. Which reminds me, I wonder if Henry's memory wiper will turn out to be as effective as he was hoping, because the book Jack borrowed from him seems to be tickling something in Jack's mind.

We haven't seen much of Zoe in these first two eps, so I hope we get more of her soon. I liked the exchange she & Jack had at the end of this episode about passing drivers' ed, and that through all the completely wacky goings on in this town, the usual teenage milestones are still happening.

More Farscape!

SciFi Channel just announced a series of ten Farscape webisodes, though there's no word yet on when they'll actually be online. They'll come from Farscape producers Brian Henson & Robert Halmi, Jr., and the Jim Henson Co. SciFi hasn't released any info about who'll be in the series, but I'm crossing my fingers hoping for the return of much of the original cast. Seems unlikely, but you never know. They also haven't said anything about the timeframe of the webisodes, if they will predate the series, follow Peacekeeper Wars, or something else.

Not much info at all, but exciting nonetheless.

A good kickoff to a new season

Though I was a little distraught at the end of the episode, the season premier of Eureka pleased me greatly. My distress was the result of watching Henry, engineer extraordinaire & one of my favourite characters, turn evil. Aw man, that just sucks. However, I was aching for Jack through the entire episode; he's in love with and spent four years with Allison, and now the only thing he has left of that history is that he loves her. Ouch. So, at least Henry's nefarious plot put an end to Jack's torture [for the moment...]. Is Henry now going to set about doing exactly what we saw at the end of last season: preventing the death of the woman he loves and creating a wacky paradox in the space-time continuum? Maybe this season's finale will just be a repeat of last season's; that would make me laugh :)

Less amusing is the twist in the story involving Allison's autistic son, Kevin. Whatever's going on with him, it can't be kosher. And how is the dirty town shrink, Beverly, involved? Which reminds me, I suspected it last season and the current episode confirms it - Beverly is not hot enough for me to be okay with how evil she is.

Overall, a really good ep. And with the events that went down this week, Eureka could easily turn darker and get a lot more disturbing. I'm crossing my fingers.

On an entirely unrelated note, during a commercial break we got a little preview of Battlestar Galactica: Razor, the two-hour special due later this year. To my extreme pleasure, Michelle Forbes [Admiral Cain] is indeed reprising her role. Yay!

There is no blog

The Matrix is one of a handful of movies I can watch over & over again and never fail to enjoy immensely. I really can't say what about it so enthralls me, except maybe pretty much everything. It's also one of two films [the other being Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure] in which I think Keanu Reeves is actually good, so that's a bonus.

This movie is loaded with delightful little tidbits that help to fully realize the extraordinary atmosphere. For instance, Switch's "Listen to me, coppertop," shortly before Trinity removes the creepy thing from Neo's gut, is a nice, subtle hint of what's to come and always makes me chuckle. When Morpheus offers the pills to Neo, I can't help but dig the shot of the dual Neos reflected in Morpheus' glasses, a red pill in front of one & a blue pill in front of the other. That shot has an especially awesome comic book tone to it. And every time I hear it, I shiver at the sound of Neo's scream morphing into a digital drone as his body is located in the real world.

I really like the anti-authoritarian tone of this movie. We're hit over the head with the idea that humans are merely tools of the machines, but the bits I especially like are the subtle digs. When Morpheus is telling Neo about the matrix, he references it by citing activities that in much of western culture equate to forced servitude - work, church, taxes - as if positive human experiences don't exist within the matrix. During the agent training program, while Morpheus is explaining that anyone still in the matrix is a potential danger, the camera pans past a cop writing a ticket just as Morpheus is saying, "These people are a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy." I love that everyone in that scene [until the woman in red shows up] is wearing black, white or grey. The crowds on the street sure look an awful lot like worker insects, ants or bees, busily tending to their assigned tasks. Anyway, down with The Man!

Though it's rarely one of my favourite parts of a movie, a really kickass fight scene can sometimes do me just right. That's definitely the case when Neo & Morpheus have their kung fu face off during Neo's training. Boy, are they fun to watch! Laurence Fishburne is, of course, totally hot, but just about anyone moving that way [or being tossed around on wires that way] can be pretty fuckin' sexy. Really, I'm just saying that a good fight scene is worth the price of admission. The Matrix delivers more than a few.

So many cool characters, I could waste days talking about all of them. One of my favourites is the Oracle - the mother of the resistance, baking cookies and doling out fortunes with like equanimity. She tells Neo he's not The One, casually explaining that he's waiting for something: "Your next life maybe, who knows." Her composure conveys the message that the fate of humanity is nothing to worry one's pretty little head about, as inconsequential as the vase Neo breaks.

Featured in my not exactly vast, but nothing to scoff at collection of geek memorabilia is a book called The Art of The Matrix. It's a large sized hardback with pre-production notes, artwork, the shooting script, storyboards, movie stills, plus interesting notes from the film's production team. Worth checking out if you're a fan.

I would be remiss if I failed to mention how much Reloaded & Revolutions sucked. What makes them even worse is that they were entirely superfluous. The Matrix ended on an excellent note, with the story beautifully wrapped up while oozing with open-ended potential, which I wish had been left unrealized. Ah well, that's just my taste.

Now who'll save the world?

I've been itchin' for some Odyssey 5 for months now, and finally, with the addition of the complete series to my DVD collection, I'm granted sweet relief. It aired on Showtime in 2002, for all of 19 episodes before it was cancelled. What makes its cancellation particularly frustrating is that it was in the midst of exciting plot development just as it was axed. Ah well, that's tv for ya.

In the pilot, we meet the crew of the space shuttle Odyssey, who in short order are treated to a front row seat for the destruction of Earth. The five crew-members are bogglingly rescued by what they later deduce to be an inorganic intelligence, and their consciousnesses are sent back five years into the past so they can head off the events that lead to the end of the world. They quickly discover that even covert inquiries garner unpleasant results, and that it's impossible not to change history. In the course of their quest to save the planet, they learn that the internet is populated with "sentients," living programs with some wacky abilities to affect the real world. The bad guys outside the 'net, "synthetics," are humanoids grown in vats, with crazy super strength and the occasional odd personality. Throw in the usual amount of standard human conflict, and disturbing wackiness ensues.

One of the best things about this show is the long-term story. Odyssey 5 tucks arc-related tidbits into one-off episodes, and the show maintains a nice balance of long range story with the instant gratification of wrapping up single episode puzzles.

The absolute highlight of the show, though, is Peter Weller. In the couple of decades since he played scientist/brain surgeon/rock star Buckaroo Banzai, Weller has matured nicely. On Odyssey 5, he's down-to-earth shuttle commander Chuck Taggart, and while I could enjoy watching Weller read the phone book aloud, I'm treated to a character I find charming, funny & resourceful, with just enough asshole to make him plenty human.

Overall, I think it's a great show, with cool characters, entertaining episodes and some pretty cool ideas. I like that it includes scifi staples such as aliens, time travel & sentient computer programs, but that it mostly takes place in the day to day lives of the protagonists. Unfortunately, with only a single season to work on development, the characters remain largely two-dimensional. Nonetheless, their individual storylines are interesting, most of the actors are entertaining enough to enjoy, and there is some significant character growth. The worst thing I can say about the show is that its all-too-abrupt ending really smarted. To rub salt in the wound, the very last episode featured a startling revelation that stood to thoroughly upend the entire story. *sigh*