Black Books

Black Books was a British comedy show set in the bookshop of acerbic misanthrope Bernard Black. Created by Dylan Moran and starring Moran, Bill Bailey, and Tasmin Greig the show revolves around their lives and often surreal antics.

Black (Moran) hates the world, including (especially) his customers, and hates doing just about anything the doesn't involve drinking or smoking. His shop assistant Manny (Bailey) and friend Fran (Greig) our often trying to get Bernard out of his shell and involved with the outside world, usually to disastrously hilarious effect.

The show went through 3 series in the UK and probably ranks in my top 10 or 20 favorite shows. The first two series' are available on DVD here in the US and the 3rd series is due out November 13th. To any who have not seen this show, I cannot recommend it enough. I got the DVDs at my local library, a great source of DVDs and music.

Bubba Ho-Tep

"Even a big b***h cockroach like you should know... never, but never, f**k with the King."


Man is Bubba Ho-Tep a great movie. It is b-movie goodness in all its glory. Low rent special effects combine with witty dialogue and spot on performances to make this a mini classic. For those not in the know the movie is based on a novella by Joe R. Lansdale and the plot revolves around a mummy who is feeding off the souls of old folks at a Texas nursing home. Now this home happens to be the residence of Elvis (or is it an Elvis impersonator, the movie treats this aspect with just enough ambiguity to keep this question unanswered) and a black JFK ("No offense Jack, but the President was a white man." "They dyed me this color!"). And Elvis and JFK are about to take care of business.

Bruce Campbell stars as Elvis, a role he tackles with gusto and dead on precision. In his hand Elvis becomes a contemplative senior citizen, impotent and frail, reflecting back on mistakes made, and ruminating on feelings of worthlessness. Campbell's performance is a revelation, perhaps the best work of a long career. Add to that Ossie Davis's fun performance as JFK, a role he performs with enough earnestness to make a fairly silly character believable. You could almost forgive a veteran actor like Davis for mailing in a performance in a dopey B horror/comic flick, but instead he seems to be enjoying the whole thing. He and Campbell make for a great team, one that would send any redneck mummy running in fear.

The movie, driven mostly by Elvis's internal monologue, is milk through the nose funny. The horror aspects are not really scary (don't think they were meant to be). The most surprising part of this movie is its heart. At times the movie's focus seems to be more on growing old and feeling useless in a society that worships youth, then on any horror/comedy, and that is what sets it apart.

Also featuring Ella Joyce as a sassy nurse (is there a movie set in a hospital or nursing home that doesn't have a sassy nurse) and directed by cult movie director Don Coscarelli, Bubba Ho-tep resides high upon my must see list.



TCB Baby! Takin' Care of Business!

Bad Day Gets Better

This past weekend we had a bbq at my house. The whole thing started due to my brother-in-law getting a newer, better grill. Me, not having one, inquired about what he was going to do with the old, "you can have it" replies he. Not having a vehicle that a gas grill could fit into, I had to wait for said brother-in-law to bring the old grill to me in his truck. This was problematic in that they live about 35 minutes away, therefore making a trip to deliver a grill (given to me for free, now delivered for free, aren't relatives great) somewhat inconvenient.

As my wife was in discussions with her sister about when grill delivery could take place, the conversation somehow turned to how we always go over to their house and that they rarely come to our house. As mentioned before, they don't live that near, and as my wife and her sister are close we tend to go to their house quite often. Lately, for what ever reason, this has been sticking in my crawl, as they say. You would think as the recipient of a free grill I would be a little more grateful, but nooo. So anyway, one thing leads to another and before I know it, my wife's entire family is on its way over this past weekend for a cookout.

I should have kept my big mouth shut.

This mainly causes problems for me because I work an evening shift, which means I don't get home from work until late Friday night/Saturday morning. People coming over to our house on Saturday means I will have to get up early to get some things done. Garrggg!

9am to be exact. (9 fraking AM!)

I eat some breakfast and then set about my main task, which is to do some yard work. Rainy Florida summers means the yard is in constant need of mowing.

I first go to run the weed eater, only to discover there is no more line in the spool. I have no whacker for my weed whacker. . .

Upper Cut!

So, next I go to actually mow the lawn. . . I get all but the last strip of lawn mowed, when I run out of gas. Check my gas can. . . empty. . .

Body Blow!

This does not bode well.

As we don't have a screened in room or a covered porch, my wife and I purchased a "easy to open" portable canopy. If you haven't seen one of these, it is basically a metal frame, that when extended is supposed to go to a full up position. It has a canvas canopy on top. Used for quick and easy shade. Ha! My wife, my eldest and myself spent what seemed to be an eternity trying to get this God forsaken contraption to work. No good. And as it turned out, yelling at said wife and eldest didn't help. Go figure. To top it off, as I was trying to get this monstrosity of metal and canvas to work, one of the pieces broke in two. . .

Upper Cut! Upper Cut!

Perchance I should go back to bed. Relatives arrive. As does said grill. I had decided to try to make some "BBQ Burgers" that involve mixing bbq sauce with the hamburger meat. Got the recipe from the Kraft Foods website. Guess I should have read the comments on the recipe's page (foreshadowing alert). Put the meat on the grill, let one side cook for a while, go to flip the meat. . . and they all fall to pieces. . .

KNOCKOUT!

Why. . .oh why do you smite me so!!!

We saved the meat by putting some aluminum foil beneath them, and then just piling the meat onto the buns like a dry sloppy joe. They actually weren't that bad. And you know what. The rest of the day wasn't so bad either. Spent some nice time sitting beneath my tree shooting the breeze with my brother-in-law who is an alright joe (usually).

Got to spend some quality time with the family. Everyone seemed to have a good time. And I decided to let the aggravations of earlier not bother me and ruin my day. This is pretty unusual for me as I like to sit and stew over mild irritations, picking at them until a small sore becomes a infected scab. It was kind of nice, maybe I should try it more often.

Nah

4400 Star Begs For Battlestar Role

According to Sci Fi channel's weekly news recap, 4400 star Billy Campbell begged Sci Fi and USA networks president Bonnie Hammer for a role in the upcoming final season of Battlestar Galactica. He even offered to work for free. According to another Sci Fi exec, Mark Stern, the producers of the show are trying to work Campbell into the show.

There is also a brief interview with Battlestar's Jaime Bamber about the show's final season.

BREAKING ATMO - Serenity to ISS on STS

Saw this over at TV Squad:

Mission Specialist Steven R. Swanson, apparently a devoted Browncoat, delivered a set of Firefly and Serenity dvds to the International Space Station during the most recent space shuttle mission.

Fan site BREAKING ATMO, has been covering the delivery and has info, plus cool pics of Firefly dvds floating around in zero g.

I never really thought about dvds in space before. I know that weight and space issues are important considerations on the shuttle and the ISS, but I think a certain amount of entertainment must be necessary for the crew of the ISS. I don't know how much down time they have, but boredom must surely set in when confined to the station for months at a time.

WW2 - A German View

So I will start things off with a quick review of a couple of movies I have recently watched. It apparently was World War 2 from a German view this last week as my wife and I watched Der Untergang (The Downfall) and Sophie Scholl. Both are a couple of years old and both were nominated for Best Foreign Language Oscars.

Der Untergang tells the story of Hitler's final days in his Berlin bunker. It was based largely on the accounts of one of his personal secretaries, Traudl Junge. Starring Swiss actor Bruno Ganz as Hitler and Alexandra Maria Lara as the aforementioned secretary, the movie is a chilling account of the madness that surrounded Hitler and his entourage in those frantic final days. Ganz is particularly compelling in his portrayal, alternating between blind madness (his insistence up until the final moments that divisions of the defeated Wehrmacht were going to breakthrough and relieve the besieged Berlin) and the easy charm that allowed him to build such a devoted following. Lara's portrayal of Junge is also fascinating. A naive young woman caught up in the charm of the Nazi's inner circle, she remained surprisingly loyal, even to the bitter end. Archival interviews at the beginning and ending of the film feature the real Junge, as she confesses her horror of discovering afterwards the extent to Nazi crimes. She said she was able to ignore her own guilt until seeing a plaque memorializing Sophie Scholl, a young resistor to the Nazi regime who was of a similar age to Junge.

Which brings us to the second movie, Sophie Scholl. The movie is based on the young woman of the same name who, along with her brother Hans, was a key member of the anti-Nazi movement The White Rose. Caught distributing anti-Nazi leaflets, Sophie, her brother and several others were tried and convicted of treason. Despite the Scholl's fate (not to give the ending away, but it was not particularly pleasant) this movie is rather uplifting, in a way. Sophie's courage in the face of her fate is inspiring. In spite of her youth (or perhaps because of it, a different facet of naivety from that of Traudl Junge) she refused to cooperate with the Nazi authorities, despite offers of leniency, and was defiant in the face of the kangaroo court set up to "try" her and her "co-conspirators". The performances were spot on here. Julia Jentsch, as Sophie, is strong and carries the movie well (she needed to, I believe she is in nearly every scene).

I would strongly recommend both movies, and not just for history buffs. They work well in viewing together (or a week apart like me), as they show two very different sides of Nazi Germany. Junge, the acquiescent Secretary, who stood by the Nazis despite alarming evidence of their crimes, and Scholl, who acted on her conscience once the horrors of the Eastern Front became known.

Two sides standing in stark contrast.

Oh, so now you start

After all these years, I have decided to start my own blog. Spurred on by my wife, who started her own blog, I have decided to take the plunge. Not sure what I will be posting here; thoughts, musings, movie, book, music reviews, links to interesting stuff on the Interwebs, a little of everything I guess. I hope any who read this enjoy.

sregors