Ever since I heard that morris dancing was suffering from modern times, there seem to be more and more mentions of it in popular culture. I mean, it's always been the stuff of Pratchett, but last night we watched Oz and James do it, and this morning, via LibDigPig, I discover that there is a film, with Derek Jacobi:



Man, I really want to see that.

Because I am all blogged out after the Carnival, and I still have this stinking cold, and my brain says NOOOOOOOOOOO to seriousness, I am doing a meme. I think this is fairly likely to end up long and rambling, and may end up having shocking revelations in it.

Association Meme: Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

puddingcat gave me:

1. James May.
   
   I have always watched Top Gear. I remember it having Noel Edmonds on it. I remember Clarkson as a young upstart. I remember Kate Humble in a huge great Humvee-type thing. I used to love Quentin Willson. When they cancelled it I was a bit miffed, and I was really chuffed when they brought it back... but even though I love new TG, there are bits of the old TG I miss. I miss the inclusiveness of it. I miss the silliness of it - not in the huge, over-the-top silly of the Clarkson, but in the gentle, eccentric, English silly.
   
   James is the closest to that vibe you get in the new show.
   
   And he's a geek, and he loves old toys, and Proper Beer, and is willing to try new things, and is happy to not follow the crowd, and he keeps his tools in alphabetical order although the rest of his house is a tip. He's clearly the only one of the three of them with an ounce of sense. And I LOVED Big Ideas. I love men who can geek about science.


2. Hammer Horror.
   
   Hammer Horror films are awesome! And yet, a lot of the archetypal Hammer Horror films, or at least the films that everyone thinks of as Hammer, aren't. They are Amicus or Tigon or any of a number of other small British production houses. Or even American, if you think of the Corman/Price/Poe films.
   
   I love them all. I have loved them since I was tiny. I saw Taste the Blood of Dracula which had been taped by one of my brothers from the Friday night horror slot as a small child, and then made my dad tape Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires for me, and then whatever was on the week after, and the week after, and the week after that...
   
   I'm not so fond of modern horror films. They tend to rely too much on jumpy scares, and not having proper scripts, and things. Slasher movies are vaguely interesting - after all, I love Agatha Christie and PD James, too, and Slasher films are basically whodunnits - and I love the Nightmare on Elm Street series, mainly because they are so silly - but I can't be bothered with the vast majority of modern horrors. Show me a DVD box that says "made in 1973 on a budget of 20p and a bit of chewing gum", though, and I'll crawl over broken glass to watch it. Especially if it has Christopher Lee in it. Or dear old Vinny P.


3. Alan Rickman.
   
   The first thing I saw Alan in was Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. Which I love, despite it having the worst Robin in history, because it still has Mike McShane and Brian Blessed and improbable Morgan Freeman and ZOMG Alan is amazing in it. Seriously, is there a person in existence who DOESN'T shout out "you cheating bastard!!" when Costner stabs him? George SO should have taken him in that fight...
   
   * cough *
   
   Anyway. Alan. Alan is awesome. He's fantastic in Dogma. His Snape turned JKR's greasy geekboy that we are supposed to hate* into a sex God, and gave me the internet pseudonym I still have in lots of places. Oh yes, and he's on The List. In fact, The List started off as The Alan Rickman List.**


4. Circulus!
   
   LOL Circulus are simultaneously the worst and the best band ever. They are one of those things which are fabulous precisely because they are so improbably bad, like lots of hammer Horror films. The lead singer (and lead lute!) looks like a Geography teacher and they write songs with titles like Power to the Pixies. I mean, look at them! They seem to have gone very quiet since That Difficult Second Album, and the last time I saw them live (with puddingcat) they appeared to have lost their lady singer, which is a shame.
   
   I think the reason Jenny associates them with me is that when we went to see them we arrived somewhat early, got rather tipsy on Kreik, played pool incredibly badly, and got chatted up by two members of the support band, Gentleman's Pistols (who I also very much recommend, for those into time travel with their music, except that Gentleman's Pistols are more 1972, when Circulus are 1472.) Seriously, GP are worth seeing for the singer alone, who has a beard that would make Andrew Hickey green with envy. You could hide a whole nest of badgers, and probably lots of mushrooms and a snake in it.


5. Alice Cooper.
   
   Alice is... I actually find it quite difficult to talk about Alice, because I think I sound like a complete pillock when I geek about him. And somehow it's more acceptable to geek about Hammer Horror films or Alan Rickman than it is about Alice... And yet... Alice is the guy who other bands pinch ideas off and make incredible successes out of them. Like Kiss, with the make up. Like Michael frigging Jackson, with the Vincent Price voice over and the theatricality. Alice is extraordinarily literate, creative, prolific, talented, and has the wickedest sense of humour in rock. Alice is not afraid to take the piss out of himself. He's perceptive and intelligent, and can capture complex concepts in throwaway, singalong rock songs like nobody else. He does love songs and war songs and politics songs and silly songs and serious songs and rebellion songs. He does albums full of pop cheese, and proggy concept albums. He covered SunArise by Rolf Harris, FFS, more than twenty years before anyone else even thought of Rolf as cool and Glastonbury headliner material! The man is a God.
   
   If you think Poison and School's Out are the only songs he did, you need some serious re-education (neither of those is even in my top 100 Alice songs). If you think he hasn't done anything worth listening to since 1974 then you missed out on Go to Hell and The Song That Didn't Rhyme and You're My Temptation and Burning Our Bed and literally hundreds of other great songs... He's a man who can write songs you can hum to your mother about necrophilia, and make a Christian allegory that CS Lewis would be proud of and cast himself as the devil in it.
   
   And now I want to turn the lights off and listen to Love it to Death and I can't because I haven't got the turntable plugged in. :(

---

* no, don't get me started on some of the messages sent out by HP. Really, don't.

** Most of you will know that Mat and I are non-exclusive, and both rate somewhere between 2 and 3 on the Kinsey scale. The Alan Rickman List is a list of people whom, should the unlikely event ever arise, neither of us is allowed to do anything with unless the other is present. With Alan, I think it's his voice. I don't think there are any other men on the list. None that I can recall, anyway. The others that are springing to mind are Shami Chakrabarti, Sue Perkins, and everyone's favourite GILF Annette Crosbie. This are meaning I get Steve Harris all to myself YAY ;)

It's CARNIVAL TIME! YAY! Husky-Voiced Lust Object James Graham is ringmastering (no sniggering at the back there, you filthy perverts!) The Carnival on Modern Liberty.

He has many suggestions for things you can do to encourage people to think about Liberty, but one of them is to encourage five bloggers who normally don't go on about such things to do a post on what Liberty means to them. He suggests:

* Girl With A One Track Mind
* London Underground
* Neil Gaiman
* Bad Science
* New Humanist

I reckon GNeil is a bit of a cheat, given how much he's been blogging about the CBLDF recently, but... Anyway, I'll probably be doing something actionny at some point, but for right now? I can tag people in a meme, fur shizzle.

So consider yourselves tagged to blog about what Liberty means to you lonemagpie, Mitch Benn, caseytalk, j_rentoul, rhodri.

---

Forbidden Planet sent me a sale brochure, and I am weak. HOWEVER! I only spent £7.50, and for that I got two Sarah Janes (plus ancillary figures - one for Small Person and one for the menagerie on top of the telly) and a Judge Death. Soon our telly will collapse from the weight of all the action figures... When young Sidney arrives, I shall take a picture.

---

January the 19th would have been Edgar Allen Poe's 200th birthday. Have a bit of Vinny P to celebrate:





There. That's a cheery thing, isn't it?

We're watching The Devil Rides Out tonight. There's nothing quite like seeing Jim Hacker being forced to perform magical rituals... >:D Good old Charles Gray.

... and you've already discussed Belgian politics with your also-insomniac other half? Why, you look up on the internet the actor who was in the thing you watched on telly, to see why he looked so familiar...

The thing we watched was the first disc of season 2 of Life on Mars (still prefer Ashes, sorry).
The character was Harry Woolf and we watched the credits for long enough to get the actor's name, so I fired up the laptop and looked at IMDB.
Kevin McNally. The reason he looks familiar is that he's been in EVERYTHING.
People who have been to the cinema in the last five years will know him as the superstitious drunkard one from Pirates of the Carribean.
Fandommy folk will know him as the Lang dude from The Twin Dilemma.

Political types?

Well, you might be interested to know that he'll be playing Ken Clarke in the Fall of Maggie thing that's in post production right now. Lindsay Duncan is going to be Maggie in it. Now there's an interesting bit of casting...

It's the 23rd of November, people. Doctor Who is 45 years old! The above picture is by Lee Sullivan, who did the art for the fantastic Real Time, and you can see a bigger version of it here.

---

And now, a meme! ( click to get a bunch of fives... )

Please note that ticky boxes are enabled, so you can vote for more than one option on each question...

Poll #1286983 The Giant Bond Poll of Doom!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 44

Which is the best Bond Film?

Which is the Worst Bond Film?

Who is the best Bond?

Who is the worst Bond?

Which is the best Bond Theme?

Which is the worst Bond Theme?

Judi Dench is Awesome?

... Anyone else think the pisstake Bond theme is miles better than the proper one? In sentiment as well as in actual musicalness...

Compare and contrast:



or



Ooooh you're so EDGY Jack! Changing tempo and volume at random and inserting bits of Bond theme (and oddly Iron Maidenish bits of vocals) every so often... Bring Back Tina Turner, I say.



At least she understood the Bond fans' pathological need for a Shirley Bassey impression.

...

I don't like Daniel Craig Bond. He's too serious and not pretty enough. There's not enough gadgets, and not enough things going kaboom, and not enough silly puns.

Judi Dench, though? She's awesome. Can't we have some films about M?

---

This post brought to you by going round to burlesque_bunny's house for tea and watching the random Bond Film on ITV2 and being reminded of how much I actually liked Pierce Brosnan Bond.

... Er, no.

Via lonemagpie and shishmish; another publicity shot from the new Trek film. Note to photographer: when trying to recreate a classic image, at least try and shoot it from the same angle FFS:



Also, is it me, or is this the one time in history when the pretty people are in the original and not the remake?

So Mat and I are watching Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Lots of people, lots of FANS, really hate this film. I love it. And tonight, I think I worked out why: both why I love it, and why "proper" fans hate it. It's SO taking the piss! The bit where Kirk is climbing, and Spock is hovering beside him saying concentration is vital. You must become one with the rock... while McCoy is down the bottom fretting away... SUCH joy!

Silly films are awesome!

That is all.

See, it's not a GIP at all! The crime issss life... Tee hee hee... Ahem. Yes. This evening we went to see Hellboy II: The Golden Army at our local kinematograph. And it was very very very silly, and I liked it lots.

( here be spoilorz )

8/10

Everyone's favourite God, helper to Robin Hood, and president of the USA is v v v v v poorly after being in a car accident. Send him your vibes, people. I'd hate not to hear that velvety voice in anything new again.

---

Jo Christie-Smith linked to a thing which led to another link, and then another, and then another and I've been sat here reading up on feminism all evening. Here are some of the things that interested me:

- The Male Privilege Checklist. Hint: if you're male, you have it. Don't think I'm picking on you though, I have white privilege and education privilege and all sorts of other privileges. It's not your FAULT if you're privileged, but it IS your fault if you fail to recognise it.
- Think women have achieved equality? Think again. Lots of people do seem to be under this delusion, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
- Feminism 101. A blog I have linked to before, but not without reason is it included here. Posts which really REALLY need to be read by some of the readers of this blog include Why do women get so touchy when I, as a man, bring up the fact that men suffer too (we know you do, it's just that just occasionally, we'd like to have a conversation that doesn't revolve around men) and feminists are all just ugly and bitter

The Dark Knight? Everything I could have hoped for and more. It was bum-numbingly long, but I can't think of a single scene that I would cut. I am having difficulty with that whole coherent thought thing. And... ( Spoilers under the cut )

You can click through to the Entertainment Week article here.

First up on the excitement scale is page 4 of the article: NEW TREK! OMGWTFBBQYAAAAAAAAY! Is it bad that I think Kirk is quite hot there? I really want to see this now. And Zach looks WAY better as Spock than he did as Sylar.

Then comes Dollhouse (pp. 5 and 6). I like Eliza Dushku, and am still undecided as to whether to be excited or worried about this. Dr. Horrible is leaning me towards worried, if I'm honest.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen III starts at page 13. I still haven't managed to get a hold of The Black Dossier, and thus am woefully behind on this series, but if it's anything like as good as I and II it'll be knicker-wettingly excellent.

The remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still (pp. 18 and 19) is another where I'm expecting pants but harbouring sneaking hopes for brilliance. Remakes which are amazing (John Carpenter's The Thing, for example) are vastly outnumbered by remakes which are embarrassingly awful (The Wicker Man is springing inexorably to mind), but the remakes do often have the useful function of providing publicity for the originals...

DC Universe Online (p. 20) is Warcrack with Batman in, by the looks of it. This may well be the straw which breaks my bactrian back in getting me to put a toe in those waters. I wanna be in TwoFace's gang! Can I be a Henchgirl?

Drag Me To Hell looks VERY interesting to me. I like horror films. I like Sam Raini's films (yes, even Darkman). And colour me amazed, but it has two female leads, no male leads, and it looks like they are going to be mostly talking about Something Other Than Men. Go Sam! Good on you for passing the Bechdel Test with flying colours!

Ninja Assassin piqued my interest too. Long-haired half-naked blood-covered ninjas? What's not to like? I suspect several of you will be interested by the Turtlenator and Orson Scott Card stuff as well. Go read!

---

Also found on EW, an article celebrating Kirk/Spock slash. I agree with him that this is most excellent:



But also, that this is better, albeit veryveryvery NSFW:



FWIW, the commenter who states that Has Been is a great album is dead on too.

---

Lots of Uhmericins on my f-list have started posting reviews and reactions to The Dark Knight. Oh Cthulhu. I want to see this SO much. You guys are not helping.

Kira Cochrane in the Graun has noticed that there appears to be something of an anti-feminist movement at the moment. I'm with those who take this as encouragement; as it says in the article, you only get resistance when there's something to resist against.

Ever wondered why there are so few interesting female characters in movies, and even when there are (Ripley and Sarah Connor being the oft-quoted examples) they still are very dependent on male characters in some way or another? BetaCandy has the skinny. Reading this? Made me want to go out and make films, lots of films, with all-female casts.

This is another profoundly depressing post. Why is masturbation STILL something for boys to boast about and girls to be ashamed of? We all do it, FFS! Why can't we just accept that and move on?

William Sanders has offered to remove the stories of writers offended by his bigotry... For $40 a pop. I have no words for this. No words. If you don't like me being racist, I want money? What a wanker.

- RIP Elizabeth Spriggs. :( Like most people my age, I first came across her in Simon and The Witch, and when I discovered as an adult how broad her range of roles was I was amazed and pleased that this stalwart of my childhood had had so much influence. A more versatile and talented actress would be difficult indeed to find. (hat-tip: addyit)

- Via captainlucy, This is IMDb’s top 25 all-time box office hits. Bold the ones you saw in the cinema, italicize the ones you saw some other way instead, and leave the unseen ones alone.

( click here for my shame at #1 )

- failblog_rss continues to be hilarious:



- MOAR silly image (Hat-tip: friend James the civil servant, spending our taxes wisely by playing on the internet at work):



- I go see Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf tonight. YAY!

They've found the deleted scenes from Metropolis! Sci-fi geeks rejoice! And pray Cthulhu we get a showing of it at the FFW next year...

matgb has a highly amusing post about the hypocrisy of the guy who sued the BBC for showing Jerry Springer: The Opera and upsetting his delicate religious sensibilities (related Facebook group).

Don't watch anything on YouTube which isn't allowed to be there, else you'll get got.

Creationism hits science classrooms in the UK. and we are funding it via the state school mechanism. *I* am paying for some poor kids to be taught complete bollocks as though it is fact. Amused Cynicism makes comment more eloquently than I ever could.

The Torygraph have picked their top ten ever Doctor Who episodes. No surprises that it's Ten-heavy, but perhaps surprising that it contains no Trout. And, obvs, Caves of Androzani should be #1.

James May is amazed that the BBC are upset with him for drinking a G&T, when really, they should be upset with him for putting slices of lemon in it. LIME, James, LIME!

Jeremy Thorpe says Robert Mugabe must die. I guess there's a limit to everyone's Liberalism, eh?

David Davies shows just how pro-liberty he really is. Hey ho. Is anyone actually surprised by this?

Chicky Yog imagines Gordon as a barman and finds him wanting.

The turkeys HAVE voted for Christmas: Mike at PB is right. Any PPC opposing any of the lot who voted for this is going to have a field day.

We're in bed, and we have a DVD on, as we do, and it's the Beowulf that Neil Gaiman did the script for. It's beautifully shot and gorgeously lit, and acceptably CGIed... and yet... It's not captured my interest at all.

Apart from the guy with the pretty bottom, obviously.

Anybody else seen this?

What do you think?

Things I would like to see next year:

General Stuff:

- more merchandising Surely Forbidden Planet would pay to have a stall in the foyer? And I bet there's other retailers who would too. I'd love a T-shirt (as opposed to a polo shirt that makes you look like staff). So, yes, a dealer room of some kind.
- Cooler Passes. Previous years' passes have featured the artwork for the festival and I was disappointed that this year's didn't.
- the bar to stay open after the last film has finished. Even if it's just till 11. Would have liked to buy T Earnshaw a drink to say thank you for putting up with us.

More Sci-Fi

- Metropolis
- Dark City
- Alien
- The Blob (bababa, beware of the blob, it leaps and creeps...)
- The Time Machine
- Voyage to the Centre of the Earth
- Flash Gordon ?(Brian Blessed possible guest?)
- The Amazing Colossal Man/Shrinking Man
- any of the Original Series Trek movies, but especially Wrath of Khan
- Claude Rains version of The Invisible Man
- 50s War of the Worlds
- Creature from the Black Lagoon
- Them
- The Day the Earth Stood Still
- The Day the Earth Caught Fire
- Silent Running
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers - any of the various versions, although I like the one with Jeff Goldblum in

More black and white

- Plan 9 would be awesome, if it's gettable.
- William Castle stuff. House on Haunted Hill or The Tingler
- Universal Horrors.
- Boris Karloff Stuff. Corridors of Blood has the C Lee connection, or The Black Room or something
- The Fly, perhaps as a double bill with the remake?

Corman/Price/Poe or related films

- Comedy of Terrors would be a wet dream for me
- Masque of the Red Death
- Pit and the Pendulum
- House of Usher

Something Silent

- HPLHS Call of Cthulhu
- Lon Chaney Phantom of the Opera?
- the Cabinet of Dr Caligari?
- A Trip to the Moon?

Something old in 3D

- Vincent Price House of Wax?
- It Came From Outer Space?

I don't want to jinx any possible guests by suggesting too many, although I think Ozzy is right, Prince of Darkness might draw a couple of interesting guests... (Alice is in it, and he LOVES genre films...)

Any of you lot have any thoughts?

Sunday dawned bright and hungover, and we set out for another day of films.

Dracula (1958) dir. Terence Fisher

( here be spoilers! )

I couldn't give this anything other than 5/5


At this point there were a number of us (not me, having read spoilers) planning to hit the Grindhouse double bill, but exhaustion had hit hard, and so we went to the Love Apple and had delicious food and cocktails instead. Suitably refreshed, we went back the NMM for:

Piers Haggard and Robert Wynne-Simmons in conversation with some guy called Tim

( here be spoilers! )


Daughters of Darkness (1971) dir. Harry Kumel

( here be spoilers! )

1/5. This is why I didn't go to the Q&A session with the director afterwards ;)


Horror Express (1973) dir. Eugenio Martin

This was supposed to be a Pakistani zombie film which I was quite interested in seeing, but a problem with the print meant we were left with grabbing something out of the NMM's archive. When dear Mr Earnshaw announced what it was going to be, there was a cheer went up from the ragged crew of hardy souls who had made it to the end of the festival, and a party atmosphere permeated the Pictureville.

( here be spoilers! )

5/5, and the ropey print totally DID add to the atmosphere.

After Horror Express we retrieved a poster for pmoodie, yelled "PEASANTS!" at lots of people, made Tony Earnshaw wear the Freebie Hat of Shame, and drank lots more alcohol. The poor barman/night porter at the Waterfront Lodge must really dread this weekend every year.

Got up early and Jacob Marley pointed out to me over breakfast that my name was in the programme as one of the many people listed under This festival would not have been possible without... I was completely stunned. I later discovered from festival director Tony Earnshaw that this was for setting up the Facebook Event. I am on the same credits list as John Carpenter, FTW! This totally set the appropriate tone of geeky squee for the day.


...And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973) dir. Roy Ward Baker

( here be spoilers! )

A grin-making nostalgia trip. 5/5


The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) and Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972) dir. Robert Fuest

( here be spoilers! )

Milk advert: 5/5
The Abominable Dr. Phibes: 5/5
Dr. Phibes Rises Again: 3.5/5


matgb and burlesque_bunny turned up at this point with a very welcome coolbag full of sandwiches and crisps and sausage rolls and juice and apples. This was devoured in short order, and then we went to listen to:

Jenny Agutter in conversation with Tony Earnshaw

( here be spoilers! )


The House That Dripped Magenta Blood (1971) dir. Peter Duffel

( here be spoilers! )

Gloriously silly and perfectly paced - 4.5/5


The Thing (1982) dir. John Carpenter (with specially filmed intro)

( here be spoilers! )

Intro: 4/5
Film: 4.5/5


And then we went home, cracked open the booze, and went Tigon:

The Creeping Flesh (1973) dir. Freddie Francis

( here be spoilers! )

5/5