ThaOGDreamWeaver

"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please." -- definitely Mark Twain (as interviewed by Rudyard Kipling)

Heh. It is one of my favourite pub quiz maths questions. If you totalled all the items my true love gave to me in the song... There is a song that plagues Brits far worse. Do any other countries play Whamageddon? It's a survival game that involves doing anything and everything to avoid hearing Last Christmas by Wham, whereupon you will be sent to Whamhalla. (Covers and remixes are fine: deliberately trapping your mates using Alexa, playlists, radio requests etc commits you to Whamhell. Double-Whamhell if you're a DJ.)

Blessed Yule, y'all. And for everyone else... sing along.

Yes, I've seen and loved Enchanted (and unfortunately seen the D+ only sequel, the appropriately-titled Disenchanted. Which...was... not... great. The whole bit about "is this movie necessary" very much applies to sequels). Amy Adams is awesome and what a breakthrough movie. McDreamy somehow doesn't project his usual charisma as her urban handsome prince, but James, Tim, Idina and Susan knock it out of the park. It's also stuffed with Disney in-jokes. Really nerdy one below... I don't think they'd have had a crack at this kind of script without Lilo & Stitch and its parody trailers going first. And Disney certainly seems a touch less po-faced about their image since.

My partner turned down the idea of Red One for the niecelets, but is currently enjoying "A Very Corgi Christmas" without a hint of irony. And if it's between that and a Rock movie, the corgi's got more range. But let's be fair: you want the Rock to be the Rock, (including being a miserable, self-entitled PITA on and off set), hire The Rock and frame the movie (or his part of it) around The Rock doing Rock stuff. You want a beefy guy who can do the action actor lunk schtick and unleash a whole bunch of skillsets when needed, not to mention show up and work like a trouper, you get Dave Bautista. Red One didn't have the best first couple of weeks - and having Wicked ($112m opening weekend, $144m so far) and Gladiator II ($55m open, $67m to date) hoovering up the wide bookings across Thanksgiving is NOT going to help a Christmas flick get its legs back. One last fun box office fact: Red One is currently on about the same numbers as this year's other big Christmas-themed release... Terrifier 3. PS / EDIT: what's wrong with a good Hallmark movie?

I'm slightly ambivalent about the Lilo and Stitch do-over for different reasons. It's probably my favourite non-Pixar Disney movie, and proved those guys do have something of a sense of humour. Not to mention someone capturing the sheer joy/terror/shock of catching your first wave in animation. Writer/director Chris Sanders is only back as the voice of Stitch, as he's now contracted to DreamWorks: so I'm hoping the new crew will mess with it a bit and play with some new ideas.

…but how do we know he’s NOT Mel Torme?

Surely I can't be serious? I'm afraid I am. (And don't call me Shirley). As one third of the ZAZ comedy team with David and Jerry Zucker, Jim took aim at terrible genre movies and civilised punctuation with Airplane!, Top Secret!, Hot Shots!, and of course Police Squad! and its big-screen cousin Naked Gun. Exclamation mark abuse was not the only sign of the trio's diseased minds, assaulting theatres with groan-worthy sight gags, vicious puns and the odd exploding chicken. They also delivered some straighter, darker comedy with the classic Ruthless People, and Jim even tried a little Shakespeare adaptation with Big Business. Jim semi-retired in the late 90s, chipping in on various projects like Scary Movie, and was living happily in Santa Monica. He will be missed by family, friends, and anyone who knows a little German, prefers their coffee black, or appreciates good driver discipline.

Stevie Wonder - Boogie On Reggae Woman

...and you thought Colin Farrell was a scary Penguin... Great to see W&G back - on both the BBC and Netflix. Ben Whitehead doing a cracking job impersonating the late, great Peter Sallis, and already some nice punchy gags just in these two minutes. Also: Mack was right. Never, ever trust a robot.

Somehow, the thread returned... There's only a few scant clips and details about Andor S2 so far, but from the looks of things... ...the direction is still absolutely on point. Just look at the setup for this frame, dammit. How you can see those characters relate to each other just with position, expressions and costume coding. And, yes, wardrobe crew and location scouts are still on point as well.

Or going the other way: Vikings definitely made it to Newfoundland, and may have explored further. So you could have the Berk crew running into some First Nations legends like Wendigo or Qalupalik, or land further south and meet a Thunderbird.

Hard agree. Toothless looks like he's had hours of detail and love in the CGI studio, but somehow... not as much soul as the animated version. I'm also not sure from the "first pets" bit whether they created a practical head for Toothless or if he's all CGI. For closeups (in things like GoT and HotD), having a real animatronic build makes all the difference for audiences and actors. We can tell, not just from the detail shading and lighting, but from how an actor behaves. A tennis ball on a stick is a difficult thing to relate to. And I guess since both humans and dragons were animated with the same techniques and style in the original, you had an easier time accepting them as part of that world. Now, I'm looking at the art and thinking "that's nice, but it's not real", rather than just getting on with the story. Very personal pet peeve: it also sounds like they've messed with that musical score - way better than a kids' adventure movie deserved, and now showing up as shorthand for Scotland in every damn cheap TV production. (But we don't mind a bit🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿). It sounds like they've handed it to one of those YouTubers who Epic-izes things. YARGH. When something's this good already, why mess with it?

...thiiiis is the vooooiiice of the Mysterons... we knoooooww that youuu can heeeaaarr us, Earthmen... 🟢🟢 (that's the sorta-kids version). Yeah, I don't think I could party on Mars anyway. The place has no atmosphere, it's cold-hearted and has no magnetism. The core stopped spinning eons ago, leaving Mars unprotected from solar winds - which for us just make pretty lights thanks to our magnetosphere. But as an unshielded planet, it's been stripped practically bare, and is bathed in constant radiation: about 50x that of Earth. And that's much higher if a solar flare hits. We may have a better option in the Solar System: Callisto. She may have an icy exterior but a warm heart: and is far enough away from Jupiter that her bigger neighbour isn't a problem. Surface radiation is 10x Earth average - but below the average in Scotland, so the worst side effect would be lots of pale ginger people. Best of all, lots and lots of water, and that's fuel, air, and life.

Inspired by the news about Red One... What are some good cape films/themed episodes/comics for Yuletide? Obvious one to start with is Batman Returns - and if Die Hard's a Christmas film, then absolutely the Keaton/Pfeiffer flick qualifies too. What are your picks? BTW, although I haven't seen Red One - and from the looks of things, I may not be alone on that - I am still allowed to have an Opinion on one particular thing about the production. Rantette below.

An occasional thread for capery crossovers to our reality. To kick off: Tufts University researchers have accidentally created… web fluid. Spider silk, based on fibroin proteins, is an incredible material which nerds around the world study for its tensile strength . But the ones used in labs used to take several hours to solidify. Then one day an assistant prof had been making proteins with a dopamine base, then cleaned his gear with acetone and forgotten to rinse it. The presence of these two chemicals caused the fibroin to harden instantly, overcoming years of engineering puzzles. Typically enough, the nerds then immediately worked out how to fire, spin and mix this stuff under light pressure, creating webshooters. The lines can already grab and pick up items 80 times their own weight, though there’s a way to go to match spider silk or supporting Tom Holland. https://now.tufts.edu/2024/10/10/inspired-spider-man-lab-recreates-web-slinging-technology

Another one from my Tarot deck: Strength. Yell if you need to borrow this one for anything.

Side note: in Polish, there’s a phrase, “nie moj cyrk, nie moje malpy”. (“Not my circus, not my monkeys” = not my problem). I’ve always wondered if that was a punchline, but never found the other half. Any ideas?

Part of the appeal of Alien has been the slow-build dread, but Aliens flipped that into full-on chaos mode. Given he was responsible for the Fargo series as well (badass Martin Freeman - who knew?), I think he's very capable of both. What bugs me is the idea that this is a prequel, set 30 years before the first movie, following the investigation into a crashed UFO. It definitely sounds like something a little different, but how it gels with the rest of the canon I'm not sure...

Aliens:Earth is for FX/Hulu... which may be part of D+ fairly soon officially. Anywhere outside the USA, there's an FX channel on D+ for stuff like The Old Man and AHS, which sits kinda odd in the menu next to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. We don't get the ESPN stuff, except for some odd bits and pieces under the NatGeo banner.

More very quick bits including about 15 seconds of Andor. Good to see the returning and new cast at least. And perhaps m'learned coll' @Techwright will know what that ship is, but Vader's going to be p*ssed if that's Cassian jacking his new ride. Also tiny fragment of the Noah Hawley (Legion) series Alien:Earth, which is a prequel set Down Under. Facehuggers? Strewth, he's just bein' friendly, mate...

So the last season of What If? drops fir Christmas again… …and while I’m glad to get one last run, I’m kinda sad too. Letting writers run wild with anything and anyone in the toybox is a great way to explore new story ideas (and sometimes kick off whole new arcs). Might not be game-changing but damnit if they weren’t fun. Peg’s back, though less as the Anchor Being of the series than a guest shot this time (Hayley being busy with the final Mission Impossible flick.) Sam, Bucky, Kahoori, Wong and Red are also joining the party: some Celestials and alt-watchers show up: Moon Knight does some light assembling: Kat and Howard somehow get stuck together: Agatha puts on a show of cosmic proportions for Kingo: Shang-Chi heads out West with Deadeye Kate: and while the mighty Thor might be missing, there’s still someone around to bring the thunder. All in all, it’s (mostly) lived up to billing and brought new ideas to the table, while pencilling in around some others. Gonna miss it.

Speaking of entertainment... Andor S2 drops April 22nd, so expect a trailer around three months earlier. Bothan spies have not smuggled any new trailer footage out of D23B (so if you see any new trailers online, they're "fan concepts"). However, what we know: S2 will be 4 x 3-episode mini-arcs, with large time jumps in-between. Ben Mendelsohn and Alan Tudyk both return, so we'll likely meet Krennic towards the end of the series and could pick up K2-SO anywhere along the line. Luna says the writing is bang-up stuff... ...with the final arc changing how we think about Rogue One. (Not 100% sure I like the sound of that, but it's always been Tony Gilroy's story...)

I don't think Marvel would make flicks about the kid who turned up as the octopus to their Nativity... ...oh wait. Joking aside, Marvel kinda need a new MCU Anchor Being. Iron Man's dead. (And while they can bring back RDJ the actor, actions having permaconsequences in the MCU is a good decision.) Cap is living undercover with Peg in an alternate timeline. Captain Marvel, much as some of us like her, isn't selling the tickets. The Kang Thang misfired horribly, and not just because of talent issues. And Deadpool can't sell lunchboxes to Walmart. Well, not that kind. Probably. While they're trying to figure out who that is - and I hate to say this, but unless BNW is a complete surprise package it's probably not Sam - Thunderbolts seems like a nice placeholder, gives a bunch of underused characters a second shot at a first impression (well, Bucky's had a better run than the rest, and Walker could be... interesting.) As for the forced lobotomy... right now, I could go for some uncomplicated, brain-soothing entertainment.