ThaOGDreamWeaver

It's nice that they acknowledge the precedent Presidents. (Yes I know but it was funny)

S5 is now halfway through filming. There's not many clues as to what's going on, but there'll be new characters, more about what the Upside Down is, and a very, very final ending. Oh, and someone gets paid to smear fake blood on ropes. Dont'cha just love making movies? Given how good S1 and S2 were - S3 stumbled a bit, but S4 pulled it back towards the end - hoping they stick the landing. Or at least mess up enough to be entertaining...

Cheating a bit because this isn't a website (though you can listen to it on several.) I'm not a major podcast fan, even though (maybe because) I work with a bunch of them. But the only one I'll siddown and listen to Soundtracking. I'm obsessed with movie music - half of my CDs and a whole stack of iTunes are soundtracks. And I like Edith, both personally and professionally. But I'm still amazed by how good her booker is, because... just have a flip through that guest list. https://audioboom.com/channels/4794784-soundtracking-with-edith-bowman And to keep this relevant to our interests... https://audioboom.com/posts/8258636-episode-358-jon-favreau-on-the-music-of-the-mandalorian https://audioboom.com/posts/8324435-episode-375-charlie-brooker-on-the-music-of-black-mirror https://audioboom.com/posts/8316223-episode-372-daniel-pemberton-on-music-of-spider-man-across-the-spider-verse https://audioboom.com/posts/8190251-episode-332-tony-gilroy-on-the-music-of-andor

I wasn’t aware of that, though I think it would have been a very different movie… But I do now know another fact. Alex Karras was on the WB lot auditioning for another flick (apparently a fairly terrible one). He heard from a mate that Mel Brooks was around somewhere on site and got hold of a copy of the script. Read it. Walked unannounced into Mel’s production office. Threw a chair at him. Said “Me Mongo.” And walked out. He got got the gig. I’m not sure if it was because it hit the brief or Mel was too terrified to argue.

So there's some news from SDCC: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is having a joint panel with Doctor Who. Now while, yes, both shows are having a bit of a moment, some people think it's a little more than just a meeting of minds. What do you think The Doctor would make of the Enterprise? And out of the crossovers you've seen, which has been the most/least successful?

So, despite what some Internet sleuths have said, the trailer has dropped on time... Thoughts: All in all, quite familiar White House Down / Angel Has Fallen territory but with added capery. Can't say I can see where 400 large has gone, if I'm honest, unless they rebuilt the whole White House just to blow it up...

I love it too, 100% unironically, even though it's... a little bit of a mess. But a glorious, spectacular, wildly imaginative mess that takes massive swings. They didn't always connect, but damnit it always looked good doing it... and when they do, it's proper old-school serial stuff in the vein of Indy or The Rocketeer. EDIT... oh, and it's got Ed Shearmur going full John Williams. And loving it. (So do I. An edit of the end creds was my ringtone for a very long time.)

Ledernacken - Let Yourself Go

Dark - In The Dark You Die

No idea - though it's not a movie, it's an 8-ep limited run series. And yes, I think Nic can pull it off if the writers are up to the gig. Looks wise, I'm kinda hoping they go hyperstylised like one of my favourite criminally underrated flicks, Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow. That played with all kinds of tones to get a retro-early-Technicolor-meets-Art-Deco-poster look, and used colour to illustrate characters and scenes really well. (It was however hideously expensive, and apparently an absolute pain in the backside to color grade. Since tech has moved on two decades from Adobe After Effects being state of the art, maybe some new kit can do it more justice without breaking the bank.)

Nic Cage’s self-narrating depressive PI Spider-Noir in Spiderverse was a superb running gag… but does it make a series? Well, we might just find out… Cage is joined by Lamorne Morris (New Girl, Fargo) as fearless journalist Robbie Robertson, and Brendan Gleeson as an as-yet-undisclosed villain. In early production as of May, likely to hit MGM and Amazon Prime next year as an 8-part limited. It definitely sounds a different take on Spidey… yeah, think I could get into this?

It's halfway a history and halfway a portrait of someone descending into hell in pursuit of power, then getting stuck there, like the old morality plays Richard namechecks. (And a substantial chunk of PR for the House Of Tudor, just in case any stray Yorkist pretenders were still kicking around.) I'm not sure how close the script is going to be to reality. Not all that much is known about Geta due to a fairly short career as co-Emperor, coupled with his damnatio memoriae - a formal and public Roman version of being "airbrushed from Party history." But it's clear that Geta didn't perform well as a consul, argued constantly with his brother, and each tried to have the other assassinated repeatedly. After a few misses both ways, Caracallus finally succeeded around December 24th 211 AD, just after Saturnalia. (And you thought your relatives were painful at Christmas.) Oh, and Caracallus did quite a few good things - like enfranchising all free men in the Empire as Roman Citizens - but was also a bit of a git in many, many other ways. So I can see where that could get fun writing it up in a sort of Roman Spy vs Spy way. But with two main interwoven plots to get through - Lucius the slave and Marcus the general - things are bit overstuffed for that already in the movie.

Oh dear sweet Freya in Asgard, they really did inflict the bowl cut on Fillion... 🤣

"Hey Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?" Well, I do love me an SBB run... This takes place during the confusing reign of co-Emperors Caracallus (Fred Hechinger, White Lotus) and his d**s*** brother Geta (Joe Quinn aka fan favourite Metal Eddie from Stranger Things, though here he seems to be channeling MCR's Gerard Way. Bloody emos.) And in case you're wondering, no, the idea of two Emperors trying to rule at once didn't work out all sweet'n'light. Yes, sweaty muscle fans, it's got Pedro, and new Irish indie darling Paul Mescal in his first serious lead. On gravitas duties is Denzel His Very Self as a gladiator-turned-impresario and dodgy dealer looking to make political moves. And we also get a welcome turn for Derek Jacobi as an upstanding Senator, who's a veteran at putting puff and polish on silly flicks like this one. It's certainly going to be spectacular, and even shows the Colosseum staging a naval battle - it's known that this happened IRL, and engineers are still fairly baffled as to how they pulled it off to this day. Exactly how necessary this all is as a sequel, I dunno... but a fine popcorn flick.

Without being a prophet of OMGDOOMZOR too much - we already have a few round here… …there has been at least one extensive round of reshoots, plus two script surgeons and a whole new major character added (but as that character is played by one Giancarlo Esposito, I’m good with that). From the description, they were going for a spy/political/cape thriller along the lines of Winter Soldier, but needed more action sequences and to straighten out some feedback from test audiences. It doesn’t sound like the most troubled Marvel production they’ve had by a mile, but those are quite large fixes to need after you’ve supposedly wrapped.

So Marvel had a series of hoaxes as to what the title of this show was gonna be. Turns out… they were probably lying about it being a sitcom as well. They don’t usually have demons in. (Though The One Where Janice Summons Azrael was pretty good.) Kathryn is joined by Aubrey Plaza, Matt Locke, and holy hellfire that’s Patti LuPone. What do we think?

Getting back to the show... This week's ep:

Brass Inc. - Sign Of The Swinging Cymbal

Paul Hardcastle - The Wizard

Phil Lynott - Yellow Pearl

The KLF (feat. Tammy Wynette) - Justified And Ancient

D:Ream - Things Can Only Get Better🗳️

Beast In Black - Crazy/Mad/Insane

With the soaring synth trumpets, messenger drumbeat, and urgent strings in the background, COH's main theme - whether it's fully original or not - could easily pass as an Inspirational/Cinematic/Action theme for a newscast pretty much anywhere in the world. (Though it would be really, really cool if WPRI 12 picked it up and ran with it.) And vice versa: if you ran through anything tagged News or Heroic on Extreme Music, you'd find a lot of stuff that would fit in around Paragon. https://www.extrememusic.com/albums/2960 https://www.extrememusic.com/albums/3365 Different example of how to build a recognisable news theme from those three elements: So maybe it's stock, or maybe we have a COH fan lurking in the Ghost Adventures production team who threw it in for a laugh. So if you are among us... show yourself... shoowwww youuurrssellfff... (etc)

Machine Learning doesn’t give you the right answer: it gives you the one it’s been rewarded for. So yes, it’s very like humans.