Metallica doco

As a public service announcement, I'm telling you all that SBS is showing Metallica: Some Kind of Monster this Saturday night at 10.10pm. I've raved about this movie before, and I'll rave about it again: even if you absolutely loathe Metallica I promise you'll find something enjoyable in this doco, even if it is just laughing at the therapist Dr Phil.

Feeding my Doctor Who obsession

I've become, well, mildly obsessed with Doctor Who lately. And now that I have quite a lot of free time on my hands, as well as a less than taxing day job, I'm able to fully indulge this obsession by finding random Doctor Who-related videos on youtube. Which is how I came across this episode of The Graham Norton Show, with David Tennant (aka the tenth doctor) as special guest.

I swear to God, this is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Below is part 1; make sure you watch all 4 parts so that you don't miss where stoner Alex really does travel through time and space.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

(On a side note: god it's an enormous amount of hassle to embed a video from youtube! You've got to sign up and then add your blog and make sure that you select blogger beta rather than just plain old blogger and... bah. Very annoying all round.)

I saw it somewhere...

I've been pretty low on actual content recently, so to make up here's a very long list of...

What I've been watching! Hooray!

A Knight's Tale
I don't care what people say about his movie, I love it. So much fun! I've seen it so many times, but it's that kind of movie where you can just whack it in the DVD player, skip to any spot, and just sit back and enjoy it. Of course, it would have been pretty much absolute crap without the wonder that is Paul Bettany as Geoffery Chaucer. He actually won awards for that performance.

Logan's Run
This movie can be pretty much summed up with the statement "hilarious 70s sci-fi soft porn". Which, you know, is not necessarily a bad thing. The idea itself is really intriguing - society in the future that keeps its population under control by 'renewing' all its citizens at the age of 30 - and one that pops up pretty regularly in science fiction (I saw it most recently in an episode of Stargate Atlantis). But the execution is so hilariously bad that the message gets lost underneath crazy costumes and Farrah Faucett's hair.

Ocean's Eleven
One of my all-time favourite movies, and much like A Knight's Tale: complete and utter fun. It also has to be one of the greatest looking movies of all time, and not just because George Clooney and Brad Pitt are frequently in the same scenes, creating a critical mass of handsomeness so large that I'm surprised that screens don't spontaneously combust. Or something.

The Bourne Supremacy
Not as good as the first one, but some good moments. I watched the extras on the DVD though, and they kept on going on and on about how good the car chase was. My reaction to the car chase? Meh.

Old (new) Doctor Who episodes
Mostly I've been watching these to keep me going until the new episodes appear on Australian screens (Christmas has come and gone, ABC - when are we going to see the Christmas episode?!). This show is so incredibly fantastic; if you're not watching it, then you're obviously crazy. It's taken a lot of serious soul-searching, and it was a very difficult decision to make, but I think I prefer David Tennant over Christopher Eccelstone. Rose, of course, will always rock my world.

Lonelygirl15 videos
The definition of an internet sensation, these youtube videos became famous around the world a few months ago when it was revealed that, shock horror, Bree wasn't a real girl, and that she and all her friends were played by actors! You can find out the background story in this Wired story (Jessica Rose, the New Zealand actress who plays Bree, was on the front cover). I personally don't care at all whether the stories are real or not; they're just really good stories. There are drugs! And crazy cults! And secret codes! It's like Alias, but in 3 minute episodes, and with teenagers. You can kind of tell when the story broke that it wasn't real, because it's about then that 'The Creators' seemed to go "what the hell, now we can go all out with the completely unbelievable storylines!" I didn't have much else to do at work the last few weeks but watch youtube videos, so I went through and watched all of Bree's videos, plus those of the various associated characters - make sure you also check out those of danielBeast, jonastko and gemmers19. Of course, you can go really hard core and play the alternate reality game associated with the videos, called OpAphid. Find everything you could possibly want to know (and a lot more) about the game and the entire 'Bree-verse' at the LGPedia.

Foyle's War
It's back! One of my all-time favourite tv shows, the new series started on Sunday night on the ABC. And it was a ripper! There were brash Americans, illegal stills, and broken hearts - poor Sam. This show combines a whole heap of all my loves into one tv show: Britain during World War II, a good murder mystery, brooding detectives... seriously good stuff. Once again, I say that if you're not watching it, then you're obviously crazy.

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking
This was repeated on ABC on Saturday night. I wrote a pretty lengthy review of it when it was first on tv back in 2004, and what I said back then still stands, but if possible I hated it even more the second time. The writers seemed to just take bits and pieces from all over the canon without any kind of eye to coherence and, well, common-sense, and so instead of producing a decent portrayal of the 'Great Detective', instead came up with a hideous charactiture. Yes, Sherlock Holmes used cocaine, but never during a case. Yes, he distrusted women, but he was not entirely immune to their 'charms' - the very first short story details his encounters with the woman, Irene Adler (read it for yourself here). And yes, he didn't like to leave England for fear that it caused an unhealthy level of excitement amongst the criminal classes, but let's not forget that he spent three years travelling the world whilst he was 'dead' - hardly the actions of a man who believes that travel narrows the mind. The writer is obviously a fan of the original stories, but in trying to remain faithful to the Canon, whilst incorporating a modern storyline of sexual perversion, he's created a hideous, unentertaining mish-mash.

Stranger Than Fiction
Saw this on Tuesday at the wonderful new Dendy in the Canberra Centre. I really liked the movie - a bit like I Heart Huckabees, but actually comprehensible. Will Ferrell is obviously wasted in most of the stupid comedies he's been in, when he can do great work like this. Emma Thompson was, as usual, fabulous. My personal favourite was Dustin Hoffman, who did a very convincing over-worked and eccentric university professor.

Things in the life of me

Neck still sore, but it is getting better. I went back to the physio today, which will make that the second time this week, and the ninth time this year. And I'm going again on Monday. My normal physio is on holiday at the moment, and I swear I paid for at least a few nights accommodation of his trip all on my own. Because he's away, it does mean that I'm currently seeing another guy, who I'm not terribly crazy about, and not just because he put me in this traction machine today. Not a particularly comfortable experience, but I survived.

So yeah, not a lot of work has been done this week (read: none), so I'm starting to freak out just a little about how I'm going to get everything done before exams, especially considering that I've only been on the computer for about half an hour this evening, and already I can feel the start of that wearily familiar creeping stiffness. Thank god for my absolutely fabulous politics lecturer, who has pretty much given me an indefinite extension on my essay, which was due on Tuesday. Now I just have to somehow find a way of doing a 2,500 word history essay, an enormous IT assignment, and a group-work project management assignment without once again collapsing in a heap of very undignified pain. *Sigh* I guess it'll get done... somehow....

But! It's not all doom and gloom in my neck (ha!) of the woods. I just found out that Natalie and I have just secured the third and final housemate of the House of Fun (tm) for next year, which is tops. Now we just need to find a house, which I'm sure will be the easiest part of the entire enterprise.

How about some linky goodness?

Here's a McSweeney's List for all the nerds out there: St. James Parish Sewing Club Members Whose First Names Sound Like Programming Languages - "Fortrannah."

Recently I've been enjoying Ferule & Fescue.

Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme (kinda) live-blogged the premiere of their new show, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

Some more links for the nerds: Google has launched Google Code Search, but from my cursory examination, I still think codefetch is one of the greatest things ever invented if you want to search for code examples. (Pretty cool aside: my previous comments about codefetch are still up on the codefetch blog, right below a testimonial from Matt Haughey of metafilter fame.)


Jason Kottke's got a list of books on the Civil Rights movement to go along with the documentary Eyes on the Prize which I mentioned earlier this week. I would heartily second Taylor Branch's trilogy on America in the King Years, an incredile set of books, as well as Diane McWhorter's Carry Me Home. I'd also suggest An Easy Burden: The Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America by Andrew Young, and Allen Matusow's The Unraveling of America, which although isn't just about Civil Rights, has several good chapters on the topic (I've mentioned the book twice before, here and here).

Alrighty. That should do for tonight - Natalie's coming up for tea, and there is not a single clean mug in my entire room.

My mind on freedom

On Monday I handed in an essay for my American Sixties history course, focusing on the impact of television. As much as I absolutely loathe writing essays, I really enjoyed doing the research for this one, perhaps because I got to focus on two pretty disparate topics: the civil rights protests in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, and the Tet Offensive in Vietnam in 1968.

Anyway, as part of my research for the essay I watched all of the absolutely wonderful documentary Berkeley in the Sixties. Towards the beginning of the documentary there's a bit on how many students started out in the civil rights movement, before moving onto bigger and more radical things. The film has a fantastic soundtrack, but one song in this section got stuck in my head for days - 'I Woke Up This Morning With My Mind on Freedom', sung by the SNCC Freedom Singers. Desperate to hear it again, I did a bit of searching, and came across Sweet Chariot: the story of the spirituals, a project from the University of Denver, and the actual point of this post.

It's a really interesting site, with lots of information. Best of all, however, are the many many music samples you can listen to, including I Woke Up This Morning With My Mind on Freedom (the version of This Little Light of Mine on that page is also wonderful). Highly recommended: have a look around and a listen!

Canadian = communist

I'm currently doing research for an essay on the impact of television in America in the 1960s, focusing in part on the role it played in the Vietnam War. Which is how I came across the fantastic quote below, found in Chester J. Pach, Jr.'s chapter 'And that's the way it was: the Vietnam War on the network nightly news', from The Sixties: from memory to history, edited by David Farber.

Morley Safer was a CBS correspondent who, in 1965, filed a report about a US search-and-destroy mission in Cam Ne. In the report Safer questioned the way the mission, and the war as a whole, was conducted. Unsurprisingly, Safer immediately came under fire from several quarters, including the President, which is where the following bit of gold comes from.

Even more vehement than the official criticism of Safer's reporting was the attack on his integrity. Leading the assault was Lyndon B. Johnson. "Are you trying to fuck me?" Johnson asked caustically in a telephone conversation with CBS president Frank Stanton. "Your boys shat on the American flag." The president was convinced that Safer was a communist, but an investigation proved only that he was a Canadian.

Anti-Canadian, Anti-Communist gold! Take note, people: according to LBJ, Canadian = Communist. Watch out for your children. The fun continues, as officials try to argue that being Canadian means you can't provide a 'balanced' outlook on the war:

"Well, I knew he wasn't an American," Johnson sneered. "Why do you have to use foreigners to cover that war?" inquired Bill Moyers, an aide to Johnson, of another CBS correspondent. Canadian birth was reason enough for Arthur Sylvester, the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, to demand Safer's relief. "I think that an American reporter," Sylvester wrote Friendly, "would be more sensitive" to the need for "balance" in reporting U.S. actions in Vietnam.

I'm sure you'll all be glad to know that Safer did keep his job with CBS and wasn't deported for being communist/Canadian, although Pach does provide evidence that Safer did moderate his tone after the incident, and actually started carrying a gun when in Vietnam out of fear that "an accident" might befall him.

In other less-entertaining news, my fucking tooth has started hurting again. I finally went to the specialist yesterday to have a root canal, but he must have agitated it or something because I'm in rather large amounts of pain right now. I'm supposed to go back in September so the root canal can be finished (he only did one out of the three roots on Tuesday), but I'm thinking I might give them a call tomorrow to see if they can't fit me in a little sooner! I'm so over this whole thing, and can certainly think of better ways I could be spending my days. Especially when the procedure on Tuesday cost me $857!! I can definitely think of better ways to spend that kind of money...

Stuff in the life of me

Mmm, yeah, so almost a week since an update. Should probably do something about that, like have less work to do or something... :)

Things that have been occupying my brain since last week:

• So yeah, Buffy season 7 sucked. A lot. And it's quite possible that the series finale was the worst season finale ever shown on television. I realise this is a big call, especially considering such shockers as the one for 'The Pretender' where all the main characters get blown up and you never find out who survives... but it's a call I'm willing to make. "What do we do now, Buffy?" I'll tell you what you do: you shove the idiotic, pathetic, whining Buffy into the crater where the Hellmouth once was, and go off and enjoy yourself without her.
  
• How you know Buffy the Vampire Slayer has jumped the shark: you start liking Dawn more than Buffy. When Dawn becomes a sympathetic character, you know you've got problems.
• The X Files rocks. I missed out on early X Files, because(1) it was on too late and I was too little to stay up, and (2) it was so damn scary for little me! But yeah, I've been watching a few episodes lately, and just... wow. Gethsemane has to be one of the greatest hours of television I have ever seen. That final scene - "Agent Mulder died late last night from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head" - my God. Now that is the way to make a finale, people.
• Team America? Fuck yeah! That movie is damn funny (and disturbing, what with the whole puppet sex scene...)
• You're right James, The Killers are mega cool.
• I'm going to New Zealand in June! Two of my friends from college are coming with me after we got super cheap airfares through Zuji. I offered Bron the chance to come, but she cruelly didn't reply to my email... :)
• I quite like the song 'Shelter from the Storm' by Bob Dylan.
• Group work sucks balls.
  

tv stuff

I really am going to bed after this.

Some highlights of my latest scan of the great stuff at TV tattle:

Meet the cool parents (reg required, but if you had Firefox you could install Bugmenot and you wouldn't have to worry...): an ode to the coolness of Sandy and Kirsten Cohen on The OC.

Together or alone, they're so fun to watch that sometimes we want to shove the brooding kids out of the way so we can watch them. (Marissa and Ryan: this means you. We know you're supposed to be all cool and angsty, but crack a joke already, will ya?)

This is how I feel about The OC all the time. Let's have a show just about the parents - they're far more interesting! (even Julie Cooper got a mention down the bottom of the article, as an example of the worst parents on tv. Sydney's parents on Alias also get a mention).

Also, it would seem that Jon Stewart stating that the CNN show 'Crossfire' was "hurting America" was the reason the program got cancelled.

Mr. Klein specifically cited the criticism that the comedian Jon Stewart leveled at "Crossfire" when he was a guest on the program during the presidential campaign. Mr. Stewart said that ranting partisan political shows on cable were "hurting America."

Mr. Klein said last night, "I agree wholeheartedly with Jon Stewart's overall premise." He said he believed that especially after the terror attacks on 9/11, viewers are interested in information, not opinion.

Rock on, Jon Stewart!

And another also: is JJ Abrams the busiest guy in tv? He's got Alias, Lost, he's doing the new Mission Impossible movie, and some sitcom about a single guy. Not that I'm complaining - JJ Abrams rocks my world, just like Jon Stewart!

Ok, really going to bed now...

And the Emmy goes to...

Just finished watching 4 hours of Emmy's coverage - god how I love having Austar at home...

Some observations then.

I really should watch Angels in America it would seem. 11 awards by my count, including 6 in the 'prime-time' categories. It was on ABC a few months ago but for some reason or another I just seemed to miss it. Now I'm going to have to watch it so I too can be one of those people who say "Oh darling, did you see Angels in America? They say that television is the new cinema, and after watching this I just have to agree! Al Pacino was incredible!"

Al Pacino... well, he talked a lot. From what I've heard he definitely deserved the best leading actor award, but I don't think he had to talk for quite that long.

As Kelsey Grammer said, only Sarah Jessica Parker could get away with thanking "passers-by" in her acceptance speech for best leading actress in a comedy. Good work on that award by the way!

Good work as well to Frasier: 6 awards, including best actor for Kelsey Grammer, best supporting for David Hyde Pierce, and best guest star in a comedy for Laura Linney. Frasier never did particularly well in Australia, which is a pity, because it's a bloody good show. Very strange to think that it's over - what will Kelsey Grammer do now? He's played the same character on television for over 20 years...

There were other huge shows that said goodbye this year, most notably Friends and Sex and the City. It's a pity that none of these 3 shows won for outstanding comedy series, which was taken by Arrested Development (I don't think this has been shown in Australia yet, like most good tv). It will be a very different Emmy's next year without these programs, and apparently more are set to join the list, including Everybody Loves Raymond (thank god - I never got the appeal of that show) and Law & Order, a show that seems to have been running longer than television itself has.

Another show that could be joining the list is, god willing, The West Wing. By all reports the show is a very poor shadow of its former self, particularly now that Aaron Sorkin has left. As much as I absolutely worship this program, I definitely do not want to it to go on and on and on past its time. The fact that The West Wing only won one Emmy (more about that one a second) shows that it's maybe time to let go. Certainly a tad different to the 12 or so that it hauled in its first year.

So, Allison Janney winning best actress in a drama, huh? I think it's safe to say that no-one was more surprised by this than 'CJ' herself. From what I've read, everybody thought that Edie Falco had this one in the bag after The Sopranos was ineligible to enter the awards last year. But I guess Allison Janney really is as good as I think she is! Not sure about the dress though...

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Bradley Whitford and Jane Kaczmarek are officially the sweetest couple. Ever. I always want either one of them to win at awards shows, not only because they're both incredible actors, but because their acceptance speeches are always so very very sweet. Just find what Whitford said to his wife when he won an Emmy a few years ago, and you'll understand.

Gary Shandling was absolutely shocking as a host. Not funny, at all. And he looked like he'd ODed on botox.

Actually, he had one funny comment: "Hey, we missed Osama Bin Laden, but we got Martha Stewart! Don't you feel safer now?"

The other classic comment of the night was from the man who should've been hosting, Conan O'Brien. "It's a pity Joan Rivers couldn't be here tonight. Yeah, apparently she's out protesting against high-definition tv."

The constant jokes about the very strange Elaine Stritch were also pretty funny. As was the woman herself, but in a different way...

Barbara Streisand's dress was the only particularly hideous one I saw, but then I didn't really see many beforehand. The 'red carpet' coverage was incredibly bad. When you have to bring on Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy to make a show interesting, you know that there's something wrong. Please, please come back Joan and Melissa!

So all in all, a pretty damn good awards show. Maybe television is the new cinema afterall. If HBO continue to make the incredible stuff that they've been making (The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Angels in America, Deadwood) and Hollywood keeps on putting out the overwhelming crap that they've been making lately (Troy, Van Helsing, anything with The Rock or Mandy Moore), then it just might happen. As long as they quickly and very efficiently move away from reality tv...

Joy to the world!

Yippee! Yay!! Me is in a mega-tops mood!!!

Why, you may ask, is Maddy in such a good mood? Well, seeing as I'm in such a splendiferous mood, I will tells ya. In a helpful list. Because I'm helpful like that.

• I got a cheque for $2500 this morning!


• I (finally) finished writing my 2500 word essay for European history! And then handed it in! 15 minutes before the (already extended) deadline!


• I had chocolate this afternoon!


• I found my brother's favourite chewing gum in the supermarket, chewing gum previously thought to only be sold in North America!


• I had a good dinner tonight!


• I listened to a really interesting speech on corporate accounting and auditing! No, really!


• I got 93.5% on my cookies assignment!


• I got a new kickarse background for my desktop! You can get it too, here!


• Alias!!!!!

Alias was sooo good tonight - it's been a pretty damn fine last few weeks actually. Highlights of this week (once again, in handy list form because, well, I can):

• Evil Jack! Jack rocks my world, especially when he's being all brooding and nasty and evil and vengeful against slimy sometimes-good, sometimes-bad Sloane. Oh yes, Jack is good. We need more Jack.


• Vaughn finally realises the truth about evil, annoying Lauren. I don't care that she's Angel off Home & Away, just leave already you stupid bitch.


• Marshall's "Wow, she's good. I mean, if you had to pick someone evil to marry, she was a good choice" comment. Ahh, how I love Marshall. Not as much as Jack of course, because brooding, vengeful Jack kicks dirt all over 'look at me! I'm the cute comic relief' Marshall.


• Sydney has a sister! And Sloane is the father! And Sydney's sister is a biological weapon that has the power to destroy the world! And who will either kill Syd, or Syd will kill her! Yay for fucked up family relationships on Alias!


• Jack fake killing Sloane after that absolutely incredible scene with the wine. Oh. My. God. I mean, we all knew that he wouldn't be dead, but that scene, in the cell, with the wine, and the whole punishing Sloane's daughter thing... phew. I state, once again: Jack rocks my world.


• The distinct possibility that Irena will return very, very soon. No-one can be unhappy when the possibility of more Irena is in the wings!


• And, and, and... oh, there's too much really. Let's just say that Alias kicks some serious arse, and move on!! Yay for Alias!!

Ok, that's probably enough silly, happy Maddy for one day. And far too many exclamation marks. But I really am in a very good mood!