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Three and Out
I enjoyed this British black comedy far more than I expected to; for some reason the ad campaign had persuaded me that it was a story about a loser set on the London Underground, when in fact its structure more resembles that of My Favorite Year, with Mackenzie Crook being drawn along in the wake…
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The Thirty-Nine Steps (2)
Back in July I posted some thoughts inspired by a re-reading of John Buchan’s The Thirty-nine Steps. If so inclined, you can find them here. What I didn’t go on to explain was that my revisiting of the book had been part of a discussion between me and producer Archie Tait, whom I’ve known and…
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Carnival of Souls
If there’s any movie that comes a close second to Jason and the Argonauts in terms of the money that I’ve shelled out to own copies of it, this low-budget hand-made horror from the ‘sixties must surely be the one. I saw Carnival of Souls as the lower half of a Sunday horror double-bill at…
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My Year
Well, every other blogger seems to be doing it… but I’ll keep mine short because, frankly, it’s been one of those years where you can’t run through the best of it without the risk of sounding like a total arse. Let’s just say I’ve had a lot to be grateful for. But to put that…
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Crusoe Slash
I suppose it had to happen…
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Future Proof
In the comments to Television Q and A, Piers Beckley writes: “Riffing off the technology point: Lew Grade’s ITC stuff from the 70s was shot in 35mm with a view to worldwide sales. And the thing about 35mm is that you can even now remaster it into blu-ray and other hi-def formats… (snip) Record your…
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Television Q and A
How did you begin your career in television? I was writing for radio at the time. It was a science fiction piece for Radio 4’s Saturday Night Theatre and Martin Jenkins, my producer, sent the script over to the Doctor Who production office. So out of the blue came this call to go over and…
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Eleventh Hour USA
This just in from somewhere… DISPLAYING SIGNIFICANT WEEKLY GAINS, ELEVENTH HOUR DELIVERS STRONGEST PERFORMANCE TO-DATE Earning significant weekly increases among all 18-49 and 25-54 measures (ranging from +21% to 54%), as well as Households (+24%) and Total Viewers (+24%), ELEVENTH HOUR earned 1st place in its 10PM hour among those same demos. Delivering its largest…
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It Quacks Like a Duck
The BBC has announced Defying Gravity, a 13-part science fiction series to be co-produced with America’s Fox Network. “Set in the near future, Defying Gravity will star Sex and the City and Band of Brothers actor Ron Livingston and will follow eight astronauts from five countries on a mysterious journey through the solar system.“ Oh,…
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Truth in Escapism
Andy Greenwood’s comment on Crusoe and the Doctor, directing us onward to a fan’s mashup of Doctor Who images cut to the music from the Happy Days title sequence, made me think. In today’s Guardian, playwright Mark Ravenhill writes: “in the minds of many programme-makers, there now seems to be a crude binary option: you’re…
Hauling Like A Brooligan
Stephen Gallagher
