Academy Awards 1999 – tape 2615

Another awards ceremony today, with Academy Awards 1999. It’s presented Live on one of the Sky movie channels. The bit of the preview I’ve got on this tape is presented Geena Davis. Even when doing silly puff pieces like this, I always like Geena Davis.

The Sky presentation is presented by none other than Barry Norman, poached from the BBC by Sky, which I was always a bit sad about, although I’d rather have him presenting this than a random Sky personality.

He’s joined, at least for the start, by film journalist David Ansen.

After a quick, wordless montage, the show opens with one of the greatest entrances Oscar has ever seen, as Whoopi Goldberg takes the stage dressed as Elizabeth I as this is the year of Shakespeare in Love (and Elizabeth for that matter). “I am the African Queen.” She’s brilliant.

Academy President Robert Rehme introduces a montage of the Academy’s favourite moments from a century of film

Whoopi’s back after a quick change, for a monologue covering such things as the Clinton impeachment.

Kim Basinger presents the Best Supporting Actor award.

James Coburn wins for Affliction.

Back to Barry and David Ansen for some discussion as the US shows some adverts. Then Gwyneth Paltrow presents the award for Best Art Direction.

It’s won by Martin Childs and Jill Quertier for Shakespeare in Love.

Patrick Stewart introduces clips from the first two nominated Best Films, Elizabeth and Shakespeare in Love.

Mike Myers presents the Best Makeup award

It’s won by Jenny Shircore for Elizabeth.

Christina Ricci introduces the first Best Song nominee, ‘When You Believe’ from Prince of Egypt.

It’s performed by a powerhouse duo of Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. There’s so much vocal wobbling going on that you half expect Jeffrey Jones to appear from Amadeus and complain about Too Many Notes.

Whoopi has another costume change, in a costume from Pleasantville.

Presenting the award for Best Live Action Short Film is Brendan Fraser.

It’s won by Kim Magnusson and Anders Thomas Jensen for Election Night.

The Best Animated Short is presented by the cast of A Bug’s Life.

It’s won by Chris Wedge for Bunny. He’s the head honcho of Blue Sky Studios, makers of Ice Age now.

Robin Williams present the Best Supporting Actor award.

The winner is Judi Dench for her 8 minute performance in Shakespeare in Love.

Before the next award, there’s a bit of a kerfuffle in the auditorium as Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn can’t get to their seats.

Chris Rock presents the award for Sound Effects Editing.

It’s won by Gary Rydstrom and Richard Hymns for Saving Private Ryan

Liv Tyler introduces the next nominated song, from Armageddon, ‘I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing’.

It’s performed by her dad and his band, Aerosmith.

Angelica Huston presents the award for Best Sound

It’s won for Saving Private Ryan by Gary Rydstrom, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson and Ronald Judkins.

Tom Hanks introduces John Glenn

John Glenn introduces another montage, of biographical films.

There’s another interlude with Barry and David Anson. Then Whoopi wears a costume from the movie Beloved, and gets some mileage out of being dressed as a slave.

Then she introduces Sophia Loren, who first presents the next Best Film nominee, Life is Beautiful.

She also presents the Best Foreign Film award, which is won by Italy’s own Colin Hunt impersonator Roberto Benigni.

Andie MacDowell and Andy Garcia present the award for Best Musical or Comedy Score.

It’s won by Stephen Warbeck, for Shakespeare in Love. I’m sorry, but I’m sick of this score already, and that’s just from the number of times they’ve played it tonight. Mulan should have won. Justice for Jerry Goldsmith.

Geena Davis introduces the Best Dramatic Score award, and one of those bits of choreography. This year I found it particularly inappropriate, particularly when one of the dancers started tap dancing to John Williams’ score for Saving Private Ryan. I like tap dancing, but this really didn’t work.

Conductor Bill Conti gets a shout out.

The award goes to Nicola Piovani for Life is Beautiful. John Williams was robbed.

John Travolta presents a montage of the work of Frank Sinatra.

Whoopi has another costume, this time from Elizabeth.

Anne Heche presents a look at the Scientific and Technical Awards – and her microphone fails as she’s trying to read her speech so she has to go to the podium to read it.

One of the technical awards goes to the Avid film composer. Well deserved.

Jim Carrey is there to present the award for Best Film Editing.

The winner is Michael Kahn for Saving Private Ryan. I wonder if he’s stopped editing on film yet? He’s one of the celluloid holdouts.

Renée Zellwegger introduces another nominated song, ‘A Soft Place to Fall’ from The Horse Whisperer.

It’s performed by co-writer Alison Moorer.

Nicolas Cage presents the Irving G Thalberg award.

It goes to Norman Jewison.

Back to Barry and David for the break, and then the next award is Best Visual Effects, presented by Liam Neeson.

It’s won by What Dreams May Come.

Then, Val Kilmer comes on with Trigger’s grandson and has to try to give a speech while the horse just wants to wander around. He’s there to introduce a montage of some western clips, in tribute to Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.

Helen Hunt presents the award for Best Actor.

It goes to Roberto Benigni. At least this time he doesn’t climb on the furniture. “I don’t deserve this” he says in his speech and I have to agree.

Whoopi has another amazing costume, this time from Velvet Goldmine.

Lisa Kudrow introduces another Best Song nomination. It’s ‘That’ll Do’ from Babe: Pig in the City.

It’s performed by Peter Gabriel. No, it really is. My Twenty year old daughter heard it and asked “is that the same person who sang the song at the end of Wall-E?” Because she has no idea who Peter Gabriel is. Time is strange.

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck present the award for documentary short subject.

The winner is Keiko Ibi, who gives a really emotional speech.

The winner for Best Documentary Feature is The Last Days – James Moll and Ken Lipper.

Next, an award that caused a bit of controversy, as Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro present an honorary Oscar.

It goes to Elia Kazan, who was controversial because he was one of the people who named names in front of the McCarthy hearings, something many people haven’t forgotten.

Including, it would seem, Nick Nolte.

And Ed Harris and Amy Madigan.

Back to Barry and David for some more discussion about the controversy. Then Whoopi has another costume, from Shakespeare in Love. She also presents the award for Best Costume.

It’s won by Sandy Powell for Shakespeare in Love.

Catherine Zeta Jones introduces another Best Song nominee, ‘The Prayer’ from the film Quest for Camelot. A film I know nothing about.

It’s performed by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli.

Jennifer Lopez presents the award for Best Song. It’s won by Stephen Schwartz for ‘When You Believe’. He’s not there to pick up the award.

Annette Bening introduces the In Memoriam section.

Another batch of Banter from Barry and David is followed by Jack Valenti, who is there to introduce Colin Powell in a very tubthumping intro.

Colin Powell introduces the next two films nominated for Best Film, The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan.

Uma Thurman presents the award for Best Cinematography.

It’s won by Janusz Kaminski. Oh well.

Jack Nicholson presents the Best Actress award.

It’s won by Gwyneth Paltrow for Shakespeare in Love.

After another break, Steven Spielberg introduces a tribute to Stanley Kubrick.

Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn present the screenwriting awards.

Best Adapted Screenplay goes to Bill Condon for Gods and Monsters. He gives a shoutout to Clive Barker.

The Best Original Screenplay goes to Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard for Shakespeare in Love. Stoppard: “Don’t clap or they’ll play the music. I’m acting like Roberto Benigni, underneath.”

Kevin Costner presents the Best Director. “They say the show is running a little long. I like it when things run a little long.”

Steven Spielberg wins for Saving Private Ryan. That’s the right decision. “Am I allowed to say I really wanted this?”

After a last bit of discussion between Barry Norman and David Anson, in which they both predict that Saving Private Ryan will take home the Best Picture award, it’s back to the ceremony, where Harrison Ford presents the Best Picture award.

In a slight surprise, it goes to Shakespeare in Love. Oh look, there’ convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein among the producers. People keep thanking him and saying nice things about him. How many of them knew? Perhaps Bill Conti did because near the end of his speech, he’s played off, which is nice in retrospect.

And that’s it for the Oscars. Whoopi Goldberg bids us goodbye in yet another new costume.

Here’s the Barry Norman and David Anson bits.

And here’s a playlist of a lot of the awards and stuff, from the official Oscar channel.

Adverts:

• trail: Sky Premier
• Heat
• Always Ultra
• Specsavers – Stephen Hawking
• FSA – Missold pensions
• American History X in cinemas
• Heat
• Ford Focus
• trail: Contact
• trail: Friends
• Standard Life
• Jameson
• Terry’s Chocolate Orange Bar – Dawn French
• American History X in cinemas
• Daz – Michael Barrymore
• trail: Sky Movie Channels
• trail: Sky Movie Channels
• Seat
• Fairy Dishwasher
• Starburst
• Revlon
• Bold
• trail: April on Sky Premier
• Seat
• Ty-phoo
• Burger King
• The Times
• Lenor Care

The Simpsons – King of the Hill – tape 2616

Here’s another set of Simpsons episodes, starting with Sunday, Cruddy Sunday, an episode that was shown before the superbowl, about a trip to the Superbowl. There’s some good jokes in this, including one where they poke fun at the fact that they have to dub the team names on later. “I hear that President <Clinton> will be watching the game with his wife <Hillary>”

Dolly Parton appears.

Rupert Murdoch makes a guest appearance.

As does Vincent price.

Next it’s Hurricane Neddy. Flanders’ house is destroyed by a hurricane, and the neighbourhood rebuild it for him. But they do such a bad job he cracks and starts shouting at everyone. Then he checks himself into a mental hospital and learns things about his upbringing.

The next episode is I’m with Cupid. Apu is trying to make up with his wife after she learns that not everyone has to work 80 hours a week, but his romantic gestures are making all the other men in town look bad. Guest starring Elton John.

Next it’s Marge Simpson in: “Screaming Yellow Honkers”. Homer buys a Canyonero, but when Marge drives it she gets consumed with road rage.

In Make Room for Lisa Homer goes to the museum with Lisa and damages the Bill of Rights.

As punishment, Homer has to have a cellphone tower installed on the house, and Lisa’s room is used to house the controls.

That’s the last Simpsons episode on this tape, but recording continues with an episode of King of the Hill – Pregnant Paws. Hank wants to breed his dog. And his neighbour becomes a bounty hunter. Still don’t like this show.

After this, there’s the start of 3rd Rock from the Sun, and after a few minutes, that recording stops, and underneath there’s the end of one of the episodes of The X Files we saw recently, Dreamland part II. After this, part of an episode of Miami Uncovered. Not a show I ever watched. The tape ends here.

Before one of the episodes there’s the end of an episode of Star Trek Voyager and another short appearance from Sylvester McCoy as part of a Sky One Star Trek event. Apologies for the sound.

Adverts:

• trail: Football
• Alton Towers
• Daz – Michael Barrymore
• Right Guard
• Maltesers
• McDonalds
• The Sleep Council
• Blast from the Past in cinemas
• Lenor Care
• trail: Bart Week
• trail: The X Files
• Adidas
• McDonalds
• Alton Towers Oblivion
• Shock Waves
• Schweppes
• trail: Toy Story
• Playstation
• Lego Planet Slizer
• B&Q
• Shakespeare in Love in cinemas
• Sky Digital
• trail: Boxing
• Focus Do It All
• trail: Toy Story
• McDonalds
• Samurai
• trail: Animaktion
• trail: Curtain Call
• Ford Fiesta
• Gillette Mach 3
• Robot Wars on video
• Terry’s Chocolate Orange Bar – Dawn French
• Pepsi – The Corrs
• Clairol Daily Defense
• U2 – Video
• Ford Fiesta
• trail: Homer Week
• trail: Tuesday Night on Sky
• Ambrosia Custard
• DFEE
• Nike
• Lenor Care
• Ocarina of Time
• Chicken Tonight – Ian Wright
• trail: Sky Sports
• trail: The X Files
• Hula Hoops Big O’s – Harry Enfield Paul Whitehouse
• B/Wise
• Pampers
• Dr Pepper
• Ronseal Paint & Grain
• Letterland Detective Dippy Duck on video
• Specsavers
• trail: Football
• trail: Hi-Life
• Muller Corners – Joanna Lumley
• Jaguar S-Type
• Ridge Racer 4
• Snickers
• Knorr Micro Noodles
• trail: Animaktion
• trail: 3rd Rock from the Sun
• Ford Fiesta
• Discovery Channel
• Milky Way
• Frutibix
• Oxygen
• South Park on video
• HSBC
• Doritos
• McDonalds
• Discovery Channel
• Ford Fiesta
• trail: Football
• trail: Fabulous!
• Save The Children
• Clublife
• Busch Gardens
• Doritos
• Sky Digital
• trail: Titanic
• Tesco – Prunella Scales
• The Honest Courtesan in cinemas
• Twix
• trail: Tuesday Night on Sky
• trail: Fabulous!
• Nivea Sun Spray
• Discovery Channel
• Chicken Tonight – Ian Wright
• Stargate SG-1 on video
• Tango
• Gold Blend
• Discovery Channel
• Nivea Sun Spray
• trail: Volcano
• trail: Football
• Comfort
• Wall’s Winner Taco
• Burger King
• Shock Waves
• Surf Tablets
• Doritos
• trail: Star Trek Voyager/First Wave
• trail: April on Sky Movie Channels
• trail: Miami Uncovered
• Kit Kat
• Tia Maria
• Contradiction
• Seat
• Shakespeare in Love in cinemas
• Essential Soundtracks
• Sure
• Kit Kat
• trail: Rugby
• trail: Jackie Brown
• Pond’s Clear Pore Strips
• Playstation
• Vaseline Intensive Care
• The X Files Movie on video
• trail: Bart Week
• trail: Tuesday Night on Sky
• Adidas
• Fairy Dishwasher
• Head & Shoulders
• Jaguar S-Type
• UEFA Champion’s League game
• Fairy Non Bio
• trail: Football

Red Dwarf VIII – Horizon – tape 2611

I’ve been a regular viewer of Red Dwarf since it started. I’m even one of those bores who thinks the first two series were actually great. But I’m definitely more of a casual viewer than a fan.

So this is a series that confused me at the time, and does so again on a rewatch. I might have to resort to recap sites to get it straight.

It starts with thee first episode of series 8 – Back in the Red Part 1. And is immediately confusing because Lister and Rimmer are somewhere we’ve never seen before, wearing strange uniforms. And Rimmer is missing his hologram H. A distinct lack of care and attention from the production crew there.

But no, because we then flash back to three days earlier, on board Starbug. There’s four crewmembers but it’s Kryten, The Cat, Lister and Kochanski (in her Chloe Annett regeneration). No Rimmer leads me to think this follows a series where he didn’t appear (or not in all the episodes). Sure enough, series VII was Rimmer-lite, with Kochanski coming in to round up the cast.

Holly is also back, and back being played by Norman Lovett.

This is a direct follow-on from the climax of the previous series. Starbug is flying into a newly recreated Red Dwarf, but it’s much bigger than it should be. As they fly around, the ship starts shrinking, ending with a big crash – they like crashing Starbug don’t they?

They’re met by the former members of the Red Dwarf Chen (Paul Bradley) and Selby (David Gillespie). It’s nice to see the same actors returning, although Peterson only gets a namecheck, probably because Mark Williams is now a big star. Unfortunately for our heroes, none of the crew know that they died and have now been recreated by nanobots (which is what has happened) so Lister is arrested for stealing and crashing a Starbug.

Also returning is Mac Macdonald as Captain Hollister.

At the end of this episode, Rimmer finds two positive viruses, Luck and Sexual Magnetism. Guess which one he uses first.

BBC Genome: BBC Two – 18th February 1999 – 21:00

Next it’s Back in the Red Part 2 and we’re treated to a very special salute from Rimmer.

Kryten is examined by a doctor played by Geoffrey Beevers who once played The Master in Doctor Who. I always remember his name even if I don’t remember which story he was in (The Keeper of Traken, not The Deadly Assassin).

The group are on trial, and they agree to undergo a ‘mind scan’.

Rimmer visits Lister to tell him about the luck virus, and his plans to progress in his career using all the classified information about the crew. When he leaves, Lister is able to get out of the brig by trying random combinations, because some of the luck virus rubbed off on his hand.

Kryten has to have an interview where they might reset him to factory defaults. Kochanski gives him the advice that he should imagine his questioners on the toilet. But he takes her a bit too literally.

In the end, they decide (against his wishes) to reset Kryten. Robert Llewellyn plays the Data Doctor.

Rimmer is still using the sexual magnetism virus.

Lister, Cat and Kochanski have to disguise themselves – Cat suggests they do it as the Dibley family.

BBC Genome: BBC Two – 25th February 1999 – 21:00

After this, there’s a trailer for Births, Marriages and Deaths.

Then, in an interruption to our regular programming, there’s an episode of Horizon. This is quite an interesting documentary. It tells the story of a pioneering doctor investigating Cot Deaths (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). He observes one family where all the children die from SIDS, and believes that infant Apnea (where the child stops breathing for a time) is what’s leading to the childrens’ deaths.

But over time, as more people started looking into the evidence presented, it becomes clear that, far from being instances of SIDS, the principal cases in the landmark study were actually a case of the mother murdering her children, probably a case of Munchausen’s by proxy, where the mother wants the attention of having sick children, so she makes them unwell. And the mother confesses to having smothered her children. It’s a deeply upsetting story, but this programme is very good.

BBC Genome: BBC Two – 25th February 1999 – 21:30

Back to Red Dwarf VIII and Back in the Red Part 3. Lister, Kochanski and the Cat are trying to escape, so they have to talk their way past the traffic control. “I can make this thing dance” says Cat, and then proceeds to do just that. It’s a deeply indulgent excuse to let Danny John Jules dance, along with a big spaceship.

Also slightly indulgent, when they realise they’re not in reality but in the Mind Scan VR system, there’s a stop motion animated segment.

The inevitable Usual Suspects picture as they’re all (including Rimmer) sentenced to two years in prison.

BBC Genome: BBC Two – 4th March 1999 – 21:00

The next episode is called Cassandra. The crew are assigned to the canaries, a group of grunts who have to go on dangerous missions. One of them is Kill Crazy played by Jake Wood off of Eastenders.

Their mission is to board an abandoned ship, where they discover a computer called Cassandra, played by Geraldine McEwen, who’s so advanced she can see exactly what’s going to happen in the future, and the episode is a fun one where they all have to avoid what appears to be their certain dooms.

Rimmer and Kochanski end up in bed.

BBC Genome: BBC Two – 11th March 1999 – 21:00

The next episode is Krytie TV and is torn from today’s headlines. Kryten has been categorised as a woman, and sent to the women’s prison. Cue a lot of sniggering about watching women in the shower.

There’s a nice pastiche of 50s Sci Fi.

Kryten is reprogrammed, and starts broadcasting his viewpoint to the cinema, from the shower. This is actually quite creepy now.

Kryten tells Lister that Kochanski has started going out with her old boyfriend, and persuades him to trash the boyfriend’s room. But this is another hidden camera setup.

BBC Genome: BBC Two – 18th March 1999 – 21:00

The last episode here (although not the last episode of the series) is Pete part 1. There’s a basketball match between the Cons and the Guards.

On another Canary mission they discover a time gizmo that can digitise time, leading to a lot of fun timeshifting shenanigans. Including Young Kochanski and Cat.

On potato peeling duty, Rimmer and Lister use another virus that eats potato skins. It eats a bit more than that.

Ricky Grover makes an appearance as a bully.

In the brig, they meet the Birdman who has a pet bird called Pete. When Pete dies, they try to use the time wand to bring him back, they instead regress it to a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

And sadly for me, this ends on a cliffhanger.

BBC Genome: BBC Two – 25th March 1999 – 21:00

After this, there’s trailers for Dead Letter Office and Trouble at the Top, then the tape ends.

The X Files – tape 2614

Sticking with the 90s Supernatural TV theme today, we’ve got four more episodes of The X-Files. And unusually for this blog, they follow on from the last tape of X-Files that we watched. Previously on the X-Files, Mulder and Scully had tried to get to Area 51 following a tip-off, and when they are stopped by officials, something happens when an experimental craft flies overhead, and Mulder’s mind is swapped with one of the Men in Black’s, Morris Fletcher, played by Michael McKean. Also there’s some less funny subplot involving people getting stuck in rocks.

Now on to part 2.

It starts with a light-hearted narration. “Once upon a time, there was a guy with the improbable name of Fox Mulder.” Complete with supposed home movie footage of the young Mulder.

Mulder(Fletcher) is tossed into the brig, next door to Mrs Lana Chee, a native American woman who now has the mind of an Air Force pilot. Actress Julia Vera is having a lot of fun with the performance.

Fletcher(Mulder) goes to Mulder’s apartment for the first time. He finds Mulder doesn’t even have a bedroom, just a room full of files. “This guy has not been laid for ten years.”

Mulder(Fletcher) tries to persuade Fletcher’s wife that he’s Mulder. She doesn’t really buy it and thinks it’s a mid-life crisis.

 

He invites Scully around for a romantic dinner.

But Scully is way ahead of him, and confronts him.

There’s a great scene where everyone converges on a bar, Fletcher(Mulder) to meet his Area 51 source, Mulder(Fletcher) and Mrs Fletcher too, plus other area 51 people.

Scully and Fletcher(Mulder) go to see the Lone Gunmen to try to get some idea of how to reverse the glitch. It’s not looking good. Fletcher(Mulder) takes great glee in telling the Gunmen how many of their conspiracy theories were dreamt up by him. “This was one of mine.”

The weird spacetime glitches are still happening. Some kids are out there wanting to watch the UFO, and two of them get intermingled. But a short time later when their friend brings an Area 51 guy to help them, they’re both fine. And Scully finds a gas station that had been burned down by the Area 51 people because its owner was trapped in the floor. It’s back to normal, and the owner doesn’t remember anything.

So, conveniently for the plot, everything is resetting. Mulder and Fletcher (and Scully) are brought back to the place where it happened by the Area 51 team, and everything pings back to normal. Well, almost normal, as Mulder finds his apartment has changed a bit, causing him to check his door number.

The next episode, How the Ghosts Stole Christmas, starts a bit like a romp, and gets dark towards the end. Mulder has taken Scully to an old house where there have been several cases of couple killing each other at Christmas over the years.

There are two ghosts there, two great guest-starring turns from Lily Tomlin

And Edward Asner.

It’s a bottle episode with just the four characters, on a single set, but that’s not a problem. They have a lot of fun talking about the psychological basis for belief in ghosts, Mulder’s deep existential yearning, and showing off the gunshot holes they have.

They manage to trick the pair into thinking that they’ve each shot the other one, leading to a climax where Mulder and Scully are crawling along the floor, covered in blood, until it occurs to them that neither of them actually shot the other (it was the ghosts in disguise) so they just stand up and walk out. Very quickly.

The next episode is Terms of Endearment. This is a little more serious, as a couple are told that their unborn child is showing some strange deformities. The husband is played by the great Bruce Campbell.

The woman wakes up during the night to find she has an infernal visitor, and he’s turned up the heat.

And the baby is looking a bit satanic.

When she wakes up, she’s covered in blood, and her unborn baby has gone. Her brother is a cop, and wants the FBI to investigate, so he brings the report to the X-Files department, currently languishing under the care of Agent Spender, who assures the cop he’ll be right on it, then files the report.

But soon enough, the FBI turn up in the shape of Mulder, and he’s got the report with him.

Campbell’s wife spots him burning something in the garden incinerator. He seems very upset, as you would expect, but his eyes tell a different story.

And then we discover he has a secret wife, Betsy, who’s also very close to giving birth.

There’s a funny scene where Campbell is rushing to meet Betsy for her ultrasound (seems very late in the term for an ultrasound) and Mulder is following him.

Campbell’s wife is arrested because they found traces of Mandrake in her blood, allegedly used to induce the birth. In her cell, she asks Campbell about the night the baby died, and then she sees the scar on his neck from where she scratched ‘the devil’ the night the baby was born, so he sucks the life out of her. Not quite completely, because the medics are able to start her heart, but she’s in a coma.

Campbell is with backup wife Betsy (incidentally, if she’s familiar, as she was to me, it’s because actor Grace Phillips played Lisa Gillespie in Murder One). And the same nighttime fyre festival starts, but Betsy seems a lot more awake than Campbell expects.

Mulder and Scully are heading for Betsy’s house, having found it as an alternative address for Campbell. They meet her driving the other direction, and clearly her birth has gone just as badly.

They find Campbell in Betsy’s back yard, digging. But before he can tell them what he’s digging for, or where the baby is, he’s shot by the policeman who’s his brother-in-law.

In hospital, next to his comatose wife, he finally lets go, and the lifeforce goes back into his wife, which almost seems like a happy ending.

But the real happy ending is for Betsy, who’s driving away, with the devil baby she wanted in the car seat next to her.

The final episode here is The Rain King. It guest stars Saturday Night Live’s Victoria Jackson as a woman who works at a local TV station, but whose fiancée is pretty awful.

One night, when he’s been particularly awful to her after she put an announcement of their wedding in the paper – prematurely according to him – he goes out driving, and drinking beers, when the weather starts hailing really hard, and his car skids off the road. And the hailstones are all in the shape of hearts.

Six Months Later Mulder and Scully are invited to the town because Jackson’s ex-fiancée has set himself up as The Rain King, and claims to be able to make it rain.

But as Mulder and Scully stick around, and meet with Jackson and her colleague at the station, the weatherman, they wonder if perhaps it’s not the ex-fiancée who’s the Rain King.

And Mulder is in his motel room when he sees a cow in a nearby field lifted by the wind into the air, then fall straight through the roof of his motel room.

There’s some embarrassment as Jackson gets a crush on Mulder, but it’s all resolved when Mulder realises it’s Holman the weatherman who’s the Rain King, and he persuades him to ask Jackson out, and they all live happily ever after.

After this, the recording continues briefly with Fabulous, and the tape ends after a few minutes of this.

Adverts:

• trail: Mortal Kombat: Conquest/The X-Files
• trail: Tuesday Night on Sky
• Fiat Bravo/Brava
• Nescafe
• Miracle-Gro
• Twix
• NSPCC
• Nescafe
• Fiat Bravo/Brava
• trail: Event Horizon
• trail: Deep Space Nine/First Wave
• Ford Cougar – Dennis Hopper
• Oriental Express
• Yellow Pages
• Standard Life
• UPS
• Viennetta
• Sky Digital
• trail: Miami Uncovered
• Adidas
• B&Q
• The Faculty in cinemas
• Clairol Daily Defense
• Vauxhall
• Boots
• Ocarina of Time
• Budweiser
• trail: Football
• Cheltenham & Gloucester
• Jewson
• Sensodyne F
• Sky
• trail: Tuesday Night on Sky
• trail: Miami Uncovered
• Audi
• Arthur’s
• Bingo
• Dove
• Pentium III
• Gap
• Ariel
• Sky Digital
• trail: Friends
• Thomson
• Scream 2 on video
• Baileys
• Pantene
• Ace Bleach
• Cellnet
• trail: Cricket
• trail: Tuesday Night on Sky
• Orbit
• Dolmio
• Head & Shoulders
• Dockers
• Butlins
• Cheltenham & Gloucester
• trail: Austin Powers International Man of Mystery
• trail: Sky Box Office
• Maybelline
• Sensodyne F
• Tango
• trail: Hot Summer Down Under
• trail: Deep Space Nine/First Wave
• excite.co.uk
• Flash
• KFC
• Olivio
• Miracle-Gro
• Snickers
• BT
• trail: Football
• trail: The X-Files Mythology
• Flash Antibacterial
• Volvo S80
• McDonalds
• American Express
• 8mm in cinemas
• Goodfellas Pizza
• Twix
• Ariel
• Sky Digital
• trail: Miami Uncovered
• Ford Cougar – Dennis Hopper
• McDonalds
• Tango
• Weetabix
• Message in a Bottle in cinemas
• Surf
• Superbike World Championships game
• trail: How to Get Ahead in Film
• Bodyform
• The Waterboy in cinemas
• Vanish
• Rimmel
• trail: Tuesday Night on Sky
• trail: Star Trek Voyager/First Wave
• Toyota Yaris
• Lenor Care
• Nescafe
• American Express
• Bodyform
• At First Sight in cinemas
• One 2 One
• trail: Sky Sports in May
• trail: The X-Files Mythology
• excite.co.uk
• Save The Children
• 8mm in cinemas
• Flash
• Benecol
• Clairol Herbal Essences
• Alfa Romeo Cuore Sportivo
• BT
• trail: Volcano
• trail: Event Horizon
• Rover
• Pentium III
• Gap
• In Dreams in cinemas
• Sainsbury’s School Rewards
• Clublife
• Rover
• Sky Digital
• trail: Hard Rain
• Army
• The Honest Courtesan in cinemas
• Kit e Kat
• Army
• trail: South Park Triple

Ultraviolet – Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – tape 2617

Today, we have the final three episodes of Joe Ahearne’s Techno-Vampire (sorry – Leech) drama Ultraviolet. FIrst it’s episode 4 – Mea Culpa. The boys at a catholic school are behaving strangely. Very strangely in the case of one of them, who attacks and kills a priest with a stanley knife and runs away. Is it a Code V case? Or could it just be paedophilia and a boy fighting back? Obviously, Pearse, the former priest, doesn’t accept the latter theory.

Talking of Pearse, Angie has received the results of his biopsy, although I wouldn’t trust them because they can’t spell ‘specimen’. But it looks like bad news for Pearse.

Michael’s friend Kirsty – whose fiancée disappeared before their wedding and got turned into a vampire – is still trying to find out where Michael has gone, who he’s working for, and what happened to fiancée Jack. So she enlists Jacob (Thomas Lockyer), a journalist with a bit of a conspiracy theory bent.

The boy who sliced up the priest is picked up by an actual paedophile in the local playground. But when he brings him back to his flat, his dog attacks the boy, so he dumps him at the Casualty department and runs off.

It’s a generally creepy story. Are the boys actually infected, despite not having any bite marks? Why do they react to the sun? And why can’t they touch a bible? Michael is skeptical, thinking it could be something like meningitis. But they investigate. There’s a tense scene where they’re following a paedophile who has an ‘allergy to the sun’ waiting to see who he brings back. Vaughan is watching the camera feed on a TV as Michael is watching the corridor. He sees two people enter the room, but when he looks at the screen Vaughan is watching, he sees an empty room, so he thinks the man in the room is a vampire. But Vaughan had put in a tape of a previous encounter which had a shot of the empty room, and Michael shoots a human, albeit a paedophile. The child was a vampire, but he escapes (and is probably much older than all of them).

The leeches are trying to manufacture a Code V epedemic by making humans carriers, so they’ve modified the meningitis virus, and Oliver the paedophile was their host, because of his condition that meant he couldn’t go out into the sun. Meanwhile, Kirsty and her journalist friend Jacob are getting closer, mainly because Jacob has been vampirised. Is he going to do the same thing to Kirsty?

The next episode is Terra Incognita. A couple arrive in the country, the man is a sickle-cell anaemia patient, and they want to contact Dr March. Not Angie, but her husband. Who’s been dead since before the series started, but who was an expert in diseases of the blood, and who had been turned by the leeches. The man, though, shows now signs of sickle-cell, although it does look like Leeches have been feeding off him regularly.

They also recover a coffin with a time lock on it, presumably containing a Leech, which they take back to their HQ.

Vaughan talks to Maria, the man’s wife, who tells them he was being given treatment by the Leeches. She agrees to take Vaughan to where she was going to meet them.

Meanwhile, Michael is trailing a lorry carrying four more coffins somewhere. But when he stops the lorry, it’s empty.

Vaughan is knocked unconscious by a rogue customs agent, and wakes up in a locked warehouse. He knows where the four coffins are now. And there’s five minutes before the coffin timelocks open. This is one of the tensest scenes in the whole series, as Vaughan finds he can’t open the warehouse door, is almost resigned to killing himself rather than being turned, while Michael is racing to him in a helicopter. It’s just brilliant.

And at the same time at our heroes’ HQ, the fifth coffin’s timelock count down and opens, and its passenger gets out. But who is he? And what does he want?

Angie has worked out what the husband with sickle-cell was being used for – possibly to develop a synthetic blood supply for the Leeches. And they want Angie’s husband back to perfect it for them. Because, despite having been killed and exploded into dust, there is still a way to bring back Leeches, although the team don’t know how the process works.

The final scene in the show sees Michael meet with Kirsty in a bar, where she asks him about what he’s doing. He doesn’t know if she’s a Leech now, and she’s not drinking her wine. It occurs to me that this scene would be very different if the show was made today, as he could just pull out a smartphone and use the camera. But here, he has to smash the bathroom mirror then use it to see if he can see her. But it’s an extended, almost a Brian De Palma setpiece, but before he can see her, he’s grabbed by a couple of bouncers who’ve noticed that he’s got a gun.

And as Kirsty runs out of the club, there’s a great use of the decor to let us know Michael was wrong and she’s not yet a Leech.

Before the final episode there’s an extra, bonus programme. It’s an episode of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, the short-lived Channel Four movie show presented by Charlie Higson.

It’s a lot reminiscent of Moving Pictures in that it covers the more chin-stroking end of cinema, starting with a piece about several Hitchcock movies that are being remade, including A Perfect Murder which is a remake of Dial M For Morder, whose director Andrew Davis seems to think that the way to promote it is to call the Hitchock original a bad film.

In fact the same promotional tack is taken by star Michael Douglas, so this was clearly the party line they were all sticking to.

Arnold Kopelson: “We felt the original production was very small.”

When it comes to Rear Window they can’t start criticizing the original, since it’s a masterpiece, so screenwriter Larry Gross talks about the power that comes from star Christopher Reeve, genuinely confined to a wheelchair.

Stephen Rebello, writer of one of the definitive books on Psycho has seen some of Gus Van Sant’s shot-for-shot remake of Psycho, and points out a scene that depended, in the original, about being able to see Anthony Perkins’ adam’s apple, but in the remake, Vince Vaughan doesn’t have a protruding adam’s apple, so the shot has no meaning.

The next segment talks to the editors at Variety about their famous headlines. Didn’t Moving Pictures to this exact piece a few years ago?

There’s a piece about Lars Von Trier and his Dogme manifesto, and his first film under the rules, The Idiots. My wife summed him up concisely with the comment “I bet he reads David Foster Wallace.”

Then there’s the first part of what will be a continuing slot in the programme, as they look at the production of Fanny and Elvis, the first film directed by acclaimed TV writer Kay Mellor.

Then John Maybury, director of Love is the Devil, talks about Jean Luc Godard.

After this, it’s back to Ultraviolet for the last episode in the series, Persona Non Grata.

Kirsty is now being held captive by vampire Jacob, although he’s telling her that he’s hiding her so that Michael doesn’t come looking – after she saw him with the gun, she believes him. Until she sees him snacking.

All the strands of the series come together in this episode. Jacob wants Michael to bring the remains of Robert March so he can be revived and complete his work creating a synthetic blood substitute. The Leech they’ve got in custody is Paul Hoyle, who was researching rainforest fires, and Chernobyl. So the team realise what the Leeches’ endgame is – creating a nuclear winter in which there’s no sun for as long as a year, during which time they can take control, produce their blood substitute, and exterminate humans. Is Pearse going to switch sides because of his cancer? Is Michael going to given them March? It all comes to a head on a meeting on a bridge. Michael hands over the cannister containing remains, Jacob reactivates it using his own blood, Angie shoots Jacob dead(er) and the remains start swirling around until they become the formerly dusted Leech. Not Angie’s husband Robert, but Kirsty’s fiancée Jack from the first episode.

It’s a nice ending, with plenty of symmetry, and the theme of guilt and forgiveness worked in there too. It’s a real pity there wasn’t a second series.

The recording stops after this, and underneath there’s a but of an older recording with the end of an Indian black and white film, then the start of Street Musicians of Bombay. The tape ends there.

Adverts:

• Vauxhall Astra
• TNT
• Pledge
• Weetabix
• Virgin Atlantic – Helen Mirren
• BT
• Chatback
• Singles Network
• Kronenbourg 1664
• Virgin Atlantic – Helen Mirren
• Egg
• Gay Cruise
• Swallow Hotels
• Bacardi
• Orange
• Volvo S80
• Ikea
• Egg – Zoe Ball
• Coca Cola
• Garnier Fructis
• Royal Mail
• Orbit
• AA
• Vauxhall Astra
• trail: Altered Minds
• Duracell Ultra
• Specsavers
• The Equitable Life – Buzz Aldrin
• BT
• Eurostar
• Kronenbourg 1664
• United Airlines
• Swallow Hotels
• trail: Sex Bomb
• trail: Film Four
• Vauxhall Astra
• Philips
• Alcatel
• Asda
• Light Philadelphia
• Ariel
• Philips
• Diet Coke
• trail: The Real Brigitte Bardot
• Swallow Hotels
• Budweiser – Frogs
• Mars
• Walt Disney World
• Royal London
• Renault Clio
• The Times
• trail: Late Lunch
• trail: Friends Streetmate
• trail: Late Lunch
• Vauxhall Frontera
• Alcatel
• Red Bull
• Rennie Deflatine
• Arm & Hammer Dental Care
• Vodafone
• Honda
• Murphy’s – Sisters of Murphy’s
• Primary Colors in cinemas
• BT
• Scottish Widows
• Honda
• trail: Beautiful Strange: A Night 4 The Artist
• Philips
• Portugal
• Friends chatline
• Scottish Widows
• Lynx
• trail: The Malibu Mobo Awards 1998

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare – tape 2621

It’s Movie time, and on Channel 4 it’s Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. I’ve seen most of the Nightmare on Elm Street films, and variously enjoyed them (even the one I watched as part of an all-day horror marathon one New Year’s Day at the Scala) but I can’t remember if I’ve watched this one all the way through. I’ve definitely watched some of it, but I can’t remember when or why I don’t remember all of it.

Which is a bit odd because, on paper, this one should be right up my alley. It’s the first one written and directed by Wes Craven since the original, and it does something very different with the series, something that’s revealed very early on, as, just after we see someone assembling a robotic hand with razors, then chop his own hand off, it cuts to the film crew watching the scene being shot, and there’s Wes Craven himself, directing the film within a film, as a character in his own film. I love anything that’s meta, so I’m already on board. And you can see why Wes Craven was the perfect choice to direct Scream just a year or so later.

Even on the movie set, things start going haywire, and the robotic arm starts running around and attacking people.

But it’s only a nightmare that Heather Langenkamp is having, as an Earthquake shakes the house she’s in. She’s playing Heather Langenkamp, star of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, and she’s got a young child now.

But she’s getting strange phone calls, and don’t those cracks in the wall following the earthquake look like knife cuts?

Heather goes on a talk show, and she’s surprised with an unannounced appearance from her former co-star Robert Englund, in full Freddy costume.

He apologises after the show for the surprise.

I do like the commitment to the meta-fiction here, as she goes to a meeting at New Line Cinema and meets the actual head of the studio Robert Shaye. They talk about the new script that Wes Craven is writing, bringing Freddy Krueger back in a new way, and whether she’d return to play Nancy.

But there’s definitely something strange going on. Is Freddy breaking through into the real world? Her son Dylan starts having seizures, so she calls her husband, who’s at work, and he drives back, a three hour drive. And he doesn’t take the necessary rest breaks, so he’s vulnerable to Freddy.

Heather is told by police that he fell asleep and died in a car crash. But she has to see his body, and the clues are there.

So there’s a funeral, and I’m pleased to say that movie funeral protocols are fully in place. There’s another earthquake and the coffin falls from the supports lowering it down. Heather trips and hits her head against the bars surrounding the grave, then sees Dylan being pulled into the grave by Freddy, so she jumps after him to pull him out.

That’s three people in a grave, it’s a hat-trick. Or four if you count the dead husband, who also speaks to her just before she wakes up, still by the side of the grave, and there’s John Saxon helping her. I hadn’t noticed him in the crowd of mourners, but obviously he’d be there, as he played Nancy’s father in the original movie, and now the actor is playing the father figure, comforting Heather. I’m loving this.

There’s a brief shot of Wes Craven, looking unnerved.

Next day, at the playground, she’s talking again to John Saxon, when Dylan climbs to the top of a tall slide, and she has to rush to catch him when he falls. I like that these situations are genuine nightmares for parents.

She phone’s Robert Englund to ask him if he’s seen Wes’s script for the film. He says he hasn’t, but he’s clearly feeling Freddy’s influence if his current art project is anything to go by. Or perhaps he tosses these off and auctions them on eBay?

The nightmares continue, and she finds Dylan has found the strange letters she’s been receiving in the post and cracked the clue.

Dylan has another seizure, so she takes him to hospital.

Then she goes to see Wes Craven to ask him about his new script. “I dream a scene at night, I write it down in the morning, beyond that your guess is as good as mine.” And his computer is showing exactly the dialogue that they’re saying at that time.

Heather returns to the hospital. Their babysitter Julie is there. For some reason I’m convinced that she’s costumed exactly like a character in the original, but I can’t find any picture reference for it. Any Nightmare fans confirm or refute this?

The doctor at the hospital is suspicious why Dylan is having seizures, and thinks Heather is deliberately stopping him sleep, and suspects abuse. Once again, I like the jeopardy being rooted in her life as a mother, to contrast with the first film where they were all so young.

Babysitter Julie is great in these scenes, as she’s trying to protect Dylan when the nurses are trying to sedate him, thinking they’re helping. I almost cheered when she punched out the sneery nurse, then threatened the other one with a syringe. “I know what’s in that one. Do you know what’s in this one? Or what’s going to happen to you when I stick you with it.”

Sadly, young Dylan gets sedated, which allows Freddy to emerge, and poor Julie isn’t long for this world. This was a great sequence involving a rotating set, so Freddy can climb the walls.

Dylan escapes the hospital and walks onto the freeway, with Freddy’s giant glove lifting him over the traffic. The compositing in this scene was a little rudimentary (early days still for digital compositing) but this was genuinely scary, and yet another parental nightmare realised.

She follows him home, and John Saxon is there asking what’s happening. He doesn’t seem to believe that Freddy Krueger is responsible. “Nancy let’s go outside” he says, a line that doesn’t immediately register, but outside, as he’s walking back to his police car, she sees his police badge and she (and we) realise it’s not John Saxon, it’s Nancy’s father.

I’m sure her house didn’t look like that at the start of this film…

The finale of the film takes place fully in Freddy’s dream realm, as Heather and Dylan try to get away from him, and there’s lots of snakes and furnaces and general scary things.

They defeat Freddy and escape back into the real world. And waiting for them is the finished script with a message from Wes Craven on it.

And the script ends with Heather reading the script to Dylan. As does the film. I really enjoyed that.

After this, the tape ends just before the next programme starts.

Adverts:

• trail: Queer as Folk
• Coca Cola
• Nokia Communicator
• Garnier Natea
• Wrigley’s Extra
• Territorial Army
• Ford Focus
• Pizza Hut – Henry Cooper Prince Naseem
• Pleasantville in cinemas
• Orange
• Ford Escort
• Currys
• Mars
• Holsten Export – Paul Whitehouse Simon Day
• British Airways
• L’Oreal Le Grand Curl
• Orange
• Seat
• Kronenbourg 1664
• Galaxy Ripple
• Halifax
• Motorola
• Tia Maria
• IBM
• Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels on video
• trail: Lee Evans Presents Kings of the Ring
• Heat
• L’Oreal Elvive – Heather Locklear
• Terry’s Chocolate Orange Bar – Dawn French
• Persil Tablets
• Currys
• Batchelors Super Noodles – Peter Serafinowicz
• Red Bull
• Walker’s Max
• Cesar
• Heat
• trail: Michael Moore The Awful Truth

The Real Merlin – Top Ten Most Annoying Records – From The Earth To The Moon – tape 2613

First on this tape, on Channel 4, is a documentary called The Real Merlin. It’s about what you would expect, lots of historians talking about the various origins of the story of Merlin, like Geoffrey Ashe.

Or Count Nikolai Tolstoy

or this bloke, who’s captioned as ‘Bard’ and does all of his talking head stuff while playing a harp.

Random shots of a bloke dressed as a wizard wandering around various west country villages.

Eric Maddern is captioned as ‘Storyteller’ because ‘Hippie might have seemed insulting.

Frances Williams is a ‘Herbalist’ because ‘Pothead’ would seem insulting.

Inevitably, some Larpers.

The King Arthur’s Castle Hotel has a room called ‘Excali-bar’.

Geoff Boltwood believes he’s the latest incarnation of Merlin. That’s not remarkable. What’s remarkable is that he has friends, and they are happy to appear on television with him.

Steve Parish is a ‘Living Historian’ because ‘Utter Hippie’ would seem insulting.

Ean Begg is a ‘Jungian Analyst’. You can write your own joke here.

“In ancient times, Hundreds of years before the dawn of history, Lived a strange race of people – The Druids”

After this very serious and edumacational documentary, there’s a trailer for the brand new mini series based on the Merlin legend, starring Sam Neill. I swear, until he showed up I thought this was a spoof.

There’s also a trailer for The 11 O’Clock Show featuring Ali G.

Next on this tape is Top Ten Most Annoying Records introduced by Keith Chegwin.

This is actually quite a lot of fun, despite being about pretty awful records, although its Yewtree content is a bit high, as you’ll see.

First (and nothing to do with Yewtree I hasten to add) it’s St Winifred’s School Choir with ‘There’s No One Quite Like Grandma’. Annoying, yes, but slightly charming too.

Their backstory is interesting, as they also sang the backing on Brian and Michael’s hit ‘Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs’ but when it was performed on TV, they used older children to stand in for the young children.

I love that they really were a school choir.

With a nun as a headmistress.

There’s a clip of the girl who sang the lead, Dawn Ralph, from an episode of This Is Your Life.

Tony Blackburn makes an appearance in the links.

The first Yewtree klaxon sounds for Dave Lee Travis.

Number 9 in the countdown is the classic from Joe Dolce Music Theatre, ‘Shaddap You Face’.

Joe Dolce seems unrepentant.

What’s fascinating is that this same song has been recorded in about 20 different languages by different acts.

Another Yewtree klaxon sounds for Jonathan King.

The famous pub quiz fact about this song is that it kept Vienna by Ultravox from the Number One spot. But Billie Currie has no hard feelings. He thinks the song is funny.

In between the actual top ten there’s some monstrous memories. I used to loathe Neil Reid’s ‘Mother of Mine’. But perhaps also because, unless I’ve just made up this memory, that song was the B-Side to Jimmy Osmond’s Long Haired Lover From Liverpool. No, I just checked and it definitely was, so that’s probably the version that I really hated. Sorry, Neil Reid.

At Number 7 in the countdown is Keith Harris and Orville.

This particular classic was written by Bobby Crush.

This was also covered in a foreign language, by a man who was almost certainly a serial killer. That doll is the stuff of nightmares.

Number six on the list actually made me shudder. It’s the Goombay Dance Band and Seven Tears. Here they are, performing to a large crowd in a tent on the German-Polish border.

Mike Read doesn’t get a Yewtree klaxon. He gets a UKIP klaxon.

Oliver Bendt changed his name, from Knoch. He’s a man who found his look a long time ago, and is sticking to it no matter what.

Number 6 is ‘Save Your Love’ from Renee and Renato.

Renée wasn’t her real name. She’s Hilary Lester.

And she also didn’t appear in the video, in which ‘Renée’ always seems to be looking away from the camera, and doesn’t ever lip sync the words.

During one of the links, Cheggers reminds us that he had a hit single too, which Maggie Philbin and Noel Edmonds as ‘Brown Sauce’

At Number 5, it’s ‘Grandad’ by Clive Dunn. I don’t actually mind this one. Don’t know why.

It was co-written by legendary bass player Herbie Flowers, who played bass on Lou Reed’s ‘Walk on the Wild Side’.

Clive Dunn himself talks about it. He’s finally looking as old as he looked when he played Corporal Jones in his forties.

At Number 4, it’s The Wurzels, and ‘Combine Harvester (Brand New Key)’. Is this really annoying? It’s a solid song, based on an existing also solid song, with some good lyrics.

Nice to see they maintain their look when being interviewed.

Also nice to see a bit of Adge Cutler, the founder of the Wurzels, who died in the 70s.

At number 3, no arguments from me at the inclusion of Father Abraham and the Smurfs.

It was written and produced by Frans Erkelens.

Barrie Corbett is the voice of the Smurfs

At Number 2, it’s as if I summoned him by invoking his name. It’s Little Jimmy Osmond and ‘Long Haired Lover From Liverpool’

The older Jimmy has filled out nicely.

And at Number One it’s Black Lace with Agadoo. Fully deserving of the top spot.

As if that wasn’t enough of a crime, when they showed one of their earlier songs, it genuinely looked like they were trying to be a ‘Smokie’ cover band, complete with the same style of singing. Appallingly shameless.

DLT seems to curse them. The programme cuts from him saying “The Black Lace Boys – they were really cool” to this clip from I don’t know what, but that’s Black Lace in brown and yellow face. I mean, what that actual?

In a truly bizarre twist, the lead singer, Alan Barton, left the band to become the lead singer for Smokie, who they were ripping off at the start of their career. But his story ends in tragedy as he died in a minibus crash in Germany.

After this, recording switches, and there’s an episode of From The Earth To The Moon. It’s episode 2: Apollo 1. This was a prestige TV mini-series, introduced (and produced) by Tom Hanks, and co-produced by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, the team that brought us my favourite movie of all time, Apollo 13.

This was a ten part series following the development of the Apollo programme, and episode 2 is quite an emotional one, as it covers the accident with Apollo One, where, during a ground test, a fire started in the command module with the astronauts on board, killing all three of the astronauts, Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee.

There’s a great cast assembled for this. Stephen Root plays Chris Kraft, who was scheduled to be flight director of Apollo One.

Nick Searcy plays Deke Slayton, who basically looked after the astronauts as director of flight operations.

James Rebhorn plays Harrison Storms, who worked for North American Aviation, and was responsible for the design and manufacture of the command module.

Kevin Pollack plays Joe Shea, head of the Apollo project at NASA.

One of the standout performances comes from David Andrews as astronaut Frank Borman. During the hearings on the causes of the accident, the NASA heads are worried that Washington will just pull the plug, and worry that Borman, as an astronaut that has been critical of the way some parts of the project have been run, might make them look bad. But Borman instead gets to give the inspirational speech. And at the end, in response to the question “What do you think we should do?” he answers “I think you should stop this witch-hunt, and let us go to the moon.”

Other famous faces include Howard Stark John Slattery as Walter Mondale, who’s shown wanting to shut the program down.

Mason Adams plays the chairman of the inquiry.

Dan Lauria plays James Webb, a former NASA administrator, who’s got a space telescope named after him.

Joe Spano plays another NASA official George Mueller

I even spotted Dann Florek off of LA Law as Robert Seamans, NASA deputy administrator.

And finally, Ronny Cox plays Lee Attwood, head of NAA.

This show really is precision tooled for me. I’m a sucker for tales of the Space Programme, and this is really well done. It also has a magnificent main title theme by Michael Kamen.

After this, the tape ends.

Adverts:

• trail: Top Ten Really Annoying Records
• The Sleep Council
• Renault Laguna
• Homebase – Neil Morrissey
• Guinness
• National Savings
• Ford Cougar – Dennis Hopper
• Cheltenham & Gloucester
• National Savings
• trail: Merlin
• Film Four
• Homebase – Neil Morrissey
• Transitions
• UPS
• trail: The 11 O’Clock Show
• trail: Who Leads Scotland?
• Honda
• Homebase – Neil Morrissey
• Galaxy
• DFS
• British Midland
• The Minimum Wage
• Honda
• Tia Maria
• Werther’s Original
• Renault Laguna
• Crunchie
• Chessington World of Adventures – Samurai
• So Good – Caron Keating
• Bluewater
• Utterly Butterly
• Asda
• McDonalds
• Weetabix
• Volvo S80
• Sensodyne F
• Superdrug
• Cheltenham & Gloucester
• Virgin Atlantic
• trail: Equinox: A Sense of Disaster
• VW Bora
• Bacardi
• Foster’s
• British Red Cross
• Sunday Times
• National Lottery
• Renault Clio
• British Red Cross
• Lombard Direct
• Barclaycard
• Teacher Training Agency
• Foster’s
• trail: TFI The Rolling Stones
• Bacardi
• Colgate Total
• Asda – Free Internet from Currantbun.com – Johnny Ball
• Foster’s
• Play Guitar
• Audi
• trail: Making Out

Babylon 5 – tape 2620

This tape starts in Long Play mode. I wonder why, since there’s less than three hours on it. Cock-up on my part, I’m guessing. And there’s a brief glimpse of Conrad and Jane, who we saw a couple of tapes back.

And it’s nice that they datestamp the broadcast.

So, on to the episodes of Babylon 5, and first, it’s The Fall of Centauri Prime. We’re approaching the end of the final season, and the Centauri Regent has started a huge war, then left the defenses open. But the Regent has been working under the control of the Drakh, former followers of the Shadows. And they want control over Londo.

The planet is being bombarded by Narn and Drazi ships.

The Regent shows Londo the ‘keeper’, a small creature on his shoulder which controls his actions. He tells Londo that Londo can give the order to surrender, because the Regent is going to die, and he can blame the Regent for starting the war.

Delenn and Lennier are stranded in Hyperspace.

Londo and G’Kar have a moment. Londo tells him he can’t be his bodyguard any more, but he’s really protecting him from what’s going to happen when the keeper is on his shoulder. It ends with an emotional moment from G’Kar. “My people cannot forgive your people. But I can forgive you.”

Then Londo gets his keeper.

Londo manages to get the Drakh to let him rescue Delenn and Lennier, but not before they think they’re going to die, and Lennier confesses “I love you.” Delenn can only respond with “I know.” Not quite the romantic moment from the more famous version of that line. More a “let’s never talk of this again.”

Londo makes a broadcast announcing the surrender, and the withdrawal of Centauri from the Alliance. It’s all very Brexity, including the shadowy forces working behind the scenes to destabilise things.

Another date card

We skip forward a couple of episodes, and next it’s the penultimate episode, Objects at Rest. Sheridan is preparing to leave the station with Delenn, as they’re moving to Minbar. He and Lochley get a moment, which is good, because she won’t appear in the finale.

G’Kar has left the station, but he’s left a message for Ta’Lon (Marshall Teague) telling him that he should speak for the Narn. This is definitely shaping up as a semi-finale. Is it all going to be goodbyes?

Garibaldi is now running Edgars industries for his wife Lise, and he’s called a bunch of troublemakers into the office. They think he’s firing them, but he puts them all on the board and says they have to keep questioning things and work out where the company is going wrong. On the surface this sounds like a cool, hip thing, but there’s a danger that you only start listening to cranks and trolls – as the UK government has found very recently. So Garibaldi is Dominic Cummings, and he’s just put a bunch of racists on the board.

Talking of striking parallels to modern phenomena that we didn’t really think about in the 90s, among all the goodbyes there’s an actual moment of drama, as Sheridan gets trapped in a corridor on the White Star with a worker as gas starts venting, and on the other side of the door is Lennier. Rather than opening the door to save Sheridan, Lennier runs off, because he’s hoping Sheridan will die and then Delenn will love him. At least he comes to his senses, then leaves in shame, telling Delenn he will try to atone. So Lennier is an incel at heart. I thought this was an unfair way to deal with Lennier’s infatuation, but it’s not my story. If it were, everyone would be happy all the time, and the whole show would just be people smiling and hugging. That’s why I write a blog, not TV shows.

Londo makes a surprise visit to Delenn and Sheridan. Delenn almost glimpses the keeper on his shoulder.

On balance, this is a lot like the end of Return of the King – lots of goodbyes, some emotional some not, but it seems to go on forever.

There’s another bit of 4 Later before the next episode.

Then, after last week’s fairly final episode we get the actual final episode of Babylon 5 – Sleeping In Light.

The production history of Babylon 5 is interesting, especially when we were watching at the time. The show was actually cancelled by its original network after Season 4, so the Shadow War, and the removal of Earth President Clark, were both resolved in that season. And a final episode was written and shot, to cap off the series.

Then, at almost the last minute, the show was picked up by a different network for a fifth and final season. So rather than showing the final episode as the last episode of season 4, it was put away, and a replacement final episode was written and produced.

Now we’ve reached the end of season 5, that episode that was written and produced a year ago, is now shown as intended as the final episode of the show. Which explains why Captain Lochley won’t appear in this episode, and why Claudia Christian ‘returns’ as Ivanova. She chose not to return for season 5 when it was renewed, but her part in this finale had already been shot.

The episode sees Sheridan realising he’s reaching the end of his extended life, as promised by Lorien a couple of seasons back when he ‘died’ on Zha’ha’dum.

So we get to see the main cast all receive space letters asking them to join Sheridan on Minbar for a final party. Looks like Vir is a bit of a creepy Hugh Hefner type now.

Franklin and Garibaldi are both on Mars. Franklin has grey hair, but Garibaldi looks exactly the same. One of the genuinely sad things about watching this episode is the number of cast members who have died since, who didn’t make it to 20 years after. Stephen Biggs as Dr Franklin died very young, and Jerry Doyle died in 2016

Even Jeff Conaway as Zack Allen, who didn’t get an invite to Sheridan’s party, but whom Sheridan meets when he visits Babylon 5 one last time, died in 2011.

The main cast get to say goodbye, then leave in a lift. Not quite the hero shot you might expect.

Then, there’s a cameo from the man who built the whole thing, J Michael Straczynski, as the technician who switches off the lights on the station.

And I confess, I didn’t get teary eyed when Sheridan died, but I did well up a bit when the station explodes. I don’t think I’d have chosen a huge explosion as the way to decommission the station – a massive debris field isn’t what you want, although since the planet isn’t populated, I guess there would be much else in orbit. And it’s spectacular in a way that a methodical dismantling and recycling wouldn’t be.

And that’s the end of a five year saga. Honestly, not the most thrilling of finales, but it doesn’t drop the ball at the last minute like some shows have (Enterprise I’m looking at you). And at the end there’s a series of still frames so all the production teams can get a fraction of a second of fame. Although because Channel 4’s standards conversion, a lot of these frames smear into one another, so here’s a few that weren’t faded between two.

I notice the Producers get two photos, but in the second one, you’ll see creative consultant Harlan Ellison in red. And I believe on the far left that’s Larry DiTillio, who was the co-writer of the series at the start, before JMS started writing all the episodes. In the centre is Douglas Netter, that’s JMS next to him, and producer John Copeland on the right.

It ends with a big cast photo.

The tape ends after this episode.

Adverts:

• Vauxhall Astra
• Tarot line
• Airwaves
• Iceland
• Direct Line
• Little Voice in cinemas
• Vauxhall Astra
• Nicorette
• Tiny Computers
• Masterfit
• Psycho in cinemas
• Royal Air Force
• Nicorette
• Ford
• Canada
• Gillette Mach 3
• Ford Focus
• Wilkinson Sword
• Yellow Pages
• Clearasil Complete
• Thomson at Lunn Poly
• Chatback
• Direct Line
• Ford Focus
• Heat
• Levi’s Sta-Prest
• Chatback
• Carlsberg
• Pot Noodle
• Butlins
• Peugeot 206
• Jaguar
• Levi’s Sta-Prest
• XChanges
• GayXchange
• Australia
• Singapore Airlines
• Direct Line
• Polo
• Vanish
• trail: So Graham Norton
• Volvo V40
• Benylin
• Levi’s Sta-Prest
• FSA – Missold pensions
• The Equitable Life – Muhammad Ali
• HSBC
• Bird’s Hot ‘n’ Fruity
• GayXchange
• XChanges
• trail: Sex and the City

The Simpsons – tape 2602

Here’s a tape full of Simpsons starting with Bart the Mother. Bart hangs out with Nelson and accidentally shoots a bird with a BB Gun, so then he decides to hatch the eggs and look after them. And when they hatch, they’re not birds.

Next it’s When You Dish Upon a Star. Homer meets Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin who live somewhere near Springfield in secret, and he becomes their assistant.

It also features Ron Howard.

And a scene at the end where Ron Howard is pitching movie ideas to his producing partner Brian Grazer. Of all the people I wouldn’t expect to see in the Simpsons, Brian Grazer comes close to Thomas Pynchon. He’s the kind of person that I know who he is because I’m a bit of a film nerd, but I wouldn’t expect him to mean anything to the general public.

Next it’s D’oh-in’ in the Wind. Homer revisits the hippy commune where he lived when he was small, and does some hippy stuff again. Guest starring Martin Mull and George Carlin.

In Lisa Gets an “A” Lisa cheats on an exam, and then when her excellent grade means the school gets a grant, she feels she has to confess.

In Homer Simpson in “Kidney Trouble”, after a trip to a cowboy-based theme park, Grandpa’s kidneys blow out when Homer won’t let him stop for the toilet. Homer runs away rather than donating a kidney.

The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson sees Homer having to go to New York to recover his car, which Barney had taken and left parked between the two World Trade Centre towers.

In Wild Barts Can’t Be Broken, the town’s kids are unfairly put under curfew, so to retaliate, they set up a pirate radio station that dishes all the secrets about the adults that the kids know.

Finally, in King-Size Homer, Homer puts on a lot of weight so he can get disability and work at home.

As a home-worker, I should point out that we’re not all as lazy as Homer. And I type many more letters than just Y.

I know it’s a comedy, but I am continually dismayed at how incompetent Homer is. I shouldn’t take this quite as seriously. Perhaps I’m feeling judged.

After this, recording continues for a short time with the start of an episode of Deep Space Nine (The Reckoning). The tape ends after about 20 minutes of this programme.

In the ad breaks, I notice that Sky One showed a repeat of Ultraviolet. This seems unusual, as Sky usually only showed imports and their own productions. It’s odd that they’d take a very recent show from a UK terrestrial station.

Adverts:

• Sky World
• Bisto – Julie Walters
• Billie – Honey to the B
• Whitewater
• The Little Mermaid on video
• Matalan
• The Disney Channel
• Vodafone
• The Best of Shine
• Fairy Liquid
• trail: Seinfeld
• trail: The Chris Evans Breakfast Show
• trail: Hollywood Squares
• Guylian
• MVC
• Tekken 3
• Ty-phoo
• Woolworth’s
• L’Oreal Elvive – Kate Moss
• trail: Football
• trail: Prickly Heat/World’s Scariest Police Chases 5
• The Best of U2
• The Little Mermaid on video
• Fifa 99
• Philishave
• Hits 99
• Rennie
• Fatboy Slim – You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby
• South Park on video
• The Best of U2
• trail: Sky Movies
• trail: Earth: Final Conflict/Ultraviolet
• Daewoo Nubira
• First Choice Holidays
• Muller Light – Vic and Bob
• Cadbury’s High Lights
• Daewoo
• trail: Boxing
• trail: Naked in Westminster
• Daewoo
• Tunes
• Haven
• Skittles
• Oxygen
• Essential Selection 98
• Anadin Extra
• Pot Noodle
• Daewoo
• Sky
• trail: Earth: Final Conflict/Ultraviolet
• Mitsubishi
• Skittles
• Nurofen Advance
• Clearasil Complete
• Fairy Non Bio
• NHS Nurses
• Lion Bar
• trail: Football
• trail: Mortal Kombat: Conquest/The X-Files
• Coca Cola
• Cheetos
• Harpic
• Dettox
• The Times
• Arm & Hammer Dental Care
• Disco House
• Chicago Town Pizza
• Sky Digital
• Sky Digital
• Batchelor’s Pasta ‘n’ Sauce
• Kellogg’s Optima Fruit ‘n Fibre
• Disco: 1999
• Muller Corners – Joanna Lumley
• Apple iMac
• Dr Pepper
• Nutella
• Peugeot 206
• trail: Miami Uncovered
• Orange
• Fry’s Turkish Delight
• Doritos
• Schwarzkopf Vital Colors
• Tic Tac
• Ty-phoo
• Orange
• trail: LA Confidential
• trail: Deep Space Nine/First Wave
• Heat
• Pond’s Clear Pore Strips
• Cadbury’s Fuse
• Red Bull
• Sainsbury’s School Rewards
• Rugrats Round the World
• Uncle Ben’s
• A Night at the Roxbury in cinemas
• Huggies
• Heat
• trail: Football
• trail: Football
• Specsavers
• Special K
• Vaseline Intensive Care
• trail: Sky One at Ten
• Sky 10 Years
• Clerical Medical
• VW Golf
• Persil Tablets
• Specsavers
• Cesar
• Clerical Medical
• trail: Mortal Kombat: Conquest

The Quick and the Dead – tape 2604

It’s movie time today, with a film I’ve never actually watched, Sam Raimi’s The Quick and the Dead. I think that shows just how little I like westerns, when I haven’t watched a Sam Raimi film that stars Gene Hackman.

And it’s totally my loss, as this is exactly the film I imagined it would be. Raimi takes all the western motifs, particularly from Sergio Leone, and just cranks it up to 11. Not necessarily with the violence – this is surprisingly restrained in that department – but with the ridiculous tension that precedes every gunfight, all massive close-ups of eyes looking from one place to another. It’s great. And when the film’s plot revolves around a fast-draw competition between the best gunfighters around, there’s plenty of opportunity to ratchet up the tension.

The cast is excellent. Sharon Stone plays a rare woman gunfighter, who’s in town for personal reasons which are revealed in flashback as the film progresses.

Among the competing gunfighters are Keith David, who’s a professional gunfighter, hired by persons unknown to compete in the competition.

Lance Henrickson has great fun as the flamboyant killer whose reputation might have been a little inflated.

Tobin Bell plays a man who encounters Stone at the start of the film, comes off worst, and enters the competition to get his revenge.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays The Kid, who claims to be Hackman’s son.

And Russell Crowe plays Cort, a man who’s turned to God, but is brought to town by Hackman in chains and forced to compete in the competition.

Among the bystanders, Roberts Blossom plays an old man who recognises Stone, and remembers her tragic back story.

Said Tragic Back Story involving her late father, played by Gary Sinise.

I really enjoyed this, despite still really disliking the whole Western genre. I just don’t like lawless, unfair societies, I think.

After this, there’s the start of Later on channel 4, which has a very strange piece introducing it. I don’t know if Conrad and Jane caught on. I don’t think they did, but they needed better material. At least this dates this broadcast to Dec 6th (although I’m not sure if that’s the night of 5/6 or 6/7).

There’s about a second of the start of an episode of Babylon 5, then the recording stops. Underneath there’s a few seconds of encrypted satellite broadcasting before the recording stops.

Adverts:

• trail: Friends in London
• Coca Cola – Holidays
• Ford Cougar – Dennis Hopper
• Foster’s
• Pizza Hut – Ronnie Corbett
• Boots
• Metz – Julian Barratt
• Bacardi
• Contradiction
• Celebrations
• Braun
• Oddworld Abe’s Exoddus
• McDonalds
• Bird’s Hot ‘n’ Fruity
• Rush Hour in cinemas
• The Mask of Zorro in cinemas
• Gap Kids
• Live Jazz
• Yellow Pages
• Iceland
• Dry Blackthorn Cider
• Cathedral City
• Martini Citro
• trail: Barb Wire
• The Famous Grouse
• One 2 One – Stuart Hall
• Royal Mail
• Chatback
• Bird’s Hot ‘n’ Fruity
• Cadbury’s Roses
• Ty-phoo
• The Parent Trap in cinemas
• Dry Blackthorn Cider
• Rhodes To Home
• trail: Dope Sheet