Straight from the wonderful Scooty, a report on the conclusion of filming this morning:



"Filming carried on till roughly about 3.30am, can't add much to the reports already made except that the Ood, dressed like Ood Sigma, appeared on set, played by Paul Kasey for one scene near the TARDIS. He doesn't interact with anyone, he just seems to appear. How this all fits into things I will never know, but await the excitement of finding out!



The only other scene filmed and not mentioned is as DT goes back to the TARDIS, he looks to the left, shocked and falls to his knees. What on earth has he just seen that shocks him so and causes him to fall down like that?!"

Thanks to Scooty and Spaceygirl for the pictures and comments.

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More filming for the Doctor Who special (Episode 4:16) is taking place tonight (Friday 27th) in Victoria Place, Newport. The residents of Victoria Place have been told to expect snow and Christmas decorations so we're obviously looking at the 2009 Christmas Special here.

Filming starts at 10.00pm I believe, and the TARDIS prop is already in situ in a street dusted with visual effects snow.

Images courtesy of Ahremsee's Flickr Photostream (thanks to Rob) and from Alun Vega's Flickr stream too. Updates will keep coming as filming starts. All the usual DWF reporting crew, including Scooty and the gang, are all converging on the shoot so this post will keep updating as we go through the night.

21.15pm
Ahremsee has just reported that David Tennant and Lindsay Duncan are now on set and interacting with a large silver robot and several other travellers.





22.15pm
Tennant is on set and they've brought out a crash mat. He's wearing the blue suit, by the way. Danny 'Explosions' Hargreaves has been spotted on set. Some pyrotechnics later perhaps?



23.30pm
Ahremsee reports the following set decoration/street signs:

"this is a congestion charge zone with fines of 3000 yen"
"low emissions zone, hydrogen powered vehicles only"



It looks like Duncan gets a trip in the TARDIS and here you can also see the caterpillar tracked robot 'thing' that was spotted during filming a few days ago. Plus two unidentified characters, a young girl and a man.






Courtesy of Alun Vega:





David watching the snow fall and the guvn'r, director Graham Harper, clearly relishing the madness of location filming.





Ahremsee's videos of the filming:





The crew broke for supper at 23.30 and filmimg resumed until 04.00am.

Alun Vega on Flickr

Ahremsee on Flickr

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This month, it's 15 years since the death of Derek Jarman. Why is this significant, you may well ask yourself? At the time of his passing I think two important sea-changes occurred. One, the gradual erosion of a radical, fine art tradition in British film making. Note that he died the same year that commercial British film-making turned a corner with the success of Four Weddings And A Funeral. Two, the figurehead of a period of active gay politics was no more and the political interests of the LGBTQ 'community' became less radicalised to an extent. Note how most of the changes in legislation have been brought about by organisations such as Stonewall rather than by grass roots activism.

Anyway, a good opportunity to look back at Derek's films, celebrate and contextualise them. If you're not familiar with the work of Derek Jarman I would suggest you have at a look at Isaac Julien's film Derek which the BFI is releasing on DVD in March.

Let's have a look at the feature films made in the late 1970s first. Sebastiane (1976) and Jubilee (1977)

SEBASTIANE



Region 2 (Cert 18) - Second Sight 2NDVD 3018 4:3 (cropped) - Mono - 82 mins Special Feature: Face To Face Interview with Derek Jarman (BBC 15/3/93) 40mins
Region 1 (Rated X) - Kino Video K299 DVD 1:66 Letterbox (cropped) - Mono - 86 mins

First of all, let's get the 'controversy' out of the way. Yes, the film contains explicit content and much full-frontal male nudity. When Channel 4 showed it in 1985 there was, of course, outrage from Mary Whitehouse. Interestingly enough, the version screened then had been pan and scanned to avoid showing an offending erection. It was only until the Film 4 channel was launched that the untampered version, in its original Academy ratio as seen in cinemas in 1976, depicting the missing member, was finally seen on British television. Unfortunately, the versions available on DVD, certainly the Second Sight Region 2 and the Kino Video Region 1 have oddly used the cropped versions for their releases. Whether this is deliberate (and who would be offended by an 18 certificate briefly showing a hardon these days?) or just sheer laziness and ignorance about the film's original screen ratio, who knows? Sad to say, the definitive version has yet to make it to DVD. A future release deserves an original ratio, high definition restoration because this is, despite the low budget, a sensuously beautiful film.

...a martyr to his feelings and his faith

So to the film itself. This was Jarman's first feature, made with BBC director Paul Humfress, for the paltry sum of £30,000, and shot on location in Sardinia. It was one of the first films to unashamedly explore desire between men in a physical, erotic sense, at the time never seen to this degree in post-war British cinema, and was also a complex study of the psychological dark side of sexuality, including sadomasochistic abuse and homophobia. Set in a Roman military outpost, the sun baked environment, the wild landscape and the sea creates an atmosphere in which the men form physical and sexual bonds. Their passionate relationships are full of male humour, obsession, romance and violence. At the centre of this whirlwind is the Captain of the guard, Severus, unable to articulate his sexuality, who is determined to make the young Christian soldier, Sebastian love him despite the young man's continual rejection. What's interesting is how Jarman contrasts the charged erotic relationship between two soldiers, Adrian and Anthony, with, essentially, the twin closet cases of Severus and Sebastian. He's offering up two visions of gay desire, on the one hand a free libidinal homosexual desire, almost pre-empting in 1976, in the way he shoots the love-making between Adrian and Anthony, the way sexualised gay images are packaged and sold back to an audience today, and on the other a tortured, existential, sad young man who is a martyr to his feelings and his faith.

He eroticises many of the bodies in the film...

These themes are played out with coarse barracks humour (including a pot shot at Mary Whitehouse), a realist evocation of life in a public school or a military barracks and is littered with references to Renaissance and Baroque iconography and art. The film much resembles the work of Pasolini, one of Jarman's favourite directors. What fails is perhaps Jarman's intention to discuss the spirituality of Sebastian. The eroticisation of male bodies within a beautiful landscape, whilst attractive and arousing, dominates the film and the exploration of his celibacy, as a connection to God and a repression of the Dionysian excesses of the opening orgy at the Emperor's palace and the various male interplays in the film, isn't completely successful. His final execution is horribly tragic, suggesting that a gay celibacy might not have much currency in a modern world, but it can also be seen as a victory over carnal excess. The symbolism of water and sun also plays an important part in the psychological drama but, like much of the spirituality in the film, their use is ambiguous. Despite this, moments of quiet poetry are achieved throughout the film, full of lyrical intensity, multi-layered with meaning. However, whilst it can be argued that most of the nudity and homoeroticism is merely present in the film for titillation, it is definitely seen as the obsessional, voyeuristic viewpoint of Severus, played with great frustrated intensity by Barney James. He eroticises many of the bodies in the film - witnessing scenes of Adrian, Anthony and Sebastian in an idealised but dreamlike way in contrast to the naturalism of the rest of the film.



Leonardo Treviglio is moving and subtle as Sebastian and the ensemble playing his fellow guards, particularly Neil Kennedy and Richard Warwick, is realistic despite having to perform the lines in Latin. Yes, it's all in Latin. Don't let that put you off because it actually works very well. Add to this Peter Middleton's colour saturated photography and an evocative electronic score from Brian Eno and it's an impressive first feature from Jarman. It is not the most Jarmanesque of his films, that would come later, but it's an important work in the gay British cinema canon as it was so provocative and groundbreaking for its time. I don't think anyone had seen anything quite like it.

JUBILEE



Region 0 (Unrated) - Criterion Collection 16:9 Anamorphic - Mono - 106 mins Special Feature: A Time Less Golden documentary, ephemera from the Jarman archive, trailer, essay by Tony Peake

The original idea for Jubilee was for Jarman to chronicle the day to day life of Jordan, a punk girl he'd spotted at Vivienne Westwood's Kings Road shop. This eventually grew into a non-linear narrative in feature film form, arguably one of the first films to embrace the punk aesthetic of the mid 1970s. However, it was severely criticised by Westwood herself who denounced Jarman and the way he had represented punk by printing an open letter to him on a T shirt. Curiously, although I would agree it does use punk aesthetics, it has more in common with the dystopian visions of Ballard and could be considered a not too distant cousin to Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. More than that, Jubilee is a critique of the punk movement supported by a conscious reaching back into traditionalism and a prescient vision of the how grass roots cultural movements are ultimately commodified and commercialised by the mainstream.

“they all sign up in the end”

Essentially, the film shows how Queen Elizabeth I is transported, with her court alchemist John Dee, 400 years into a future England. London has become a grim landscape inhabited by anarchic, violent gangs and Buckingham Palace has become a recording studio. Good Queen Bess finds her 20th Century namesake mugged on a patch of wasteland, her crown stolen by Bod, the leader of a street gang. The film is more or less a series of set pieces, tableaux and proto-pop/rock videos (something Jarman would become very adept at later in his career) and the narrative that is there describes a world where the media is controlled by the utterly mad Borgia Ginz (a sort of cross between Malcolm McClaren and Rupert Murdoch) and all that the disaffected youth, epitomised by Adam Ant's Kid character, can aspire to is a recording contract and Ginz's exploitation. Beyond the framing scenes involving Elizabeth, Dee and Ariel, there isn't much interaction between the two time periods but the power lies in the juxtaposition of the two eras as an ironic two fingers up to the Britain of 1977 that's been run into the ground by Labour and the IMF. Jarman is a very nostalgic filmmaker and Jubilee at the time suggested that the punk movement would eventually sell out. Ginz's bon mot of “they all sign up in the end” prefigures much of Jarman's later chilling comments in his book Dancing Ledge, "the film turned prophetic.... the streets burned in Brixton and Toxteth. Adam [Ant] was on Top of the Pops and signed up with Margaret Thatcher to sing at the Falklands Ball."

She is her own desolation...

There is also a Dadaist attitude towards violence in the film. Acts of violence seem almost postures of artistic intent on behalf of the characters and this was something that Jarman had observed in punk itself and the film seems to be saying that the performative use of violence (as in the performance, lyrics, songs of the punk era) often leads to the real thing. This is brought to an astonishingly brutal and emotionally upsetting climax when Mad, brilliantly played by Toyah Willcox, takes revenge on a policeman whom has previously murdered her 'friends'. She barbarically attacks and castrates him but then she collapses and weeps. She is her own desolation at that point, has gone beyond violent posing and committed an atrocious act. All the artificiality of the film comes crashing down at that point because Jarman suggests that this is very real despair and rage and the superb performance he gets from Willcox at that point is one where the playful mask worn by Mad has disintegrated and realism has taken its place.

...a longing for a national British identity

Jarman also plugs into a wider range of influences besides the punk zeitgeist. The film not only provides a much wilder counterpoint to Kubrick's tight-arsed restraint in A Clockwork Orange but it also echoes much of the work of Lewis Carroll, Jean Cocteau and Powell & Pressburger. It's rough around the edges, often oblique and shambolic but shot through with witty surrealism, horrific violence and understated beauty. The musical numbers spice it up further, from the spiky naivety of Adam And The Ants through to the hilarious performance of Rule Britannia by Jordan and the totally insane androgyny of Wayne County. It also speaks of a longing for a national British identity, something Jarman's work is always bound up with. Here he ambiguously contrasts what he sees as authentic national symbols with the parodic pomp and circumstance of the Queen's own Jubilee celebrations and the nihilism of punk. This reaches a crescendo in the Westminster Cathedral disco sequence which is a collage of visual and aural symbols. A Christ like figure, lit in purple, is mauled by ranks of outstretched arms as Blake's Jerusalem soars over a disco beat where authentic figures like Blake and Christ have been perverted into a realm 'where progress has taken the place of Heaven'.



The Criterion Collection offer the best version of the film available on DVD. It's a high definition digital transfer and it's certainly the best the film has ever looked on VHS or DVD. The colours are wonderfully enhanced and Peter Middleton's photography really shines. Plenty of supporting material, including a good documentary, stills and other bits and pieces from the Jarman archive. Certainly better than the very lacklustre Region 2 release.

Next time: The Tempest and The Angelic Conversation

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The filming for the, as yet untitled, second (we assume) Doctor Who special of 2009 got off to a bang this evening in a quarry in Taffs Well just north of Cardiff. David Tennant was on location, dressed in a very familiar costume - the orange space suit and yellow helmet from The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit two part story in the 2006 series.







Intrepid reporter Scooty was on the spot: "Filming tonight seemed to concern three major scenes. They were:

- An explosion the size of which I have never seen before. It formed a giant mushroom cloud and left a huge black smoke ring in the sky. It shook the camera from my hand.

- Man in orange spacesuit, almost certainly DT's stunt double, runs away from the explosion (in this case, green screen). He jumps on a trampoline and lands on a crash mat.

- Man in said spacesuit wakes up amongst a load of rubble. And slowly walks forward. This looks like it is DT - I can make out sideburns in a couple of the pictures."

UPDATE: Some footage from the filming. The stunt bit!





It isn't clear yet if this is filming for the same special for which the casting of Lindsay Duncan was recently announced. No doubt we will learn more! Many thanks again to the DWF's Scooty and fellow reporters for the accounts and pictures.

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BBC3 - 22nd February 2009 - 9.00pm

'We meet people and fall in love and when we part they leave marks for us to remember them by. Our lovers sculpt us. They define us, for better or worse...and after the parting we might be scarred. But stronger. Or more fragile, or needy, or angry, or guilty. But never unchanged.'

Sweet little George provides the opening narration this week over a beautiful, lilting score and a slow montage of each of the couples we've come to know in the series. Mitchell and Lauren, George and Nina, and Annie and Owen. Owen is shown in flashback viewing Annie's dead body and his reaction is a clue to what happens later in the episode. Annie has decided to haunt Owen in an attempt to dislodge herself from limbo and perhaps also scare the bejesus out of her murderous ex. The neighbours, meanwhile, seem to believe a pot of jam is going to provide the salve for last week's witch-hunt and the associated trauma. Toby Whithouse, creator and this week's writer, is a sly bugger. His narratives creep up on you and just as you think an episode's coasting along, he throws you one curve ball after another. You'll come out of tonight's episode very shaken but you wouldn't think so judging by the very genteel beginning.

...she wants to leave her mark on him

Annie and George try to work out what the best technique would be to scare the living daylights out of Owen. Yes, and they try out the obligatory evil voices. Annie is not convinced and George seems less than impressed. 'I am darkness! I am death!', George suggests, obviously having seen far too many horror movies. It's a gorgeous little scene as the two friends try to make their minds up about what would make a good haunting. Crichlow and Tovey are on exceptional form taking horror movie cliches and mocking them ever so gently. But as George points out, they've no idea what Annie's haunting will do to Owen. Neither does the audience and when it comes it's not exactly the reaction we're expecting. It's subversive, to say the least. The conversation on the sofa gets serious and Whithouse reveals much more about Annie's feelings over what Owen has done to her. For Annie a confession is not enough and she wants to leave her mark on him, to leave him with something to remember her by. Thinking this is extreme, she has her doubts but George reminds her it is a human reaction, very much what the core theme of the show is about, and that being human is often not very nice.

He's the architect of something very different...

Sitting at the centre of this poisoned fairy tale is Herrick, 'head' vampire played with oily charm by Jason Watkins who gets an opportunity to, dare I say, flesh out Herrick and offer us a fascinating study in repellent evil. Herrick's masterplan is hinted at when Mitchell is welcomed back into the growing group of blood suckers at the funeral parlour. Lauren quite rightly questions the cliche of using such a place as a headquarters as Herrick announces that hospitals, funeral parlours and cemetaries are 'our churches', to which Lauren responds, 'Plus there's plenty of room for storage'. We'll find out what she means by this. Herrick starts using Mitchell to find him suitable converts at the hospital and Mitchell really isn't aware of what's going on here as he identifies a dying man as the next candidate for undead status. Herrick's reverie in the lift about childhood ambitions to be an architect and have his buildings sprawling across a landscape act as a metaphor for his chosen path. Well, after all, Hitler was fond of monumental buildings as an expression of his id. But Herrick's the architect of something very different, an altogether stranger proposition albeit just as monstrous.

'they're catering to my every need'

As Annie lays a trap for Owen, Mitchell meets an old flame, Josie, in the hospital canteen. Josie is played by the very wonderful Clare Higgins and some of you with a taste for the horror genre will remember her from the first, and best, Hellraiser film. Higgins plays the voice of sanity here, her very human story of staying in hotels with Mitchell at the height of Beatlemania weaving its way to the ultimate signifier of mortality, lung cancer. Mitchell believes Herrick's proposition might be a way to save her but he seems to have failed to learn the lessons from Becca, Lauren and young Bernie. Immortality is not a panacea. It's a curse. When Josie is made the offer by Herrick (one decided over a Chinese takeaway whilst waiting for a corpse to reanimate) she's horrified and quite rightly points out one of the greatest virtues of humanity; we are born and we die, we are finite. Those events are what make us human. This is also a big clue as to what the true nature of Herrick's plan is. If the world fills up with vampires, then how, and on what, will they feed? Again, Lauren indicates rather blackly that 'they're catering to my every need' when Mitchell asks her if she's happy with Herrick's mob. Yet a further clue to what exactly is going on.



Meanwhile, Annie has put the fear of God into Owen but it doesn't quite work out the way anyone expected. As he cowers on the floor she launches into her cod horror dialogue and gets a bit carried away. When she reaches the bit about her revenge being of 'diamonds and bones...sapphire...and steel!' it's not surprising Owen is less than impressed. Nice little cult TV nod aside, Owen turns the tables on her and, killer that he is, twists everything round, 'killing' her yet again and describing her limbo existence as a 'sulk'. It is Annie that's left shaken and Owen becomes the ghost haunting her, leaving yet another mark on her. Annie's only other resort is get to Owen's current girlfriend Janey before he does the same to her. It's here we also get a true sense of how distant Mitchell has become from his two friends. He doesn't really care about the human frailties of love now he's embraced his monstrous side. He rounds on Annie and George, belittling their attempts to blend in and describes humanity as 'stupid, thuggish and cruel' , as 'monsters', and not realising that Herrick and his minions are equally possessed of those qualities.

'Who wants some of my chair?!'

This all culminates in a quite bonkers finale. After Josie warns him about Mitchell's involvement in the 'New Labour' invasion of the vampires, George manages to get Annie to help him storm Herrick's undertaker's hide-out. There's a heartfelt scene where he rallies her even though she's still suffering from the fallout of Owen's thoroughly nasty attack on her after attempting to tell Janey what she's let herself in for. Whilst Mitchell finally discovers the blood farm in the undertaker's cellar - a very chilling scene of human devastation - an hilarious fight breaks out upstairs with Seth where Annie belts him with a chair. Fortunately for our less than capable heroes, George's Star Of David medallion repels Seth and George gets a lucky punch in. And it's very funny when he whinges about the bruise. The showdown between Herrick and Mitchell is tense and the performances from Turner and Watkins are electric. Herrick defends his 'dry run' by summoning up historical precedents but then that's the clarion call of all would be dictators. He offers no compromise other than to personally put Mitchell and his friends out of their misery. As Herrick prepares to stake poor Mitchell through the heart, George bursts in, furniture held aloft and yells the best line of the episode, 'Who wants some of my chair?!' A wonderfully funny moment that defuses the mounting tension. Cornered by Seth and the others, it looks as if the game's up but then there's that brilliant bit of redemption for Lauren as she stakes Seth through the back.



This leads us into the final scenes. I thought Lauren's self-sacrifice was very moving. 'The me that used to get hay fever, the me that was scared her parents would find out she smoked, she's almost gone', she pleads. This takes us right back to George's opening narrative about how people are never left unchanged by love. Her vampire addiction has wiped out her true identity and the last vestiges of her conscience seem to be asking for one last redemptive act. The scoring and performances on this scene as Lauren is staked by Mitchell are nothing short of superb. Whithouse manages to give a rather unlikeable, needy, impulsive woman a fittingly glorious end where she at least recognises Herrick for what he is and finally welcomes death. And just when you come down from the peak of emotion, we then get the confrontation with Owen and that 'secret' that quite clearly drives him out of his mind and to confession, the appearance of death's door (a tour de force of acting from Tovey, Turner and Crichlow) and Herrick making a house call with a stake for Mitchell. The last ten minutes are some of the most deliriously exciting telefantasy I've seen in years. It's heartfelt, sad, horrifying, thrilling and such a twisted cliffhanger. I was left quite breathless as the screen exploded into white.

So, did Annie leave her friends and actually go through death's door, is Mitchell dead and will Herrick succeed in converting the world? Cripes, I can't wait for Episode 6. And where the hell is that Series 2 re-commission BBC3? We need to know.

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Hot foot from mid-February's New York Comic Con comes promotional artwork for the Torchwood 5 part story Children of Earth. Plus a couple of interviews from the BBC America site with actor Eve Myles and director Euros Lyn. Thanks to BBC America for the material.

Eve interviews parts 1 and 2:





Euros interview:



The plan is still to show the entire story over one week but the BBC have not yet announced when they will be transmitting this even though it is part of their Spring schedule. BBC Press office mentions Torchwood in this announcement about Series Three of Robin Hood.

SCI-FI HD - 20th February 2009 - 10.00pm

Thunk. The sound of Jane Esperson's comic-tragedy landing slam bang in the middle of the final ten episodes of the series. With just five episodes to go, Esperson's episode comes across as a squeal of brakes and, instead of ratcheting up the tension from the previous four weeks, she opts to make the inevitable Ellen - Saul - Caprica love triangle the tent pole of the narrative. And Ellen is back to her old ways, the bitchy selfish manipulator we all knew and loved. Maybe Cavil has good reason to kick back at this particular member of the Final Five because she does nothing to endear herself to the audience here. It was certainly a case of 'mother knows best' as Ellen swans in and throws her weight about, splits the Final Five and throws Saul Tigh into a tizzy. From mother of the Cylons to whore of the fleet, the personality change she undergoes is rather frightening.

Kate Vernon and Michael Hogan are undoubtedly the stars of the episode. Kate's absolutely fantastic as Ellen as she twists and turns the feelings of poor Caprica Six, huffs and puffs about Tigh's choice of partner. She also prompts the Final Five to put it to a vote as to whether to stay with the fleet or hop it with the rebel Cylons which causes all kinds of recriminations. Naturally, Ellen decides to use the vote to get back at Tigh and agrees to flee with Tory and Tyrol. Tigh decides to stay with the comatose Anders. The Final Five's obsession with racial purity kicks in and Tigh is not happy: “No wonder we had to invent some passionate God for them to believe in, we couldn’t have them deify us, could we?!”

Tigh takes comfort in Adama's arms

Meanwhile, the Galactica is, rather symbolically, getting something of a blood transfusion. Or is that Cylon ejaculate she's getting covered in? Teams of engineers and one of the Sixes spend most of the episode slapping Cylon gunk into the old girl's joints whilst being stalked by a grim-faced Adama. The sight of one of the Sixes wielding a big trowel and a paint brush was I'm sure unintentionally funny and I do hope she didn't mess up her blonde locks or get muck on that nice outfit she was wearing. Running in parallel we see Bill Adama really crumbling. He's torn over his decision to repair the ship with Cylon tech and seemingly doesn't know how to handle a disgruntled and starving populace, many of whom hate the Cylons with a passion. To compensate he's self-destructing on a diet of booze and pills. His tete a tete with Saul Tigh is actually very worrying as he slops his whisky all over the place in a state of bewilderment. Again, Hogan and Olmos are a wonderful double act, especially at the conclusion of the episode when, after the quite distressing scenes of Caprica Six losing her baby, Tigh takes comfort in Adama's arms. A bittersweet moment after the earlier snarling accusation from Ellen, “...there’s something in the universe he loves far more than you or me - it’s Bill Adama.”

Keep an eye on Paula

The other moments of comedy gold are apportioned out to the return of Gaius Baltar. He returns to his harem only to find that they've all got along without him pretty well, managing to trade for food and establish friendly relations with the rest of the ship. Their figurehead, Paula, has even managed to arm them to protect them from the violent raids from the Sons Of Aries. James Callis is charming and funny as ever as Baltar, another arch manipulator of course, and with religious fervour out of the window he decides to rely on his cult of personality to impress the ladies once again, almost going to the extent of kissing babies. The invisible Six reappears and effectively writes his speeches for him and goads him on into convincing a befuddled Adama that the threat of revolution is real and to hand over weapons to the group. Adama's really lost it if he lets the silver-tongued Baltar convince him thus. So, after promising to feed everyone and suggesting to a Cylon ambivalent Adama he is the 'last human solution' to keeping together a disaffected fleet, lots of guns are doled out. Keep an eye on Paula, I say. She's hungry for power and was cradling that very big gun rather too enthusiastically for my liking. And I loved the physical comedy of Baltar not knowing one end of a gun from the other.

The death of Six's baby Liam is in stark, tragic counterpoint to the Ellen and Baltar 'comedy of errors'. It all comes crashing down very depressingly even though this resolution to the situation does seem rather throwaway and is almost a too convenient way to end the pregant Six plotline. How does this now square with the plans of the Final Five? Oh, it's OK, they've still got Hera, after all. And I'm guessing Ellen isn't going to be flavour of the month with Tigh after her tirade of abuse seemingly triggered the complications of the pregnancy. And as baby Liam dies, suddenly Anders EEG sparks into life. Has there been some sort of transference? Will Anders recover and will we get more exposition? Where's Starbuck? Will Cavil catch up with the fleet? Will there be a Baltar and Paula revolution? C'mon, there are only five episodes left!

Previous reviews:

No Exit
Blood On The Scales
The Oath
A Disquiet Follows My Soul
Sometimes A Great Notion
Revelations
The Hub
Sine Qua Non
Guess What's Coming To Dinner?
Faith
The Road Less Traveled
Escape Velocity
The Ties That Bind
He That Believeth In Me & Six Of One

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ABC - 18th February 2009 - 10.00pm

A vast improvement this week with writer Meredith Averill getting a grip on characterisation and giving us a number of moments to treasure. A notorious councillor Bobby Prince reveals to Sam that he is also a fellow traveller from 2009 after he's arrested during a raid on a hotel. But before Sam can get a chance to ask him any further questions, he's gunned down inside the precinct. Gene locks the station down in a bid to flush the killer out.

Michael Imperioli makes the character of Ray shine

In the midst of this plot, made quite intriguing by Prince's revelations and then by several bizarre dreamlike conversations with his regular hooker Misty, who advises Sam that his time to return has not yet come, are some very good character developments for Ray, Annie and Gene. With Annie and Ray out on duty and effectively locked out of the station, both cops are ordered to investigate and follow up a lead that takes them to a mysterious rendezvous in the park. The delightful aspect of this pairing up of the two characters is that it opens up Ray's domestic background. We meet his wife, Denise, strikingly played by Laura Benanti, who is clearly held back by Ray's misogyny. He deplores the idea that women can vote and have a career and naturally sees Denise's place as being in the home. She can't even get her hair cut because he disapproves.



Michael Imperioli makes the character of Ray shine, much as we might cringe at his anti-feminist views, and the interplay between him and Gretchen Moll really makes their scenes together fizz with barely held in check resentment. Moll finally gets something active to do, with Annie having to act as the contact with the stranger in the park, and it's great that she gets to challenge Ray. This is further compounded later when they return to the station only to find Sam, Gene and Gene's daughter in the middle of a struggle with Prince's killer. Ray bungles an attempt to disarm him and Annie comes to the rescue and clubs the felon, saving Ray from a stabbing. It's great character development and Annie and Ray spark off each other with a mutual dislike which I hope they keep going.

A shame we have to say goodbye to Maggie Siff

In other developments, we get some further background into Gene's relationship with Maria. We learn that, in a similar way to Ray, Gene has a very narrow idea of what it takes to emotionally relate to women. He struggles to vocalise his love for his own offspring which is, of course, of enormous frustration to Maria and the main reason why she's so distant from him. All she's seeking is some approval from Gene and he seems incapable of offering it. This takes the Gene Hunt character into very different territory and is far removed from the Glenister incarnation of Hunt. It finally demonstrates that this is not the Gene from the UK version, it is an entirely redefined character. And I wholeheartedly approve if it drags Keitel out from behind the shadow of Glenister. Harvey's pretty good in this episode, opening up the very heart of Gene only for us to find that it's barely warm. Writer Averill also decides to call it quits on the relationship between Maria and Sam. Maria concedes defeat in the struggle for Sam's attentions and suggests to Sam that Annie is where his true affections lie. A shame we have to say goodbye to Maggie Siff as Maria as I thought she brought in some much needed conflict.

...perhaps that this is in fact all a coma induced dream

Whilst all this delightful character expansion is going on we also have the further exploration of the reason why Sam is back in 1973. Or is that plural: reasons? This continues to frustrate and excite in equal measure. There is a suggestion here that there is a way back to the future so are we still talking time travel here? So far we've had mind control, Soviet conspiracies, religion and coma...so just what the heck are the producers going to decide on? And did Prince really come from 2009 - it seems he did what with him coming up with all the right answers to questions that Sam threw at him, including acknowledging that Obama was President now. I loved the weird moments when Sam was talking to Misty - first we got speeded up time as a backdrop as 'Over The Rainbow' plays hallucinogenically on the soundtrack and then televisions flicking on and offering glimpses of Obama's inauguration. And then all the Wizard Of Oz symbolism, somewhat over done with the Garland song and various quotes from the movie, that heavily suggests perhaps that this is in fact all a coma induced dream. Interesting stuff that peppered a very enjoyable episode. All the cast were working well as an ensemble, the direction from David Barrett was taut and exciting, full of frenetic editing during the opening raid and cut brilliantly to The Sweet's Ballroom Blitz. Dare I say it, but is the series getting back into its stride? I hope so and that viewers continue to stick with it as it would be a shame if this got cancelled just as glimmers of life can be seen in the series.

ABC Life On Mars site

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Based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald story, David Fincher's film is a bit of a curate's egg. Some critics have accused him of selling out to Hollywood with what seems, on the surface, to be a hollow, cliched love story. The premise is very quirky. Benjamin Button is abandoned by his father Thomas on the steps of an old folks' home in New Orleans. He is born as an 80 year old baby and gradually, as we experience his life, he grows younger as he becomes an adult. His path crosses with Daisy Fuller and the majority of the film is focused on their developing love for each other.

[They] totally fail to connect or develop any onscreen chemistry

The major problem with the film is entirely to do with the love story. On one hand, Fincher casts Brad Pitt, certainly maturing as a good actor, and Cate Blanchett, also highly acclaimed for her roles, as the main protagonists Benjamin and Daisy. Two very charismatic leads perfect for potentially such an emotionally powerful story. Unfortunately, on the other hand, the film's emotional core, what it should be building up to and what audiences should be emotionally investing in to make any sort of satisfying journey, totally dissipates when the story switches to the adult lives of Benjamin and Daisy. Blanchett and Pitt bask in the sepia glow of the film, no doubt digitally enhanced by the armoury of CGI special effects, and then totally fail to connect or develop any onscreen chemistry. Now, you could argue that Fincher does this deliberately to emphasise the fleeting, temporary nature of the couple's doomed romance where Blanchett as Daisy knows she will wither and age and Pitt as Benjamin knows he will continue to get younger. But his sense of tragedy, and that's essentially what the core of the film is, is firmly misplaced. The centre of the film boils down to the story of a rather snobbish, vain woman being wooed by a man, a total freak of nature, who is unable to articulate his emotions and it is stillborn, failing to become the soul destroying, awe inspiring love story that it evidently thinks it should be.

Pitt is really rather good as the aged version of Benjamin

So, if your lead actors don't engage you in the story, what exactly is there left to enjoy. Fortunately, the longeurs of the Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett courtship and their eventual consummation of love is roughly the middle forty five minutes of a film Zimmer framing towards the three hour mark. Either side of the hollow romance are two hours that are far more interesting, technically more exciting and emotionally more satisfying. The first hour, as with all of the film, is related to us via the hospital bed of an aged and dying Daisy who asks her daughter Caroline, a scrap of a part that wastes the fine talent of Julia Ormond, to read from Benjamin's diary. The film unfolds like a waking dream and this structure is very successful despite the snail's pace that Fincher inflicts on the narrative. It shows how Benjamin grows up during the 1920s and 30s in the old folks' home under the care of adoptive mother Queenie, beautifully played by Taraji P. Henson. Through his eyes we see the aged inhabitants wither and die as he slowly reverses in age. Pitt is really rather good as the aged version of Benjamin and the effects used to achieve his appearance are quite superb. He learns to walk, grows in strength, and befriends the young Daisy whose grandmother lives in the home. Fincher captures this in loving period detail, beautifully staged and photographed. Button's escapades take in his duty as a member of Captain Mike's tug boat crew, his first experiences of sex and alcohol, a meeting with, unbeknownst to Benjamin at the time, his father Thomas, and finally his journey to Russia.

...it all looks a little too plastic, unreal and comic booky

Whilst in Russia he has a fling with an English woman, Elizabeth Abbott, staying in the same hotel. In one of the best sequences of the film we watch as he becomes more and more involved with Elizabeth, starting with long chats over tea in the kitchen through to eventually sleeping together. Pitt is aided here in no small measure by a gorgeous performance from Tilda Swinton, brittle and repressed, yet warm, as Elizabeth. The CGI goes a bit wild at this point, what with snow bound Russia, and the tug boat sequences and it all looks a little too plastic, unreal and comic booky to be totally believable. There is a terrific sequence where the crew, commandeered into the Navy for the WW2 war effort, come under fire from a U Boat whilst effecting a rescue operation. Benjamin also meets his father again, a nice cameo from Jason Flemyng, and learns about his true identity and his real parents. At first rejecting them, he later returns to help ease his dying father to a dignified death. All these moments add a vital energy to the film's often lethargic pace.

...swallowed up by a hurricane which is perhaps something some of the audience might wish to be the fate of the entire film.

Once we've seen him reunited with Daisy and set up home, and by this time it is the mid-1960s, the cracks are beginning to show, and not just on Blanchett's face. They have to face the fact that eventually Daisy will not only have to bring up their daughter Caroline but will also have to cope with an increasingly younger and younger Benjamin. Fincher also makes the mistake of disregarding the emotional potential of the death of Queenie. She is one of the characters in the film in which the audience does invest its love and interest. She pretty much dies off screen and we get a mere glimpse of her funeral that simply doesn't arouse any emotion. The film struggles on, also now lumbered by Pitt's restoration to his current vision of celebritydom, but it does start to emotionally re-engage with the audience when Benjamin leaves Daisy and his daughter, not wishing Caroline to have known him at all because of the complex nature of his age reversal. Much of the story is here carried by Blanchett and Ormond from the hospital with Daisy recounting the years that Benjamin vanished from their lives and the not so unexpected reveal that Caroline didn't know she was his daughter until she read the diary. What's ultimately upsetting is the eventual demise of Benjamin. We see him get younger but also become infirm from dementia and eventually, once again as a babe in Daisy's aged arms, he closes his eyes and dies. It's one of the few emotionally effective scenes in the film even if the premise isn't really that logical. The death of Daisy is decorated by two somewhat mawkish symbols that have already appeared in the film; a humming bird and a clock that tells the time backwards. Both are swallowed up by a hurricane which is perhaps something some of the audience might wish to be the fate of the entire film.



It's a colossus of a film, beautifully produced, competently directed. It's a little too similar to Forrest Gump (both films were scripted by Eric Roth coincidentally) but it isn't founded on the same story as some critics have observed. Gump was totally unaware of his own place in the big moments of history. Benjamin is very aware of his frailty in the face of history, struggling to be human as the passage of other lives unfolds around him. The film's message - that we all face the same fate whatever path in time and through life and death we are traveling - informs a sad, reflective tale. Most of it is effectively told in the first and last hour but with an annoying forty five minutes of Hollywood schmaltz wedged in the middle in which Blanchett and Pitt are as plastic as the effects used to de-age them. Not Fincher's best film at any rate, despite his usual display of technical mastery and competence, even a little over-manufactured it has to be said, and it's length and slow pace do much to undermine an interesting concept and what should be a deeply emotional journey. Worth seeing, but 13 Oscar nominations? Nah.

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON (Cert 12A. Released February 6th 2009. Directed by David Fincher)

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BBC3 - 15th February 2009 - 9.00pm

Mitchell's intriguing narration opens the episode:

'Some labels are forced on us. They mark us. Set us apart till we're just like ghosts drifting through other people's lives. But only if we let the labels hold.'

In a visually arresting scene we see him flip through the various incarnations he has outwardly worn over the 100 years of his existence as he defines himself and his nature. Tonight's episode really gave us something to think about. This series is seemingly unafraid to delve into those dark and damp areas of the human and inhuman psyche and it manages to do this by subverting traditional dramatic tropes, by using horror fantasy as a vehicle to not only discuss taboo subject matters but also to twist horror fantasy archetypes into new meanings. A vampire, a werewolf and a ghost go on a meta-textual exploration of difference and otherness in Bristol.

...being human can fling you into a state of identity crisis

Brian Dooley's script is a complex exploration of the interchangeability of human and monstrous nature. His tackling of various forms of abuse in the story shows how intelligent this series is. The theme of abuse is layered throughout the episode. Herrick sees Mitchell's treatment of Lauren as such, 'What's she gonna do, she can't exactly call Childline,' he yells, admonishing Mitchell for the way he has abandoned her. Herrick sees it as Mitchell's responsibility to take care of Lauren much as he did the same for him. He sees the idea of Mitchell and George trying to be human as a pretence, a 'raiding of the dressing up box'. In the end this episode is about Mitchell finding out that he cannot escape his nature and that being human can fling you into a state of identity crisis.

Whilst George happily prepares for his date with Nina, Annie is displaying some ferocious acts of poltergeist anger. Having discovered that her fiance Owen was her killer, she's having trouble adjusting. Her feelings are externalising into destructive acts within the home. As George discusses his date with Nina, and is accused of being bumptious, also note that he casually remarks, 'the werewolf's a romantic' when trying to describe his feelings and desire for Nina. Thus the ghost Annie is categorised as a symbol of female anxiety, a victim of domestic abuse and George is cast as the antithetically mixed villain/hero, an almost anti-Byronic, bumbling romantic with a ferocious inner nature. 'I had the wolf in me', he innocently remarks, 'So did Nina' retorts Mitchell and this immediately sets up the journey that George's character goes through.

...labels she's throwing around as part of her seemingly liberal attitude

Now, horror movies are all about transgression. The figure of the monster is quite clearly a symbol that is set up to challenge all the accepted rules in society. They are 'other', either through dint of their physical appearance, their moral values, or their biological and social make up. Or a combination of all of the above. The central plot thus becomes the vampire Mitchell befriending a neighbour's boy, Bernie, in order to blend in as human. The initiation of this friendship is on the back of bullying and abuse from other boys in the street. Bernie is a sensitive boy, an outsider who is himself labeled as weak by others of his own age. The codification of the friendship is also seen as gay, something which is later exaggerated by landlord Owen when he comes to turf the flatmates out after the situation gets out of hand. Mitchell empathises with Bernie's situation and describes himself as a child as the 'dorkiest of dorks'. It's interesting to note how Fleur categorises other children as 'shits' that pick on anyone who is different when ironically, she'll be doing the same to Mitchell later in the story. When her son codifies his own sensitivity as 'gay' she is enraged and warns him that she'll tell his two 'Uncles'. Fleur is rehearsing some rather tokenistic attitudes about homosexual identity, from gay couples described as 'uncles' to seeing her son as having a sensitive nature. These are just labels she's throwing around as part of her seemingly liberal attitude. My, how that'll change.

...vampires, and by extension Mitchell, clearly exhibit bisexual behavior

So a good looking bloke looks after a young lad only to inadvertently expose him to actions and images that in part represent his true monster nature. Only this isn't just working on the level of paedophile sexual abuse that the story flags up, the monsters that Mitchell and George are perceived to be - non-heteronormative paedos, queers or nonces - but also their real existence as monsters, as vampires and werewolves. Beyond that there is a further layer, the symbolic arena in which vampires and werewolves are decoded. As Marco Lanzagorta asserts in his 'Closet Full Of Monsters' paper for Pop Matters, 'the vampire's bite is traditionally portrayed as a bizarre form of oral pleasure and sexual intimacy, than as an animal’s gnaw. However, the sexual identity of vampires becomes problematic when we consider that they thrive on male and female victims alike'. If drinking blood is a symbol of sexual intercourse, then vampires, and by extension Mitchell, clearly exhibit bisexual behavior. However, what Being Human has done since the start of the series is to try and posit the vampire's bite not as a curse, the result of a sexual hunger and intimacy, but also as a giver of life, to save the dying. In Episode One George and Lauren challenged Mitchell to save the life of the slain Becca. In this episode he offers a choice to the young lad's mother Fleur - allow him to die naturally but with unfulfilled potential or allow Mitchell to bring him back as undead under the care of his mother.

...who are the monsters and who are the humans

George as a human is all the repressed impulses and desires of his werewolf alter ego. His werewolf nature, his secret, is what society inhibits. His violent sexuality as a werewolf is what monsters do to challenge the rules of the social establishment. Nina perceives his libido to be 'rough' and assumes this is the norm. But that isn't the norm for George. He'd like to woo her properly whilst repressing the ferocious side of his libido. Hilariously, Nina is relieved. There's a bitchy pop at the American teenage fad for chastity rings and Russell Tovey and Sinead Keenan are totally on the money with the way they lift these two characters off the page. Their relationship founders on the secret that George contains. Although his otherness is miscodified as 'gay' or 'paedophile' it is not these labels that pushes Nina away, it is the realisation that he will not reveal his werewolf status. It's ironic that the abuse both he and Mitchell suffer from immediately labels the humans they live among as savage, intolerant and evil. Within the monster frame, their 'sex offender' status is viewed, ironically, as driven by non-human, animal impulses over which they have little or no control. The language we use today to describe sex offenders retains the historical association of half-human monsters with deviant sexuality. Sexual offenders are referred to as predators in the law, as well as the media, suggesting that a sex offender is not a member of civilised society. Again, it is visually underlined by George's reaction to a screening of the 1922 Phantom Of The Opera as the Phantom is hunted down by pitch fork, torch bearing civilisation. Horror films are corny but they tell us a great deal about the society we live in and who are the monsters and who are the humans. George's comment about not being fit to live among decent people is superbly countered by Mitchell's 'It's a good job we don't, then.' Hell is, it seems, other people.

...they are equal in the struggle to be human

The slightly weaker part of the episode is the sub-plot about Annie's anxiety which suggests a critique of patriarchal, male-dominated domesticity and oppression. Her escape from the dominance and fear of Owen is a turning point in the episode, showing her achieving an independence that makes her visible and tangible. This does link into her earlier accusation of Mitchell's own inability to move on when both she and George discover that he kept the vampire porn DVD inside a case for Laurel And Hardy. A corrupting document of vampirism hidden within comic innocence underlined by the best gag in the episode, George's incredulous, 'What else have you got up there? Some German scat inside Chitty Chitty Bang Bang'. Hilarious too is the scene where Annie flips at the news that Owen is visiting, as various ornaments explode around him, George screeches, 'Ahhh no! That was a present!'. Annie, however, is the glue that keeps them together and she proves how important this is when she destroys all the associations with Owen in the bonfire.

Whilst George's relationship with Nina collapses because he fears exposure at the hands of the neighbours, the victim in all of this is poor Bernie. As the battle with their neighbours intensifies, Bernie runs into the path of an oncoming car and Mitchell seemingly cannot save him. This is the ultimate test for Mitchell and one where he becomes totally disillusioned about the desire to become human. Cleverly, the episode lulls us into thinking that Fleur has not accepted Mitchell's offer to bring Bernie back as a vampire until we get to the scene at the train station. Whilst he has revealed to her the 'real' monster inside of him and used his vampire nature to preserve her son, George has asked Nina to accept that he has a secret that she will never know of. She in turn shows him the scars of her own victim status and that in the end they are equal in the struggle to be human. Mitchell is also disillusioned to the point that he accepts Herrick's offer to join him. It seems he's prepared to let the labels hold.

Achingly funny, deeply disturbing and very moving, this is another thought provoking episode dealing with some very complex issues, not frightened to wrestle with many layers of meaning. The ensemble cast seizes onto this script and doesn't let go. Superb.

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