R.I.P John Hurt

Time doesn't stop just because it's a new year. I needed to have tried harder in 2016 to keep up but on some level I've been holding my breath and waiting for it to end. It's not going to.

Someday cancer and I are going to have words.

Storyteller, Doctor, doomed Spaceman, Wand Seller, paranormal Professor Broom, Horned King. And everything else. What an IMDB page, this guy. Caligula AND Jesus?

My favourites among Mr. Hurt's roles in my preferred fantasy genres have brilliance and greatness mingled with great suffering and tragedy. This is a loss keenly felt, and it's his role on Doctor Who that asked us to take hold of The Moment.

R.I.P Joe Alaskey

I'm too old now to pretend that 63 is a good, long life. It's clearly too short a span for a splendid vocal performer who hand-delivered me a lotta yuks in times of gloom. The prolific successor to Mel Blanc of blessed memory, Joe Alaskey was probably from space, or he wouldn't have been so believably bad as nerdy would-be world-conquering Martians like Marvin & Dr. Ziplock. Mr. Alaskey taught me to love the sound (but never the taste!) of "Corrugated Bran Puffs" as Grampa Pickles from Rugrats. Plus, not for nothing, he's got my vote for immortality as the unlikeable yet unkillable Duck Dodgers. Joe Alaskey- a talent to remember beyond the 24th & a Half Century.

R.I.P. Alan Rickman

Because the universe is not always fair, cancer continues to destroy Englishmen I admire. 

Doctor Lazarus, Metatron, Marvin the Paranoid Android, & Severus Snape will always be deeply memorable and valuable to me and many millions of you.

I don't have the right words of my own for my sadness lately, and now I don't have the Voice of God to speak the snark for me, either. I fear that being older means losing all my heroes. And I'm forced to remind myself that nothing and no energy and no one loved is ever truly lost.

By Grabthar's hammer, by the suns of Warvan, you shall be avenged!

R.I.P. David Bowie

I can't claim special knowledge of The Man Who Fell To Earth, but I am bummed out that he's fallen off it again.

Thanks to Guardians of the Galaxy, I've listened to 'Moonage Daydream' a lot lately. I'm full of doing my own thing and I didn't even know David Bowie was sick, so it goes to show you can snap your fingers and turn around... and lose something important in a moment. It's only forever- not long at all.

My wife rightly suggested we revisit 'Labyrinth' tonight, and it remains a wonder and a delight. Sing sadly tonight for a troubador, performer, space oddity, and Goblin King.

R.I.P. Christopher Lee

This week Death died, you guys.

So... I don't have to tell you that Christopher Lee was a top drawer actor with a MASSIVE career and achievements. If you've seen any horror movies from... well, EVER, then you know this dude.

Draculas, Mummys, evil Germans, evil Asians, evil Englishmen, evil doctors, evil wizards, guys with crystal balls, guys with lightsabers, guys with golden guns, princes of darkness, and LITERALLY the grim spectre of Death. He's ACTUALLY narrated my nightmares!

Because I am who I am, I enjoyed my first exposure to Mr. Lee as Dr. Catheter in Gremlins 2. I've also really enjoyed every subsequent exposure to this towering genius, with a vast history of films I've never even attempted.

Celebrate the shadow. Celebrate the life. Rest in Peace, Mr. Lee... and live everlasting.

TV Review: Battlestar Galactica

I can be like a daggit with a Borellian bone once I get an idea in my head, so I recently finished re-watching the entire GOL-MONGING saga of Battlestar Galactica! As my pal Kirk asked: "For punishment?" 

Was it all worth it? You decide! (No, strike that. I'll decide.)

Of course, I watched it the way the One True God intended: Chronologically by Content! 

First- the Remake's Prequel Series! "Caprica", or as it is more popularly known- "Patton Oswalt Explains It All", takes us far way and long ago to a decadent planet where everything is edgy except the sheets of paper. (Because all the corners are cut off. Actually... they have MORE edges. I might be getting off topic...) Everyone's out for number one as an evil robot army congeals inexorably out of the quest for immortality during a clash of political, religious, and racial ideologies. Plus it has Eric Stoltz!

Fav. Ep.: "Apotheosis"- Cylon heroes fight for the forces of decency and corporate profit vs monotheist terrorists in a crowded sports stadium! There may be some explosions involved.

Least Fav. Ep.: "Retribution"- Intrigue becomes intriguing as machinations turn wheels within wheels and schemes near the point of no return while the thick, simmering plot begins to... *snore*

Next, I watched Battlestar Galactica (2004) AKA "Battleglum Galacticglum". It's as glum as the Black Hole of Hades but on stunning blu-ray it turns out it's also one of the finest TV dramas of my lifetime. There, I admit it.

Fav. Ep.: "Battlestar Galactica: The Plan" Again, the Cylons are the heroes! Yes, he may stab little children, but he's Dean Stockwell, so it's all good!

Least Fav. Ep.: "Black Market" If it wasn't bad enough that Re-imagined Apollo had a dull, human name like Lee Adama, now they've made him a whoring John with a heart of gold. Who battles child sex slavers! Yikes! It may or may not be the darkest tale from a collapsed society trapped in the void of space, but it's pretty dark stuff.

From the troubled ancestors of the Incas, the Toltecs, and the Lemurians we proceed to the star-brothers of contemporary man: on a 30 year star voyage beginning sometime after 1969, culminating in 1980, and full of too many other inconsistencies to believe for a single micron!

Battlestar Galactica (1978) is a ridiculous, archaic piece of misogynist quasi-Mormon laser disco. Dirk "Face-Man" Benedict and Lorne "Bonanza" Greene light up the small screen, sharing equal billing with some poor chimp stuffed inside a Muppet. Kids will scratch their heads with delight unless they were born in the late seventies. In which case they already spent hundreds of centons watching and loving it like an Ovion grub loves an overfed gambler who's stumbled drunkenly into its honeycomb!

Fav. Ep.: "Saga of A Star World" This is where it all began! Well, "Star Wars" is where it all began, but this is also available! 

Least Fav. Ep. Tie: "The Lost Warrior" & "The Young Lords". Which is worse: space cowboys in tinfoil Stetsons versus a tribe of horny pig-men, or seven to twelve 7 to 12 year olds in ratty Viking costumes riding unicorns against the most flamboyant candy-cane that ever called itself a Cylon?

Yeah, the cutesy robots are purest felgercarb. Granted, my beloved Muffit 2 gets a pass, but the goofy awkward "dancing" Hector & Vector were MUCH worse. Just picture the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz re-imagined as a pair of pasty dildos in overalls. Just awful. 

Honourable mention: "Experiment in Terra" for having all the conceptual ingredients for "Quantum Leap". It's not as good by half as any episode of Quantum Leap, but the seed is there.

Galactica 1980 AKA "Space Invaders Meet Wolfman Jack". This is where the punishment really begins, but I'm a completist, gods frack it all. Our rag-tag fugitive fleet has lost all but 2 of its lead characters and replaced them with one angelic teenage boy with magic science powers. You'll believe a motorcycle can fly.

Fav. Ep.: "The Return of Starbuck" It does what it says on the tin, and it's not half bad. Again, the evil Cylon is the good guy. What does this say about me, I wonder?

Least Fav. Ep.: "Spaceball" Precocious super-powered moppets spewing precocious nonsense and playing baseball as if they were from space. Get it?

Series creator Glen A. Larson, made a lot of cool things happen on TV for a lot of years. This was definitely one of my favourites, along with the arguably slightly more successful 'Buck Rogers'. Also, I read that Mr. Larson stole a song from James Garner, so Rockford socked him in the snoot! 

Series re-imagineer Ronald D. Moore used to work on Star Trek. He's good at stuff.

Much praise extended to Netflix, YouTube, and my buddy Ron for the blu-rays that made it all possible. So say we all!

My Favourite Characters: Self-Portable Sapient

What little hacker boy or girl wouldn't want a Banana Junior 6000 for Christmas, 1984?

Oliver Wendell Jones of Bloom County, U.S.A., for example.

Little wonder (considering the havoc caused him by his son's previous computers) that Oliver's father Floyd was reluctant to part with $2500, and indeed may have put it on an overzealous department store Santa's very own VISA!

But there is was! On Xmas morn! The cheery, yellow, walking, talking, 9000 series personal computer from Banana Electronics, Inc.

When not assisting Oliver by engaging in nefarious schemes to bring about the collapse of their own decadent Western civilization, the Banana Jr. could be found contemplating the nature of the electronic mortal soul, or offering lesser appliances in sacrifice to its mercurial god: the Jones family television set.

Both characters were the inventions of Berkeley Breathed, an insane Texan. I guess that's redundant. A Texan, then.

Along with all their huggable, liberal, MERCHANDISABLE pals (like Mr. P. Opus & Bill The Cat), Banana Junior and Oliver have amused me greatly this week in volume after volume. Just as they did when I was a precocious young scamp, save that thanks to Breathed's annotations I now get some of the more esoteric jokes.

I also admire Mr. Breathed for his ongoing efforts to conserve living things, and look forward this year to Disney's adaptation of his adorable kids' book "Mars Needs Moms".

Favourite Kid-Friendly Catch-phrase from the Banana 6000: "Ted Koppel is a Waffle."