Today's celebrity Bible-reader is... Reese Witherspoon

Keep it simple —in marriage, grief, joy, whatever. Even in ordinary things—your daily routines of shopping, and so on.

- 1 Corinthians 7:29b-30 (Message)

Today's Celebrity Bible-Reader is... Victor Meldrew

I say this as bluntly as I can to wake you up to the stupidity of what you're doing. Is it possible that there isn't one levelheaded person among you who can make fair decisions when disagreements and disputes come up? I don't believe it.

- 1 Corinthians 6:5 (Message)

The Faculty

Another film of two halves, this time though, the second half is the better one.

After a long series of samey scenes with the usual knowitall-airheads at high school, things get going once nerdy Casey realises that there actually are aliens taking over his teachers.

He and his five misfit friends are completely out of their depth, can't agree what to do, and don't even trust each other, so you know something incredibly lucky is going to have to happen sooner or later.

The film's finale is flawed, (shape-changing alien doesn't shape-change when it needs to) but there are some good lines in here. ("I'm saving my sick days for when I feel better.")

Director Robert Rodriguez does a fair job, and makes this quite watchable, if only in retrospect.

songs in the key of springfield - The Simpsons

Whenever I'm packing to go away, I usually put this CD on. In fact, I've travelled all over the world with this. Just look at what one airline did to the casing:


Still, if The Simpsons is your thing, (and I tend to consider it part of breakfast) then this disc just can't fail to please.

When Herschel first gave it to me, (I think he'd been given it as a comp) each track seemed to fall into one of three distinct categories:

1. Songs I knew off the TV,
2. Songs I didn't know off the TV, and
3. Songs I didn't know off the TV, but had been told about.

Now off course they're all old friends.

I remember listening to Tony Bennett's Capitol City with Harrison as we drove into Brighton to do some filming in 2002.

I remember leaving the "Eye On Springfield" Theme on Monty's answerphone.

I remember reciting The Monorail Song with Dave on the way home from a Cession meeting in Auckland.

And, of course, the suite from Troy McClure's Stop The Planet Of The Apes – I Want To Get Off, which I don't think I'll ever stop enjoying.

It's happiness in a doughnut-shaped piece of metal.

Ahh, doughnuts – is there anything they can't do?

The One Minute Manager by Kenneth Blanchard, Ph.D. and Spencer Johnson, M.D.

Rather charming short story of a prospective employee learning about the value of managing people honestly.

It's all so fluffy that its lessons come across loud and clear, and I intend to dip back into this again shortly, so that I don't forget it.

That said, it is very, very simple, which is great, so long as everyone else in the world agrees with you.

Doctor Who: The Doctor's Daughter

Another alien planet episode! (mostly, though again populated by humans)

The Doctor, Donna and Martha find themselves in the middle of a generations-old war between two races who've forgotten why they're fighting each other. Any idea how this will end? Anyone? Anyone? Oh I see, everyone.

Well all right then, the Doctor has his DNA stolen by a machine (didn't the last story concern cloning too?) that then uses it to make a new soldier – someone who's genetically his daughter and agrees to join him in the TARDIS to travel with him from now on. Can anyone guess what unexpectedly happens to her at the end of the episode? Anyone? No, not you everyone, you answered last time. Anyone? Oh, come on, anyone! Oh all right then, everyone, you answer again.

Well done everyone, that's correct, but for a bonus point, can you guess what unexpectedly happens after that? Can you? Yes, of course you can. Anyone could have seen that final 'twist' coming after he'd left.

Except, apparently, a Time Lord.

The Doctor's Daughter is an okay tale, with a great twist towards the end (not the 'twist' referred to above), however it is bogged-down by... well go on, now you can guess.

Exactly. What a waste of every other scene.

The only characters who get anything interesting to do here are companions medic Martha and supertemp Donna.

Martha because, although she gets captured for the second story running, we then get to see her fending for herself. As I said in my reviews of her Torchwood episodes, this is the bolder, more able Martha that the last season could really have benefitted from, but didn't, preferring to treat her more as an airheady teen, like Rose.

Which brings me to Donna. Like Peri, she seems to argue with the Doctor rather a lot, which is proving to be a tremendous asset. Every time he makes a decision, she pushes back at it, forcing him to really consider his actions. And there are no romantic feelings there to muddy her reasoning. As a result, the two are really working out for me.

Now that's unexpected.

Safety Last!

This is the movie is which Harold Lloyd climbs the side of a skyscraper and accidentally hangs from a clock...


Since it was first released in 1923, that nail-biting sequence has become a solid gold piece of comedy legend, with (as far as I know) no-one but Lloyd himself daring to attempt a remake in the 85 years since.

After all – who would be such a mug? There are no visual effects in the sequence – all that traffic down below is really there – and almost a century later Lloyd still makes you gasp as he literally swings from his fingertips... despite the fact that an accident four years earlier had robbed him of one of them!

And the imagination that's gone into devising all the various objects that come out of windows at him as he climbs his way up has you really wondering what on Earth is going to knock him off-balance next.

In fact, the entire giddy sequence has become so iconic, that today scarcely anyone remembers the calamitous sequence of intense set-pieces that lead him into this predicament, and this film is full of them.

His missing a train, his hiding from his landlady, and most ingeniously his attempts to cross town and get to work on time, without using any public transport.

Harold Lloyd. Absolutely timeless. Hooray!

The vicar's leaving do. (he's becoming a bishop!)

Today's Celebrity Bible-Reader is... Arnold Schwarzenegger

"I'll be back, God willing."

- Acts 18:21b (Message)

Ben-Hur – A Tale Of The Christ (1959)

I'd seen so many bits of this film over the years, that I decided it was was high-time that I sat down and actually watched the whole 200+ minutes properly, intermission and all.

And, I'm pleased to say, it is a terrific movie.

The acting is passable, the spectacle great, and the sensitive music absolutely refreshing. Back in those days, musical directors knew when to keep quiet.

And the film's length is a real blessing. There's a proper amount of time available for the various chapters in Hur's life, so that when, for example, he becomes a galley-slave, he is one for so long that you can well believe it's been three years.

The story of his wrestling with revenge and forgiveness have a lifetime to be played-out too, and the constant unforeseen transformations of his life imply much of God's sovereign will over the future.

The scene when, being dragged in chains through the hot desert, Jesus gives him a drink and watches him head off again to the next trials of his life, speak volumes of the inexplicable agony of existence. Why didn't Jesus set him free? Why did he only make the present moment bearable?

This version of Ben Hur is of course recognised as a classic, so I dare say I'll be seeing, and reflecting on, bits of this again for a while to come.

(Review of the 1925 version here)

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy – Film Tie-In Edition

I finally sat down and read the whole of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy in 2000, so when this Film Tie-In Edition came out five years later, I spent a silly amount of time at The Warehouse in Botany reading the lengthy afterword.

I needn't have bothered. A short time later, Tiger found a discarded copy while clearing out someone's room at the hostel!


This week I've finally got around to giving the afterword the attention it deserves.

Unfortunately, I still don't like the film adaptation that it's making excuses for.

I don't want to criticise anyone in particular. The people behind the film were predominantly friends of the original author, and the love and respect that they have for him is unquestionable. Repeatedly, this account speaks of wanting to be true to his vision, whilst simultaneously making a good movie too.

Before the film version, in my opinion, Hitchhiker's was great in all its various incarnations – radio, book, record, TV series, towel etc. However Hollywood has a reputation for making bad formulaic films, and compromising towards that was never really going to improve it. When I saw it 3-4 years ago, I felt they'd wound-up with a bad story, and therefore a poor representation of such a carefully-plotted yarn as Hitchhiker's.

To give an example, in the film, (as I recall) Zaphod's enemy hires him to go on a mission. To get a gun. Which Zaphod never thinks of using on his enemy.

Ouchhh...

The 1980s TV series did whatever it could to look futuristic. 20 years later of course it looked dated. So the film went for a retro dated 1980s-look.

Owww.

And, I can only guess why, a great deal of the finely-honed comic dialogue was cut. Surely that was the sort of thing that had made the series so popular.

Having seen the film and formed my own opinions, of course I read this version with a heavy bias. However I think that's okay, as this is after all a piece of publicity, written from an entirely subjective point-of-view itself.

Though I felt the film missed Hitchhiker's subtle humour, there is one excerpt in here that gives me hope.

Amongst much ill-informed talk of how most other science-fiction films don't have much characterisation, the film's screenwriter imparts the following:

But second drafts are tough and third drafts are the toughest, mostly because you now know what doesn't work and your choices are becoming more and more limited. But I knew it was too long. And as Jay rightfully pointed out, you can't have a two-and-a-half-hour comedy. So I got Draft 2 down to 122 pages. Maybe one day, after the movie comes out, they'll let me post my first draft on the Web so I can say to all the fans who want to drag me to the nearest stake and set it ablaze, 'See! I wanted this in the movie, too! But they wouldn't let me put it in, I tell you! They wouldn't let me!'

His veiled assumptions about comedy films and fans aside, I would very much like to believe that that's why the film we got made so little sense. Maybe a longer edit of the movie might be released that fills-in all those plot-holes that it's so sadly undermined by.

Me, my Aunt and my Mum

Taken last month.

Saturday Morning – cartoon's greatest hits

The phrase "Saturday morning cartoons" has never made a lot of sense to me.

Those of us who grew up in England in the 1970s tend to think of them as "weekday afternoon cartoons after Jackanory", but we patronise the Americans enough to understand what they're on about.

In 1996 (in my twenties) my friend Herschel lent me a copy of Saturday Morning – cartoon's greatest hits, and it wasn't long before I set out to get my own copy.

It's basically a heap of rock cover-versions of cartoon TV themes from yesteryear, and as such the fusion of metal with nostalgia never fails to get my adrenaline surging.

Some of the delivery is a bit vacant, but many of these tracks seem to express an equal amount of love for both the original series, and the heavy metal genre. Several bands end their tracks on feedback, and Sublime's version of Hong Kong Phooey barely lasts six lines before shamelessly descending into reggae.

Almost every track is underscored with respect however, and you have to admire how, for the Popeye theme, face to face have pronounced the word "finish" as "finich" to rhyme with "spinach" throughout the entire number.

And having grown-up in Britain, there were plenty of cartoons represented on here that in 1996 I'd never even heard of. I've still never seen Goolie Get-Together (played here by the Toadies), but admit I'm hooked by lyrics that go:

Everybody shout!
Come on now, sing out!
It's time for the Goolies Get-Together,
You’re gonna see,
How funny they can be,
'cause it's time for the Goolies Get-Together!

That, Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids and Gigantor are all shows off this album that I have to watch at least one episode of before I die.

Today I have many happy memories of listening to this album all over the world over the years, but the strongest I guess is of lifting weights to Liz Phair and Material Issue's Banana Splits one morning in Matamata in 2004, and hearing Sponge's Go Speed Racer Go kicking-in afterwards. Yes, this CD can even make you fit.

If I keep listing my other favourite tracks, then I'll probably wind-up putting almost the entire tracklist here, but the themes from Josie And The Pussycats and H R Pufnstuf are particularly special too.

The one and only dud number on here is the final one – Wax's Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy from The Ren And Stimpy Show, which sticks out for several reasons:

i. It's from twenty years later,
ii. It's from a different genre,
iii. It has none of the innocent charm of the others,
iv. It's absolutely full of hatred.

After so many great feel-good numbers, it's a terrible track to finish on. What a shame those guys didn't get the joke.

Track Listing:

1. The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana) [The Banana Splits] - Liz Phair with Material Issue
2. Go, Speed Racer, Go! - Sponge
3. Sugar, Sugar [from The Archie Show] - Mary Lou Lord with Semisonic
4. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? - Matthew Sweet
5. Josie and the Pussycats - Juliana Hatfield and Tanya Donelly
6. The Bugaloos - Collective Soul
7. Underdog - Butthole Surfers
8. Gigantor - Helmet
9. Spider-Man - The Ramones
10. Johnny Quest / Stop That Pigeon - The Reverend Horton Heat
11. Open Up Your Heart And Let The Sun Shine In - Frente!
12. Eep Opp Ork Ah-Ah (Means I Love You) - Violent Femmes
13. Fat Albert Theme - Dig
14. I'm Popeye The Sailor Man - face to face
15. Friends / Sigmund And The Seamonsters - Tripping Daisy
16. Goolie Get-Together - Toadies
17. Hong Kong Phooey - Sublime
18. H.R. Pufnstuf - The Murmurs
19. Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy - Wax

(Available to sample here and buy here!)

Doctor Who: The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky

Where now all those pretentious "professional" whovians who used to sagely scoff that a new series of Doctor Who mustn't be too much like the original one, or today's public wouldn't watch it?

Well, some of them seem to have landed the gig of making the new series, and after three whole seasons, it seems it's finally sinking-in that the old formula is actually still a winning one after all.

The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky is the third traditional-style story in a row and, far from being paranoid about Doctor Who lore, this tale embraces the show's history without fear of losing anyone. The Brigadier, the war with the Rutans, the Doctor's old job, it's all background to this tale, which I dare say new viewers took in without even noticing. Not to mention all the unobtrusive in-jokes – the thorax line, and the show's latest ambiguous contribution to the ongoing UNIT dating controversy. "Back in the 70s. Or was it the 80s?"

Anyway, the Sontarans are this season's returning villain, and they're using the GPS system to turn the world's cars into gas-bombs.

It's a brilliant hook, and played-out with guest-characters who actually remember the events of recent episodes too. (Donna's mum doesn't mention either the UFO or the Adipose she saw in Partners In Crime, but unlike Rose's mum forgetting the Autons, here there's no reason for her to mention them) Even Wilfred gets a line excusing why he was absent from The Runaway Bride, as does Martha regarding the growth-spurt in her medical knowledge in Reset, though these mopping-up explanations are a tad late now.

As usual, part one is much better than part two, and it's a real relief to see a story with a global catastrophe that just for once isn't blatantly aliens invading for all to see.

That said, the trappings of new Who are still proudly on display here, though they're becoming so samey now that I must admit I'm becoming a bit blind to them. For example, it almost went without saying that story four would be a two-parter featuring the return of a classic alien invading present-day Earth using zombies while the companion character revisits her family a few days after leaving, so I was barely surprised by such formulaic writing this time.

This was certainly the best (and third) way the companion has initially returned home. The Doctor's mistaken goodbye to Donna, her walking up her old road, and the unconditional forgiveness of her grandfather were all terrific scenes.

What did jolt me though was how my heart sank when, just as feared four episodes back, they actually did force Rose into a shot in the background. I haven't wound the DVD back to check, but there was a flash of her yelling "Doctor!" on a TV screen in the TARDIS with no sound. When she inevitably shows up at the end of the season, I again don't expect any explanation of why she was shouting "Doctor!" before even having made a connection. I guess I'm saying that, while foreshadowing future episodes in itself is a good thing, I can't trust them to make good on it after recent years.

If they want to foreshadow stuff better, then the Sontarans should have been the ones avoiding Earth in the alternate future at the start of Last Of The Time Lords. That said, I'm relieved to discover that at least one ATMOS car has appeared in the show prior to this one. Whew!

But hey, apart from that distracting split-second of Rose, the soldiers kissing at the end, and the ignorance of any repercussions for the poor old environment, (pop science isn't this team's strong-point either) I enjoyed this.

Today's celebrity Bible-Reader is... Donald Trump

You're fired.

- Luke 16:2b (Message)

Today's celebrity Bible-Reader is... Jerry Seinfeld

"Has anyone by fussing before the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? If fussing can't even do that, why fuss at all? Walk into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They don't fuss with their appearance—but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.

- Luke 12:25-27 (Message)

(twang-twang-twaddallatwang-twa-twannnnnnngggg...)

Bedazzled (1967)

Movies made-up of comedy sketches are clearly tough things to make fly. Just look at Amazon Women On The Moon. Some of it works, some of it doesn't, and some of it time hasn't been too kind to. On the other hand, UHF got the balance of set-pieces and overall plotting rather well, I thought.


Bedazzled was written by Peter Cook seemingly as a series of two or three-hander scenes for himself and Dudley Moore to perform, with a woman when required. And it must be said, Cook's script is excellent.

Stanley Moon (Moore) does a deal with the Devil (Cook) for seven wishes in exchange for his soul. While the unsatisfying fantasies that he finds himself actually in can be a bit long-winded, (not least because the first one informs us that we'll have to wait for the next six wishes to finish before the plot can move forward) the scenes in-between are much cleverer.

Stanley keeps returning to the Devil and learning a bit more about Christian theology, some of which is plain fiction, but much of which is quite educating. The scene in which the Devil sits atop a pillar box pretending to be God, while Moon pretends to be an angel worshipping him until he gets tired and wants to swap places is practically a parable.

My favourite scene though has to be the one when Stanley becomes a rock star. The exciting number he belts-out in a Top Of The Pops-esque studio, to hoards of screaming fans, is well-observed enough, but it is the track that follows him which I really liked.

Demonstrating the fickleness of stardom, the Devil's 'song' is the polar opposite, as he grates his way through the most depressingly apathy-inducing lyrics imaginable, including such monotone put-downs as "You fill me with inertia." The crowd are putty in his hand.

Moon's constant disatisfaction makes the whole film feel quite frustrating to watch, but it does have a happy ending, hopefully leaving the viewer with quite a bit of fun to reflect upon afterwards.

Juice – Taste The Music

I picked this up from the Wesley Owen Christian bookshop in Kingston back in 2003.

It was openly just a big long advert for the plethora of Christian music CDs that were available to buy at the time, however I'd got one of those previously and quite liked the idea. Unfortunately I discovered too late that this new CD, rather than containing a dozen full-length tracks like the last one, only contained minute-long samples from about 40 songs – two from each album.

Nonetheless, it still sat in my CD-player for quite a bit of the first half of 2004 anyway, as I got up, exercised, and generally got on with my life to these 40 snatches of music.

As a result, re-listening to it today, it was the first half that I found really evoked what had been going on my life back then, particularly my first explorations of New Zealand. That minute of The Rock'n'Roll Worship Circus' A Beautiful Glow still conjures-up the dry scorching Waikato sky, squinted-at through the front windshield of that Toyota I spent so much time in.

That's also the one album sampled here that I did ultimately get my hands on a copy of. It irritates me (and probably Rhett who I borrowed it from) that I still haven't actually listened to it, sitting as it now is in a box some 10,000 miles away with the rest of my NZ life, in patient readiness for whenever I am eventually persuaded to return. (sorry Rhett)

Other musical highlights that stand-out are the moments of Fred Hammond, (he's so funky!) Yfriday and Reana, about whose work the entirely objective blurb states:

"But be warned! Inside this innocent CD case is an album that will set your CD player on fire! Reana's voice is reminiscent of Melissa Etheridge and the raw power of Ashley Cleveland with the result that she wrings out the emotional intensity of every line she's written. Her songs are intimate and her state-of-the-art pop rock production only adds to the appeal. Wow, what a ride!"

Okay, you want me to buy it, I've got it.

Perhaps ironically, many of these CDs are compilation albums themselves, one of them even "sung by a selection of top session singers."

While I would still rather have found about a dozen complete tracks on here like last time, I have to admit that, listening again this morning, I did feel a little disappointed not to own a few of these albums.

Monopolyopoly

A while back, Herschel and I played Top Trumps by shuffling about a dozen conflicting decks together.

We had everything from Star Wars to Buffy The Vampire Slayer in there, and it was tough working-out which field in one set directly challenged which field in others. Power ratings, and intelligence it seemed, were quite subjective. Ned Flanders could beat the Incredible Hulk on strength!


Where there was no common field between sets, we just had to go with how many lines from the top the declared field was. Eventually I won, but only because I cottoned-onto recognising the backs of different sets, and playing values that were years against those that were only on a scale of 1-10.

So – to tonight.

Herschel had been gunning to play Monopolyopoly with me for well over a year. Monopolyopoly, as I'm sure you know, is when you get more than one Monopoly set out and put the boards together to form a gigantic super-board.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Probably the same thing I was. Monopoly takes long enough to play as it is, without expanding the terrain further. I agree, but Herschel kept insisting that we did have enough time to play this tonight. When we started it was, after all, only 11pm.


Above is the board at the outset. As you can see, we had the sets for Reading, London, Singapore, New Zealand, Gotham City and the Star Wars galaxy arranged in that order. The order was my idea, because I reasoned that that's the order in which you would travel through all six of them. Well, perhaps in retrospect the Star Wars galaxy should have come first, since it only existed a long time ago. The force is weak in me.

The six boards wouldn't all fit on the table, so we laid them out on the floor. I nipped home to pick-up the long-handled-thing-grabber (also pictured above on the right) to make moving my token around the board easier on my back, while Herschel made use of a similar device with a disembodied dolphin head at the top, which he could likewise use to grab pieces by remotely opening and closing the mouth.


Herschel devised a route around the board that we both had to follow, which would take-in 228 squares once each time round, and 12 of them twice.

We also gave ourselves just the normal amount of money to start with, and trusted that this wouldn't see us both bankrupt by the end of the first circuit, assuming that we made it that far. I wanted us to roll all 12 dice each go, however Herschel was against this, so we used just the standard-issue two. (quitter!)

Herschel chose to play as the Singaporean rickshaw token, while I opted for R2-D2. Elmo, thank God, decided to sit this one out and just watch. I won the highest roll, so I started.

Today Reading, tomorrow - Tatooine!

Straight out of Go I rolled a Centre Field (9), landing on the Musuem of Reading, which I bought.

However Herschel, launched by a Post Holes (8), was just behind me buying London Road. Dang – I'll guess I'll have to pay him rent next time I visit my solicitor then.

Throwing another Post Holes, I turned the corner and landed on community chest. Picking up the card I realised I had to pay £50 insurance, however this early in the game that seemed like a good idea. Who knew how soon it might be before my Artoo unit needed repairing?

A Hard Ten got Herschel to Forbury Gardens, which he bought, followed by yet another 8, which quite reasonably took him across onto the LONDON board, where he pounced on Liverpool Street Station.

But then it all turned Star Wars Interactive Video Game-shaped, as I threw a Hard Four, also making it onto the LONDON board... and landing straight onto the Go To Jail square. This was not good. Suddenly I was across in the London jail, however as I'd thrown a double to get there, Herschel reckoned I should have my first attempt at getting-out straight away.

So I threw the dice again... and immediately rolled another double-2! As I bought Northumberland Avenue (at the end of the purple ones), I felt I now had an advantage.

You see, due to the circuitous route that Herschel had drawn-up for us to make our way around the multi-board by, I was now approaching three-quarters of the way around the whole table, while he was still relatively back near the start. On the one hand I could buy-up all these properties before he came along and landed on them. However on the other, it wouldn't be that long before I passed the first Go square again and began to potentially land on his properties.

However I was completely innocent of my much bigger problem. As we had arranged all the Go squares along the circumference of the multi-board, I was now only 14 squares into a huge 94-square stretch... with NO Go squares! For the next 80 squares – that's the equivalent of two full times around a normal board – I would have next to no income. Yes, I would be living on faith again.

Throwing the dice again (after my second double remember) I landed on Strand, took the initiative, and bought it anyway!

Herschel rolled a Yo-leven and entered the Republic Of Singapore, landing on City Hall monorail station, and it was at this point that Monopolopoly's major lesson was grimly learnt. Singapore has a weak exchange rate with London, New Zealand, the US and the Star Wars galaxy. As a result, all the figures in the Singapore set had been multiplied by ten. That's right – to just buy the monorail staion cost a whopping $2,000. Herschel, realising that his lifelong dream of owning a monorail station was beyond him, passed the dice back to me in glum silence. "Tough clowd..."

And I couldn't argue. Entering Singapore with another 11, I also declined to buy Arab Street at $2,200.

Herschel threw a third Yo and turned-down Orchard Road at the same price as the monorail.

Then I threw a Hard Six. Singapore Zoo, $2,600. Nup.

This game was no fun anymore, and we hadn't even been round the board once yet.

Then I threw again, scoring 8, and crossed-over onto... the STAR WARS board! Here X-Wing Fighters were going for a v-wing at just 200 credits. Well, I flew home a bargain, obviously.

Herschel too was crossing borders. An Ace-Deuce saw the NZIS granting him a Long-Term Business Visa onto the NEW ZEALAND board, snapping-up Dee Street for $300 NZ! Sweet.

Then I threw a Big Red, reached the far end of the multi-board, and made my first mistake. Turning the corner, I landed on the Endor Shield Generator. But as Herschel pointed-out between puffs on his chocolate-stick, I should actually have u-turned and started making my way back again on the BATMAN AND ROBIN board. (based on the 1997 film of the same name) I was in fact on Alfred's Pantry, which I immediately bought for $220.

The National Average saw Herschel snapping-up Lambton Quay.

Then I threw another 7 and invested in Gotham City's second utility.

And here we realised just how much playing Monopolyopoly showed-up the deficiencies in apathetically-designed movie spin-off variants of the game:

The 'utility' squares are supposed to feature public services that all citizens need. Hence, in classic versions of Monopoly those two squares are traditionally the Electric Company and the Water Works. But in the lazily put-together Batman And Robin version? It's the Ice Cream Factory. I ask you. No wonder everyone in Gotham is always so hyper.

And so it went on...

Seven rolls later, Herschel purchased Dr Woodrue's Lab, meaning that he had now purchased that same square on three different boards.

It wasn't long before he also had Taumaranui Station, which actually turned-out to be the first property that yielded an income.

With the game now well underway, Monopolyopoly turned-out to be a huge hit with both of us. At the outset, joining the six boards together had just been a bit of megalomaniacal fun, however the whole thing actually did develop into a distinctive game all of its very own.

So before I wrap-up, in an attempt to prepare you for your own Monopolyopoly event, I shall attempt to summarise the differences that we discovered between Monopolyopoly, and Monopoly:

1. The 94-square stretch with no Go square was humbling, more so because it also contained six Go To Jail squares. So we both became strategic, conserving our financial resources beforehand as though water for a trek through the desert. The fact that we both built hotels along there repeatedly resulted in a lot of mortgaging.

2. What is a "station"? The station cards quote different tarriffs depending upon the number of stations owned, but the Star Wars game had supplanted these with vehicles, the Reading one had rivers, and Singapore called its monorail stations "trains". And of course a train is a vehicle. In addition, some boards actually had stations as coloured properties on which you could build houses! I chose to be literal about this – when I owned four such properties, I often only charged as though I had three, because only three of them were actually stations.

Meanwhile, the X-Wing Fighter card that I had bought simply stated "If 2 are owned..." Two what? Two X-Wing Fighters? Two vehicles? Two elephants? Whaaat???

3. The size of the board was a challenge physically. Not only did we both utilise extended artificial claws to move pieces around (much like in a war room), but we had to civilly move each other's pieces depending upon their proximity to us, and be honest when telling each other where we had landed. At one point I thought Herschel had two houses on a property. However when I stood-up and walked-around for a closer "Google-Earth" view of it, I realised he actually had four.

4. The "Advance To ..." instructions could involve passing Go as many as eight times, yielding a potential $3,400. However not all cards said to actually advance...


There we go – "travel through hyperspace". I think that means travel the shortest possible distance across the middle of the board. My knowledge of physics is weak, but I didn't think that travelling through hyperspace would involve going the long way around the course.

5. With 240 squares to navigate, we never landed on the same square at the same time as each other.

6. With it costing $2,000 even to get out of jail in Singapore, it became smart to hang onto a Get Out Of Jail Free Card for use specifically on that board. (don't ask about the street repairs card)

And ultimately, once we had bought all the cheaper properties, several hours in, the game became all about starting to buy-up Singapore, and then sometimes quickly mortgaging it again. Herschel gave up at one point, conceding that he had lost, and we only kept on playing because I wanted the satisfaction of bankrupting him. But things turned, and it wasn't long before we were both mortgaging most of our cheaper properties to finance buying up the more lucrative Malaysian Island, each believing this to be the quickest route to ruining the other.

This was an interesting development to kick-in so late in the game, and who knows what other surprises Monopolyopoly might have had waiting for us, had we not eventually given-in and gone home?


That's right, eventually we both just called it a draw. In one sense, we were both winners. In a more accurate sense, we were both losers. After seven hours, with no end in sight, we both wanted sleep. Badly.

We were bloated with Monopoly. The game itself had emerged the victor.

I guess the only real winners were Waddingtons.

Next week: Chess. With Mouse Trap pieces.

Doctor Who: Planet Of The Ood

This is Doctor Who in all but name.

Ah, no, wait...

On an alien planet – yes, that's a real live alien planet sir – the Doctor and Donna encounter a subjugated alien race and set about freeing them.

In their last tale the Ood were just another crowd of zombies, but here they're treated as anything but. Although they have a shared consciousness, they're clearly individuals too, and the depth the story imbues such hideous-looking aliens with is lovely.

The Doctor forgets he has a sonic screwdriver, and the TARDIS' randomiser isn't really that random, (nothing new there then) but the story is fine, and it's actually disappointing that its message about modern-day slavery isn't driven-home a bit more, but I guess that would have spoilt it.

Where have all the bees gone? The B-scripts I mean.

Signor Rossi: Herr Rossi sucht das Glück – Music by Franco Godi

My favourite CDs all seem to hold good memories for me, but this one is different for several reasons:

1. It's the soundtrack album of a foreign TV series that I only got to see half the episodes of. Twelve editions of The Fantastic Adventures Of Mr Rossi were made, but once I'd 'discovered' it, I only ever spotted eight of them in the UK TV listings. Mr Rossi and his dog have a special place in my heart.

2. The happy occasion in my life when I most remember listening to this album was while waiting for a bus opposite Pakuranga Plaza one evening last year. I didn't have the CD, or even a walkman, on me, but for some reason my subconscious chose that moment to replay snatches of the tracks through my head, and it was great to cheer-up in such a drab (I think rainy) scenario.

3. Most of this album is in Italian, although bits of it seem to be in Spanish, I'm not 100% certain. The incredibly well-organised production team seem to have recorded some of the tracks in several different languages for overseas sale. The opening theme-song is here in about four tongues, including English. It's a real credit to the CD's editor that the title-character's one line of spoken dialogue in this – "Just call me Rossi!" is included as spoken by each of the local actors who voiced him.

I guess the absence of words to narrow the tracks' meanings actually frees my interpretation of them. On the other hand, although I enjoy this album immensely, no matter how much I might wish to, I can't sing along to it. The songs remain slippery and beyond my ability to classify.

4. The music, in case it hadn't come across above, is quite simply wondrous. The innocent mixture of guitar and flute takes me back to serene childhood, but not in a condescending or insincere way. The vocal artists sound like they love the songs as much as I do, and while a few tracks are lonely, all of them are embracing.

Also, filling out the album, several pieces are reprised by presenting their composite tracks in isolation. For example, the underscore to the opening theme is a terrific Cuban-sounding number when heard sans all the lyrics.

5. Lastly, much of this is just plain silly. Think of the Muppets. Many of their songs were silly. But if you took away their lyrics, what would you be left with? Several songs on here feature the singers performing such numbers, but without any actual words from any language, and they get progressively more and more bonkers. Fish Song is as nonsensical as music comes.

As I lay on my bed listening to this joy-filled CD once more tonight, again and again the same two involuntary words brushed quietly past my lips.

"It's beautiful..."

(and still available for purchase here!)

Madagascar

Madagascar is very much a film of two halves.

The first half features the main characters attempting to escape from a New York zoo, and ultimately succeeding, although rather in spite of themselves. It tries quite hard to please, and is tough to keep up with, if nothing else just because so much of the dialogue gets garbled so quickly.

The second half is when the film really gets going though, as our heroes are washed-up on the island of the film's name, and get broken-in to their harsh natural habitats.

Although you might expect the toughest challenge here to be for the penguins, it's actually the lion and zebra characters who really wrestle with it, particularly when they find themselves wrestling each other.

Yes, Alex the lion has to make the awful choice between either dying of starvation, or eating his friends. It's both unfortunate and a little uncomfortable when this dilemma is eventually resolved by giving him fish to eat, in a world where all the animals can talk.

Outstanding though is the film's musical score. Right from the opening arrangement of Born Free which underpins the story, through to the penguins' funky music, this film sounds much better than its stylised animation looks. I could watch a whole 90 minute film about those penguins.

But then, I already have done...

(available here)
Related posts:

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
Merry Madagascar

Naked Gun 33⅓ - The Final Insult

Police Squad! (in color) is one of my favourite TV shows, however the longer movie series that followed it has always fallen a bit flat on me.

I guess with a whole 90 minutes to fill, gags take a bit longer to happen, although the same creators' earlier film Airplane! avoided that trap.

Although the first half of Naked Gun 33⅓ didn't do much for me, (being as it is quite rude, unlike the TV show) the second half is much cleverer. And the whole thing is absolutely crammed to bursting with slapstick and one-liners, which made me wonder just how much longer such a frantic pace could be maintained.

Leslie Nielsen gets to do several mute sequences, which lend themselves very well to both his deadpan expressions, and the genre's ridiculous extremeties.

One of the reasons why I've left it so many years before watching this movie is because, every time it's on TV, it's always billed for such a short running-time. That has always made it look as though it's been edited down for the telly. Actually it's quite a short film anyway, (only 83 minutes) although even with so many of the credits cut-out by nasty old Channel 4, it still feels like it's much longer. Of course it does – there's just so much packed in here.

All this, and Weird Al too!

It's a great return to form for the series' final (at present) episode.

Today's celebrity Bible-Reader is... Dunk the Weetabix

If you know what's good for you, you'll listen.

- Micah 6:9b (Message)

You Become What You Love

Israel, when I, the LORD,
found you long ago
it was like finding
grapes in a barren desert
or tender young figs.
Then you worshiped Baal Peor,
that disgusting idol,
and you became as disgusting
as the idol you loved.

- Hosea 9:10 (CEV)

Starship Troopers

Watched Starship Troopers this morning - really enjoyed that.

Unpretentious mindlessness. Three intelligent teenagers grow-up through a devastating intergalactic war, but never lose the clear-sightedness of youth. The friendship that endures despite all the differences that develop between them is solid stuff. No-one seems to suffer from a superiority complex due to their job, except those who begin the film already down there, and even they seem to mellow.

Plus there are tons of great effects. All this and Michael Ironside playing Michael Ironside as usual.

The tone of the news sketches that are sprinkled throughout the film made them feel as if they'd come from a different movie though, and that ending? Sorry, what happened? The climax when they finally capture the bug brain happened... off camera?

Boy, should they have filmed that scene first! ;)

(Starship Troopers 2 review here)
(Starship Troopers 3 review here)