Category Archives: film and tv

The Golden Compass

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After a pause the posts begin again. Time has been a bit crazy, both at work and at home.

Yesterday I went to see “The Golden Compass” at the movies.

The movie is based on the first novel in Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy “Northern Lights” – also known as “The Golden Compass”, a fantasy adventure story.

The orphan girl Lyra , played by Dakota Blue Richards , sets out to save a friend kidnapped by the Gobblers, something that happens frequently, the children never returning.

Since I have not (yet) read the novels, I can not compare the movie with that, this may come later. After all a movie is never the same as the book it may have been made from.

I liked the movie , found the story captivating. The spiritual (some may say religious) aspects of the film were well treated and came through with a good balance. just that you know – I distinguish between (organized) religion (dogmatic beliefs in texts) – and spirituality (wisdom coming from within – the soul ?)

From the creepy Christopher Lee – and Nicole Kidman for that matter, to the support characters it is well played, including the very young Dakota Blue Richards. Special effects are made to tell the story, not effects for the sake of effects, making the film a pleasure to watch.

The universe Pullman has created is rather different from ours – yet has so much in common.

Very recommended for young and old alike.

Second Hugo Award (2007) for Doctor Who

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Last year the Doctor Who series received a Hugo Award for the double episode “The Empty Child”/”The Doctor Dances” . The award was for the best short dramatic presentation (less than 90 minutes).
The episodes were written by Steven Moffat, and are among my favorites from the new Doctor Who series.

They have done it again …

This year’s Hugo award for the best short dramatic presentation was awarded the Doctor Who episode “The Girl in the Fireplace” – also writen by Steven Moffat – and also one of my personal favorites.

The same TV series receiving Hugo awards for two years in a row is quite rare – the last time I know of was when the “Babylon 5” series did that in the 90’s.

It will be interesting to see if The Doctor can make it to a third consecutive award….

You can find the complete list of Hugo winners 2007 here

Eurocon 2007

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The European Convention on Science Fiction and Fantasy takes place in Copenhagen on 21 – 23 September.

For me the most interesting guest of Honour is Anne McCaffrey. The “Dragonriders of Pern” series is one of my favorite SciFi book series, well written and with an interesting plot.
The first book of the series ,”Dragonflight” was published in 1968 , and since then a steady flow of sequels (and prequels) have come out.

You can find out more at their website Eurocon 2007

If I can find the time (and an Internet connection) I might make a few posts during the days of the Eurocon

Babylon Podcast – “The Lost Tales”

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The Babylon Podcast is having a Party in the month of August.

Due to the release of the first direct-to-DVD “Babylon 5 – The Lost Tales” (TLT) the whole month is dedicated to TLT. Starting on 8. August there was an interview with Bruce Boxleitner who played President Sheridan in the second episode of the DVD.

Following later will be interviews with Tracy Scoggins who played Colonel Lochley in the first episode – and Peter Woodward as the technomage Galen in the second episode.

Who knows – maybe we will get more insider interviews from the TLT cast and crew.

Books to read, DVDs to get

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Just got the “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” book and have started reading. Travelling a bit, so not that much time to finish it, but what I have read so far is promising.

In my book “queue” I also have some Babylon 5 books , the three trilogies :
Centauri
Technomage
Psi Core
and a few single books like “To Dream in the City of Sorrows”

Next on my list is getting the new “Babylon 5 – The Lost Tales” (TLT) on DVD. The official release in the US is 31 July , in Europe (Region 2) it is some time in September – I do not like the “regionalisation” of DVDs , spoilers are all over the place as soon as the DVD is release in just one place. This tempts many people to download the films (etc), even if they will buy the film in any case. I will buy it, but the delay is *very* annoying.

It looks like “The Babylon Podcast” will make August this year a “TLT” month, so spoilers are almost inevitable.

Edit (14 August) :The Babylon Podcast is indeed making August the month of “The Lost Tales” Last Wednesday they had an interview with Bruce Boxleitner (President Sheridan), and interviews with Tracy Scoggins (Colonel Lochley) and Peter Woodward (Techmomage Galen)

Fantastic Four : Rise of the Silver Surfer

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A movie based on the Marvel comic “Fantastic Four”

I went to see the movie today with some friends. *No Spoilers*

An unknown force (The Silver Surfer) arrives to Earth, threatening to destroy all life on the planet.

In my view, this movie comes out better than the first one. Lots of fun moments as I remember them from the comic, including the teasing and rivalry in the “family”. I loved the cameo appearance of Stan Lee. While I know many of the hardcore fans of the comic will be disappointed with the depiction of Galactus, to me it worked quite well on the big screen.

While the story may not be very subtle (after all it has its origin in a comic book) I found the unfolding fine – not dragging too long, actually the movie is relatively short. Still, one nice aspect, it is about having a choice , even at times you think that you do not.

Very nice special effects in creating the Silver Surfer

I would recommend go seeing it, even if you are a fan of the comics, in my book I would rate it 4/5.

PS. I have heard that the Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Stracynski is working on the script for a Silver Surfer movie, sounds interesting.

The SciFi Smackdown Podcast

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A podcast with people having fun comparing similar aspects of different Science Fiction stories.

Their very first episode had a match between the Battlestar Galactica and the Enterprise. Follow the debate about differences, advantages and disadvantages of the two flagships.

Each episode is followed by a voicemail show or two with listener feedback of the match.

Episode 2: Captain America vs Batman

Episode 3: Heroes vs. X-men This time with another approach: The smackdown is played out as a role playing game match, playing over a few podcasts.Very Entertaining.

Episode 4: second part of the Heroes vs. X-men

Episode 5: X-wings (from StarWars) vs Starfuries (from Babylon 5). This time with a guest participant known from the Babylon Podcast – since they wanted a knowledgeable representative for the Starfuries. Yet another approach : The “combattants” are to make a sales pitch for their respective fighter. Their guest made quite a pitch for the Starfuries.

Link : Scifi Smackdown Podcast

Heroes on Dutch TV

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I have been watching the first two episodes of the “Heroes” series , “Genesis” and “Don’t Look Back”.

This looks promising, I must say , but will wait a few more episodes and see where this leads.

In the first two episodes we meet people from all over the world, discovering that they have unusual abilities, such as flying (levitating), controlling time and telepathy, as well as a professor (and his son) studying genetics and predicting that some people will develop those abilities – and what looks like a peek into a disaster in the future

The Babylon Podcast

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The Babylon Podcast is a podcast dedicated to the TV series “Babylon 5” created by Joe Michael Straczynski (also known as JMS).

In this the hosts Summer Brooks and Tim Callender (two dedicated fans) and Jeffrey Willerth (producer on the series) deal with news about the series, have interviews with people relating to the series – cast, crew, authors etc as well as (in many of the podcasts) deal with a specific episode of the series, a section of the podcast dubbed “Deep Geeking”, where the episode is analyzed, and they talk about what worked for them or not etc., and finally a voice mail section.

I have been following the podcast since September last year, when I got started in a big way listening to podcasts, and was very happy to find this one. Having some time at hand, I spent two weeks listening to the preceding 42 (one hour long) podcasts in order to get up to date.

They also record live every Wednesday evening at 18 pm Phoenix Arizona time, rather inconvenient for Western Europeans (3 am), but sometimes well worth it.
Simultaneously they have an IRC chat running, so live feed listeners can comment live. Find all info about the live feed on their website (link : Listen Live). The live feed is , of course unedited so if you join in, you get bloopers, banter and all – can be very entertaining.

Their latest show #69, released last week, was a little different : Members of the chatroom were invited to call in and contribute – they had 3 contributions, and I participated in the second section.

Today I (re)watched the final episode of Babylon 5, Season 2, “The Fall of Night” . the subject of this Wednesday’s “Deep Geeking”.

Link : Babylon Podcast