By Snape's Hammer

7/30/2011

I finally got to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 and it blew away all expectations. But that opinion will have to wait for another time. It's late and before I fall asleep, and before I forget, I have to mention something that happened in the theater. There was a scene in the dining hall where Snape, the new headmaster, is about to address the students. He's standing there silent and imposing, then my brother leans over to whisper in my ear, "By Grabthar's hammer..." Well, I almost had the giggle fits during all this seriousness. If you don't know why, you owe it to yourself to watch Galaxy Quest. Excellent movie, and Rickman is so funny in it.

Favorite Alan Rickman line in the movie. He's just so unenthusiastic and seething with self-loathing that I laugh every time like it's the first time I'm seeing it. In the 10 anniversary DVD extra Never Give Up. Never Surrender: The Intrepid Crew of the NSEA Protector he said, "That was tough, to get that line out without laughing." I can imagine.

Here's more hiliarious Rickman in panic mode. He can even make leaning over a chair funny. It's also an introduction to most of the rest of the excellent cast (Tony Shalhoub, Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Daryl Mitchell) and their lives after TV fame, relegated to the convention circuit.


This is my favorite scene in the movie. There are seven people here and they all get in on a string of great lines, particularly Teb with "...and it exploded."

Bam! Fright Night Looks to Be a Lot of Fun

7/25/2011

I was going to write a little something about this days ago when I first saw the new trailer, but instead I...um...didn't. I hope Fright Night is really good, if only for the fact that it could make David Tennant a household name here in America for more than just Doctor Who fans. It seems like he has a great part. I've never seen the original, but the great commercials for this new version and the praise I've read for Roddy McDowall's Peter Vincent - such as in this quite excellent review - really make me want to.


I'm happy I didn't get a chance to finish this before, because I got to see a new clip yesterday! Should have seen it on Saturday, but I was busy finding shoes to match my bridesmaid dress. I went to four stores, and three were missing half their stock, and what was left was total crap!  But that's a bit off topic. Please watch and enjoy. I'm going just for this, by myself if I have to.

Doctor Who
The Doctor's Moments ~ Funny
Series Scenes

7/21/2011

Just as an introduction, this started life as "I Still Miss David Tennant...," but it got way out of control. It was a few days before the mid-season finale of Series 6 in America, and I had inspiration (from an earlier Fringe post) to find videos that would showcase the personalities and emotions of the last two Doctors and the talent of the actors. Why just the last two? Well, it would just be ridiculously difficult to do all of them, and this was going to be about how I still miss Tennant but that Matt Smith is a tremendous replacement.

Well, because of the way some videos are named, and the fact that not every scene I originally wanted had been uploaded, it could take hours just to find one that fit what I had in mind. Over the weeks I was distracted with discovering many other videos that I needed to figure out how to use. It seemed like it would never end. The little post became an unwieldy beast that had to be divided to be conquered.

SUPERNATURAL
The Antichrist is Not on SPN
Random Weirdness

7/17/2011

Well, I hadn't planned on writing anything, but I just could not pass up mentioning this incredible bit of silliness I read about yesterday. You must have heard by now that someone posed their suspicion that Misha Collins is the antichrist at Yahoo! Answers. I wonder if this was just a tasteless joke or a sad ploy for a few minutes of attention or if the asker need a serious mental checkup.

Some people need to come back to the real world. Yes, Misha is charming and popular, and he co-created a charity, Random Acts, that he actively participates in. To any normal person, this would mean that he has a kind and generous heart not a supernatural ulterior motive. Of course, there's no convincing crazy, because those very things are what make Misha suspicious to them. Reading the whackadoodle thoughts of a person who would actually use the word "Antichrist" in all seriousness to describe someone they don't know personally who has only shown a great personality and radiates warmth and kindness is quite concerning and confounding.

Here's the original question at IMoG World. It also includes three responses, by the poster and a supporter, to the deluge of deservedly negative comments. I wish someone had captured those. I saw a few screenshots of the post. One of them was from _ellygraytw.

If you are sane, and you'd like to see the real Misha, you can read this article from someone who participaed in the charity's Haiti trip. There's also a short TV Guide interview with a five-minute video promoting Random Acts and his upcoming fundraising run in September 2010. The results of that, in a short article at EndOfShow.com were 83 kilometers run and over $100,000 raised. So Misha's heart was literally beating for his charity. Yup, you can't get more evil than that.

If you now feel you need more of this great guy, the easiest thing would be to follow him on Twitter and watch Supernatural.

David Tennant
The Interviews #1
Articles and Videos

7/16/2011

I've been gathering interviews, audio clips, and articles about my favorite people for years. Why not share them? There is no theme here for the first Interviews post. I just read, listened to, and watched these in the last two days, and they were all interesting.

Random Geeky Thoughts About Random Geeky Things... // A scan of the Fright Night interview in HorrorHound Magazine, "The Not Quite Fearless Vampire Killer" by Jessica Dwyer. The introduction says that the role of Peter Vincent "could only fall to an actor with the same level of talent, heart, genre cred, and just plain likeability [as Roddy McDowall]..." If that's what they were going for, then they couldn't have made a better choice. Hopefully the movie rises to his level.

BenjaminCook.net // An exclusive audio excerpt from the interview in Doctor Who Magazine 436 where David calls Nicholas Courtney a "lovely, warm, generous actor." I don't subscribe, so I can't get this issue, and it's not available nearby. I'll have to find it on eBay...or maybe someone will put a scan online, like the above.

This one's old, from 2007, so maybe you've seen it already. There are five parts, but I've only seen the one so far. I found this first at YouTube but forgot to watch until I came across David Tennant Treat 4 Today. Who doesn't want a daily dose of Tennant? I will be following.

If you'd like to see the other four videos, which include the rest of David's interview - and Amanda Holden, Michael Buble, and David Mitchell - just click through.

A Man For All Seasons

7/11/2011

"Queen and country safe and sound, with villains six feet underground. 
And no one knows 'cause no one's found any trace of a man for all seasons. Loves 'em and leaves 'em alone. So alone."

I heard the Johnny English theme song by Robbie Willams the other day and realized I haven't seen the movie in a very long time. A few minutes later I went to GetGlue to rate it as a favorite and saw Johnny English Reborn. Are you kidding me? I had no clue. Rowan Atkinson is reliably funny and lovably goofy, and I loved the trailer.

The movie is out in August in Thailand; then Hong Kong, Hungary, Singapore, Canada, Italy, Norway, and Spain in September; and Portugal, Germany, Ireland, UK, Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, and France in October. Looks like it won't be in the US, so I'll have to wait for the Blu-ray. Waiting sucks.

Doctor Who
I Still Miss David Tennant, But...
A Matt Smith Appreciation Post

7/06/2011

Matt Smith is terrific as The Doctor and has picked up the pieces of me that David Tennant - and John Noble from Fringe, Jensen Ackles from Supernatural, and Nathan Fillion from Firefly and Castle - left behind. Smith is exuberant and adorable and has a firm grasp on the depth of the character, seemingly on par with Tennant already. I'm hardly ever so impressed with someone so quickly, except for the above mentioned people and a few others, such as Robert Downey Jr.

Tennant's portrayal was tragic and joyous, kind and vengeful, humble and know-it-all arrogant. He invested his whole heart in such a beautiful, fearless way, making the character and stories feel real and relatable. It seems that Smith has the same level of talent. Hopefully, he'll be with us just as long as the last Doctor, if not longer, the delay into 2013 notwithstanding.

By the way, how awesome is it that DT is in Fright Night? In an ideal world it would be as good as he deserves and he would have a satisfying amount of screen time, which is asking a lot. I probably won't get much for my $10, but I'll be happy to pay it.