Recent Viewing Part IV

Doesn't the Doctor regenerate into a new person anyway? Also, haven't they had female hero figures in the show already? And is the preemptive "people will hate this" a bigger deal than people actually hating this?

I'd wait with a black James Bond for a few installments though. Had it been right after Brosnan, that'd be totally fine, but the Craig series essentially rebooted the franchise. So we just had the whole backstory of who James Bond is and suddenly they'd have to explain it again. Not that it hasn't been done yet (I'm looking at you, Spider-Man), but still.

I completely, completely agree. You can't be a progressive without problems, so when problems run out, it's time to create some!

Ian Fleming added the Scottish bit to his later novels after being impressed by Connery as Bond.

If I remember correctly Fleming died just before the 3rd film, Goldfinger was released.

Roger McMoore

The Mummy (2017)

What a load of bullocks. Where is the fun, where is the suspense, where is the coherent story-telling. Oh yeah wait, this is the new Hollywood we're talking about. Lots and lots of CGI overload, cardboard characters and very little substance plot-wise. One of Tom Cruise's worst starring projects. Not sure what he was using when he signed for this, but to go from Born on the Fourth of July to this crappy adventure film (minus the adventure) is a mystery to me. I mean the man truly rocks on the Mission Impossible flicks, but here every scene he's in is wasted. I blame it on Alex Kurtzman's piss-poor direction. And even if Cruise does his own stunts here, there's nothing stunt-worthy to even talk about because every action scene is a big mess.

And yeah, Brian Tyler still doesn't know how to compose a decent adventure score. I heard NOTHING of worth, and I went in unbiased as I forgot who did the score for this film. That's how much he is on my radar. Only about an hour into the film I remembered Southall giving this a glowing review. From me it gets an appalling rating, but what else was to be expected?

Yeah he is, he mostly know to elevate a film he's in, by his presence alone. He's a rock-solid actor who knows what he's doing. Not so much with The Mummy though...

For his best performance will always be for BOT4OJ. As oscar-worthy as they come. But his performance was helped of course by Stone's flawless direction and the supporting cast (especially the whole 'erect penis' scene with his parents). I get chills just thinking about that.

Another seal of approval from Thor thanks to the Inverse Thor Law. It really is the best film of the year.

Ha, then we nearly saw it at the same time. I'm a lot kinder. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the weak link if you ask me, but I did expect more from this in the intellectual department (it's there, but underdeveloped and not really any new ideas - though there's more going on between the lines). Kudos for not going into the cliche route of full on warfare in the third film but actually telling a story (these films keep surprising me how odd they are in combining warfare and tragedy and CG characters in big, expensive studio films), amazing effects during close-upd, heartbreaking moments (apart from some schmaltz) and especially Steve Zahn's character was great. I love Giacchino's work on these films, but was hoping a bit more from the score in-film this time around.

The one part of the score I thought didn't work in film was that Morricone-cribbed "travel" theme. Stood out like a sore thumb, and not in a good way, like the tone was a total mismatch for the film. The rest was fine.

OH NO! I KNEW THERE WAS A REASON I SHOULD'VE TAKEN THAT JOB IN LONDON EARLIER THIS YEAR AND THIS IS IT! BBC 4 is blocked in my Dutch television package .

And of course the BBC player is not accessible from Germany without doing some IP mumbo jumbo that I don't care about. I understand the EU is working on making those players accessible throughout the EU. But than those farce Brexit-EU talks are going to bust any day now and then that will be it for watching BBC 4 in Germany.

The "introduction" conversation between Cumberbatch and Mikkelsen stole the show for me. I think that's the best humor in a Marvel film there. This, Wong and the wi-fi password.