Ten Statements About....GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (2014)

Cue the late 70's pop rock....

“Why would you want to save the galaxy?"
“Because I'm one of the idiots who lives in it!”

1) It is kinda refreshing to have a movie that takes place in the Marvel Universe that is standalone.  While there are tiny connectors to the other films (primarily the presence of Thanos and The Collector), someone not interested in the Cinematic Universe could watch it and have a satisfying experience.

2) I’m surprised at how well Chris Pratt carries this film.  He sets the tone of the film, balances out a number of other characters with diametrically opposite genre traditions and keeps the plot driving forward.  It’s a rather remarkable performance.

3) I wonder if Vin Diesel had flashbacks to The Chronicles of Riddick when dealing with Ronan’s ‘NecroCorps’ and all.

4) But while we’re on the subject of Ronan...he comes off kinda weak as a villain, boasting and posturing until he gets the Holy MacGuffin of the film.  Hell, one could argue that the real villain is The Holy MacGuffin, which is responsible for giving Ronan the ability to do what he wants to do.

Yep...would still hit that...

5) For a change, director and co-writer James Gunn gives us a solid reason for the mostly classic pop soundtrack, and even gives us a solid reason why Peter is obsessed with that era of music.  Okay, it never explains why the most delicate music delivery system in history survived 26 years of interstellar travel, let alone how Quill finds batteries, but....shrug.

6) My problem with Zoe Saldana’s Gamora isn’t that you’ve got a stick insect playing a character who’s supposed to be softer featured, uncommonly tall and uncommonly curvy (okay, maybe it’s a small part), but the fact that there’s nothing that makes me feel she’s this hardcore assassin, let alone one of the most dangerous beings in the cosmos. Yeah, she does a lot of kicky do’s but the sense of this great face turn is blunted.  That being said....

He's not just an Elder of The Universe...he's fancy.

7) I do appreciate that, while there is chemistry between Saldana and Pratt, Gunn stays true to Gamora’s statement that she will not be one of his conquests.  Thus their developing friendship seems genuine while hinting at the possibility of something more.

8) Okay, we get that Benicio delToro’s Collector is Designated Expository Man, there only to give us the lowdown on The Holy MacGuffin...but damn if he isn’t fun.  From his admonishing his servant to use her elbows lest she meet the fate of the previous assistant to the end credits stinger (which featured the single most surprising character ever to appear in a Cinematic Universe film), he is a joy to watch.

"Behold my Holy MacGuffin Supercharged Hammer!"

9) Even with what looks like a skid mark on her face, blue skin and no hair, Karen Gillen is still hot.

10) I give Gunn a lot of credit for making sure the humor is fully integrated into the adventure and feels nature.  Everyone takes their turn as comic relief, and when we think the character is being treated too much as a joke, Gunn and cowriter Nicole Perlman slip in a moment of pathos like Bradley Cooper’s Rocket's drunken breakdown.

Overall...as someone who does not care for space opera, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.  By focusing just as much on characters as on spectacle, Gunn succeeds in creating the pulp science fiction film he claimed he wanted to make.

Ten Statements About DOCTOR WHO CHRISTMAS SPECIAL 2011: THE DOCTOR, THE WIDOW AND THE WARDROBE (2011)

"It's a glowing, pulsating package...what's to be afraid of in
a glowing, pulsating package?"

"Are you the new caretaker?"

"Usually called The Doctor, or The Caretaker, or Get Off This Planet...though, strictly speaking, that probably isn't a name."

1) Wow....no mincing around with this special, is there? Let's just chase Matt Smith around a disintegrating starship then toss him off it, why don't we?

2) Right off the top, I appreciate that Moffat has chosen to make this special a showcase for Smith's talent for physical comedy. Whether stumbling about in a spacesuit with its helmet on backwards or bounding around the superhouse he's created for the Family Arwell, Smith excells--and looks like he's having a ball doing every single stunt.

3) As opposed to Russell T. Davies, who just created episodes writ large that just happened to have a Christmas Tree in the background, Moffat seems to be using the Christmas Specials to both illuminate other aspects of this Doctor's personality by giving him problems he can't just speechify away and explore actual perceptions about the holiday season. Setting this at a very particular time in England's history gives him the chance to deal with the darker side of the Christmas Season (It does play host to the highest suicide rate of the year, after all) which gives some of the broader comedy bits a bittersweet patina.

I also respect that giving the Doctor de facto new companions who wouldn't work on a weekly basis like Madge Arwell allows us to see a different Doctor than we do in the regular series.

4) At the center of this episode is Claire Skinner's performance as Madge, and she is able to add a great deal of nuance and subtley to a character that could've been all string-pull-y and manipulative of the audiences' emotions. There's a definite sense of a before-and-after life for her and her children with helps build the veracity of the story.

Yep...it seems Britian can't forget A Christmas Story either...

5) Okay, Stephen Moffat, be honest--you cast Maurice Cole because he looks so damn much like that kid from A Christmas Story, right? Right?

6) I don't know why, but I love the interplay between our three soldiers. Bill Bailey, Arabella Weir and Paul Bazely have wonderful comic timing--and you understand what each of these characters is about just from their initial exchange.

7) I love how the Moffat Christmas Specials show the Doctor affecting positive change both personal and universal--Hell, here we get him helping Madge save an entire race while also getting her to cope with the death of her husband....

8) ...or so we think. And the genius of Moffat is that we suspect that's where we going very, very early on (pretty much from the first moment that the Arwell father's death is mentioned)--but when it happens, it happens in a thoroughly logical way...and it's not The Doctor's hand, but Madge's that creates this Christmas miracle.

Put all your Doctor/Woodie jokes in here...

9) Claire Skinner scolding the Doctor into going and visiting Rory and Amy? Brilliant. Utterly brilliant.

10) Is it just me, or has Karen Gillen gained a bit of weight? If so....damn, it looks good on her, and we all know what I thought of her before...

Overall...I have to agree with the common feeling that this is a lesser entry than last year, but I'll still take this over any of Davies' specials

Ten Statements About....DOCTOR WHO SEASON SIX, EPISODE TEN: The Girl Who Waited (2011)

It's not the lackluster robot that's the center of this episode,
but the man it's laying its hand on...

"I got old, Rory. What did you think was going to happen?"

"HEY--I don't care that you got old. I care that we didn't grow old together."

1) You'll notice that at this point on their journey, Amy has consistently reached out to Rory...and it's Rory that she entreats to save her--and it makes sense here, since this story is about them (which is fortunate, given how I suspect this is the Second Unit episode).

2) As someone who really, really hates needles, the 'secondary delivery system' of the handbot is pure nightmare fuel.

Believe it or not, this leads to one of the most wonderful
moments of this episode.

3) Wow...the moment when we see how Red Waterfall works is wondrous--which is something we missed these last few episodes.

4) I know there are a lot of people who give Karen Gillen flack for her performance as Amy Pond, and I suspect many of them write her off as another actress who was hired for her looks and not her abilities. I hope that this episode shuts those people up, because I think we really see how deep those abilities are when we are exposed to Red Waterfall Amy.

5) See, I'm wondering more where did Red Waterfall Amy get a samurai sword, and how did she learn how to use it. Sod the Sonic Probe.

6) The real brilliance of this is that it should have been titled 'Rory's Choice.' This episode represents the flip side of the usual situation this couple finds itself in--it's Amy who suffers the tragic fate, it's Amy who dies (metaphorically and, in one case, physically), and it's Rory who has to make the decisions that will map out Amy's fate.

7) This is what these Second Unit show should be about--taking a single character and illuminating them fully. Now the Davies Second Unit episodes tended to illuminate original characters (and this is not a knock at Davies, for the Second Unit Episodes did give us the awesomeness that is Sally Sparrow)...but I like how Moffat, in this episode and last season's 'The Lodger' has used them to create a depth for his main characters. I understand what makes Rory and Amy tick a lot more than I ever understood what makes Rose or Martha tick because I've walked inside their heads for forty-five minutes.

So what's scarier than Amy with a samurai sword?  Well....

8) Yeah, I'll admit...I wish I had a woman promise to tear apart time for me.

9) I sincerely hope this episode will finally shut up all the idjits who have accused Rory and Amy of being Mickey and Rose Light. I'm sorry, but Mickey was never anything more than a convenience to Rose, and there is a real, true and solid love between Rory and Amy, ably facilitated by the chemistry and the skill of Darvill and Gillen.

10) And now we've got another reason why Rory is simply one of the best companions in the history of the show--not only is it clear that Rory loves Amy unconditionally, whether she's Now-Time Amy or Red Waterfall Amy, not only does he always try to find the non-violent way out...he calls the Doctor on his own bullshit when he realizes what making the choice he's asked to make will do to him. I love this character, and I love how Arthur Darvill has brought him so vividly to life.

In short...easily my favorite episode of this season so far, and among my favorite episodes of the rebooted show thanks the the outstanding performances by Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillen.

Ten Statements About....DOCTOR WHO SEASON SIX, EPISODE NINE: Night Terrors (2011)

When you try to make something ordinary into something
monstrous, sometimes you get the Weeping Angels, and
sometimes..sometimes you get The Paper Mache' Heads...

"I've come a long way to get here, Alex, a very long way. George sent a message, a distress call if you'd like. Whatever's inside that cupboard is so terrible, so powerful that it amplified the fears of an ordinary little boy across all the barriers of time and space...through crimson stars and silent stars and tumbling nebulas like oceans set on fire, through empires of glass and civilizations of pure thought and a whole terrible, wonderful universe of impossibilities You see these eyes? They're old eyes...and one thing I can tell you, Alex. Monsters are real."

1) I'm three minutes in and I've got this real nagging feeling that Mark Gatiss is about to tell me how much he liked the Poltergeist movies for forty minutes.

2) That being said...I like how Gatiss has effectively split up the crew, so that we get the Doctor doing Doctor stuff, and some well-needed Ponds one-on-one time. It's the first time in a while we've gotten some extended interaction between Amy and Rory alone where they're not running and screaming, and this provides some essential reminders of why they're a couple.

3) Once again I marvel at Matt Smith as an actor. The way he's trying, really trying to reign in his impulses around little George to provide an example for him is wonderful. And unlike David Tennant, his physicality is natural and seems to come from his thought processes, not all twitches and tics and twinges and shouty voices like Tennant.

4) Jamie Oran is not great shakes as a young actor--his George is a bit on the whiny side and pretty expressionless, innit?--but there is a definite chemistry between him and Smith, which enables the story flow pretty handily.

"For the last time, Doctor, my name is not Alex!"

5) I do rather like Daniel Mays as Alex, even if he is cut from the same cloth as Craig from last season's 'The Lodger'...and like Craig, he becomes a defacto companion for this one, strange adventure, grounding us in reality.

6) ...and that might be at the core of why this episode never gets higher than okay. It's one of those entries in the series that seems composed of elements cobbled together and repurposed from other episodes--a little SF craziness in a blue collar setting from 'The Lodger,' a little child being plagued by strangeness from 'The Eleventh Hour' and/or 'The Girl In The Fireplace,' the old house that's occupied by Something That Shouldn't Be There from 'Day Of The Moon,' the creatures that seem to convert others into mockeries of themselves like 'An Empty Child,' the child that unwittingly releases horror on those around them like 'Fear Her,' etc. It's a bit of moving the deck chairs in an attempt to give us a breather between acts--and also to give Smith, Gillen and Darvill some time to reclaim center stage after being observers in Moffat's River Song story of the last few episodes.

7) Okay, I stand corrected...this isn't Mark Gatiss telling us he loves the Poltergiest films; it's Mark Gatiss telling us how he loves the old Twlight Zone episode 'It's a Good Life,' with some Poltergeist love thrown in for flavoring.

8) I'm surprised, given how much stuff Rory and Amy have been through in their time with the Doctor, that they didn't notice that the thing they were using to block the door is a Big Honking Spool of Thread.

Prolly the funniest moment in the episode, ladies and
gentlemen...

9) Once again...the joys of watching Gillen and Darvill interact is how they can say with three words and a little body language what other actors would take a whole scene to say. And the joy of Moffat as a producer is how he allows them to do that without hitting us over the head with extra exposition (I'm looking at you, Davies).

10) While I've marveled in the past at Moffat's talent for plotting everything out to the ultimate degree, I wonder if we really needed that little sing song stinger at the end to remind us that we've got only four more episodes to deal with the whole Lake Silencio thread started in 'The Impossible Astronaut.'

In short...I understand why this episode exists, to give us a breather before we pick up the overarc (especially given how it looks like next episode, 'The Girl Who Waited,' is going to be this season's Second Unit Episode)...but much like similar place setters like Season Two's 'Fear Her' and 'Love and Monsters,' it's sorta inconsequential. Being a big ol' jambalaya of elements from previous episodes didn't help much, either.

Ten Statements About....DOCTOR WHO SEASON SIX, EPISODE EIGHT: Let's Hill Hitler! (2011)

This isn't what it looks like..no, really...

"Okay, I am trapped inside a giant robot replica of my wife. I will try not to see that as a metaphor."

1) Okay, I know we're only four minutes in--but upon seeing Nina Toussaint-White literally bursting in on the episode proclaiming herself Mels, my first two thoughts were, 'it's teenage-to-young-adult Melody somehow insinuating herself into her parents' life without them knowing,' and 'God, please don't let this version of River Song become a companion next year.' Yes, there's a whole Leela/Ace/that cat burglar from the McCoy-Season-That-Wasn't vibe to her, but I can see her and her attempts to imitate Alex Kingston wearing on me quickly.

2) Young Amy Pond? Still seriously charming. Young Mels? Not so much. Even if I sort of liked how Moffat uses this to fill in some of the history of Amy and Rory, and shows us how Rory wasn't a fallback guy at any point, that there was an attraction there all along that wasn't acted on due to a misunderstanding.

3) And once again, I love how Rory may wield a weapon of death, but he never actually uses it. Confronted with Hitler (oh, comon'...it says it right on the tin), his tendencies to be a caregiver and not a destroyer take precedence. He may have been weaponized, but it doesn't matter if he never actually draws his weapon...and that's why he's so freakin' cool.

"Let's wrap this up quick--we're due to inhabit Eddie Murphy
in ten minutes."

4) I know Moffat is taking this spacecraft-in-human form in a different direction, but I just can't get visions of the Eddie Murphy flop-o-rama Meet Dave out of my head.

5) On one hand--and I've said this before--I really don't like how Regeneration always happens in this same 'look-there's-sparklies-now-my-extremities-are-explodey' sort of way in the new series. On the other, I took some delight in watching Matt Smith reacting to seeing another person regenerate...he seems shocked and ill-at-ease, as if he's wondering, 'Is this how other people see me?'

6) I should mention I've changed the opening quote for this entry several times so far. This really is one of the most quotable episodes of Moffat's rein, all chock full of fun lines that are as entertaining to hear as they are to say.

7) It's interesting how Moffat is utilizing some of the threads of Davies' era--using the whole 'hour-or-so-grace-period-after-a-regeneration' as a way out of a jam worked very well, and the shout backs to the Davies companions without letting them overpower the narrative also worked...although I wonder why he didn't go for a pre-reboot companion; surely there's a couple of people he didn't fuck with in those years, right? Right?

(and yeah, I can see the reason why he has guilt over Martha. He used her for an entire year without being sensitive to what she wanted or needed--or at least what Russell T. Davies forced her to want or need after episode three--which is a pretty good reason for being guilty, right?...)

(Oh, and since I haven't said it in a while...fuck y'all Russell T. Davies.)

Shut up, she's...no, on second thought this is nightmare
fuel....

8) What interesting to me about the revelations about The Silence in this episode is how there's now an implied relationship with those Headless Monk dudes from last episode...I'm thinking they're an order within the religion that is The Silence...because how can you speak without heads, right?.

9) So am I correct in assuming that by saving the Doctor that way, Moffat has set up a more logical way to sidestep the twelve regeneration limit for a Time Lord than Davies' simply declaring him immortal? 'Cause by my count, River still had nine regenerations (lives?) left.

Because if that's true, I like it.

10) Maybe it's me, but the ending seemed a little....well, off. Granted, I guess it's Moffat setting up the 'we're in for a ride this final half,' and I realize that this episode was more about River than anything else...but I expected a little more from Moffat.

In short....Well, it's more about River than anything else, innit? And while it answers some questions, I do have this slightly empty feeling that there are a whole bunch of loose ends left dangling in the aether. Of course, my impression might change as we move forward, but right now it's lots of fun bits surrounded by a pool of meh.

Ten Statements About....DOCTOR WHO SEASON SIX, EPISODE FOUR: The Doctor's Wife (2011)

When it's Ood...the episode's got to be Good!

"You gave me hope and then you took it away. That's enough to make anyone dangerous. God knows what it will do to me. Basically...RUN!"

1) Right from the start, Neil Gaiman starts pulling stuff out of the old toybox--not just the Time Lord EMS, but the idea of the TARDIS doing a little trip outside of space...I almost expected Matt Smith to utter the phrase I have been hoping for for a bit--i.e. 'We're entering E-Space.'

2) I see Gaiman liked Jekyll as well.....

3) I love the fact that Gaiman is willing to show us a Doctor Who, quite frankly, feels like he's out of his depth. I've been so used to the new version of The Doctor as some sort of all-knowing super-hero with all the right answers that having a Doctor who feels like he's beaten, who admits he doesn't know what to do before literally slapping himself, is wonderful.

4) The real gimmick of this show--and the thing from which the episode takes its name from--is a magnificent conceit that I'm surprised no one figured out. It's something that's been obvious ever since Russell T. Davies came up with his way of super-charging his Mary Sue character in "The Parting of The Ways"...and yet it took six seasons to explore it. It opens up a whole new bit of wonder, and it's a credit to Suranne Jones that she's able to embody this mad concept so well. And speaking of Ms. Jones....

"Don't be alarmed..but WE'RE IN YOUR HEAD!"

5) God, I love the way she interacts with Smith. The sparkage just flies between them like some insane emotional arc reactor, and I love how they bicker like the proverbial old married couple. They go through the equivalent of a full relationship without missing a blink....

6) I have said it before--I am a sucker for anything that happens, even partially, in real time.

7) Leave it to Neil Gaiman to find a way to write a Doctor Who script where running through corridors is an integral part of the script..and make it truly scary again.

8) I know you're all prolly tired of hearing me say it...but Arthur Darvill's Rory is the coolest. It's he who weathers House's assault, he who pulls Amy through, and he who continues to be the glue that keeps this show together.

She's cute...but she's gotta stop screaming ever episode...

9) Sadly, as much as I adore Karen Gillan...I'm beginning to worry that she's sliding into that most hated of Doctor Companion archetypes, The Girl School Screamer. This is the second time her primary role has been to be menaced in the last three episodes.

10) I am somewhat saddened that the older TARDIS console wasn't one of the Classic consoles...like the one from the final Hinchcliffe earlier.

In short....after the disappointment of last week, this is so far the highlight of the season--an example of what Who should be. Namely, mad ideas, crazy characters and lots of running around.  And it's so refreshingly free of the overarc stuff that's been bugging me this season.

Ten Statements About....DOCTOR WHO SEASON SIX, EPISODE THREE: CURSE OF THE BLACK SPOT (2011)

Shut Up!  She's cute... (And yes, I would shiver her
timbers...why'd you ask?)

"The Ship is cursed!"

"Yeah, right. Cursed. Is big with humans. Means bad things are happening but you can't be bothered to find an explanation."

1) PIRATE AMY! I'm totally in agreement with Rory here--Karen Gillen should dress as a pirate more often, and her kinda, sorta swashbucking is thoroughly coo'

(Incidentally....does Rory's comment put more fuel to the 'Amy and Rory Have A Cosplay Fetish' thing?)

2) One of the reasons I love Matt Smith as The Doctor is that he's managed to take many of the aspects of previous Doctors and blend them very subtlely. Many of his interactions in this episode have a very David Tennant feel to them...and yet, he reins in the Tennant manic-panic delivery so it doesn't grate on me as Tennant did after a while.

3) I love how quickly Hugh Bonneville's Avery is able to suss out the TARDIS after getting over the initial shock because, well...'a ship's a ship.' Thompson's script plays this character very, very smart--which he'd have to be, to survive as a ship's captain at that time...and I think the Doctor senses this, which is why he begins to defer to Avery after a bit. In that sense, Avery reminds me of Richard Mace, from one of my favorite Davison stories, The Visitation.

(Doesn't mean I am excited at the implied prospect I'll be seeing Avery and his crew again...)

"Can we hurry this up?  I'm due on the set of SPEED RACER II."

4) The twist at roughly the twenty minute mark regarding the method of travel for the Siren is pretty clever. Although they miss a potential prime scare moment about four minutes later.

5) The intrusion of the element from the overarc is just that...an intrusion. It's unnecessary, and the story would've flowed better without it.

6) I'm sorry...I tried. I really, really tried. But I just can't be scared of The Singing Green Christina Ricci....

7) Ahhhhhhh....so that throwaway line about a distress signal in the first act wasn't a throwaway line.

The search for the perfect Time Lord Hat continues...

8) So it turns out we're once more in the realm of what has become a New Who--the antagonistic thing that was not intended to be antagonistic. One that has been used at least twice by Moffat himself.

9) Rory IS THE MAN, and pretty much my favorite character on the TARDIS right now. That is all.

10) I am becoming more and more convinced that the 'Alternate Dimension Amy' theory I once developed to explain some of the discrepancies of last season (you know, before we learned that the bulk of it was all part of The Silent's Trap) is very much in play this season.

In short...a very, very minor episode. There are elements I like, but it's obvious to me that this is another walk in all-too-familiar territory, and the overarc stuff just disrupts the story flow. This has the potential of being the "Vampires of Venice" of this season...and if it is, then the season might still be on good footing. But on it's on...a big treasure sack of 'meh'.

Ten Statements--No, Eleven--About....DOCTOR WHO SEASON SIX, EPISODE ONE: THE IMPOSSIBLE ASTRONAUT (2011)

"Time isn't a straight line. It's all bumpy-wumpy. There's loads of boring stuff like Mondays and Tuesdays and" Thursday Afternoons. But now and then there are Saturdays, big temporal tipping points where anything's possible."

1) Matt Smith dancing with Laurel and Hardy? Win. Naked Matt Smith hiding under a woman's skirts...not so much...

2) There's something really, really wicked cool about the whole 'Getting The Band Back Together' feel of the pre-title teaser....and there's something even cooler about how the music sort of builds when everyone gets their invites...

3) YES! Arthur Darvill gets his just rewards by being top billed along with Matt and Karen...

The Doctor and Company welcome aboard that guy
from THE MATRIX, as played by Michael Ironside

4) ...and as proof that Arthur deserves above-the-title credit, look at how masterfully he handles the big shock at the ten minute mark...His Rory is obviously breaking up inside, but he is able to pull it all together in a snap and makes sure what The Doctor wanted done gets done. This is a fine actor, and may be the show's secret weapon this season.

5) Once again, we are asked to share Steven Moffat's love of twisting and contorting time lines...and once again, it's very clear that all this fooling around has a purpose, that he has a story to tell with a very clear end point somewhere down the line.

6) This version of The Matt Smith Doctor is a lot less bombastic...but it's clear that the anger that drove him throughout Season Five is still there, just transformed into something subtler--and scarier. And speaking of subtle...



"NO....YOU SUCK!"



7) Is it just me, or has Karen Gillen stepped up her game? The character is still recognizably Amy, but also recognizably more mature....it's obvious that Gillen is using the knowledge of her character's new status to give us a more nuanced, sober version of Amy.

8) The Silent...creepy little mouthed energy sucking things that you can only remember when you look at it straight on? In suits, no less? I'm sold.



Shut up...she's cute...

9) I like the younger Canton. It's like they decided that the perfect partner for this iteration of The Doctor was Michael Ironside--and much props for letting us in on something about Canton with the kind of subtlety Russell T. Davies wishes he could have pulled off. On the other hand, every time I looked at this episode's Nixon, I thought 'when did we elect John Cusack president?'

10) This may very well be my favorite River Song appearance to date...she's a lot more nuanced, and the true bond that seems to have grown between her an Amy (prolly growing out of a similar bonding between Alex Kingston and Karen Gillen) is natural and warm. And on top of that, we get the scene between her and Rory which suddenly throws a lot of her behavior into a sharp, cold light...and it's at turns both sad and terrifying.

11) Is that the same control module as we saw in "The Lodger" last season?

In short...this isn't as great a season opener as last year's in terms of spectacle--but it's a better in terms of character. The strengths of last season look to not have been abandoned, and The Silent may prove to be another in a long line of great Moffat monsters.