Stargate Universe has reached the midway point of its first season and will not return until April next year. Tenth episode Justice was a great way to finish the run as, for the first time in the shows brief run, it left the viewers wanting more.
Dec
07
Does anything say Christmas more than the whole family gathering together around the TV to watch a film? What’s that? You think it has something to do with the baby Jesus. No, it’s definitely the film thing and Sky Movies agree.
They’ve launched a special Christmas Movie channel appropriately called Sky Christmas. It can found at channel 303 on the Sky EPG. It’s showing a wide variety of movies from Holiday favourites like Home Alone to literary adaptations like Brideshead Revisited. There’s even a whole day of Star Trek movies. Festive!
There are of course plenty of family movies and it all culminates of Christmas day with a screening of The Muppet Christmas Carol.
Dec
06
You can find it here:
This looks very cool. Kick-Ass is the new movie from Matthew Vaughn based on the comic book by Mark Millar. Hopefully this film will be better than the incredibly mindless Wanted.
A young man takes inspiration from comic books decides to become a real-life superhero with all the consequences that happen with no powers. This is not Superman.
Director Vaughn made his debut with Daniel Craig gangster vehicle Layer Cake before taking on the fairytale world with the Princess Bride-style fairytale Stardust.
His attempt at the comic book film was independantly financed so there’s been no studio interference. Expect geeks to go mad for it in April 2010.
Sep
16
Veteran television writer Troy Kennedy Martin has died at the Age of 77. His impressive CV includes Z-Cars and The Italian Job but it is the atmospheric environmental thriller Edge of Darkness that is perhaps his finest work.
The six-part drama starring Bob Peck and Joanne Whalley was highly influential and perhaps only matched by Paul Abbot’s State of Play in terms of mini-series as art.
Martin Campbell’s film adaptation of the series starring Mel Gibson will be released in 2010.
Troy Kennedy Martin died of liver cancer.
Aug
09
In the UK we are lucky to get the best scripted dramas from the US. If one channel isn’t interested then there are plenty of competitors to pick them up. For example, Sky One began showing Nip/Tuck but then dropped it and it was picked up by F/X. Shows like Dexter and Medium get airplay on satellite channels F/X and Sci Fi respectively before screening on terrestrial channels. However, some shows slip through the net.
Aug
08
John Hughes died on August 6th while out walking in New York aged just 59. He had been retired from the movie business since 1994 but in his short time has a film maker he had left an incredible legacy of films. The quality of his teenage movies is something that has long since been forgotten by the industry.
Jul
24
This is the full trailer for Stargate Universe. The show stars big names Robert Carlyle, Ming Na and Lou Diamond Phillips. The show looks like a step up in quality of production design and ambition with all planets no longer represented by Canadian forrests. It has to be an improvement over the last two years of Atlantis which became predictable and repetitive. That show never fully met the potential of an outstanding pilot, perhaps the darker tone and serialised nature can help this show outshine the franchise’s mother show SG-1. Expect cameos from Richard Dean Anderson and Michael Shanks in the pilot.
Stargate Universe airs premiers on 2nd of October on Syfy. Expect in later month on Sky 1 in the UK. Thanks to Gateworld for the trailer.
Jun
09
Could the Bayside High class of ‘93 be getting back together? It certainly looks like a reunion of some kind might be happening. Last night on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Mark-Paul Gosselaar appeared in full bleached-blonde character as Zack Morris. Incredibly he seems not to have aged even slightly since 1993.
Gosselaar was the star of the show that ran for four seasons and defined what was cool in the early 1990s to choldren on both sides of the atlantic. Saved by the Bell also starred Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, Dustin Diamond, Mario Lopez, Elizabeth Berkeley, Lark Voorhies and Dennis Haskins as high school principal Mr Belding. With Gosselaar on board the reunion should be on.
This is no attempt to cash in on nostalgic fame. Gossellar has had a successful acting career with starring roles in NYPD Blue, Commander in Chief and he currently plays Jerry Kellerman on TNT’s legal drama Raising the Bar. His co-stars have also had varying degrees of success with Theissen appearing in Beverly Hills 90210 for several seasons and Elizabeth Berkeley shed her nice girl image in Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls. Lopez finished second in the 2006 season of Dancing with the Stars.
The show was a spin-off from the Junior High Drama Good Morning Miss Bliss starring Hayley Mills. Set in Indianna the show ran for one season on the Disney channel before being dropped. It was the brainchild of NBC President Brandon Tartikoff, who after the failure on Disney re-pitched to his own network. The show was rebranded and the location was shifted to California. The characters of Zach, Screech(Diamond), Slater (Lopez), Lisa (Voorhies) and Mr Belding (Haskins) were joined by Kelly (Theissen) and Jessie (Berkeley). It became one of the most successful teen programmes of all time.
The show had spin-offs of its own both starting in 1993. Firstly there was Saved by the Bell: The College Years which had much of the original cast but just failed to recreate that Bayside magic. That one season led into mini-series Saved by the Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas. Running concurrently was Saved by the Bell: The New Class which sadly ran far longer then the original at seven seasons. Crossover was provided by Screech and Mr Belding. The show never achieved the same iconic status as the original and suffered from a regularly changing cast.
It is always the original that will be remembered and maybe they’ll be dining at The Max just one more time.
