tagryn | TV & Movie reviews, from the UK trip

BBC television shows I saw while over there:

QI - A "game show" hosted by Stephen Fry. I put it in quotes,
because like "Whose Line Is It Anyway", the points don't really
matter; its more of a free ranging, at times crazy, discussion
between Stephen and four guests that night, on a variety of
eccentric topics. I've been a fan of Fry's for over a decade,
so it was neat to see that he's still got his wits and wittiness
about him. There's clips up on the site linked.

I also note that the other half of the Fry and Laurie comedy
team, Hugh Laurie, is the lead in the new Fox series
"House". I'll probably watch at least the first episode just to marvel
at how Hugh has apparently totally disguised his accent for U.S. consumption.

Michael Palin's Himalaya - Terrific exploration program by the
former Monty Python cast member. The two episodes we saw when we
were in the UK were about his trip through Kashmir, then from
Annapura to Everest base camp. The 1st was interesting because
Kashmir is considered one of the more dangerous areas in the world
because of the low-level war between India and Pakistan there
(plus all the Islamic extremists who've been attracted as a
sideproduct), the 2nd not only for the sheer beauty of the
mountains but also for how a fellow in Palin's age was able to
deal with the altitude (pretty well, as it turned out). I really
hope Discovery or Bravo picks up this series eventually.

The second episode was also interesting because the day before I'd
caught some UK reality show where the participant is
chosen to undergo some extreme experience. In this case, it was
an ex-Marine (UK) who's challenge was to climb Everest. We
saw all the training he underwent, mainly to try and ensure
that he'd be able to acclimate to the high altitudes. Well,
unfortunately he was barely able to get past base camp, and packed
it in after two tries at going higher on Everest. The experienced
mountaineers he was with commented that "its disappointing, we
really expected more out of him" and "there's something inside
that propels people like us, and ordinary people like him just
don't have it." The program got a countershot in at them by noting
that none of his party successfully summited Everest later on,
and 8 climbers in other parties were killed during the same
period.

Monarch of the Glen - Apparently this is a BBC nighttime soap which
is in its sixth season. I tuned in because Tom Baker (the fourth
Doctor Who) was added to the cast this year and I wanted to see
what he was up to. Not surprisingly, Tom's aged over the years:
his hair's completely white now, and he's considerably larger than
he was a few decades before. He's still a pretty good actor, though,
with an awesome voice. Good to see he's still getting work.

The National Lottery, hosted by Phillip Schofield - Now here's
something the U.S. won't try soon: a nationwide lottery where the
winners are selected via a game show format on national TV. The
grand prize was a trip around the world to 20 different destinations.
I could believe the game show thing might work in the U.S., but not
the nationwide lottery; the states would be up in arms if it was
tried, I suspect, as they'd see it as a threat to state lotteries.

Inflight movies:

Spiderman 2 - Fun. Just fun. Didn't try to be more than it was,
and what it was worked. Glad to see there's another superhero
franchise that's succeeding, along with X-Men.

The Terminal - Started off well, does get the viewer interested in
what happens to the main character, and Tom Hanks remains one of the
better actors of our time. Unfortunately, the story tended to bog
down once we got away from "how is this fellow going to survive?"
and tried to become a love story, the latter of which was so far-
fetched that it strained one's suspension of disbelief. Zeta-Jones
is still pretty to look at, but had little to do in this movie.

Dodgeball - I thought it was very funny, but I've liked Ben Stiller's
stuff since the "Ben Stiller Show" was on. I even enjoyed Zoolander,
for goodness sake. This was the movie BASEketball probably should have
been, if the "South Park" team had tried harder to make a good
movie (which see their "Cannibal: The Musical") rather than relying
on the easy joke.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - I liked it better than I
thought I would. Although the characters weren't entirely sympathetic,
I enjoyed the writer's exploration of the implications of having
one's memory altered, and Carrey & Winslet were believable as a
mismatched couple. A pretty good job by Carrey at trying a serious
role, but I still have my doubts whether he can pull off playing
Col. Steve Austin
in the Six Million Dollar Man movie.