ACCIO NOVEMBER 23RD!

I can't even.

Thoughts

       Another late Thoughts post and I have nothing to say for myself except that I have been lazing around in my house ever since my summer vacations began last week. I haven't even started preparing for the exams that will start once the holidays are over. Sorry folks!

1) The Across the Universe Podcast that I have started with Mette and Sofia released its first episode and the feedback has been excellent so far. We are also on iTunes now where you can subscribe to the podcast and download and listen to the episodes, which are all free.

2) Andrew Garfield and Ken Watanabe will starring in Martin Scorsese's next, Silence. The film will follow Garfield's character, a 17th century priest who goes to Japan to find his mentor, but is instead faced with religious persecution. Watanabe will play his interpreter. Scorsese has been working on its script since 1988 when he read the novel of the same name by late Japanese author Shusako Endo, but has had trouble filming it due to its sensitive nature. I think this sounds excellent and so does the cast.

3) Charlie Kaufman is set to co-direct a stop-motion animated film Anomalisa which is, as its Kickstarter page reads "about a man crippled by the mundanity of his life". It will follow a character named Michael who is a celebrated motivational speaker who has, so as to speak, lost the motivation in his life, but all that changes when he meets a girl called Lisa. Sounds quite Kaufman-ish, and hence awesome. Voice cast so far includes David Thewlis and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Cannot wait.

4) Scarlett Johansson is going to direct her first film. Summer Crossing is based on the lost first novel of Truman Capote. It's a film that has been close to her for a long time now and it will be out in 2015. The story follows a 17 year old girl who falls in love with a Jewish parking attendant in 1945 New York.

5) Speaking of directorial debuts, my favourite one is well into its shooting now. How to Catch a Monster better be good, especially seeing how Matt Smith has shaved off his gorgeous, gorgeous hair for it. It is an interesting look overall though, and it doesn't hurt that he's shirtless throughout most of it. He is playing the antagonist Bully in the movie, and after the last Doctor Who episode "Nightmare in Silver" where he got to be a villain and was extremely effective at it, I cannot wait to see what he does.

6) Cannes Film Festival is also in full swing now. I did not know that Vidya Balan is in the jury. She is easily the best working Indian actress right now and I couldn't be happier. Plus I love her outfits. She and Christoph Waltz need to come in a film together. Also movie-wise, Asghar Farhadi's The Past is getting rave reviews so far, which is great because his A Separation is one of the most flawless films I have ever seen.

7) Jesse Eisenberg, Isabelle Huppert and Gabriel Byrne are going to star in Joachim Trier's Louder than Bombs. I have seen one film by Trier and it was Oslo, August 31st, which was a very well-made and affecting film, so I have high hopes for this. The official synopsis says that it is a Rashomon-style drama that "revolves around the character of a famous, late war photographer played by Huppert. On the eve of a retrospective of work, some three years after her untimely death, her husband and two sons discover an unsettling secret from her past." It sounds intriguing to say the least.

8) Johnny Depp, Meryl Streep and the ADORABLE James Corden are slated to star in Rob Marshall's adaptation of the musical Into the Woods. Joining them is the lovely Emily Blunt and also, scruffy gods Chris Pine and Jake Gyllenhaal are said to appear as princes. The last two are small parts but it feels like Hollywood is hacking my brain because good lord, aren't they like princes already? I am getting excited about this.

9) Reese Witherspoon is going to join her Walk the Line co-star, the great-faced Joaquin Phoenix in Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice. I really need to watch Walk the Line, but I guess this is a good choice. I have faith in PTA.

10) Nymphomiac is going to be some film. The first cast photo has been released and everyone's doing weird shit in it, as one would expect from a Lars von Trier movie. He is in the photo too with duct tape over his mouth. Read the text he sent to Nicolas Winding Refn. Read the entire interview while you're at it. It's hilarious.

11) Btw, the Doctor Who series finale is today and I am going CRAY CRAYYYYYYYYYY!!!

12) LOADS of trailers- August Osage County which looks fairly typical but I do like the idea of seeing Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts as a bickering mother-daughter pair. Also, what is up with Benedict Cumberbatch's hair? The Butler has that annoying uplifting music playing throughout which really distracts me from the trailer. Although that can be a blessing in disguise because who really wants to see John Cusack playing Nixon... sober? Still, I kind of want to watch it for Oprah. Pacific Rim has another fucking awesome trailer out. Jean-Pierre Jeunet has a delightful new movie out called The Young and Prodigious Spivet which has a lot of his characteristic elements in it. Jim Jarmusch's vampire flick Only Lovers Left Alive has two clips out (both of which are in that video). I think it looks amazing and Hiddles and Tilda Swinton have insane chemistry together. Richard Curtis is back with another awesome-looking romcom About Time which has time travel in it so huzzah! It stars Domnhall Gleeson, who looks adorbs in it, and Rachel McAdams and Curtis-regular Bill Nighy. I already wrote a whole post on the trailer of my most anticipated film of 2013, The World's End. Finally, the king of trailers this week is the one and only Gravity. It looks mindblowingly spectacular and I really hope they don't release anymore trailers because this is perfect. I want this film. Give it to me!!

13) Finally, my ultimate girl-crush Emma Watson is wowing everyone at Cannes. Her W Magazine shoot, entitled "The Prime of Miss Emma Watson" is stunning-

Just... wow.

Toodles!

"Nothing is undefeateable."

           Once again, series 7 part 2 has failed to reach the expectations set upon it. However, it might have been unfair on my part to expect that "Nightmare in Silver", penned by celebrated sci-fi fantasy writer Neil Gaiman, could be as amazing as his perfect "The Doctor's Wife" from series 6. For one, it was a very different story. While "The Doctor's Wife" was about the oldest friend and companion of the Doctor, his "Sexy" TARDIS, "Nightmare in Silver" is about one of his oldest foes, and one that I find exceptionally boring and unimpressive, the Cybermen. Still, there were missed opportunities that were almost made up for by a most jaw-droppingly spectacular performance by Matt Smith. Almost.

1) The episode follows the end of the previous episode "The Crimson Horror" when the two kids Clara babysits, Angie and Artie, have discovered that she is a time traveler and they blackmail her to take them on one of her adventures. So where do they go? The biggest amusement park in the universe of course- Hedgewick World. He even has a golden ticket.

2) I will like to say from the get-go that the children were unnecessary and annoying, and I properly wanted Angie to die. SO FUCKING PISSING OFF!!
3) So the place has been closed ever since the war with Cybermen. It is under the surveillance of military troops. The Doctor uses his trusty psychic paper to get them off their back .

4) They meet the owner, Webley, who takes them on a tour where they encounter "the 699th wonder of the universe" a Cyberman.

5)The Doctor obviously gets scared but Webley tells him that the Cyberman is deactivated and is only for playing chess a la the Hungarian chess-playing machine, the Turk. It defeats Artie and when The Doctor pokes around, he finds out that it is operated by a dwarf named Porrindge.
6) Porridge was played by the excellent Warwick Davis who was another saving grace of this episode .
7) After the kids have a go at the anti-gravitational Spacey Zoomer and Clara thinks that they should leave, the Doctor refuses because he has seen some funny insects.
8) These funny insects are in fact Cybermites who are awakening the Turk-Cyberman and the two other deactivated Cybermen. The Turk-Cyberman even attacks Webley.
9) In the meantime, Angie, being the annoyong teenager that she is, has wandered off, in spite of the Doctor telling them not to (not everyone is Clara and Brian, Doctor) and gone to the troops leaving Artie alone who gets kidnapped by a Cyberman.
10) When The Doctor, Clara and Porridge go to the troops to get Angie, another Cyberman attacks and using super-speed kidnaps Angie. These effects were v. cool.

11) So the Doctor puts Clara in charge of the troops and tells her to make sure that no one blows up the planet while he goes and rescues the children.

12) I really liked Clara as the captain. She finally got to be spunky like how Oswin was. As all communication with the rest of the Empire is cut off, Clara relocates the troops to Natty Longshoe's Comical Castle.
13) The Doctor finds a Cybermite, and after telling it that it is beautiful, he uses it to transport himself to wherever the Cybermites are getting their signals from. Here he finds that the minds of the children and Webley have been incorporated in the Cyberiad, a sort of psychic network between the Cybermen and while the former are just on stand-by mode, the latter is well on his way to become a Cyberman. He informs the Doctor that the Cybermen that were wounded in the battle have been coalescing in that place and the tourists that go missing are used as spare parts for them. They needed children's minds to further upgrade themselves because of their imagination, but they had stopped coming after the amusement park was closed. He hails the Doctor as the saviour of the Cybermen and then tells him that they don't even need children even more as the Cybermites have been scanning the Doctor's brain that is exponentially more advanced. The Doctor reminds them that he is useless to them as he isn't human, but Webley-Cyberman informs him that they accept any living matter now and then throws the Cybermites on the Doctor who then incorporate him into the Cyberaid too. Well, nearly.
14) The thing is, the Doctor is too smart and too strong for the Cyberplanner in his head and still controls a large portion of it. Matt Smith here is fantastic. His right side is shown as the part controlled by the Doctor and the left by the Cyberplanner, or as he calls himself, Mr. Clever. The way Smith jerks around going from side-to-side or personality-to-personality, subtly changing his mannerisms, his voice, his expressions- it just goes to show why he indeed is one of the best actors to play the Doctor. His flaily movements and twirling have never been more effective than here. As I read in a review, no one can possibly be a better nemesis for Eleven than darker Eleven himself. It was just incredible watching him in this episode. I must add here that this episode has made me even more excited for his movie How to Catch a Monster, aka my most anticipated film of all time, as he is playing the antagonist in it and my god, he will be just beautiful.

15) Also, there are conversations between the Doctor and Mr. Clever inside the Doctor's mind and it is absolutely stunning. I loved the Gallifreyan versus Cyber-tech look. Plus the part when all the Doctors are shown.

16) Mr. Clever and the Doctor decide to play a game of chess to take control of the 0.238% of the his brain that isn't under any of them, and whoever wins it, will get to control the whole brain. Also, if the Doctor wins, the children are to be freed and the Cybermen should leave without killing anyone, and if Mr. Clever wins, he gets access to all of the Doctor's memories, including information on time travel.

17) A Cyberman attacks one of the soldiers in the troop. When Clara asks the erstwhile captain what their strategy against the Cybermen was, she answers it was blowing up the planet, a command that only she can give. Still, Clara takes the detonation device from her.
18) As Mr. Clever and the Doctor play their chess game, the Doctor uses his knowledge of how Cybermen operating systems could be disrupted using gold, the one in his golden ticket, and takes control of his brain for a while.
19) The ex-Captain wants to follow her duty by activating the bomb, but a Cyberman kills her. So Clara and the rest of the troop decide to fight the Cybermen, and Clara kills one in an extremely cool manner by the only anti-Cyber gun they have.

20) The Doctor comes to the castle with the children, informing Clara of their situation. He's super funny here. He tells her to tie him up, hands free for chess of course, and continues the game.

21) When he removes the golden ticket, Mr. Clever comes back and starts taunting Clara and tells her that she is the impossible girl. Even though Clara is so far too much of an enigma and hence slightly bland, I still adore all her conversations with Eleven. Her reaction to both Mr. Clever and the Doctor here is very entertaining to watch.

22) Oh when Eleven says "Fantastic" and "Allonsy". All the joys!

23) Clara decides to electrify the moat around the castle, and then Mr. Clever who is pretending to be the Doctor, calls her and tries to wean information out of her. She sees through him, but he still manages to get hold of the detonator and breaks it and then, in an almost spine-chilling moment, informs her that all the Cybermen are ready and coming. And there really are loads.

24) I'll stop here. The chess game is won in three moves, a lot of Cybermen attack, we meet the Emperor, and there is even a marriage proposal.

          This episode was created to make the Cybermen scary again. I have never found them scary except perhaps in "Closing Time" when the absolutely adorable Craig is being made into one. But even then, it was probably because I couldn't imagine someone so full of life to become so dull. I guess Gaiman did manage to give the Cybermen a slight edge. I did like the super-speed and how one of the Cyberman takes off his head to fool the soldiers, but nothing more. The Cybermites were pretty creepy though and I did love the way both Webley and the Doctor looked with the Cyber-tech on their face.

           I felt that the whole concept of Cybermen lose in an amusement park was completely wasted. The park wasn't exploited as a setting at all. Even the comical castle had nothing comical about it. Then there were the children who could have easily been scrapped. Clara did not really seem to care all that much about them, but in her defense, she does have an astonishing amount of faith in the Doctor. Angie was annoying as hell and I literally groaned everytime she spoke. The soldiers were kind of boring. Only Davis as Porridge was interesting and endearing.

          The look, as it has been this entire series, was pretty spot on, even with the limited settings. And then of course, there was Matt Smith. I know that no one would even consider Doctor Who for a serious award, but if that ever happened, this is the episode which could get him a lot of accolades. He was simply that incredible in it. Also, smart move making an entire episode on Smith's profiles, which are gorgeous.

        Next episode is the series finale, when we finally find out about who Clara is and how she will save the Doctor when he goes to Trenzalore and his greatest secret is revealed. "The Name of the Doctor" better be good and not continue this series trend of not reaching expectations. It has already been leaked and I am in super-paranoid mode trying to avoid any and all spoilers. The only preview I have read has been v.v.v. positive, and I am cautiously hopeful that it will rock. Also, the Doctor will cry which will kill me. Plus, River Song returns. And then there are the Whispermen which look terrifying.

AAA what does this all mean?

"I'm the Doctor, you're nuts, and I'm going to stop you."

          In series 7, part 2 so far, Mark Gatiss has emerged as the best writer. His "Cold War" was one of the scariest episodes in a long time, and his second story, "The Crimson Horror" is easily the most entertaining episode in the second half yet. This was especially great because I had almost forgotten about this episode amongst the glitzy titles and plots of the rest, but where they fell behind on reaching expectations, "The Crimson Horror" ends up being a joyride into a Victorian dystopia with Doctor and his gang.

1) Interesting how both the Mark Gatiss episodes this series have had Game of Thrones actors in them. This time it's Dame Diana Rigg who plays the awesomely sassy Queen of Thorns in the latter. In "The Crimson Horror" she is the fanatical villain, Mrs. Gillyflower.

2) So the episode starts with a journalist called Brandon investigating the 'Crimson Horror' in Yorkshire, a plague in which the victims are found with their skin turned red. However, he too falls into this trap, and is found dead in the same condition.
3) His brother, Mr. Thursday, seeks help from our favourite Victorian lizard detective and her chambermaid wife, Madame Vastra and Jenny. Also joining the gang is the adorable nihilistic potato-man, Strax. It turns out that Mr. Thursday's health suffers from well, aliens, as he seems to faint whenever faced with one.
4) Vastra and Jenny see that dead Brandon's eye has somehow managed to capture the image of none other than the Doctor. And so they set off to Yorkshire.
5) Jenny attempts to infiltrate Gillyflower's Sweetville, a community which will save its perfect inhabitants against the coming apocalypse.

6) Here we meet Gillyflower's blind daughter Ada, played by Diana Rigg's own daughter, Rachel Stirling. She gave my favourite performance in this episode and was, as the Doctor will say later on, splendid. Gillyflower uses Ada's blindness to scare people about how doomed they are. I thought that the make-up department did a fantastic job on her.

7) So Ada has a secret, a "monster" she has kept locked in a room towards whom she has tender feelings.
8) Back to Jenny, who is picking locks to go deeper into Sweetville, finds out that no actual work is being done in the mill and the noise of the mill actually is made by a number of huge gramophones. I loved this visual. It was v. steampunk.

9) Vastra has been doing her own investigating in the meantime and finds out that this "Crimson Horror" is something she had encountered 65 million years ago.
10) Jenny finally finds the Doctor, who was the said monster. To her and well, my horror, he has also been "crimsoned", though it seems to have affected his ability to talk and move, making him mummy-like in a way. Also, red is apparently not Matt Smith's colour. He looked positively frightening.

11) They escape and find that all the recruits of Gillyflower get immersed in a vat of some sort of red liquid. This reminded me of Stepford Wives a lot.
12) The Doctor then takes his clothes and his sonic screwdriver with him inside a small closet, and after a few moments, emerges as his awesome man child self again! Also he sweeps Jenny off her feet and kisses her, and she slaps him. THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR KISSING A VICTORIAN LESBIAN, DOCTOR!

13) He says that he has to find Clara, much to Jenny's confusion. He then recounts his entire journey so far, which was shown most delightfully in the style of old cinematograph movies. Absolutely loved the direction in this episode.
14) Basically Clara and the Doctor arrive at Yorkshire instead of London, as was intended. For the fans of Classic Who, there were a number of references to the Fifth Doctor and his companion Tegan Jovanka here. The Doctor and Clara decide to stay when they hear a scream and discover this whole case of "Crimson Horror" from Brandon. They pretend to be husband-wife, Doctor and Mrs. Smith, northern accent and all and join Sweetville. When they ask Gillyflower why she hasn't named the place after herself, she replies that it's in the honour of her silent partner, the elusive Mr. Sweet. But then the Doctor and Clara discover that the inhabitants of the place are kept in glass jars like dolls, and before they can do anything, they are captured and immersed in the red liquid. This liquid is a diluted poison that Gillyflower is using to preserve "worthy" people for the coming apocalypse. Clara survives this, but it affects the Doctor negatively as he is an alien. However, he also doesn't die like the other humans, and Ada, upon finding this, thinks he is special and hides him away. It is in his crimsoned state that Brandon finds him before dying and thus the Doctor's impression is preserved in his eyes.

15) Meanwhile, Strax and Vastra are lost. Love it when Strax blames the horse pulling their carriage and threatens to kill him.

16) Jenny is still confused about Clara being alive; remember she met Clara Oswin Oswald, the governess/barmaid who had plunged to her death- and is even more so when she and the Doctor find Clara Oswald in the glass jar. I would like to point out here that for all the fuss about chairs later on in the episode, the Doctor uses one first here to break the jar and rescue Clara.
17) The Doctor starts to fix Clara the same way he got cured when the other, fully-converted inhabitants of Sweetville come, which the Doctor hilariously calls "the attack of the supermodels".
18) He whips out his sonic screwdriver to fight (TWSS) them, but Jenny takes the floor instead, taking off all her boring Victorian clothes to reveal a leather catsuit underneath. The Doctor's reaction here *tsk tsk*.

So the Doctor got a sonic boner...

19) And then Strax and Vastra come too. Strax has another winning line here when he isn't allowed to go on a full-blown attack.

20) Clara comes back to her own self. She's adorable here.

21) Ada discovers that her monster has escaped and when Gillyflower finds this out, she decides to launch her attack immediately. Ada asks her if her if she would include her in the her "heaven" but Gillyflower declines saying that there is no place for people like Ada in it. What. A. Bitch.
22) As Vastra informs the Doctor, the "Crimson Horror" is in fact the poison of a prehistoric red leech that had plagued the Silurians. Clara figures out that the chimneys don't smoke, which means that they must be used for something else.This being a huge rocket that will rain down the poison onto everyone except Gillyflower and her supermodels.
23) The Doctor and Clara go after Gillyflower while Vastra and Jenny attempt to steal the poison vat. The Doctor runs into a weeping Ada, and thanks her for saving him. He asks her about Mr. Sweet, but she still won't betray her horrid mother. I found this accurately Victorian and hence commendable.
24) I will stop here. Now we find out who or what Mr. Sweet is, the confrontation between Ada and her mother from hell, Strax firing a laser, the Doctor still not explaining Clara, and a happy ending essentially.
25) Also, Clara returns to the house of the kids she babysits, she finds out that the two of them, Artie and Angie, have figured out that she's a time-traveler from pictures of her on the internet. Of course, the real question is who was taking pictures in a sunken submarine in "Cold War" or in a haunted house in "Hide", but as Matt Smith so famously once said, "NEVER apply logic to Who." She finds another picture that is actually of Clara Oswin Oswald from Victorian London and not Victorian Yorkshire, thus accidentally admitting that she is in fact a time traveler. The kids then blackmail her to take them in one of her trips.

        As I wrote above, Mark Gatiss, who one of the reviewers called the "most Victorian man in England", was made to write this story. His first Doctor Who story was also set in the same era, "The Unquiet Dead" that was about Charles Dickens. "The Crimson Horror" was a better story as he seamlessly mixed the creepy with the mysterious and the fun, with a touch of the poignant in the character of Ada. His writing was brought completely to life by director Saul Mesztein who gave the episode a lot of steampunk touches and that wonderful little old school segment.

          Performance-wise, it was all about the mother and daughter. I thought Rigg was an excellent villain, diabolical to her last heartbeat. And then Stirling, who even with whitened eyes, was able to emote so much. Her pain, her anger, her love for the Doctor- it was all very touching. Also I loved the part when she got to call her mother a "perfidious hag" and a "harpy" :P

I call this the "Doctor effect" on (straight) women.

         Vastra, Jenny and Strax were as fun as ever and I really liked that Jenny got to do some ass-kicking this week, since she is often overshadowed by the other two. I love the Doctor and Clara's chemistry too much. I just read that they have actually based it on that of Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood, which is awesome. Also, Matt Smith needs to do a northern accent more.

         I must also talk about the behind-the-scenes video of this episode. It was brilliant! Gah I miss Confidential sooooo much! All the opportunities of seeing Matt Smith act like an idiot lost. Also, Mark Gatiss everyone!

          Next week, we have the much-anticipated Neil Gaiman-penned episode "Nightmare in Silver" where the Doctor, Clara, Artie and Angie get ready to face the return of the Cybermen. The reviews have been extremely positive so far, so it seems we have another winner on our hands after the magnificent "The Doctor's Wife." Plus, it has Matt Smith doing a Christopher Eccleston impersonation :O

Chairs are cool.