"I'll tell you a story."

          Doctor Who is an awesome show. However, once in a while, there are a few missteps. "The Rings of Akhaten" isn't a bad episode, it looked great and had interesting ideas in motion, but it tried to do too much and failed to reach the standards it had set for itself.

1) The episode starts with the Doctor secretly following Clara's entire life so far- from her parents' first meeting to the death of her mother. While it shows Clara's very adorable backstory, I thought, as did apparently most of internet, that it was a tad creepy for the Doctor to be doing such things. Anyways, this helped explain one of the missing ages from Clara's, or actually her mother Ellie's "101 Places to See" book, since Ellie died when Clara was 16.

2) Also, the leaf which she said was page 1 in the previous episode leaf is shown to be the cause of her parents meeting, and is thus the "most important leaf in earth's history". It's a lovely concept, but how does that make it a page in a book about places?

3) So Clara finally comes aboard the TARDIS, all excited and inquisitive.

Clara: So what’s it made of? Time? I mean, if you can just row right through it it’s got to be made of stuff like jam’s made of strawberries. So what’s it made of?
The Doctor: Well not strawberries. No. No, no, no. That would be unacceptable.

4) She demands to go somewhere awesome and so the Doctor takes her to the Rings of Akhaten, a place where seven planetoids orbit a huge planet Akhetan, and have aligned themselves in a very long time for the Sun-singers of Akhet to sing to a god in a pyramid situated in one of the planetoids where they believed all life in the universe originated from.

5) I loved Jenna-Louise Coleman's Clara at this part. While I am partial to Karen Gillan's Amy because of the redhead-ness, I think Clara is very pretty too with her big eyes and super-shiny hair.

6) So Clara asks the Doctor if they can see the planet up close and he happily obliges. Then we find ourselves in an alien souk which was very cool. So many aliens!

7)The Doctor informs Clara that he had come there a long time ago with his granddaughter.This ofcourse is Susan Foreman who used to be the companion of the First Doctor. For a second there I thought it was a clue to who Clara might be, but I think the writers are looking back at earlier stories because of the upcoming 50th Anniversary.

8) Many a time when I watch Doctor Who, I think they put in situations just because they want to see Matt Smith act like an idiot. Which he does brilliantly, whether it be the pelvic thrust handshake (?) with the Terrabeserker of the Kodion Belt or barking at Dor'een or making stupid faces like this-

9) Clara then runs into a little girl, Merry Gejelh or the Queen of Years. The young actress who played Merry, Emilia Jones was very good.

10) Merry is scared of Clara at first but since she is great with children, Clara befriends her and tells her a story about how scared she was when she had gotten lost, but her mother had made her feel safe and defeat that fear. Merry is afraid of messing up the song she has to sing to Grandfather, or the god that lives in the planet, but Clara assures her that she will be fine.

11) This episode is most unexpectedly almost like a musical. The songs *are* pretty, but I still would have liked something with more oomph. Murray Gold and the singers did a wonderful job though.

12) So Merry starts singing to Grandfather, with the Doctor, Clara and all the aliens listening. They all join in too and offer gifts with personal memories to feed the god, since the currency of that place is things with memories and sentimental values.

13) However, the chorister in the temple stops the song, thus making the god pull Merry towards itself. Actually, he was to feed on her pure soul and memories, since she carried the entire history of her people.

14) The Doctor and Clara rent a moped from Dor'een paying Ellie's engagement ring in return, and follow Merry to the temple. The Doctor manages to open the "really quite astonishingly heavy door" to the temple and Clara tries to reason with Merry, but she is convinced that she was the one who made a mistake in the song and hence should be fed to Grandfather. The Doctor has to close the door behind him leading to what I feel was one of the many cultural allusions in this episode-

Indiana Jones anyone?

15) The Doctor convinces Merry that she does not need to sacrifice herself because she is unique and this was all a plan and Grandfather isn't a god but a vampire. He tells her what is probably my favourite theory in physics, the fact that we are all made of stars, and also quotes Lewis Caroll in the process.

16) They start to leave but the creepy Vigil come to force Merry to feed her to the vampire. One question though. If Merry knew all this was to happen due to her vast knowledge of songs or whatnot, why would she act surprised at all? Anyways next, the Doctor got Expelliaramused.

17) So Clara and Merry escape through a secret song that the latter knew and the Doctor joins them, only to realise that the vampire isn't the god, but in fact a sort of alarm clock for the actual god, Akhaten itself. This was reminiscent of a Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones adventure "42" where there was a living sun as the villain, except that was about the evils of exploiting nature and "The Rings of Akhaten" is about blind belief of people put into religious practices that aren't in fact godly, but quite evil instead.

18) Both Clara and her mum have a catchphrase "Oh my stars." Does this mean anything?
19) The Doctor tells Clara to return to the planet with Merry as he has to face the god. This led to some of the most gorgeous Doctor Who effects I have ever seen.

20) Clara and Merry decide to help the Doctor still and Merry, along with all the aliens, starts to sing a song to help the Doctor, which again reminded me of another film, a musical this time.

21) The Doctor decides to feed the god all of his memories. Matt Smith is beautiful in this part, talking about all of his memories and everything that he has lost to get them. I think it was a very apt speech considering that this story places a lot of value on sentimental things, and the reason why the Doctor doesn't own any of them is because he has lost everything and everyone he has ever cared for. This is why he is such a tragic character, for all the stupid things one can associate him with. I cried at this part.

"I have lived a long life and I have seen a few things... I walked away from the last great Time War. I marked the passing of the Time Lords. I saw the birth of the universe and I watched as time ran out, moment by moment until nothing remained. No time. No space. Just me. I’ve walked in universes where the laws of physics were devised by the mind of a madman. I’ve watched universes freeze and creations burn. I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. I have lost things you’ll never understand. And I know things. Secrets that must never be told. Knowledge that must never be spoken. Knowledge that will make parasite gods blaze. SO COME ON THEN! TAKE IT! YOU TAKE IT ALL, BABY! HAVE IT! YOU HAVE IT ALL!"

212 Also, love the mention of the secret. Whatever is it??
23) But apparently this isn't enough for the god or the writers, so they bring Clara back, who gets some moped action of her own. She presents the god with her parents' leaf which represented all the opportunities that her mother was deprived of because of her early death. This proves to be too much for the god and it implodes.

24) Clara and the Doctor return and she remembers that he was there at her mother's funeral and asks him about it, and so he tells her that she reminded him of someone who had died. Once again I really felt for Clara when she tells the Doctor that she is not a stand-in for someone else and he has to accept her as herself. I was really happy that she said that because it was getting a bit Vertigo-esque.

This is funny though :P

         I think the biggest issue this episode had was that as tradition shows, this was to be the companion-centric episode where they prove that they are worthy of travelling with the Doctor. However, then they gave Eleven that wonderful speech too and all that it entailed. Therefore, the episode failed to focus properly on Clara or on the Doctor, which is why it suffered. Maybe if they would have gotten a simpler story for Clara and then done this episode later on, it would have been better. I did like the show's take on religion, where it didn't expressly say that it was a bad thing, but that sometimes it can be used to exploit the innocent because of their beliefs. The story was written by Luther's Neil Cross and I think he has potential to do better. 

         I have already spoken about the music and how that didn't completely work for me.  Direction-wise, I was a little annoyed with all the close-ups. Of course it was a spectacular-looking episode, from Akhaten itself to all the excellent aliens and their hair and make-up. Emilia Jones was wonderful and as was Coleman. Smith shined in that speech of his but had very little to do otherwise.

         Next up, we have a Mark Gatiss story with Liam Cunningham guest starring, set in a nuclear submarine and marking the return of a Classic Who villain, the Ice Warriors. I am really counting on "Cold War" to be awesome because Clara still hasn't had that kick-ass episode yet.

"I'm a normal kid, really. I just love to act."

Mary Elle Fanning is one the biggest rising stars of today, which is insane because she has *just* turned 15. As you can see from my banner, I am quite the fan of Miss Fanning. She started acting at the age of 2 years and 8 months (!) playing a younger version of her sister Dakota. Her recent turn as a troubled teen in 60s England in Ginger and Rosa left me gobsmacked because of her gargantuan acting talent. Also, I think she is one of the most beautiful actresses out there and I have had a girl-crush on her for quite sometime now (which I think is a tad creepy on my part but yeah...). Compared to Dakota, who is quite good an actress herself, I think Elle is the bigger talent and beauty. Even in the pictures of them as children, Elle has a much more soulful look. She just has a great face and is adorable in interviews and I can't wait to see what she does with her career. I already think that she's like the Nicole Kidman of our age.

HAPPY 15TH BIRTHDAY ELLE FANNING!

Thoughts

       I skipped this last week. I was going to rally for other blogs for the LAMMYs, but the voting is closed now so I am sorry about that. I hope everyone does awesome. These are my thoughts this week.

1) The great and legendary film critic, Roger Ebert passed away yesterday at the age of 70. If you haven't noticed, I have a number of links on the right side of my screen belonging to bloggers whose stuff I love to read. Ebert is the only promineny critic there because I found his reviews as personally relatable as those of the people I discuss films over on Twitter with and so on. I have loved reading his thoughts on the artform called film. Even something like the review of a Twilight film was full of so much humour and wisdom. It was incredible to see the love and respect for him from my fellow film-bloggers on social media last night. Ebert has been an inspiration to all of us. I don't want to make this about me but my dream is to someday make films, and whenever I have dreamt such dreams, I would also fantasize about Ebert reviewing them, because he was the best of the best. This is the end of that dream, which saddens me a lot, but life goes on and films go on and I'm sure that's what Ebert would have wanted. He will be sorely missed. RIP Roger Ebert.

2) The filmverse also lost British actor Richard Griffiths. He had appeared in Withnail and I and History Boys though he will always be Uncle Vernon in the Harry Potter films for me. RIP Richard Griffiths.

3) Christopher Nolan's next epic Interstellar is to be looked forward to because of another huge reason- Matthew McConaughey will be its lead. Before 2012, I would have rolled my eyes at this. Now however, I think it's friggin' brilliant. His career renaissance is complete.

4) Tim Burton is also hopefully returning to form as he is set to make his next film Big Eyes on a couple of painters from the 50s, Margaret and Walter Keane who gained prominence because of their paintings of unusually large-eyed children. The script was written by the writers of Ed Wood which is excellent news. Also, Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz have been cast as the Keanes, which is a fantastic pairing. It will just be a delight to see both of these amazing actors together, but the whole story makes it that much more intriguing. And if you have seen these paintings and how frankly terrifying they are, you can understand why Tim Burton would be the perfect man for the job. I hope this film will be as good as it sounds.

5) Speaking of pairings, I am thinking of starting a petition for a movie which stars Robert Downey Jr. and Peter Dinklage, possibly as themselves. It will be fantabulous.

6) Shailene Woodley has been chosen to play Hazel Grace in the movie adaptation of the beloved John Green novel, The Fault in Our Stars. I think she will be perfect. The character of Augustus Waters is still to be cast and I, for one, am absolutely clueless as to who can play him. Woodley is currently filming The Amazing Spider-man 2 in which she will play Mary-Jane Watson. I couldn't give a shit for this film except it was announced that The Avengers 2 will have Spider-man in it and if anyone can make me care about the new Spidey (sorry Andrew Garfield!), it's Joss Whedon.

7) In other sequel news, Pixar is releasing the sequel to Finding Nemo, which will be called Finding Dory, in 2015. I am so disappointed in Pixar. They are supposed to be better than this. Dori topped my favourite female Pixar characters list, and now she's just another means for making a lot of money at the box-office. Pixar is one thing I expect originality out of. So sad.

8) In case you haven't noticed, and I don't see how you could miss it, my blog's been a little Doctor Who-crazy lately. Anyways, the current Doctor, who is also *my* Doctor, Matt Smith has confirmed that he will be staying in the show for the next series. Yaay! I was really afraid of him bowing out early, but I along with other Eleven fans don't need to worry for at least another year.

9) Trailers- I have already gone batshit crazy about the Only God Forgives trailer. Another awesome trailer is that of This is the End. I can already see "Hermione stole all of our shit" being in my favourite quotes list at the end of the year. Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters looks like harmless fun. I'm going to watch it because one of my many husbands, Logan Lerman is in it, and also for Nathan Fillion. Carrie looks v. stupid, as was expected. Julianne Moore will be amazing though. Go Goa Gone is the first Bollywood zombie movie that I can think of, and it looks rather fun. Saif Ali Khan is obviously trying to emulate Woody Harrelson's character from Zombieland, but I like it. The latest The Great Gatsby trailer gives us a taste of what might just be a genius soundtrack, and the total visual extravangance that one would expect from a Baz Luhrmann film. I'm excited to see what they actually do with this. Finally, Wolverine is back and hopefully this film will be good unlike its predecessor. Still, Hugh Jackman shirtless is a nice image.

10) Finally, though this was released a while back, I hadn't yet freaked out about how amazing it is. This year's Cannes poster uses one of the most loveliest pictures ever of dream couple Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward kissing. I have been in love with this picture ever since I first laid my eyes on it. It's magical-

Goodbye.

"Wanna fight?"

Drive is one of my most favourite movies of all time. It is currently at #39 in my top 100-ish list. So when it was announced that its director, Nicolas Winding Refn and its star, Ryan Gosling, are reuniting for another film, I was psyched as hell.

The film, Only God Forgives, is about a man named Julian who runs a Thai boxing club and runs a drug operations in Bangkok. When his brother is killed by a retired cop Chang, who is also known as the Angel of Vengeance, his powerful gangster mother Jenna orders him to exact revenge and raise hell.

The trailer looks awesome. The things I love about it:

All the red.

All the violence.

ALL the Gos.

The four things that had stood out the most in Drive for me were the direction, the look with all the neon and that elevator scene, the music and the character of the Driver. Only God Forgives too seems to be delivering on all those fronts and more. Julian, who is being played by Gosling, is a lot like the Driver in his silent, lonely, violent ways. Also, Kristin Scott Thomas looks amazing and I think will be an excellent villain. Vithaya Pansringarm's character looks intriguing and badass as hell.

Eeep! Now excuse me while I go rewatch Drive.

"Could you just ask me that question again?" "Doctor Who?"

         It's Doctor Who time again! I know I skipped the recaps of the last two episodes because "Angels Take Manhattan" bore a hole through my heart and "The Snowmen" wasn't all that interesting except for our second meeting with "the woman twice dead"- Clara Oswin Oswald. But I promise to do my zany recaps for all the new Doctor Who episodes. So let's get started with "The Bells of St. John".

1) The episode starts in a "Blink"-esque way with a character called Nabile warning the the people of earth about a Wi-Fi connection which has strange symbols, which once clicked, sort of sucks in the soul of the person into the network and they gets trapped in there, not knowing where they are. Nabile knows this because he too has been "uploaded" into this Wi-Fi trap.
2) There are new opening critics btw, which are based on the classic Who series. They were first shown in "The Snowmen".

3) So the Doctor has been hiding out in an abbey in 13th century Cumbria, and trying to figure out who Clara is, when the bells of St. John start ringing and he is roused from his meditation.

4) And now, we meet Clara proper. She is taking care of children again, as she did in "The Snowmen" as a governess, and is having problems with the internet so calls "the best helpline in the universe", which is *obviously* the TARDIS, a St. John Ambulance telephone box.

5) Oh the book that Clara tells one of the kids to read is "Summer Falls" by Amelia Williams. AMELIA WILLIAMS, PEOPLE! I totally missed it at first but then had a huge freak-out. She speaks about how chapter 11 is her favourite and one cries their eyes out in it. What? What does this mean? MOFFAT, STOP PLAYING YOUR MIND GAMES!

6) I was reading reviews of the episode and many people have been speculating how this entire episode could have been inspired by a telephone conversation, and I can definitely see that. Clara keeps talking about how she can't find the internet and the Doctor is first extremely baffled and then irritated by it, though once Clara enters the password, everything changes. The password is "rycbar123", or "Run You Clever Boy And Remember 123". Ooooooooooooo.

I found this really funny, Idk why.

7) Clara muddles up and then accidentally clicks on the same evil Wi-Fi that Nabile was talking about in the beginning.
8) Though the Spoonheads are the monsters of this episode, the villain is Ms. Kizlet, a ruthless but quite brilliant business head who is running this whole operation. Celia Imrie was absolutely fantastic as her.
9) The Doctor turns up just then, monk costume, floppy hair and all and is overjoyed to see Clara, who does not remember him, but he keeps asking her to say "Doctor Who" because he realises how much he likes the sound of that, only to have the front door shut on his face.

Floppy hair is floppy.

10) The Spoonheads in themselves are actually kind of creepy, unlike what the name suggests. One shows up in Clara's house, in the guise of the protagonist of "Summer Falls" and then she rotates her head to reveal the spoon, that is actually a walking base station that hoovers (whovers?) up people and starts to do the same to Clara.

11) The Doctor in the meantime returns to his "mobile phone", ditches his monk apparel- "Monks are not cool!" and gets a whole new wardrobe. For some reason, I found the whole wardrobe change part very attractive, mostly because Matt Smith.

hjgjdkjkjdckngjfnvkncjnhuhfxuhjihic

12) The Doctor finds Clara unconscious and being uploaded and stops it just in time, going into crazy typing mode and then saves her, while sending Kizlet and co. a message very reminiscent of what he had said to the Atraxi in "The Eleventh Hour"- "Under my protection" and signs it off as the Doctor, which worries Kizlet and she contacts her clients.
13) Btw, shouldn't the Doctor not publicize the fact that he is THE Doctor, since he is supposed to be dead and all? I know he's erased all of his records, but surely people remember?
14) Eleven taking care of Clara is adorable, as is him taking in the aroma of a jammie dodger. He flips through one of Clara's books, "101 Places to See" which records all of Clara's birthdays except her 16th and 23rd ones. What does this mean too? There is also a leaf that seems to confound the Doctor for whatever reason (more on that later).

15) There is another lovely conversation between the Doctor and Clara when she finally wakes up and sees him under her window (sigh), where he is guarding her after having spoken to her dad about the government and inventing the quadrocycle. Btw, isn't that a car?

Dawwwwwwww.

16) So Kizlet and co. still want Clara and they light up the entire suburb by switching on the people and switch off all of London, making them a perfect target for... an out-of-control plane. The Doctor tells Clara to get into the police box with him, which she has now christened the "snogging booth" or for short, the "snog box". Then there is the much expected "it's bigger on the inside" moment, which was slightly disappointing after "The Snowmen", when that Clara goes "it's smaller on the outside". Also, the TARDIS is a total nightclub now. I like it.
17) Just as how the Doctor does it, instead of flying them out of safety, he flies them into the plane and then flies it even though he doesn't know how, 'cuz you know, he's awesome and all.
18) The internet at this time though fell in love with Clara...'s tea cup. Brits :D

19)The Doctor also then drives an awesome motorbike across London and he and Clara go to a cafe to find the location of Kizlet and co. When Clara had been partially uploaded into the Wi-Fi network, she somehow absorbed madcap computer skills. Seeing Doctor and Clara fight over her laptop was hilarious where the Doctor claims to have 27 brains to get his way, but Clara wins.

20) Some of the Doctor's finest moments come at this time when he asks Clara about her being a nanny and not doing "young things with young people" to which she answers "What like you? Down boy," the total meaning of which hits him gradually and much to his shock. I love their flirting. Also the Doctor acting like a 5 year old when he sees chocolate cake.

Can I just say, the Doctor stole my dance movies.

21) Kizlet then starts hacking into the people of the cafe and telling the Doctor her plans, while a Spoonhead in the guise of the Doctor uploads Clara completely.
21) At this point, I will stop. There is a very cool ride up the Shard, which is where Kizlet and Co. are located, thanks to Clara Oswald "FTW Oswin"'s computer genius, and him saving the day.
22) Kizlet and co. are shown to be working for the Great Intelligence, the villain of "The Snowmen" with a very welcome cameo by Richard E. Grant who has fed on the human minds and grown. It might be the big villain of the remainder of the series, which I think is cool because it too works with people not being to see it and the power that wields, like quite a few of the Moffat nemeses.

        Now for things I loved about this episode. It was written by Steven Moffat and directed by first-timer Colm McCarthy. Moffat, in continuing with the blockbuster idea of this series, went with an urban thriller this time with more than a few shades of James Bond, what with a character like Kizlet and the Doctor being a badass with the anti-grav motorbike. This episode was also a part social commentary in the present age of people being sucked into their virtual worlds. "Human minds trapped like flies in the World Wide Web, stuck forever, crying for help." "Isn't that basically Twitter?" McCarthy was very good in capturing the urbane feel of London a la Sherlock. I especially liked how well-handled the plane sequence was.

Coming to the cast, let's start with Imrie as Kizlet. She was brutal but in such a fabulous way. She had some of the best and most darkly humoured lines in the episode like "The abattoir is not a contradiction. No-one loves cattle more than Burger King." OHHHHH BURN! And her final scene is just spine-chilling.

Next comes Jenna-Louise Coleman as Clara Oswald. As I said in my Clara post, she is becoming a fast-favourite of mine. This Clara is a slightly less feisty version of Oswin from "The Asylum of the Daleks" but is still very fun. Her flirting with the Doctor is especially fun and also calling him out on the ultimate pick-up line of all time- "All of time and space, right outside those doors" or variants thereof, which let's face it, we will all fall for. But Clara doesn't, or at least doesn't show it and asks the Doctor to come the next day to ask her again, in his "snog box". Also, is the etymology of Oswin really from FTW? Like seriously, Moffat? The leaf in her book is page 1 and as we can see in the poster and pictures of next week's episode "The Rings of Akhaten", it will feature there.
       
         Finally, there is the Doctor. Matt Smith is becoming even more and more unique as the Doctor. From the floppy hair as the mad monk to his joy at picking up a bow tie, to his awkwardness around Clara, to being the dark timelord that he is- he is perfect. This episode allowed the Doctor to be rather goofy at times, and Smith shone there. Plus, I love the fact that he is sort of smitten with Clara, rather than the other way round. This is going to be fun!

        So there you have it. They also have new music now which I feel is quite modern. All of this is of course leading up to the 50th Anniversary in which *insert loud triumphant music* DAVID TENNANT AND BILLIE PIPER ARE STARRING! YAAAYYY! AND JOHN HURT! YAAAYYY!

       This picture was released today and it is literally everything because a) hot British men b) to see them act opposite each others, as their Doctor-selves, will be quite the event of the year.

        Join me next week as the Doctor and Clara go on their first adventure to the amazing planet of Akhaten.