Will Ferrell has a new film out soon (doesn’t he always?). It’s called Stranger than Fiction and seems a bit smarter than his usual fare. Co-starring Emma Thompson, Queen Latifah, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Dustin Hoffman, it should also prove a warning to authors, struggling or otherwise.
Here’s the YouTube trailer, and there’s a very weird official site, too.
Time was, directors’ commentaries on DVDs were an optional extra. You knew you had a classy DVD if there was a commentary.
Nowadays, if you put out a DVD, an investigative hearing will be convened if you don’t have a commentary track, no matter how bad.
Commentaries are even springing up before the DVDs come out; you can download the Doctor Who commentaries and Battlestar Galactica commentaries the night the episode airs then list to them while you watch a recording of the show.
But there’s also an odd trade growing in fake commentaries.
Continue reading “The burgeoning trade in directors’ commentaries, real or otherwise”
Probably the last RTD quote of the week, again from Doctor Who Monthly:
“I’ve always got a much more complicated, science-fictiony version of each episode in my mind,” he persists, “and I always filter that out, and go for the more straightforward version – the more emotional, honest version.
”For example, there was a great, complicated version of ‘Tooth and Claw’ in my mind, where, at the end of the episode, Queen Victoria is killed, and that creates the parallel universe, which becomes the world of ‘Rise of the Cybermen’ and ‘The Age of Steel’. It would have been the most brilliant ending because the Doctor and Rose would have just stood there and gone, ‘That’s not meant to happen!’
“But it’s very subscription channel, cult audience male sci-fi. And I loved that version. In any historical adventure, with Queen Victoria, you know that she’s not going to die, so it would have been the most exciting thrill in the world. But the price we’d have paid for that would have echoed on. Three episodes later, they’d still be saying, ‘Ah, yes, when Queen Victoria was killed by a werewolf…’ That’s when you start to lose viewers. It’s a brilliant moment, but its legacy is too complicated, and too dark, in a boring way.”
Interesting, no?
Oh well. Guess the brainteaser was either too hard or not interesting enough. Here are the answers anyway:
Anthony Higgins played the part of Sherlock Holmes in the TV movie Sherlock Holmes Returns. This was originally a pilot for a TV series, but it never got the green light. I actually quite enjoyed it though – you can probably find it on Five or Hallmark at some point.
As for the part of Moriarty, Higgins was Professor Rathe in Young Sherlock Holmes. At the end of the film, Rathe changes his name to Moriarty.
Jeremy Brett famously played Sherlock Holmes in a whole series of TV dramas from Granada, back when they still made quality TV. But he also played Holmes on stage in The Secret of Sherlock Holmes. The secret, it turns out, is that Moriarty and Holmes are the same person: Holmes has become so bored with his unchallenging cases that he’s developed an alter ego that is his own equal and therefore a challenge.
Anyone got any others?
Another entry in the ongoing top titles stakes: The Persuaders! Outstanding tune by John Barry, who did the James Bond theme, plus titles that give the entire history of the two main characters in just a few moments.
The rest of the titles bear little resemblance to the series itself, so are more aspirational than representative, but great titles all the same.
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