REAL TO REEL
"The whole world will weep with gratitude when the big day comes because Mr Happer has got his comet!" What Mr Happer really wants is to find a comet — and if he does, he'll call it a Happer comet or Happer's Comet or…Comet Happer. Sadly, Happer never gets his comet, but he does eventually …
Like the captain of the Rocinante, I never skip my morning coffee and The Expanse title sequence is like a shot of espresso. For anyone new to this drama, it might seem as though the protocol for dealing with the one minute interruption and unintelligible theme song is to hit Skip Intro…but it just seems …
Continue reading "The Expanse Title Sequence: Don’t Skip Intro"
The opening ceremony of Tokyo 2020 made a massive impact when seemingly out of nowhere a rogue planet appeared in the sky over the Olympic stadium. A shimmering ring gate made of hundreds of drones had morphed into a slowly rotating Earth, like something straight out of a sci-fi movie. In tribute to the drone-made …
Mr Benn may have good reason to dress up in costume this year, because 2021 marks 50 years since the bowler-hatted British businessman's adventures in a fancy-dress shop first aired on TV in 1971. The now celebrated antics of Mr Benn were first introduced in a series of children's books in 1967, followed by an …
From titanium, helium-3 and sapphire to pergium, tylium and opus, whether nudging an asteroid a nudge too close to Earth, cloning lunar miners to save costs, or mining the outer reaches of the Solar System, here are some movies and TV shows about mining in space (although "about" is a term used as loosely as …
Having been treated to an uncharacteristic flurry of snow during a February cold snap in London, made worse by the sedentary lifestyle imposed by the coronavirus lockdown, I was looking forward to opening the door into spring. Instead, I chanced upon the trailer for The Door into Summer, a 2020 Japanese film adaptation of the …
Feeling somewhat frustrated during UK lockdown 3.0, I picked up Robert Heinlein's Time Enough for Love, to read again. In the Intermission, Excerpts from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long, Heinlein's character sets out a list of skills of the competent man — what he thinks a human being should be able to do. If I …
Inspired by five words, or is it six, in the 1998 blockbuster Armageddon — a movie about an asteroid the size of Texas on course to destroy Earth in 18 days (and a team of deep core drillers sent to break the asteroid in two) — I wondered whether there were any quantifiable clues in …
One year ago, Amazon announced that its legal drama Goliath starring Billy Bob Thornton as underdog lawyer Billy McBride had been renewed for one final season, then coronavirus arrived — so when will Season 4 be with us? We do know that production has restarted. Rumour has it that Season 4 will be released in …
I spent part of last year digging around for space rocks — that's movies about space rocks — the idea being to compile a list of every asteroid and comet disaster movie ever made, from the very first silent film in 1916, to the massive blockbusters that launch every special effect at us that digital …
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Having watched all five seasons of the Amazon police drama Bosch, I was excited to find Season 6 arrive during the lockdown imposed on us due to the coronavirus pandemic. Ten minutes into the first episode and Bosch is called out to the Overlook at Lake Hollywood Park on a murder case. An abandoned 911 …
It's the end of the year and one particular tabloid newspaper is again warning us that it could soon be the end of the world — yes, asteroid 2019 AE3 is in our vicinity and the apocalypse is coming. In keeping with this tabloid drama, below is a list of all the film and TV …
Continue reading "80 Movies and TV Shows Featuring Earth-Threatening Asteroids and Comets"
Amazon TV's Goliath is back for a third instalment and after the two previous diverse offerings, no-one knew what to expect in Season 3. When Billy McBride in Season 1 said, “Ever since I took this case, weird shit is happening to me…”, well, that kind of weird has nothing on this. In 2016, we …
Continue reading "Goliath Season 3: The Weird and the Wonderful"
More than 100 years have passed since the first film was shown in movie theatres that depicted events surrounding a rock from space making an impact with Earth — although in that case it was a comet rather than an asteroid. That movie, a silent black and white film called The End of the World, …
Continue reading "Making an Impact: Lights, Camera and Asteroid!"
It has been a while since Amazon's eagerly anticipated Season 2 of Goliath was released. Those who watched the drama unfold might think it has taken so long for me to write a commentary because I needed to get over the shock of what we saw. I admit it, I did have to cover my …
As part of my scriptwriting aspirations, I was interested to understand how a hugely successful TV show knows right from the start what people will watch whilst making content unique. This led me to read drafts and pilot episode scripts of TV shows and I soon realised that those making these shows often don't get …
Continue reading "Rewriting characters: The Big Bang Theory"
This article looks at Season 1 of Goliath, the Amazon legal drama starring Billy Bob Thornton as underdog lawyer, Billy McBride, who is pitted against the powerful. The discussion compares the third draft pilot script for Goliath Season 1 entitled Trial dated 20 July 2015 and the pilot TV episode entitled Of Mice and Men …
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