Creature of Mad Enthusiasms

shawan_7 has given me some great shots of a robot K-9 from Dragoncon that I'll load tonight. In the meantime, a hilarious set of YouTube videos of a chatty "free range Dalek" tootling around London Expo originally posted on doctorwho by cribbins:

Are Daleks wheelchair friendly?
The Dalek zaps the annoying kid (notable for the Dalek suddenly starting to sing "My Way")
How Daleks use the loo
Dalek takes on annoying kid "Cy-ber-men-have-a-fun-ny-voice." "So's yours." "Oi!" "I-am-going-to-have-some-voice-coaching-it-is-holding-back-my-career."

All bits roughly 2 minutes long; worksafe.

And then there's Must Love Daleks by prchung. Put all drinkables FAR from the screen before clicking through to YouTube! Also worksafe, if you're allowed to laugh like a loon at your desk.

A couple of YouTube links that were posted on Time & Chips for the Eccleston fans. Neither one worksafe. Both wonderful.

Music vid to "Damn, Wish I Were Your Lover"

Jude the Obscure in About Five Minutes (warning - put all drinkables FAR from the screen!)

Because it won't get out of my head, I present ( Edward II in 15 Minutes (or less) )

I am supposed to be cranking out book reviews right now, but I just got back from Phantom of the Opera and I keep hearing the Phantom in my head. A lot of Phantoms actually - I've read the book, seen the stage play and now seen the movie, and most of my imagination is now evesdropping on some alternate dimension where all the versions of the Phantom have just watched ALW's PotO.

ORIGINAL ERIK: I hope I killed Gaston. Y'know that? I hope I did, I'm so pissed. Has anyone who has EVER made a movie about me actually READ that book? Mention 'the Persian' to you people and you think I'm talking about rugs.

LON CHANEY PHANTOM: Be pissed at Webber. Leroux made you famous and you made him rich.

ORIGINAL ERIK (shrugging): Eh, okay, sometimes I can be nice. (turns in his chair and glares at all the other Phantoms.) Y'know, it wouldn't have killed any of you to give Mme Giry a box of chocolate now and then. I never forgot! And I helped Meg's career too!

(The other phantoms shuffle their feet and look away.)

ALW MOVIE PHANTOM (bursting into the room): Was that not cool? Was I not magnificent?

(Random reactions from the other phantoms. Various stage ALWs throw popcorn at him, then pull him into a mass hug, slapping him on the back. "You were great kid." "Not as good as me, but pretty decent kiddo." "Hey, hot kiss with Chrissie there, way to go!" etc.)

ORIGINAL ERIK (glowers at them all): All you Webber phantoms think with your dick, you know that? So tell me, rose boys, which one of you got to actually pluck Miss Daae's petals?

(More shuffling.) Finally one of the stage Phantoms steps forward and says "Hey, there was this understudy after one of the touring productions..."

(Erik glares him into silence.)

ORIGINAL ERIK: Yeah, you boys might be sexy, but I'm the one who got laid. Remember that. You, new boy, come here.

ALW MOVIE PHANTOM (bounding forward like a puppy): Didja like it? Huh? Huh? Huh? (gets close enough to see Erik's face) Ewww, you're all gnarly.

ORGINAL ERIK (sub zero): The. Point. You, on the other hand, look like you got mildly burnt when the coke you were freebasing caught on fire. Look, we're supposed to be horribly deformed, not look like we'll be fine after a few weeks of bactine.

LON CHANEY PHANTOM: HEY!

ORIGINAL ERIK: I don't mean you. You're cool. (nods to ORIGINAL ALW STAGE PHANTOM) And you were okay.

ORIGINAL ALW STAGE PHANTOM: Gee, thanks.

ORIGINAL ERIK: Don't get your sequins in a knot, boy. If it weren't for me, people would only remember you as your alternate persona of Condorman. (turns back to ALW MOVIE PHANTOM) Y'know, we're supposed to be scary. We're supposed to be terrifying. (points a thumb at LON CHANEY PHANTOM.) He made people wet their theater seats. What did you do?

ALW MOVIE PHANTOM (smirking): I made the ladies wet something, trust me.

ORIGINAL ERIK: And again I say - which one of us popped that cherry? Not you, Mr All-I-Know-About-Life-I-Learned-In-The-Opera-Sewer. How in hell was a ballet rat supposed to teach you all that shit, anyway? Giry was lucky to know how to sign her name!

ALW MOVIE PHANTOM: Oh, like your backstory is a model of probability. Let's face it, either one of us would be pickled in a jar in some medical museum somewhere, not bringing down the house. Literally.

ORIGINAL ERIK: I must say, as one homicidal psychotic to another, burning down the opera house was really cool.

ALW MOVIE PHANTOM: Thanks!

ORIGINAL ERIK: But... c'mon, you're writing an opera, you're in an opera - would it have killed you to take a singing lesson?

ALW MOVIE PHANTOM: HEY!! I hit most of the notes!


Honestly people - have a movie about a guy who teaches singing, it would maybe be a good thing for him to actually be able to sing, know what I'm sayin'? That one of the opera owners made me cringe I could roll with, but not the title character.

That said, there was *much* to enjoy. The timeslip with the chandelier rocked, as did putting Giry back at the auction. Miranda Richardson rocked, as did Minnie Driver, who all but turned to the camera and announced "I shell haff a Best Supportang Oscaire for zis role! You VILL gif it to me-me-me-me-meeeeeeee!" And I particularly liked the final scene and all its implications.

Mind you, I am somewhat spoiled for Phantom, and not by any professional production I've seen. Once there was a convention showcase called Fandom at the Opera, about an ingenue who was given the script to a convention showcase. ("Most cons have cheap hotels, but have they gooooooooot/a whole damn lake beneath the parking looooooot?") Two scenes have forever rewritten my ability to suspend disbelief for any other version. One was the lair of the phantom, where he's telling her "Sing, my angel of music! Sing! Sing!" so he can clean up his bachelor pad - put away the beer can pyramid, throw out the pizza boxes, hide the girlie magazines (after checking out a centerfold), and get rid of the blowup doll under his spare cloak. And throw a tip into the glass on his organ.

The other one was this amendment to a famous aria:

I gave you my showcase - TRAMP!
Made your punchlines zing - FLOOZY!
And now, how you berate me, deplore and desecrate me
YOU TORE OUT MY HEART AND STOMPED ON IT YOU BITCH! AUUUGH!! (is carried off by stagehands, still screaming.)

Gakked from veggiebelle although I was too distracted this weekend to play in her LJ:

The Break-Up Meme:
Pretend we're dating.
Please write a fake break-up letter to me.
Include whatever fake excuses you want in it.

Someone made a feed for capalert, that ultra-right Christian movie review site. Reading it, for me, has the same oogy fascination as seeing an accident site - you know it's awful, but some dark part of you is just rivited at the thought process behind listing tattoos as examples of "Impudence and hate." (See review of King Arthur.)

Besides I got hours of fun and entertainment out of trying to figure out why they consider "Ghost Ship," with its constant graphic murder scenes better for children to watch than "Harry Potter." (No joke, go look. Ghost Ship gets a yellow light, Harry anything a red. So tell me, parents, would YOU prefer your underage kids to watch a 5-minute scene of a deckful of people get cut in half, flop around, and slowly die?)

Anyway, the review for "I, Robot" just hit, and has this utterly priceless, clueless line:

All NS-5 robots were ... restricted by its programming from harming any human by three laws, much the same (so much so as to suggest plagiarism) as the T-101 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) in Terminator and Murphy (Peter Weller) in Robocop.

That's right! The movie based on Asimov stole - STOLE I tell you! - the three laws of robotics! Blatently! From two other movies! Bad Asimov, no copyright!

Oy. I realize that the last thing Capalert wants to do is actually know something about the damned world outside its church doors, but really, that is new frontiers in not getting it.

Still wondering about the whole violence-in-the-Passion thing (religiously uplifting or just numbingly violent? And how does it compare to the religious objections to violent kink?) I've read with interest a couple of op-ed pieces on Google that ask the same question (well, the first half of that question).

However this link, originally swiped from merclibrarian adds a welcome note of levity. I present The Passion of the Christ Blooper Reel.

You look at the whole movie in a new light, particularly the violence and gore aspect, when you find out that Christ got the giggles so badly that it took him 35 takes to get "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" right. Much less:

Take 12

Jesus: Hey! I can see my house from here.

Other bloopers here ( So that there is a record when the newspaper removes the article from the web. )

Always look on the bright side of life... (Y'know, when that movie came out, I was appalled. But my mother, who went with me so I could get into an R flick, laughed her head off. She says you have to have served on a church committee to really appreciate Life of Brian.)