calliopes_pen

This is such a rotten week for celebrities. David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Richard Libertini, Angus Scrimm, and David Margulies all died. I thought I posted about David Bowie, but apparently I didn’t (just Angus Scrimm). So in alphabetical order at this point:

David Bowie passed away on January 10th, age the age of 69, following an 18 month battle with liver cancer. May he rest in peace. I had never even heard of him until around 2006 due to having no interest in music. I heard of him for the first time as a result of seeing him in The Prestige as Nikola Tesla. I loved the certain scenes in the first and last episodes of Life On Mars (British version, not the American remake) that made a lovely use of his music at pivotal moments. I have no nostalgic feelings for Labyrinth, but I did find it enjoyably weird and fun when I saw it for the first time (and Encore played it a lot) about 3 years ago. I avoided it until then, due to a general dislike of muppets and a loathing for musicals. I’ll probably rewatch it soon. I liked his role in The Hunger (1983). I need to watch The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976), as I have never seen that.

Shock Till You Drop has An Appreciation of David Bowie’s Performance In 1983’s The Hunger. Birth Movies Death has Labyrinth: Long Live The Goblin King.

As a sidenote: the weird upside down staircase in Labyrinth almost made it into my Crimson Peak Yuletide story as an homage, as another way of Lucille screwing with Edith’s mind. (Which would have been right after a deleted scene with a tombstone and gargoyle in a room) I scrapped it before anything was written of it, because seriously—it was long enough by that point. I almost wish I had done it now.

Richard Libertini has passed away, at the age of 82, after a two year battle with cancer. I knew him from House of Frankenstein (1997). I may have been one of the few that liked that film.

David Margulies has passed away at the age of 78, after a long illness. He will be best known to Ghostbusters fans as Mayor Lenny.

Alan Rickman has passed away at the age of 69, after a battle with cancer. May he rest in peace. I loved him whenever I spotted him in a film. Or, in the case of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (2005), heard his voice. I loved him as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, even if I didn’t care for the rest of the film. I always meant to watch Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)—maybe now I will. I have never seen Die Hard or the Harry Potter films, because I’m not interested in action movies or Harry Potter.

Beginning this fall, Nickelodeon will reair most of their popular 90’s programming. This includes: Clarissa Explains It All, All That, The Adventures of Pete and Pete, Rugrats, Kenan and Kel, and The Amanda Show. I was too old to be interested in The Amanda Show, and I never liked Rugrats—but I watched the rest. They have neglected to include Salute Your Shorts, Hey Dude, or Roundhouse. They also don’t include Are You Afraid of the Dark. You’d have to last rather late into the night to watch, as it is in a block from midnight to 2 AM.

Neil Gaiman has been hired to adapt Journey To The West into a film with a budget of $300 million.

6 Terrifying Alternate Nerd Histories.

The trailer for The Smurfs. It’s actually worse than I expected, which takes work.

Greatest Musical Moments In Sci-Fi And Fantasy Television. Becoming Part 2’s montage set to Sarah Maclachlan makes the list, as does the Master dancing to Voodoo Child in The Sound of Drums, as the Toclafane descend, and a certain moment in the series finale of Life on Mars. So you get two of John Simm’s performances.

Fox is apparently remaking The Fantastic Four. I was never interested in the first two, due to Jessica Alba being in them.

zombie_fest is now taking prompts. Any fandom, so long as it involves zombies in some way. I spotted a prompt for Psych, and one for Life on Mars. Which makes me think of what Adrian Monk would do if confronted with zombies—probably scream for more wipes, before locking himself in his house.

Anyone actually want a first look at the CGI Smurfs? Go here.

There’s good news for Rocky Horror fans. The MTV remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show is on hold, and may not even be done at all.

For Merlin fans: The Camelot Solstice ficathon is taking sign-ups over here.

I just this second remembered that at least one person on my friends list lives in Italy, so my best wishes go out to anyone on my friends list from there that might have gone through the earthquake.

I just want to give my thanks for everyone’s input in the poll in the previous post. I'm definitely going with the second option for the story.

Also, I mentioned to seandc that Ryan Reynolds got his start on the Nickelodeon show Fifteen--called Hillside in Canada. I managed to find the first part of the first episode of that show, and...if you can make it through more than 2 minutes, you have my sympathies. He’s listed as Billy in the opening credits. Ashley (girl who never speaks above a loud whisper) is played by Laura Harris. I’ve never heard of her before, but IMDB says she was in Dead Like Me and 24.

I’m subscribed to a thread (over at Comic Book Resources) about casting comic book characters. For an early 20’s, someone suggested Rosamund Pike. That might be one of the best suggestions I’ve seen for her. If anyone wants to read the thread, it’s here...and it’s 52 pages long. The mention of Rosamund Pike as Magma is on page 51.

Nathan Fillion was interviewed by EW. He's also been interviewed by TV Guide.

Best Week Ever posted the final minute and a half of the American Life on Mars finale--for those that don’t want to watch the episode, and just want to see the ending, you can see it here.

Voting for fandoms has begun for the next round of apocalyptothon.

In Doctor Who related news, I just read the major casting spoilers for the next (the one after the one that airs on Saturday) special. I’m not cutting this, because I’m not going to actually say anything about who it involves. However, for those wishing to avoid these spoilers, they may pop up in the comments. Needless to say, I’m thrilled by the news.

Apparently, today is Talk Like A Dalek Day.

While the Wolverine movie has been leaked early, and I’ve already spotted at least three or four downloads of it in various places, I won’t be watching it. Not that interested in it—besides, I believe I heard it was a version from before the reshoots, and before a few finishing touches on the CGI were done.

If you’re like me, and want to see the brain breaking strangeness of the US Life on Mars ending, Io9 can help you—they have a review of it here, at the very least. And a quick scene which doesn't seem to include the spaceship portion. I’m still searching for the ending on Youtube, but all I’ve found is the UK version. That might be a good thing.

From Den of Geeks (and someone really needs to start an LJ feed for that place): 10 Missing-Feared Lost-Shows. Includes a few episodes from Doctor Who, and Dark Shadows.

Also, I have a question for those out there that download torrents. With one torrent site, I can seed fine. (Not naming them, since I’m not locking this post) However, I’ve recently discovered that with another one, it will not seed. I need to keep it seeding (something about uploads and download ratios) so that I don’t get banned from the site. All I’ve been able to figure out is that it says that a port might be blocked. If you need to know, I use the program BitTorrent 6.1.2. It’s basically hit or miss for messing with the settings, since I’ve never needed to before. Suggestions? Ideas?

ETA: Oh, and the little area where you're supposed to have a green check mark for incoming connections is a yellow exclamation point. It says: "No incoming connections. Unless the icon turns green, it could indicate a problem with your network configuration." There's a green check mark occasionally, but it's never lasted long. It downloads fine, but seeding is an issue.

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I would call in either Adrian Monk, or Sherlock Holmes.

I just read the Wikipedia summary for the series finale of the US version of Life on Mars. My icon sums it all up. Just...so very, very stupid, and brain breakingly out there. I thought it was an April Fool’s joke at first, but it’s not. The Doctor’s reaction of “...what? What? WHAT?!” does indeed apply here.

Part of me wants to see it, so if someone could direct me to a Youtube clip of that part, I would be grateful.

The American version of Life on Mars has now been cancelled. However, it’s not immediate. ABC will be showing the last five episodes of the series…online. I never watched this version, but I know a few on my friends list did.

And I haven't had very many occasions to use this icon, but it seems fitting.

And now, a meme, taken from culf:

Give me a character (and no one is off limits, whether they come from a book, a movie, television, you get the picture) and I will give you at least five facts about them according to my own personal canon. This can range from their birthday, favorite color or even their earliest memory up to what they had last night for dinner.

I only request that these be characters I know. Otherwise it will be difficult to come up with things for them.