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Post by fenris on Jan 27, 2014 0:44:58 GMT
The big change has finally arrived, then. Shame it ate the banner. I'm really not fond of the new look and layout, but I suppose over time I'll get used to it (it's not as though I have a choice). I'll miss the banner as well. . |
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Post by orokiah on Feb 1, 2014 19:29:37 GMT
The big change has finally arrived, then. Shame it ate the banner. I'm really not fond of the new look and layout, but I suppose over time I'll get used to it (it's not as though I have a choice). I'll miss the banner as well. The under-the-bonnet changes are the strangest. You can now spend cold hard cash on pictures of cookies (?) for your favourite posters! Bizarre. I'd love to know how much revenue they're actually making from it. |
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Post by fenris on Feb 19, 2014 17:48:10 GMT
Yesterday I cleared out a drawer that was full of old Amazon & Play.com invoices and various receipts for DVDs, CDs and books that I've bought, dating back to 2007, and then shredded them. Depressingly, many of the receipts were from Zavvi, Woolworths and Blockbusters, none of which exist anymore.
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Post by fenris on Jun 9, 2014 16:09:26 GMT
Just heard that Rik Mayall has died, aged just 56. A huge shock. The Young Ones was the Monty Python of my generation, and even now I can still recite the dialogue of entire episodes from memory. R.I.P.
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Post by fenris on Jul 12, 2015 15:52:06 GMT
We've recently lost both Christopher Lee and Patrick Macnee, and earlier today I was saddened to hear of the death last Friday (10th July 2015) of the immensely talented British actor Roger Rees, at the age of 71. He worked extensively on the stage, but also effortlessly bought class to every movie or TV show in which he appeared. RIP.
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Post by fenris on Feb 24, 2016 21:31:19 GMT
Hands up if you're already sick and tired of the EU referendum. I suspect the majority of people have already decided whether we should Leave or Stay, and no fresh arguments are going to sway them. Which renders the whole Dave vs Boris bunfight mostly redundant. Am amused by Cameron and the In camp's increasingly shrill protestations (brilliantly mocked on the cover of the current issue of Private Eye) that if we quit the EU, the entire UK will be sucked down into the ninth circle of Hell.
And we've got another four months of this..
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Post by fenris on Dec 26, 2017 16:31:48 GMT
It's been announced that Canadian actress Heather Menzies died on Christmas Eve aged 68, having reportedly been diagnosed with brain cancer only three weeks earlier. Most famous for portraying one of the Von Trapp children in the movie version of The Sound of Music (1965), Menzies was best known to genre fans for starring in the TV series Logan's Run (1977 - 78) as Jessica - the role played by Jenny Agutter in the original movie - and for being the female lead in the horror films Sssssss (1973) and Piranha (1978). Her other genre credits included the TV movie Captain America (1979), the science-fiction/conspiracy movie Endangered Species (1982), and guest-starring in an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man. She also did a nude photoshoot in the August 1973 issue of Playboy. Menzies was married to actor Robert Urich (star of the TV series Vega$ and Spenser: For Hire) from 1975 until his death from cancer in 2002. She is survived by three children and eight grandchildren.
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Post by fenris on Jan 16, 2018 23:48:45 GMT
Dolores O'Riordan, lead singer of Irish pop group The Cranberries, has died aged just 46. RIP.
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Post by fenris on May 2, 2018 21:07:01 GMT
American actress Pamela Gidley has died, aged 52. She was probably best known for playing Teresa Banks in the movies Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) and Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces (2014), but in my humble opinion her best role was as ruthless assassin Brigitte, a semi-regular character in late-Nineties TV series The Pretender. Her other genre credits included gonzo fantasy western Dudes (1987), playing the title role (a sexbot) in post-apocalyptic adventure Cherry 2000 (1987), a literal Hell's Angel in Highway to Hell (1991), mystery thriller Liebestraum (1991), sci-fi movie Bombshell (1997), the lead role in horror flick Aberration (1997), the British family film The Little Vampire (2000), and playing regular character Audrey Westin in the TV series Strange Luck (1995-96).
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Post by fenris on Jun 10, 2018 17:00:00 GMT
British actress Eunice Gayson has died, aged 90. She held a unique place in movie history as the first Bond girl. In Dr. No, her character Sylvia Trench appears in Sean Connery's first scene (we actually see her before we see him) and she later becomes 007's first on-screen conquest, when Bond returns to his apartment to find Trench already inside (having persuaded the building's caretaker to let her in) practicing her golf putting skills in his living room, having stripped out of her clothes and wearing one of his shirts. Personally speaking, I consider that scene to be the defining image of the film - forget Ursula Address's bikini-clad emergence from the sea later in the proceedings.
It was originally intended for Trench to be a recurring character in the Bond series as 007's permanent girlfriend, and this can be seen in Dr. No where she is portrayed as Bond's equal in regards to sexual mores, attitudes and confidence. It is she who pursues him. Having met Bond for the first time earlier that evening, she likes what she sees, finds out where he lives, talks her way into his apartment, and is so sure of her attractiveness and appeal that he arrives to find her already undressed - the two of them sleeping together is such a forgone conclusion, why waste time? She's also - crucially - completely calm & unfazed when Bond (believing her to be an intruder) bursts into the room brandishing his revolver, not even batting an eyelid. Yep, you can see why 007 realised she was a keeper.
Trench appears again in second Bond film From Russia From Love, but the producers of the series then had a rethink, believing that audiences might disapprove of 007 bedding countless women around the globe when he had a girlfriend faithfully waiting for him at home. And so Sylvia Trench was dropped. Even so, she remains one of only five female characters to appear in more than one Bond film, the others being Miss Moneypenny, Judi Dench's M, KGB General Gogol's secretary Rublevitch (played by Eva Reuber-Staier in three movies) and Pola Ivanola - played by Sue Vanner in The Spy Who Loved Me and Fiona Fullerton in A View To A Kill (in Spy she's identified in the credits as 'Log Cabin Girl' but the Bond producers have confirmed it's the same character).
Eunice Gayson's other credits included Hammer's The Revenge of Frankenstein and episodes of The Saint and The Avengers, in a career that stretched back to the 1940s.
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Post by fenris on Jul 8, 2018 20:03:15 GMT
It's been announced that Steve Ditko was found dead in his New York apartment on 29th June. He was ninety years old.
Not only was he - in my humble opinion - the greatest comic book artist there's ever been, he also created or co-created a staggeringly large number of truly iconic characters: Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, Nightshade, The Question, Spiderman, the Vulture, Doctor Octopus, Kraven the Hunter, Electro, Sandman, Mysterio, the Scorpion, the Green Goblin, Doctor Strange, the Dread Dormammu, the Creeper, Hawk & Dove, Mister A, the Mocker and many others.
Famously reclusive, the most recent photos of him known to exist date back to the Sixties. The term 'legend' is used all too often these days, but Steve Ditko fully deserves to be described as such. RIP.
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Post by fenris on May 11, 2019 13:44:55 GMT
And the major news in the UK this past week: Woman Gives Birth and Four Teams Of Overpaid Millionaires Do Their Jobs.
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Post by fenris on Jul 27, 2019 14:32:35 GMT
The announcement earlier this week that Rutger Hauer had died at the age of 75 came as a complete shock. In reporting his death, the mainstream media have mostly concentrated on his high profile roles in Blade Runner and The Hitcher, some even mentioning his supporting parts in Sin City and Batman Begins, but my favourite Rutger performances have always been his English language debut as the terrorist villain in the underrated thriller Nighthawks, and his lead roles in two great Nineties B movies, Split Second and Armageddon (aka Redline).
A class act in everything he did. RIP.
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Post by fenris on Feb 16, 2020 16:12:42 GMT
Was watching the BBC News channel yesterday when the news broke about Caroline Flack's death. My immediate, instinctive reaction was 'Bloody hell.' It was another fifteen-twenty minutes before they were able to confirm she'd taken her own life. I've since realised that I don't think I ever actually watched a TV show that she presented or appeared on, but of course I still knew about her because her media profile was so huge. Regardless, to die at such a young age is awful, especially since - based upon the many tributes being made to her - she seems to have been genuinely well liked within the industry.
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Post by fenris on Jul 6, 2020 21:19:29 GMT
Ennio Morricone has died, aged 91. Was going to write a lengthy post about his immense contribution to cinema and popular culture, but ultimately decided to would be far more fitting to let his work speak for itself;
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