links for 2009-06-06

• Doom 2D
  Retro fun. Hurt me plenty.
  
  
• Spotify playlist: Various Artists – The Ultimate Black History Collection
  To test a new Spotify feature, playlist posting to Delicious. Also wanted to highlight a very remarkable boxset which pulls to together music and news clips, including early Obama.
  
  
• Big Brother beginners: 'These days we'd be far too dull to be on the show'
  Compulsive viewing then, redundant now. Nice catch up with the original 'cast' though only Anna and Nick were willing to talk. "Sada Walkington was last heard of waitressing in Earl's Court." etc.
  
  
• Lost Star Trek Novels: Gene Roddenberry's The God Thing
  What does God need with a starship, indeed.
  
  
• DVD Times - Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
  Fairly good defence. There's nothing particularly bad about the film, assuming you're quite happy for Spock to have secret half-brother (and where was he in the Abrams view of the Roddenberryverse?). Perhaps, as the writer here suggests, people were harsh about the movie because they thought it was the last time they'd be seeing these characters. I don't imagine the same re-evaluation for Nemesis.
  
  
• Wordle - Obama's wide ranging speech in Egypt
  The largest word is 'people'. Muslim and muslims appear almost as much as America and world. 'Must' is very prominent as is 'peace'. It's almost as though his speechwriters fed it through Wordle before he gave it just to check that the balance was just right.
  
  
• Adam and Joe show Toy Review
  Crumbs, I'd forgotten about the Jo Whiley chatshow. And Macy Gray.
  
  
• Poet Tom Paulin reviews Star Trek on Newsnight Review
  ... and becomes Tom Tortoise from Adam & Joe's Toy Review. But somehow, we'd be disappointed if he'd actually liked it and hadn't thought it boring and tedious.
  
  
• Repeating the question: Hague gets Paxman grilling
  Sample: "Have you asked him?" "I've given my answer and the answer I'm giving."
  
  
• Here We Go Again: on the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill
  "Seriously. I own a copy of Lost Girls. Under the new laws, that makes me a criminal. God only knows what that makes Alan Moore."
  
  
• Waiting for Gardot
  For the title. I mean really.
  
  
• Chutes And Ladders: 10 Hollywood Cliches Which Can Go Either Way
  I don't agree with the assessment of Kim Walker in Heathers. My French film tutor always reminded us that films are not reality and that some elements of plot and character exist and meant to work purely on a symbolic/structural level. As Marc says, she's: "the catalyst, a bitchy, insecure alpha female catalyst to push Winona Ryder and Christian Slater together and then apart" in which case as a supporting character she's a function of the story, the villain, so she doesn't need to have "depth, real emotion or moral ambiguity". It's not that kind of film.
  
  
• Misery. It's Gordon Brown as Kathy Bates. And Westminster as Lilliput ...
  Marina Hyde suggests that Caroline Flint is in the process of gaining backing to become a unity candidate against Gordon Brown. I've not read this anywhere else, it's probably speculation, but it would make sense, and would at least be entertaining. I've just read that not too long ago she was backing Hazel Blears (whose campaign she ran for deputy-leader) and saying that she should not be sacked. But at this point, anything Flint said pre-resignation is a bit suspect ...