Foreshadowing (Big Finish Audio Short Trips).

Audio Well, this is delightful. After four anthologies, Big Finish decided to turn the Short Trips brand into a series of half hour long monthly downloads about each of the Doctors and so here's a tall tale about an UK army lieutenant interviewing Eighth and Charley about strange doings around his base, a time sensitive insect which has hitchhiked to Earth and is feasting on people's chronology.  Writer Julian Richards knows that these short pieces are at their best when investigating a simple story idea and then running riot with the prose and that's exactly what he does here, heading into Adamsian territory of the sarcastic repetition of phrases, investigating the utter ghastliness of having routine lives being disrupted by the inexplicable and understanding the potential in throwing around unexpected turns of phrase for comic effect.  Then he drops in a rather an epic twist which I won't spoil but makes you want to listen to the whole thing again, which you would anyway because it's so good.  His understanding of the two leads characters is extraordinary, especially Charley who can come across as being a bit "generic companion" sometimes in the wrong hands, and India Fisher clearly loved reading this, bless her, as the Edwardian adventuress lives again.  Placement:  Richards even bothers to explain where in the second season of "with Charley" this is meant to be, after The Time of the Daleks, and it absolutely feels like a missing story from that era.  Wow.

Quantum Heresy (Big Finish Audio Short Trips 4).

Audio A fairly standard time loop story in a lyrical style, Heaven Sent in fifteen minutes in other words, with hints of Rob Shearman's Scherzo mixed in for good measure. It's fine. The writer, Avril Naude, conveys how the loop works through repetition of description and phraseology then varying those to demonstrate how the perception of the lead character, an archivist, is changing. There are some moments of wonder (ahem) and a genuine sense, despite what I said in the first sentence, that Quantum Heresy wouldn't be easily or convincingly filmed. India Fisher reads again in a fairly neutral tone, but this just helps to enunciate the text and there's plenty of sound effects and voice treatments help create atmosphere. Placement: Has a snatch of the "with Lucie" music at the top so although the Doctor's travelling alone and you could put it anywhere in those gaps, I've tucked it in before Situation Vacant. Not that I wasn't tempted to put it in the Time War era given the theme of the story.

All the Fun of the Fair (Big Finish Audio Short Trips 3).

Audio Here's something I didn't think I'd ever hear, India Fisher for a few brief but entertainment moments "playing" Charley's successor Lucie Miller. This slender gag about an impresario who accidentally takes possession of the TARDIS and uses it as a magic door in his act is told in his first person with India reading in with a mockney accent (and giving more of a performance than in the previous adventure).  As soon as it becomes apparent which era it's going to be, it's impossible not to have your attention directed towards what her Lucie's going to sound like, and sure enough when the moment comes, she nails it.  It's eerie, in fact, as much as when Fraser plays Pat and when Louise Jameson reads in Sarah Jane in the other Short Trips.  Short Trips 3 has a framing story in which the Doctor's various incarnations have to pass a test and you can bet I listened to the whole thing to see if Eighth appears there too.  He doesn't.  Placement: I expect it's somewhere in series two of "With Lucie" since she and the Doctor are still talking to each other.

The Oscars 2016: My Guesses.

Film About what you'd expect, I suppose. The usual grumbles. A phalanx of white actors in all twenty slots and the biggest film on the planet at the moment not being nominated for a Best Picture because it's Star Wars (even though A New Hope was nominated back in the day). Not that I'm sure Lucasfilm and Disney will complain too much.

Best picture
The Martian
The Revenant
Room
Bridge of Spies
Spotlight
The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
Mad Max: Fury Road

So yes, no Best Picture nod for Star Wars: The Force Awakens even though it's probably just as worthy as most of the things on this list. I'd be happy for either Mad Max or The Martian to win, but everyone's talking about The Revenant.

Best actress
Cate Blanchett, Carol
Brie Larson, Room
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years
Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn

No Charlize Theron, but the number of strong female roles has been increasing again year on year. Not seen any of these. I imagine they'll give it to Cate Blanchett.

Best actor
Matt Damon, The Martian
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl
Bryan Cranston, Trumbo

Matt Damon due to the "seen it" default. But it'll be Leo. They're desperate to give it to him.

Best director
Adam McKay, The Big Short
George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, The Revenant
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight
Lenny Abrahamson, Room

George Miller, I hope. But it'll be AGI.

Best original screenplay
Bridge of Spies
Ex Machina
Inside Out
Spotlight
Straight Outta Compton

Ex Machina, boom. Always a bit interesting to see films based on historic events in this category given that there will be some source material involved even if there isn't a directly licensed previous property.

Best original score
Bridge of Spies
Carol
The Hateful Eight
Sicario
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Star Wars?

Best adapted screenplay
The Big Short
The Martian
Room
Brooklyn
Carol

The Martian.

Best production design
Bridge of Spies
The Danish Girl
Mad Max
The Martian
The Revenant

Mad Max, ultimately since The Martian's based on some old tropes for this and that.

Best Supporting Actress
Alicia Vikander
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Rachel McAdams
Rooney Mara
Kate Winslet

Rachel McAdams because she's Rachel McAdams?

Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale
Tom Hardy
Mark Ruffalo
Mark Rylance
Sylvester Stallone

Mark Rylance is now an Oscar nominated actor. I really want Stallone to beat him now.

Best Costume Design
Carol
Cinderella
The Danish Girl
Mad Max
The Revenant

Mad Max. But I do have a feeling The Revenant is going to sweep here.

Best Original Song
Fifty Shades of Grey
Racing Extinction
Spectre
The Hunting Ground
Youth

Shrugs. No idea. The Sam Smith song is notoriously bad. Lady Gaga and Diane Warren for The Hunting Ground?

Best Animated Film
Anomalisa
Boy and the World
Inside Out
Shaun the Sheep
When Marnie Was There

Want it to be Shaun. It'll probably be Inside Out.

Best Documentary
Amy
Cartel Land
The Look of Silence
What Happened, Miss Simone?
Winter of Fire

The Look of Silence should win, but god this is a strong category.

Best Cinematography
Carol
The Hateful Eight
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Sicario

Mad Max. Star Wars snubbed a lot here.

Best Make-Up and Hair
Mad Max: Fury Road
The 100-Year Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared
The Revenant

The 100-Year Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared because that's a guaranteed Oscar moment.


Best visual effects
Ex Machina
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Star Wars. The Revenant has visual effects? What is this film?

Best sound editing
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Sicario
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Mad Max. Although they might give it to BB for SW:TFA.

Best sound mixing
Bridge of Spies
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Mad Max.

Best editing
The Big Short
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Spotlight
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Mad Max.

Best foreign language film
Embrace of the Serpent
Mustang
Son of Saul
Theeb
A War

Have any of these films been released in the UK yet? Anything missing?

Letting Go (Big Finish Short Trips Audio 2).

Audio In Simon Guerrier's beautifully written, melancholy short, the Doctor and Charley visit a grieving family of antelope-like beings to explain to them how, Stan, their brother and son, was a hero who saved the crews of two spaceships which accidentally collided. Told in the first person by Charley, with India generally offering a measured interpretation with some characterisation interpolated where necessary, it's a fifteen minute scene in which everything and nothing happens and is utterly compelling.  It's about detail, how the grief on both sides manifests itself and the hole left in the universe by the loss of a single life.  At best, these "Short Trips" present a snatch of narrative which presents an idea too brief for a longer episode but which add to the overall suspension of disbelief across the whole franchise.  We know that the Doctor must make these death notification visits on occasion, but you simply can't imagine how they'd fit into the usual action adventure scenario.  Placement talk:  Charley opens the story explaining that she was travelling with a different incarnation of the Doctor which indicates this is during or post-Six, but since the main story indicates that it was early in her travels with Eight it must be set some time in their first series together.

Soup Safari #62: Indian Spice Root Vegetable and Lentil at Fig + Sparrow.

Lunch. £4 (plus £1 for white sourdough bread). Fig + Sparrow, 20 Oldham St, Manchester M1 1JA. Tel: 0161 228 1843. Website.

Running Out of Time (Big Finish Audio Short Trips 1).

Audio Nasty. Coming across like a repurposed Torchwood story, this sees the Doctor shifting through time as he attempts to stop the consciousness of an evil doer, implanted into the subconscious of a six year old orphan by an alien witch from regaining control.  With such a slender running time, just fifteen minutes, a lot of story is covered but the process of it isn't especially entertaining to listen to, especially since most of the story is in reported speech during an expositional conversation.  Would work just as well with Captain Jack wandering through at key moments in the man's life rather than the TARDIS stopping by, the climax feeling tonally off for the main franchise even taking into account some of the excesses of the EDAs and Dark Eyes.  Just about worth listening to for when India Fisher breaks from her purposefully monotone reading of the prose (using her Masterchef voice) and we hear her version of the Eighth Doctor.  He's travelling alone.  I've put this early in this incarnation, during the Sam's at Glastonbury gap.

My Favourite Film of 1964.

Film My Fair Lady is a very long film, surprisingly long. In its fully restored version it has a duration of a hundred and seventy minutes PLUS intermission if you're the sort of person like me who pauses their home entertainment system, takes a bathroom break and refills their beverage cup when the "intermission" card appears in these roadshow type pictures, imagining what it must have been like during the original release when everyone filed into the cinema bar much as they would at the theatre.

But it never feels long.  Amid the songs, the ripping script, clever performances and the sense of being witness to an event, the time flies by.  When people complain about films being too long and in a blanket sense, often what they mean is those films which "feel" long, or don't justify their duration.  My Fair Lady, as with many widescreen technicolour masterpieces of this period fully repays the time the viewer spends with it.

Such things are to the taste of the viewer.  The recent adaptation of The Hobbit's been criticised for turning a relatively slender volume into three films with a range of additional characters and plot details.  Apart from the fact that an audio reading of the book actually covers a similar duration to the theatrical releases, an exact adaptation of Tolkien with Bilbo sleeping through the battle of the five armies and what not would be a deeply undramatic experience.

In its extended version, The Hobbit clocks in at just under nine hours including credits which seems perfectly judged since as we can see now without twelve months between installments it's actually one long film with a similar structure to the average action movie of ninety minutes but with each of its acts stretched out across three hours.  Willfully meandering perhaps at times and with numerous set pieces which don't really advance the plot, it's meant to be an immersive experience and is.

But such cases are rare.  In my experience the perfect duration for most films is about two hours plus credits, with ninety minutes for a comedy.  Star Wars's The Force Awakens is 135 minutes but the live action section only covers about two hours, everything else is words.  When Harry Met Sally is 96 minutes, five of which are the credits on either side and it's perfect.  Which isn't to say Adam Sandler comedies would be any better if they were shorter but at least they'd be shorter.

Where does this leave My Fair Lady or The Hobbit, why are they allowed to break the rule?  Quite honestly I've no idea.  Increased incident and exposition help a lot, more story overall.  Justifiably longer films tend to happen across more locations with a greater number of characters even if there's a single story thread, whereas the really long feeling comedies have a limited number of locales and characters.  I'll no doubt return to this discussion again soon.

David Bowie on Social Media. Other things. In 2000.

Obituary Here's Bowie being interviewed by Paxman on Newsnight at the turn of the millennium. The whole thing is worth watching, but the key moment happens when Paxo poo-poos claims about the internet have been exaggerated, Bowie says this:

"I don't think we've even seen the tip of the iceberg. I think the potential of what the internet is going to do to society, both good and bad is unimaginable. I think we're actually on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying."

Paxman retorts, "It's just a tool though isn't it?"

"No it's not. No. It's an alien life form."

"It's just simply a different delivery system there, whereas your arguing something more profound." Paxman proposed.  To which Bowie replies.

"I'm talking about the actual context and the state of content is going to be so different to anything we can really envisage at the moment, where in interplay between the user and the provider will be so in sympatico it's going to crush our ideas of what mediums are all about.  It's happening in every form.  It's happening in visual art.  The breakthroughs in the early part of the century with people like Duchamps who were so prescient in what they were doing and putting down.  The idea that the work isn't finished until the audience come to it and add their own interpretation and what the piece of art is about is the grey space in the middle.  That grey space in the middle is what the twenty-first century is going to be about."

Yes, yes it is.  RIP.

The Life and Death of a Video Rental Shop.

Videoport: A Short Doc from p3 on Vimeo.

Film Utterly beautiful documentary which has as much heart and social commentary as some pieces ten times its length. There is something bracing about entering a space and seeing all of these spines of opportunity, all of these entertainment options which can't really be replaced by icons of posters on a screen, even if the latter is much more convenient. Plus as I've noticed recently, what these kinds of dvd libraries had over streaming services is retention. Whereas Amazon Video and the like can only present the film which companies want to make available even in the paid rental options, somewhere like Videoport will have had films which have been well deleted on dvd. We're entering an uncertain future.