Terminator Episode 2.2

Some quick thoughts on the second episode of season 2. As before beware of spoilers!

This one proved to be more of a mixed bag. It had a very "episode of the week" feel with little suggestion of the story arc structure that the first season had. For example no Cromartie!

A resistance fighter arrives from the future just at the point as he is being shot. He delivers some information to Sarah just before he dies.

Basically there is trouble brewing in a nuclear power station. Sarah and Cameron get jobs as janitors very easily despite scars and scabs all over their faces from the previous episode. Later in the episode Sara has to take an unconvincing shortcut through a room with big radioactive barrels to set up her possible illness as hinted before. Lots of this just felt a bit lazy or too convenient. (Perhaps this might have worked out better over 2 or 3 episodes?)

On the other hand there were nice little character moments, such as Cameron acting a bit, well, odd. Sarah was understandably twitchy around her. And Lena Headey gave a great understated performance selling her worry that she might have received a dangerous level of radiation.

Also a very amusing little moment with Cameron perfectly creating a bar code on an identitiy card with a black pen!

In a bit of teenage rebelling John takes a girl home to see his new bedroom. When she asks for his phone number he says if she calls him she has to say the date before she says anything else. A nice little touch which reminds us that terminators can mimic voices.

At the end of the episode Sarah and the others discover that the resistance fighter managed to write addresses on the wall of the basement in his own blood. (I'm not sure what it means but I think it implies they were supposed to protect a power station man who got killed in the episode.)

The nod to the story arc involves Ellison telling Charlie and Mrs Charlie to go hide from the machines. When Mrs Charlie opened the door I thought "Linda Hamilton!" The actress does look a little bit like her. Turns out she's called Sonya Walger and played Desmond's girlfriend Penny in Lost.

In summary an OK episode that could have used another draft in places.

Finally Summer Glau is on the cover of the new SciFiNow magazine in the UK. Inside are nice photos of Lena. Holding guns. I don't mind, but could they not print some publicity pictures of her not holding guns?

Dominique Sanda Photos

I found a few Dominique Sanda photos that I thought deserved to be here. (Until someone else starts a fan page I think I'm the only show in town!)

Julia Ormond in CSI NY

Julia Ormond has been a favourite actress of mine for many years now. In fact my "Undefinitive Page" about her was one of the first web sites I started, way back in the distant days of 1997.

That coincided with the start of a long period where she didn't seem to actually be making any movies so it took a lot of dedication to keep working on the page. Luckily lots of other dedicated fans would contribute what they would find.

I'm glad to say that lately things have been a little bit busy. Julia has had quite a few projects on the go including the Soderberg movie Che, a Spanish movie called The Escorial Conspiracy, Surveillance by Jennifer Lynch and a small part in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button by David Fincher.

One big development lately is her role as a new detective on CSI NY and thanks to Rodolfo, one of my regular contributors, here is the first photo of Julia in the show.



There are more photos from that episode at http://www.critictoo.com/news/csi-ny-508-100eme-episode-26-photos/. I understand it's a recurring or regular role.

You can see my 11 year old Julia web-page at myweb.tiscali.co.uk/chevron/juliaormond. Dedication I tell you!

Terminator Episode 2.1

Here are my thoughts on the first episode of season 2 of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Spoilers follow. You have been warned!

This episode picked up at the point where the last episode of season 1 ended, with Cameron getting blown up in the jeep. Inside the house some bad guys are being bad to Sarah and John. Cameron pulls herself from the car and limps in, I assumed, to help Sarah and John.

Nope. When we see Cameron's "Terminator Vision" we get a "John Conner: Terminate" directive pop up. Yikes!

Actually I thought this would happen eventually. In an earlier episode Future Cameron says to Derek "Sometimes they go bad." I figured that was a pretty obvious warning, but I wasn't expecting it to happen so soon.

Most of the episode that follows is a chase sequence that brings to mind the best of the first two movies. We even get a scene in one of the LA drainage channels.

The stand-out scene of the episode comes when Cameron gets squished between two trucks and John is attempting to pull out her chip. Summer Glau plays the increasingly desperate robot nicely. She starts with a fairly calm "things are good now, things are fine now, I ran a test." Then she becomes increasingly desperate as John cracks her head open and she repeats "I don't want to go, please john please" and eventually "I love you!" It reminded me (no doubt intentionally) of the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey when Hal is pleading with Dave not to shut him down.

Here's the scene on YouTube:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RkrLgCRynGM&feature=related

In other developments Shirley Manson turns up as a CEO who happens to be a T-1000. And Cromartie lets Ellison live.

All in all a very strong episode.

Ruth Wilson in BBC adaptation of Andrea Levy's Small Island

I've just been told about this so I thought I would stick it here first.

One of my favorite actresses, Ruth Wilson, has been cast in a BBC drama adaptation of Andrea Levy's WW2-era novel Small Island. Here's the BBC press release:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2008/10_october/23/small_island.shtml

Ruth has been a favorite of mine since her stunning performance in Jane Eyre in 2006. At the moment she's in the remake of 1960s classic The Prisoner.

I have a Ruth Wilson page (http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/chevron/ruthwilson) that I'll update with this news later.

Lena Headey in 'Terminator'

When the first season of Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles arrived on TV at the start of the year it was must-watch TV for me. I was already a fan of Lena Headey and the (first two) Terminator movies.



However I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the writing and the character-driven nature of the stories. The production values were high and there were some genuinely gruesome moments, e.g. the 'Cromartie' terminator getting new 'skin'.

Because of the writers strike the season ended after just nine episode so I was very happy to hear that there was going to be a second season, the first episode of which arrives on UK TV next Thursday, 23 October 2008.

Today's times has an article on Shirley Manson who plays a new character:

entertainment.timesonline.co.uk

Also here's news that "Fox has just given a full-season order" for the show:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117994273.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

By the way, Virgin 1 have been broadcasting a behind-the-scenes show in advance of the new series. It's on again tonight if you've missed it.

My occasionally updated Lena Headey page can be found at myweb.tiscali.co.uk/chevron/lenaheadey

Dominique Sanda

Over the years I've started a number of fan sites on actresses I liked. one actresses I never got around to is Dominique Sanda.

I only "discovered" her by chance. One night I noticed The Mackintosh Man was being shown on TV. I knew this was a movie based on a novel by Desmond Bagley called The Freedom Trap. I decided to watch it and quite enjoyed it. The late Paul Newman was in it and it was directed by John Huston.

A French actress called Dominique Sanda was in it too. I'd never heard of her but she immediately caught my attention and ever since I've kept an eye out for any of her other movies. As it turns out she didn't make many English language movies so very few of them are available on DVD in the UK.

One of the few I have managed to see is Damnation Alley, a post-acopolyptic SF movie made in the 1970s. It appears to haven loosely based on a novel by Roger Zelazny.

Hopefully I'll be able to track down some more of Dominique's movies...

Quantum of Solace poster

Another post on Quantum of Solace. I was doing some absent-minded searching and I discovered the following poster image. It appears to be the real deal, and if so I love it.

It's nice and simple, goes straight to the point: Daniel, Olga, plume of smoke, desert.

Casino Royale had a very gray colour pallet. This time we're getting desert browns. I like!

Gemma Arterton in Vanity Fair

Here's a scan that I made of Gemma Arterton in the new issue of Vanity Fair. Gemma is one of the new Bond ladies in Quantum of Solace.

Gemma has been busy. Tonight she's on BBC1 in the final episode of Tess of the D'Urbervilles (which is sure to have a happy ending!) and recently she was also in ITV's surprisingly enjoyable Lost in Austen.

Anyways, here's the scan. Click to get the big version.



PS Thanks oh so very much Mail on Sunday for giving away her fate in Quantum of Solace!

Quantum of Solace books

The new Bond movie comes out soon and as you probably know it's named Quantum of Solace. This was a title of one of five Ian Fleming short stories that appeared back in 1960 in a collection called For Your Eyes Only. Later on after his death some other stories were published under the title Octopussy and The Living Daylights.

To tie-in with the movie release it appears that Penguin, the current publishers of the Bond books, have decided to bring out a new book with the title of the movie. This book features all the Fleming short stories collected togeather.

Interestingly it seems they are not going with a Daniel Craig illustration. The two covers shown here are the UK hardback and paperback covers and I think they are very much in keeping with some of the fleming covers from the 1960s. In any case, I'm sure I'll ending up buying at least one of them!

Jessica Biel in The Times

The Times newspaper has an article on actress Jessica Biel today. She's appearing in a period comedy called Easy Virtue that has been adapted from an "obscure" Noel Coward play.

I'm glad to hear that she is getting period work after seeing her in The Illusionist, one of my favourite movies from the last few years.

You can read the article at entertainment.timesonline.co.uk.

Felicity Jones at Brideshead Revisited premiere

The UK premiere for the new movie version of Brideshead Revisited took place earlier in the week and I am using it as an excuse to include another photo of Felicity Jones.

Emilia Fox in Silent Witness

Silent Witness is back on BBC1 tonight. It's not something I've ever really watched but I have decided that I really must make the effort to watch it, mainly because Emilia Fox plays pathologist Dr Nikki Alexander.

(Huh, I thought she was blonde but it turns out that she has red hair?)

Oh, Heroes is on at the same time... Decisions, decisions...