Twit, ter who...

Who's for Who? I talked about this the other time but last night it struck me that Antony Sher has got to be in the running as the next Doctor. His utterly camp stroll-about as Benjamin Disraeli in Mrs Brown puts him at number one on my book.

Actually the woefully underused Tim Curry would make a brilliant Doctor Who too. Lets face it, since that disaster with Paul McGann anyone would cut the mustard but Sher is the one for me.

Death Race 2000

I must be nuts. I belong to this cult video club and so I keep renting these bloody awful films which brings us to the above. What in god's name possessed messrs Carradine and Stallone to be in this? It views like the result of a drunken spree by John Waters and Russ Meyer after being served martinis by Benny Hill.

The thing is, I reckon it would make quite a good remake.

Similarilties to Rollerball are skin deep only I'm afraid, although it does make use of a sort of sub genre I like which is "Ultra-modernist-buildings used-in-sci-fi-to-stand-in-as-the-future" Okay its a sub-sub-genre but its great. 70's sci-fi especially seems to use any big white empty modernist piles as sets, the other classic is using power stations or water processing plants. Vast antisceptic spaces with light light light. (especially Rollerball, Sleeper, Westworld)

Then the eighties happened and it shifted to disused steel mills and the like. Not nearly as fun. Now new buildings have begun to look like disused steel mills or oil refineries (thankyou Richard Rogers) so the CGI sets have followed suit. Shame. Vast cluttered spaces with dark dark dark...

Harold Goodwin (II)

Harold Goodwin" Is it he? The voice of Hovis and wizened bloke in Selwyn Froggatt? More research needed!

Superfly!

Rented this the other night, never having dipped my piggies in Blaxploitation before: Hilarious! well hilariously bad that is. Shaft is a bit wooden but jesus this makes it look like Hamlet. The plot is on a par, in terms of taste, with Springtime for Hitler; Cocaine dealing being taken as the baseline, the datum above which honesty is judged. 'He's a good man' 'But he's a cocaine dealer!' 'Yeah but apart from that he's a good man' "cocaine is the only trade 'the man' left us to do" says one character; presumably in order to clear up any confusion over this ethical sticking point. My other fave is the dialogue, did anyone in New York in the 70's ever talk like this? no really, did they? Thus I think my flirtation with blaxploitation has ended. I'll do bad films, god knows I have in the past (plan 9 from outer space anyone?) but not this bad.

David Battley

David Battley. Who he? Well he played the teacher in Willy Wonka who is so obsessed with the golden ticket he ends up using Wonka Bars as arithmetical units, as in "If I have two wonka bars in this hand and two in this hand how many golden tickets might I have?" or somesuch.

Why he? No reason really, I have a collegue with a similar overly prominent lower jaw

Hurray! China's answer to Charlie Hawtrey

Real name: Ping-Ao Wei

Most famously seen camping it up something rotten as a baddy in Return of the Dragon with Bruce Lee.

No doubt, the lavender pork pie hat qualifies him for instant Collection membership

hmmmmm

Its looking like Dougray from where I'm sitting...

double-oh no!

Apparently Pierce has got the can! How can this be, the guy is a top bond and certainly the best of a shower since Lazenby. Yes, I like Lazenby so deal with it.

Confused rumours have Orlando bloom as a young Bond, whether this is in a full film or one of those extended prologues who knows. I can't see him as 007 myself. Too blond too elfin too immortal if you get my typecasting.

Dougray Scott has been mentioned, dunno, I suppose at least he's Scottish. Then there are silly suggestions like Richard E Grant (a very good baddy he'd be though) and various americans including the Clooney.

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TV side step

Very suprised to see Ru Madoc in "Little Britain" last night. Not exactly collection material, far too successful but still. Has anyone else been spotted recently? Non.

Oh hold on! How stupid! Oskar Werner was in Voyage of the Dammed the other day. Never seen this movie before but it had everyone in it. Americans mixed up with British small screen ephemera like a huge and unkempt knickerbocker glory.

VOD was his last film but I'm totally blown away by the fact that he was in Columbo. It really doesn't get much better than that.

Voyage of the Damned (1976) .... Dr. Egon Kreisler

Columbo: Playback (1975) (TV) .... Harold Van Wick

Goodbye to an old friend

Ron Perlman has offered his resignation: "Dear collection, thankyou for your many minutes of support throughout parts of my career. I realise that your esteemed halls are for the down trodden, the obscure, the unrecognisable and the forgotten and with the relase of Hellboy my star has risen.
No more Stella Artois adverts for me!
So it is with a heavy heart that I must bid you all farewell and go to find my solace in, wine, cocaine and the embraces of my identical twin fillipino lapdancers. Adieu!"