The Shaky Cam and Jason Bourne

So, instead of investing all its money into marketing ninjas trying to fix disastrously boring and endlessly repetitive movies, (yes, especially all the reboots and sequels) how about Hollywood investing in real writers, a bloody camera-tripod, and some optical image stabilisers again, for crying out loud!!! Because they are mistaking our dizziness and nausea when watching their lovelessly jotted products with excitement over a captivating story. All reboots are far worse than the most poorly written fan fiction I've ever read! Enough already! Hollywood makes Stephenie Meyer and E. James look like Shakespeare and Dickens these days, because they at least, stole from various sources, instead of just one, unlike all the reboot specialists trying to retell a story they never got in the first place. They are a bit like that annoying kid in kindergarten on Monday Morning, trying to recap saturdays Doctor Who episode for you, but all they got was this dude in a blue box went woosh, and boom and then he talked for a while, and boom, you know!? And I'm like: 😏🙄

yes, JJ, I'm looking at you. But I digress again...

The first two Jason Bournes had spectacular stories written by a true master. The shaking and zooming were already hard to cope with, but at least the story, the choreography, character development, and pace was right, more than right it was innovative, fresh, sharp. The third still had a great story, but the shakiness and excessive use of extreme closeups was on the knuckle.

And then it went awry. Everyone had to use it constantly in every movie, in every scene!

The latter Bournes are just shaking all around with so many extreme zoom-ins and zoom-outs and zoom-ins and zoom-outs and a shake to the left and a shake to the right in every single scene you can't even count them, not to talk of all the extreme closups, enough to scare every dermatologist, including Doctor Pimple Popper herself, to death.

So please, stop it already! Every iPhone, and drone has steadycams optical stabilisers etc... on it, so just fucking use them all ready!

The Wilhelm Scream stopped being an inside and thus funny joke after everybody started using it, now it's just embarrassingly awkward. Like the moment your granny digs your jeans, when that happens, it's time for a change in style, kiddo! And it's the same with the Dramamine camera!

#JasonBourne #ShakyCamera #Hollywood #Boring

Doctor Who Caught by Hate in the Net, or “People plus technology minus humanity. "

The Doctor Falls

Isn't it cute, how the hipster "I call myself a fan, but actually I just love to hate it" crowd, call themselves experts these days and hate everything typically Doctor-Whoish about Doctor Who? What actually made this show what it is today? What makes it so different and special? Just because it's become so fashionable to diss everything with stolen words these days? They didn't get half the nods, either out of genuinely not knowing the show and its past, or simply because they were being too busy live-tweeting how bad it all is and how utterly boring the show has become, to even notice. Let me tell You, from someone who has watched and loved this show for almost half a Century now, this "finale" if you may call it that, was made in the great tradition of the other regenerations, semiregenerations, endings and beginnings, and will even rank in my personal top three of all times, as far as pace, acting, storytelling, loving nods, references and touching homages count. 

This adorably sweet-scary-edge-of-seat-sitting finale was a deep deep bow by Capaldi, Moffat and the team, to all who came before them, and deserves ten curtain calls. 

Do any of the haters realise how many Doctors he quoted in this season finale alone? Or where the Tardis actually landed when he met One? What planet it was? Does the Tenth Planet ring a bell? No? Yea, thought so. Or any of this stuff...

“Sontarans! Perverting the course of human history!"

“Without hope, without witness, without reward”.

“I know you’ve fallen”

“It’s the scarecrows – new ones!”

"I don't want to go!" 

“When The Doctor was me”

"Without hope, without witness, without reward" (yes, I adore River, so she gets two mentions for that fact alone.) 

"While there’s tears, there’s hope,” doesn't that remind you of Pertwee's last words?: “A tear, Sarah Jane? No, don’t cry. While there’s life there’s…” 

The Jellybabies...

The master and his dancing wheelchair...

I could go on and on... And I'm sure I missed many more, simply because my first encounters with the Doctor were in Italian ;) 

Missy’s display of empathy, because she's a woman... that one actually reminded me of Douglas Adams', POV-gun storyline. (Douglas Adams having written some of my favourite DW storylines in the past, this could very well be another nod. After all, Moffat and Capaldi know their Doctor Who well, very well!)

The landing on the tenth planet, where it all began? That was some utterly gobsmacking telly! With the brilliant David Bradley returning as the first Doctor/Hartnell. "The Doctor? Dear me, no. I’m the Doctor. The original, you might say.” Oh, I can't wait for the Christmas episode...

His speech: "... I do what I do because it’s right! Because it’s decent. And above all, it’s kind. It’s just that. Just kind. If I run away today, good people will die. If I stand and fight, some of them might live … maybe not many, maybe not for long. Hey, maybe there’s no point in any of this at all, but it’s the best I can do, and I will stand here doing it until it kills me. You’re going to die, too, someday. When will that be? Have you thought about it? What would you die for? Who I am is where I stand. Where I stand is where I fall.” 

I mean, come on! That was bloody brilliant. That was a mic drop moment. 

Ok, yes, the Bill/Pilot thing reminded me a bit too much of the Clara/Ashildr departure in the last series finale. But hey, the universe is big enough for four badass girls in their respective flying (time) machines. And yes, since the pilot can fly everything, I'm sure she can get a hold of a time machine as well... thus flying the Tardis being no problem. I think Bill deserved her very own, very unique happy end. As unique as she was. But that's just me. Because I really liked her. Bill was heartwarming and innocent with a heart of gold and Nardole was a funny, sweet devoted and humble sidekick. And he was adorable! I don't understand all the hate they are getting. The interactions of all three characters were absolutely hilarious. And each story had something to take back into reality. Something good. Something about sacrifice, decency, love, compassion and respect. Classic beautiful storytelling.

All together; It was a very beautiful series finale, filled with so much love, I even shed a few tears! It reminded me of why I fell in love with this show, many many years ago. Yes, I admit it. I remembered what I felt like as a little kid, hiding behind the sofa with her teddy bear in her arms, but her eyes still fermly glued to the screen. Fading out the entire world around her. (I remember, my mind being like the Tardis, flying into the vortex when the show began. The first few notes really drew me in...) 

This finale gives me hope for the future of this franchise; It will be good! “The Doctors will return at Christmas” indeed, and what a present this will be for those willing to take it in...

It saddens me to see how much was missed by those eager to hate everything. Watching something with wondering eyes and an open mind, seems impossible for them. But bashing all and everyone who dare speak up and actually like it and saying so out loud, is not impossible for them; It's daily business. 

I mean, writing a hateful review shredding an episode to confetti, before the episode even aired, just because the name Moffat appears, doesn't make you cool, it makes you a pathetic angry little troll. Critiquing some factual errors, or poor acting, plot holes, with logical arguments is one thing, hating everything for hates' sake is another. 

To me, Doctor Who was and still is about hope, is about love and bigger goals. It's about not giving up, even when life throws thousands of Mondasian Cybermen at you. It is humanistic to its core. It is about dreams and imagination. It's about believing in greater good! And to truly understand its beauty you must be willing to abandon yourself in the stories to a certain extent, immerse into this crazy, colourful, weird universe. And enjoy it for a while. It is about rediscovering your inner child. Remembering what it felt like when gran told you a bedtime story.

Try it. It will enhance your life dramatically. It's your choice to hate everything coming your way, or trying to see the beauty in it. You will always find hate and love in the same places. It just depends on what YOU are looking for! 

As Missy said, "It's time to stand with the Doctor!" Or stop watching..

#DoctorWho #TheDoctorFalls 

And then came Jody... and the new Who white male fanbase mostly from across the pond exploded! Oy vey! 

Depunked myth: Albert Einstein, was not a poor student.

Es ist ein Mythos, dass Albert Einstein schlecht in der Schule war. Manche seiner Biographen haben das System von Schweizer Noten einfach nicht verstanden – Eine Sechs ist darin das beste, was du kriegen kannst. Und weil Einstein seine Matura an der Aargauer Kantonschule machte und sein Zeugnis von Fünfern und Sechsern nur so wimmelte, war er eben nicht schlecht, sondern gut in der Schule. Ausser im Französisch; da bekam er eine Drei.

Another myth that needs to be debunked, Albert #Einstein was NOT a bad student. Many of his biographers did simply not understand the Swiss school grading system. The Swiss system uses grades/marks from 1 (very poor) to 6 (the best you can get) while Germany uses the opposite (1 is the best, and 6 very poor) so Einstein was actually pretty good in school. Except for his French, were he got a poor mark of 3. (Below 4 is usually equal to a failed class)

Rebooting and reinventing or how to dismantle your childhood heroes

 Rebooting a TV Show and turning it into something dark, brooding and deeply depressing seems to be the hip thing to do these past few years. Now, don't get me wrong I don't mind updates, remakes, reboots or whatever you want to call them. But I absolutely hate reinventing/reimagening. I really wished Hollywood and the movie industry would put its efforts into creating something original. Has Your generation nothing new to offer? Do you really ALL have to come back to the old and safe? There are so many good writers out there, with genuinly new ideas and entire universes to explore that it is unexplicale why they keep trying to fix things that don't need fixing in the first place. And why always turn something postive into negativity, darkness and distrust? Worse of all by constantly retconning, the makers alienate the longterm fans who actually made the show a success back in the days and passed the love for it onto a next generation. The lack of respect to the original stories, the characters and their fans is ipso facto counterproductive. Because we'll just stop watching, or going to the movies. No fans, equals to no commercial value of the movie/series and that, as we all know, results in the death of the show/movie/franchise. Get that Networks and Studios? Make the fans huff off, and You'll lose the show!

One thing I really mind is when my childhood heroes are being turned into whining alcoholics as in Battlestar Galactica, or one man shows for overpaid wannabe James Bonds as in Mission Impossible. (Teamwork? What Team?) Yes, and then the paramount of reboots gone bad: Bionic Woman. A stiff and sulky faced, bartending brunette that even makes the 24/7 pouting Kristen Stewart look vivid. Oscar Goldman and ALL other characters are badies and no one trusts or smiles at anyone, ever. EVER! (Alias squared)

Oh lordy Lord and holy flying spaghetti monster! Should I go into it some more? NOPE my grey hair is growing back!

I'm sure, there are plenty of lovers of the whole deep and dark and brooding approach. But its ike the "I'm thinking, I'm thinking" scene with the thinker by Rodin in Night at the museum II. Looking broody doesn't make you smart, dark shows don't make it interesting by just being dark. It's the writing, the originality, the difference that make us watch. And does he darkness has to be in EVERY reboot? We've had Alias! We've had Dark Angel! We've had the magnificent XENA! They were originally brilliantly written and conceived dark shows. But why turn Bionic Woman into a third class Nikita with an implant? (and yes, Jessica Alba had more sex appeal in her pinky toe than... You get my point) Why turn Hawaii Five-O into The Prisoner goes Lost with a sociopathic homicidal mother coming back from the dead? Why discard the planet of the Apes from all philosophical aspects, as in the brilliant final scene with the statue of liberty on the beach and Charlton Heston... oh I'm digressing again?

And Sabrina? AUDREY HEPBURN!!!!! Period! Need I say more?

And then finally why rip Batman from the last bit of poetic beauty and Burtonesque brilliance?

Its like that fashionable little sister/daughter thing so popular these days... She is annoying, clumsy and dad/mom/bro' does not understand. Good we got it. It stopped being funny in Eureka after season two. At least they got it and had her evolve a wee bit.

Take Hawaii Five-O for example. Season one of the new one had three dimensional characters a good balance of procedural "who done it" and the core characters back stories. You know... the kind of... do less more... (I'm quoting, I'm quoting) Season three has none of that elegance anymore. The criminal cases are boring and predictable and have become secondary, the back stories are so overcomplicated they are starting to bite themselves in the bacon, or vanish into oblivion, because no one gets it anymore. Even Ariadne would go "darn you've lost me" here. And the "additional women" on the show are written by men and for men as one-dimensional sexual fantasies in a way only a man can imagine how a woman of the 21. Century should be (always available and willing to do anything he asks for, no matter what it may cost her... but that's another story) to lure some Lara Croft fans off the computer towards this show. Even the original Charlies Angels was less oversexed. But Hawaii can take it, right?!

 Today's generation should have a chance to have "positive heroes" of some kind like we did. As a matter of fact looking at the world today, they even desperately need them! Why is Hollywood depriving them from hope in 3D? What is so wrong with some lighthearted fun? Or a good old-fashioned cop story? Why digitalize and over-CGI the crap out of all movies, as much as to turn them into a video game? Do You think drowning us in more and more CGI and rumination untill there's no living aura left will make up for a bad script? I'm not asking for Inspector Colombo or the utterly brilliant Agatha Christie's Poirot every week, but when You fell in love with a show back in your youth, why do you have to take it apart now? Why do you feel the urge to destroy it, by making it bad? My childhoods TV and movie heroes however trite, banal, cheesy, or naive they might have been, enriched my life. Roddenberry's approach to a positive future made me a better person. Instead of always searching for all the bad in all the characters in all the shows and all the universes, he gave me hope and trust in a better tomorrow. A trust that not everyone is trying to cheat on, or lie at me.

You know what? I guess I am wrong, I do NOT like reboots/reinvention after all. So far only two have not disappointed me. Drew Barrymore's Charlies Angels I and II and JJ.'s Star Trek into Darkness. But the latter one only because I'm a Spokaholic, both of them. The story itself was meh! 

I fear for the moment they’ll reinvent Magnun p.I. as a PTSD suffering, hobo with no home and welfare rejected secondhand Hawaiishirts, stalking a poor writer and uncovering a huge maleficiant underground coverup operation called Zeus vs Apollo and Higgins is the female ninja hitman/woman trying to drag Magnum to the dark side, with her singing remotecontroled helicopter called TC and they always meet in Ricks cafe, and new Baker and Poncherello are shooting themselves out of every trouble, shooting first and asking questions later, always dead serious of course. NOOOOOO!

"My" CHiPs, btw. never ever ! Except for Bear once, drew their guns in the entire series, they flirted, served and protected, and flirted - a lot - did I mention the flirting? ahhhh, the good old times!

And frankly all this overpondering crap today has gotten just plain boring! What some call good drama, I call destructing a good time. I don't want to go into darkness I want to go into the light! The undiscovered country ist bright! Right? I WANT MY JAMIE SOMMERS BACK!!!
Disclaimer: no picture belongs to me, I merely googled them. Mahalo!

Addendum, 30.05.2013:

I've since been asked why I prefered "my" Jamie to the new one. Is that a question, really?! Just look at that picture above! Not enough?

Ok, it's simply because my Jamie (sorry about that "my" thing Lindsay Wagner, not that I expect You to read this, but just in case...) had the sparkling smile of a life loving survivor. That smile you only get once you stood at the abyss of despair, felt the physical, psychological and mental pain of being sick or seriously wounded and yet and maybe unexpectedly surmounted it all!

No matter how often she got knocked down by life, enemies or deadly fembots, she stood up, wiped her clothes clean and continued on her path, giving the world her inimitable beautiful radiant smile. Gracefully, classy and loyal to her family, friends and loved ones. She stood by them and found them standing by her in return. She didn't hate the world for trying to protect her, she knew they did it because they loved her and subsequently proved to them she could take care of herself, not with hate, anger and negativity, but with a positive smile and a loving heart. My Jamie looked for love and found it, as much as the new one looked for distrust, hate, envy, grudge and guess what? She found it too. A generational problem? Maybe...

What I've learned from Lindsay Wagner's Jamie? We will always find what we are looking for, and we will find it in the same places. It only depends on OUR OUTLOOK

The Christchurch City terrorist and why I will not try to understand him or his likes.

First of all let me express my deepest condolences to all involved in this tragedy, including the first and second responders, their families, loved ones and friends.

The 74 pages pamphlet now being widely shared served a couple of purposes: to inflame political tensions, to ensnare the hidden and undecided Nazi, to serve as a knowing nod to those who might be watching the terrorist’s actions with approval and seeking to do the same, and of course to sow further discord and confusion, by calling right wing ideologies fascist and himself a liberal lefty and so on. To achieve those ends, this male terrorist, used memes and key phrases born out of a sick lust for world dominance of the aggressively insecure and last remaining unevolved white males over anything and anyone no matter what it takes. A beast is at its most dangerous when it realises it is dying, going extinct. The effect is ultimatly the same; it normalizes Nazism, and marginalises our enemies in the most twisted way possible.

I firmly belief that it does not matter WHY someone hates other people, other faiths, other colours, other sexes enough to massacre innocents while praying. The extremist mass murderer who killed 49 innocents in Christchurch wants to become famous, he wants his place in history, he wants his time in the spotlight to explain himself. Why do I know that? He wore a helmet, a bulletproof west and let them arrest him. He wants to live to tell his tale, just like the Norwegian assassin from 2011. No! My answer is strictly and simply: no. Strip him of all of his rights to proclaim his revolting ideas to the world. No tolerance towards intolerance. Yes, I am a firm believer in Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance. He and his minions, and there are a few of them, need to be taught that enough is enough. We will have no more tolerance of hate speech and terrorist acts at all. 

Valérian et Laureline, par Luc Besson

Cher détesteurs de toute chose neuves et originales,

Ce film sera une autre bijou de la part de Luc Besson: Et si vous voulez vous appeler de vrais fana de la bonne Sci-Fi, vous lui donnerez une chance de se prouver, avant (!) de l'enterrer.

C'est vrai que ce film sera probablement davantage pour le public mature de science-fiction, pour ceux qui savent qu'il y a plus que les Transformers le cinquante-cinquième film, ou Star Wars: nous raconterons la même histoire avec de nouveaux acteurs encore et encore.

Et aussi pour ceux qui veulent, et sont capables de regarder quelque chose de nouveau, avec les yeux et un esprit ouvert!

Le BD de Valérian et Laureline qui existait depuis 1967 est un nouveau motif pour beaucoup de gens, une BD à vous couper le souffle à explorer, original et connu de tous les adeptes de romans graphiques originaux, élaborés et totalement fantastiques, même bien au-delà des frontières françaises.

Donc, au lieu de prouver au monde entier votre ignorance née d'esprits étroit, en tirant sur quelque chose qui n'a jamais été fait au part avant, et qui n'est même pas encore sorti, essayez d'apprendre quelque chose de nouveau, de lire quelque chose que vous ne connaissez pas et de donner une chance réelle à quelque chose de différent, qui pourrait vraiment vous plaire!
Ou alors, arrêtez de babiller sur le manque d'originalité à Hollywood, si VOUS êtes ceux qui bloquent tout ce qui se passe en dehors de vos vieux chemins habitué!

Dear haters of all things original and new,

This will be another Besson gem. 

And if You want to call yourselves Sci-Fi Fans, You will give it a burl, before (!) burying it. 

It will probably be more for the mature Sci-Fi Fan audience though, for those aware that there is more out there than the odd Transformers the twenty-fifth movie, or Star Wars-we're retelling the same story with new actors. And for those willing and able to watch something new, with an open mind! 

The BD of Valérian et Laureline that existed from 1967 is breathtaking new grounds to explore, utterly original and known to all adepts of original, elaborated and utterly fantastic graphic novels even far beyond the french borders. 

So instead of proving your narrow minded ignorance to the whole world, by bashing something that hasn't been done before, or hasn't even come out yet, try learning something new, reading something you haven't known about and give something different a chance! 

Or, stop babbling about the lack of originality in Hollywood, if YOU are the ones blocking anything outside your own old and worn out paths!

Ghostbusters 2016 - the travesty

My thoughts include a certain spoiler at the very end.

No, not all people disliking the last Ghostbusters movie have ridiculous attitudes and are misogynist buffoons: I am a woman. The first female firefighter in my country and a feminist. I saw the last one. And I can "open-mindedly" tell you that it was just as dumb, lazily written and sexist as the trailers predicted. All men in it are portrayed as morons, idiots and thugs. All of them! The only way to destroy super baddie is to shoot him in the junk (and they call "us" sexists).

The whole thing was like an overlong and very dumb SNL sketch. Comparable only to MacGruber. You thought: hmm, great premiss, even RDA is part of it, then you actually saw it, and your jaw dropped.

If you liked MacGruber, you'll like Ghostbusters 2016. If you didn't, you won't.

But to brand us, who dislike the new movie as all being misogynist pigs and worse, is just as wrong and insulting as not to accept that some are simply tired of all the inutile reboots, who are way worse than the original. The last really good remake must have been John Carpenter's The Thing, with its iconic soundtrack. And while we're at it: None of us ever claimed the new movie ruins our childhood, that phrase was only used by the marketing "geniuses" and bloggers hired to blame everyone else for this disaster, other than those truly responsible: the writers and director! And yes I know Aykroyd was part of the writing team, but then, I also know that he wrote and directed Nothing But Trouble aka Valkenvania. And that proved to be a "What the hell were you thinking?!" 

The trailers of Ghostbusters 2016 show us the best we can expect from this movie, as a trailer should, the "best scenes" are in it, and they sure kept their promise! 

Except for this part, that wasn't in the trailers. Or as Cartman so eloquently put it years ago: It doesn't matter, Butters! You never shoot a guy in the dick! Everyone knows that! Shooting a guy in the dick!? That's just... that's just weak... I can't believe you, Feig. 

Let us hope they learned from their last mistakes and the next one, has actually some originality.