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Our local watering-hole, SF-bokhandeln (science fiction bookstore), has this last week celebrated its ten-year anniversary in Gothenburg. (That means it was brand new during Lexx-o-Rama 2001!) There have been events at the store, including Skype interviews with famous writers. On Saturday, several dressing-up societies were invited to help create atmosphere; Mithlond and the 501st Legion answered the call. So there were Hobbits and Stormtroopers giving the holidaymakers embarrassed smiles as they passed by. Well, most of them wanted to be photographed with Lord Vader and various troopers, who must have sweated horribly in the sunshine...

But yesterday, wow, the main event for die-hard geeks! Ola had rented a plex at Biopalatset, where he showed the full Branney&Leman HPLHS oeuvre, from a not-too-embarrassing student film from 1988 based on "The Statement of Randolph Carter", via the mockumentary about a failed production of "A Shoggoth on the Roof", "The Call of Cthulhu" which still is fantastic given the non-budget -- and the secret bonus film!

This one mustn't be named, at least not until its offical Swedish release. We were given strict instructions to say we saw it in Copenhagen if we _must_ give the title. I'll just point to the HPLHS site and leave it nameless. It was slicker than "Cthulhu" but could have benefitted from its length, tightening the story. It was a Mythoscope talkie, but the action ending seemed more 1950s fright fest than 1930s noir. Still, it had Charles Fort in it! I'm reading Fort even as we speak... well not at this actual moment of typing, but you know what I mean.

Ola then hinted at the possibility of more Lovecraftian film horrors in the future. Excellent! I laughed maniacally all the way home through the sudden downpour.

***

And then I saw "Torchwood: Miracle Day" episode one, the American version. Yay, "Hanteringen av odöda" Russell Davies-style! I liked it.

***

I'm also watching an old "Sherlock Holmes" TV series, with Ronald Howard as Holmes and H Marion Crawford as Watson (if "Marion" isn't embarrassing I wonder what horrible name "H" stand for, "Hilda"?). In the second episode I realised I've seen this before, probably when I was a kid in the 70s. Very familiar. The first three episodes were very good, Watson forceful and putting up with no nonsense from Holmes, but then the fourth episode was quite... bad. Hope that was an exception or the remaining 36 episodes will be just painful.

More Holmes in the offing, as the one glance at Amazon to buy an "ID4" novelisation about the early work of Dr Okun turned into quite a shopping binge. Yes, we gathered to see that classic movie, now 15 years old, on the fourth of July. Hamburgers, American beer and whisky, and some very harmless fireworks too. But we did _not_ go quietly at all!

Also, Bill Pullman is in the new "Torchwood", haha. Quite creepy he was too...

many voices

Jun. 5th, 2010 07:22 pm
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There is a new recording of bus and tram stops on the buses and trams. It used to be some deep-voiced Stockholm guy who read out the names (apparently he was a member of the original tolkien society here in town), but now the recordings have been changed, maybe because the first guy died.

The new voice is difficult to tell if it's male or female, the first thing that makes it a bit odd. The second thing that makes it a bit odd I just realised: it has the exact same intonation as the first Daleks in "Power of the Daleks"! You know, the ones saying "I am your servant?" -- or more lately, Bracewell's Ironsides in "Victory of the Daleks" saying "I am your soldier?". Haha!

Makes me giggle silently every time.

Today I went to an arts exhibit opening at Röhsska. It's graduation material from design schools, and not a very sparkling lot this year. The best piece was a huge Smilodon skull replica made of some sort of metal, with artillery shells or something in it. And some other guy who worked with spheres, made me think of [info]egghunter, looked just like her kind of things. The rest, meh.

But on the way I bought "The Clone Wars". Last week I zapped past an episode being shown on Cartoon Network, and got hooked. It was really good! -- as long as I kept the sound right down. If I turned up the Swedish dub, it immediately got really bad. Swedish-dubbed cartoons eh? Gotta hate'em.

Now I'm trying to draw a cartoon myself, for the program booklet of the upcoming SF convention. Got any iconic literary spaceships or planets or something that I can spoof? I already have Martian tripods, a sandworm, the Enterprise, a TIE-fighter, Daleks (of course), the XFLR6 from Tintin, Alfred Bester's "Tiger Tiger" and the inside of a Dyson sphere.

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