This Week in Geek (21-27/12/09)

Buys'n'Gifts

Spent Christmas at my sister's in Montreal - highlights include spending Christmas Eve in an outdoor hot tub surrounded by snow, an "absurd gift" activity (I gave a garden inukshuk I packaged as a caveman's teddy bear "from when times were hard" and got a deer call), watching Rise of Cobra at one in the morning, and getting hit by a thrown soft drink from a road raging Quebecer - and got a number of geek-worthy gifts: There's the DVD copy of Inglourious Basterds, Season 4 of The Unit, a Joker pez dispenser, an old-school slinky, and accessories for my iTouch.

I also bought myself a terabyte external hard drive at a Boxing Day mega-sale, and grabbed the DVD Lord of War on my brother's recommendation.

"Accomplishments"

DVDs: Since it was one of the few things I had in Montreal, I flipped Inglourious Basterds. I've spoken about this massively entertaining film before (when I saw it at the theater), so I'll just talk about the extras. Tarantino doesn't really do commentaries, but he's got a 30-minute interview (with Brad Pitt) that illuminates some of the ideas. The DVD also includes the whole of the film inside the film (Pride of a Nation) and a fake making of featurette starring the characters who made it. A couple interviews besides, and a discussion on films referenced in the film, including the original Inglorious Bastards. It barely scratches the surface, really.



Big Finish Doctor Who audios: I thought I'd listen to more, but only managed to finish out - Robert Ross' Medicinal Purposes starring the 6th Doctor and Evelyn. As with The Settling, I really wasn't sure what historical moment the audio referred to despite it seeming common knowledge to the leads. Are Burke and Hare REALLY that infamous? Anyway, Doc6 acts very strangely, I thought, and the story is barely saved by things not temporally being what they seem. Oh, and Tennant's in it as a village idiot!

I brought some comics with me and managed to get through 80+ comics. The evidence of this binge is on Twitter. Still way late though.

Neglected Post of the Week
"Amalgamonth" was a feature I tried back in 2007 that didn't get much reaction. Oh, the "re-do" on various DC vs. Marvel fights got some attention (everyone has an opinion), but the accompanying piece that splits Amalgam comics back into its two constituent parts were rather ignored. Check out the Super-Soldier one (and its accompanying "fight" feature) and let me know if I should bring this feature back in the new year.

Comments

De said…
About the only Tarantino commentary I remember was from the laserdisc of From Dusk 'Til Dawn, which I think was ported over to one of the DVD editions.
Siskoid said…
There's another on King Boxer, but none on films HE'S directed that's for sure.