The arrival of Jodie Whittaker in 2018 as the new Doctor was greeted with skepticism to say the least, but that happens with all new Doctors, but she is a great actor and so what the heck!
I watched the first few episodes and quite liked her, she had that eccentric chaos that reminds us that the Doctor is in fact an alien but then the script started to let her down, I don't know how much input Jodie Whittaker has in the scripts but did we really need a feminist Doctor, well about as much as we would need a masochistic one think!
Next we have the companions, they are integral to the whole thing, they are the glue that hold it all together so why pick a bunch of wet fishes, one dimensional box ticks, I don't blame the actors, I blame the woke BBC trying to push a political agenda upon the viewing public via a prime time family entertainment show.
Doctor Who was always a family show that thrilled and excited audiences, it was something that people used to look forward to but from anti-Brexit jibes to being overly PC Doctor Who has seemed to have forgotten what it is supposed to be and is basically giving the finger to loyal fans whilst gaining no new ones.
The viewing figures are plummeting perhaps 13 is an unlucky number for the Doctor, and it's all down to the woke, SJW, virtue signalling BBC totally misjudging it's audience as usual.
This week Hollywood announced that as from 2024 to win the Best Picture Oscar you will need to meet certain criteria involving "under represented groups".
Hollywood has been woke for a while, full of lefty luvvies preaching down to the plebs for a while, using the Oscars as a virtue signalling platform, jumping on the racist bandwagon and apologising for being white (but not for being rich funny enough!)
Just to put the new rules into perspective let's look at the list of 2019 nominees:
Ford v Ferrari would not be eligible.
The Irishman would not be eligible.
Jojo Rabbit might scrape in.
Joker would not be eligible.
Little Women should be eligible.
Marriage Story probably not eligible.
1917 would not be eligible.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood would not be eligible.
Parasite (the winner) should be eligible, shouldn't it?
So what about some of the winner's from the last 20 years:
Gladiaitor? A Beautiful Mind? Lord of the Rings? No Country for Old Men? The King's Speech? Argo? Spotlight?
What this actually means is that as of 2024 the Best Picture Oscar will probably be a token participant award given to whoever ticks the most boxes, and I'm going to make a prediction here, virtually none of the nominees will be box office successes.
The Oscars have become less relevant in the 21st Century, the viewing figures world wide have virtually halved from 42.9 million in 2001 to and all time low this year of 23.6 million, says it all really, people are bored of it all.
So are we going to be seeing the big studios trying to win awards by making box ticking movies, or, once they realise they're losing money, making movies that appeal to the majority and allow mediocre films to gain the diluted prestige of the Oscar Best Film award, only time will tell!
I'm not precious when it comes to adaptations of books, unless of course that adaptation completely misses the mark (see my previous blog on Artemis Fowl), I have even preferred the film over the book at times (Blade Runner), I believe that there is a place for both, and both can be enjoyed not despite the differences but because of them.
I have recently been catching up on some books that I always meant to read, but never seemed to get round to, some of the classics and some not so classic.
Mary Wollstonecraft's father provided Mary with a rich, if unconventional education and encouraged he to follow his own anarchist political views, this may explain why she was considered strong willed and independent.
In 1814 Mary began a romance with a 22 yo political follower of her father Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was married and she was 17, they, and her sister in law Claire Clairmont, left to travel through Europe.
Their travel included a trip down the Rhine where they stopped close to Frankenstein and it's Castle, part of the history of the Castle was that of Johann Dippel, in the late 17th century, was an alchemist with an interest in anatomy and was said to have practiced on bodies that he exhumed, a local cleric warned the villagers that Dippel had made a monster that was bought to life by a lightening bolt, Universal Pictures used this method in the 1931 film, Mary Shelley make no mention of this in her novel.
Though there is no proof that Mary Shelley visited Castle Frankenstein or even heard the Dippel story there's too many similarities between the stories to ignore completely.
The trio also spent some time in Geneva, this is where the bulk of the Frankenstein novel takes place so we can assume that the city made a impression on Mary, and it was during the summer of 1816 that the trio were joined by Lord Byron and John William Polidori.
It was during this summer stay in Geneva, whilst discussing such subjects as the occult and galvanism, that Mary, Percy and Byron decided to have a competition to see who could write the best horror story, and after a few days trying to think of story Mary dreamt of a scientist who created life but was then horrified by his creation!
Mary Shelley's novel holds up today, even after 200 years, it is a story of hope, discovery and obsession, a story of alienation and longing to belong, regret and retribution, there's no happy ending here to be had by anyone.
I love the Universal Studios versions of the classic horror stories but they are not true adaptations, but that's fine, they don't always have to be.
