The reviewing gig I barged my way in on earlier this year finally paid good dividends when I got to see a press preview screening of Liberator! After the fiasco that was The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant : The White Ring, the last thing I wanted was to see was another piece of revered childhood culcha crucified by the movie moguls, but curiosity got the better of me. You can see the real review here, but ... well, contrary to my expectations, they kept in all the girls, and I mean, all of them, from both series. Belinda McLory's hard-bitten space pirate was just awesome, but Callista Flockhart as Cally was just rather tedious. We get it; you're thin, you're cranky, you've got big eyes, now leave it out, love ... however, the omnipresent threat of a catfight breaking out between Beyonce (Dayna) and Gwen Stefani (Soolin) kept my interest high, high, high ... although what really elevated their performancs into the realms of genius was putting them all into chiffon nighties for an ill-conceieved (read, should never have been conceived) psychic communion scene. With floating red jellybeans. Go go gadget Callista! Boy, is she ever hapless ... Against with such a gourmet buffet of leather-clad cleavage, Kevin Spacey (Vila) managed to look even worse than you would have expected in his leather catsuit, poor bugger ... and the much vaunted (and available for download from multiple dodgy sources) Ving Rhames-as-Gan-cameo, while awesomely cool, isn't much more than what you've seen already, sorry. Oh, one for the fanboys! ... Slave (you remember, the submissive computer from the final series?) is actually voiced by Sarah Michelle Gellar, which led us to speculate (a little bit too loudly perhaps) that when the screen rolled back to reveal shock! a computer we would actually see SMG pole-dancing dressed only in fairylights ... alas, it was just a straight-out-of-the-box spinny CGI thang, no surprises there ... in fact, the space battles generally looked a little, no, a lot, like they'd bought them in cheap from Farscape, and the decision to redesign the Liberator (hey, come on, it's a design classic) probably spurred their decision to blow it up at half time. Speaking of Farscape, look out for some familiar faces among the bad guys -- they didn't give us full credits, but I'm sure I spotted Gigi Edgley and Wayne Pygram among the mutoids, hamming it up something rotten. And speaking of ham ... George Clooney still can't take his SF seriously, despite Ben Browder's best attempts to show him the right way to hold a ray gun. (Browder plays Tarrant! I thought for sure they would cut Tarrant! Ehhhh, never mind.) But, fuck it, eh? All Blake really does is bitch with Avon and holy sweet jesus having seen them spark off each other* in Liberator I am now more pleased than ever that Brad Pitt and George Clooney have been signed to do the upcoming Man from U.N.C.L.E., now that movie project has been prised from bloody Quentin Tarantino cold, but unfortunately not dead, hands. I mean, I respect the man's work and everything, but refusing to make the Man from U.N.C.L.E. film unless you get to play Illya Kuryakin is very KeyStageTwo behaviour, kiddo. I was so pleased, in fact, that I was motivated to write a fan letter to Ian McKellan:
Dear Mr Sir Ian McKellan,
May I strongly urge you to put yourself forward for the role of Alexander Waverley in the upcoming Man from U.N.C.L.E. film starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney. I can think of no man better fitted to sucking meditatively on your pipe while you send young handsome men in ill-fitting suits off to fight the menace of THRUSH than you, and none who could deliver a more cutting quip to hapless secret agents embarassingly tied up in some supervillainess's dungeon of ultimate naughtiness. You owe this to all fans of Cult television, Sir, and I hope that you will make it a top priority.
Yours, etc,
Jessamy Lewis
P.S. You are wanking as I write this. P.P.S. Your hair is a really nice colour in your recent publicity shots. Could you tell me the name and manufacturer of the hairdye, or, failing that, the name of the salon responsible?
Not that I sent it. There's the restraining order to consider, after all.
* Though this doesn't mean they're gay or anything. Goodness me no. There's a sex scene with Beyonce and everything.
