Captain Jack ... what's in a name?

And apparently, when the name is "Captain Jack," there's a heck of a lot in it. In fact, I was very tempted to chuck all the images in here and say, "There, sort them out yourself!" But no. Would I do that to you? Well, I probably would if I didn't have the time to do this properly, but since I do...!

There's at least EIGHT Captain Jacks that I know of, and you could probably find someone out there who knows some more. But right now let's have a look at the eight of 'em. This gallant company starts with the one you probably know best, or second-best:


There you go ... with strains of The Johnny Depp Song going around your head ... Jack Sparrow himself! What's the Johnny Depp song? Allow me to illuminate you:

Okay --! So that's one down, seven more to go! The other one you probably know best, or second best: Harkness, Jack Harkness ... the time agent from the 51st Century who's now not merely immortal but indestructible:

...and now it gets better, because you get two Jack Harknesses for the price of one:


And if you think your glasses just steamed up, and you didn't see that right, here's Take Two ... oooooh, yes you did:

Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood, 2007, meet Captain Jack Harkness of the US Airforce, 1941. Boy meets boy, the old, old story, right?

Okay, there's three down! Next:

Let me transport you back to 1980, or thereabouts. Captain Jack Vincent ... the show was Smuggler, a young adults' adventure series set in the Napoleonic Wars. Some episodes were too juvenile to really "travel well" across the generations, but some were absolutely top-notch. This Captain Jack was brooding, simmering ... smuggling in fact. So there's Number Four. Next?

Your grandmom would tell you, maybe with a quiver in her voice, that John Wayne wasn't always old and grizzled. You demand the evidence before you believe? Okay, you got it. Our generation didn't invent gorgeous, we only think we did:

And this here, with the hat and the major sideburns in the color still above, is Captain Jack ... Stewart. The movie is Reap the Wild Wind, and it's still a good watch, about sixty years later! So that's Captain Jack number 5. Next?

Now it gets musical. Enter Billy Joel at stage left:

Not sure if I'd call Billy's music "timeless." Not usually my kind of thing, actually, but there sure is a Captain Jack coming at you from this direction ... and if you're in the mood for two Captain Jacks for the price of one again, here's Billy Joel's Jack, plus the one in the greatcoat ... "Captain Jack will get you high tonight." (Warning to the faint hearted: there's some stuff on the soundtrack that rates this MA15, and some visuals, likewise.)



So that's Captain Jack number Six. Still two to go, that I know of ... and I'm sure there's others. Drop me a line, kids, and I'll update this. But in the meantime, try this for a golden oldie: Captain Jack and the Mermaid was a folk album that came out in 1975 ... and I've been listening to the audio CD since about 1982. Would give anything for a CD version, but you can't beg, borrow or steal them. You can only get Captain Jack as Amazon MP3 downloads ... and if you're not in America, you're outta luck, because Amazon MP3 is another Americans Only club. Here is is:


And I know the cover of a music album doesn't mean a heck of a lot, so try this instead ... YouTube to the rescue, to a point. They won't let you embed a videoclip. It's a good song, though not the best on the album (The Elf Glade is the best ... whoooo!)

And there is actually one more Captain Jack. The real one -- real, live historical character. The Black Irish Band has recorded the story. The first 75 seconds of this video give you a history lesson, so if you just want the song, fast forward to 1:15. But this is the real deal:



Starring as Captain Jack:

Johnny Depp as Sparrow
John Barrowman as Harkness
Matt Rippy as the "real" Harkness
Oliver Tobias as Vincent
John Wayne as Stewart

With music by Billy Joel, Meg Davis and Black Irish.

Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did!

John Barrowman: go west, young time agent!

This isn't news ... to be news, I'd have had to put this post up in mid-August! But it's interesting to me, because I finally, finally got to see the third season, the miniseries, of Torchwood -- Children of Earth. This also ain't a review, because it's too late for that, as well ... shows you how much a much of a chaos my life has been lately!

You might be wondering what I thought of Children of Earth? I'll give it 9 out of 10, and I only dock the last mark because the ending was downbeat enough that I'm not sure I want to shell out $45 (incl. p+h) to buy it.

I'm not talking about the death of Jack's lover and best mate, Ianto Jones ... that, I can accept as necessary, painful and marvellously dramatic. But I have to admit, I was expecting a much more upbeat conclusion -- Jack always found a way to save the day in style. He certainly saves the day in this one, but the "style" is grand tragedy, a la Wagner. Everything has blown away on the wind, and Torchwood is literally over. Gone. Hmmm.

Now, to viewers in Australia and England, the miniseries was dark and absolutely harrowing -- far more so than we're accustomed to from TV, and especially from something like Torchwood. Imagine my surprise to read the American reviews, where not one but several critics referred to the same five hours of digital video as (get this), "good fun," and "lighthearted."

Uh....hunh? Hey, whatever, dudes.

If they thought Children of Earth was good, lighthearted fun, gawd only knows what they're accustomed to watching on American TV, and I don't wanna even speculate about that!

And what worries me is -- and given the above!! -- Torchwood is heading west. To America.

If this is news to you (maybe you've been working as hard as me for the last six months and haven't seen much Internet, much less a magazine!) I'll give you a quick bulletin: against the odds, the show was picked up for a 10-episode fourth season, all of which is going to be one loooong extended story -- but one of the sponsors is the US cable network, Starz, and their involvement takes the show to America and adds an American cast. Which is fair enough ... if American money is paying for it, they want to listen to American actors, not to Welshmen, right? Right. That's not what worries me.

What does worry me is that if American critics thought Children of Earth was good, lighthearted fun, by the time the new writing team gets done "rebooting" the show, as they put it, it could be so dark, so dismayingly dismal, a lot of us won't be watching it. And there's a tragedy, because some of us fell head over heels for Jack so long ago, he was still dancing on a spaceship, in midair, in front of Big Ben, at the time! He's Russel T. Davies's ninth symphony ... he's a gay icon ... and therefore the Americanization of Torchwood fills me with dread.

Having said that, I'll give it a whirl, give everyone the benefit of the doubt. The new writing team certainly has great credentials (see this for more), and it just depends how dark Starz will want to make it. In all seriousness, if Jack Harkness were a real human being, rather than a character in a TV show, he would be stark, raving mad by this time, after what he's done, and seen, and had done to him.

And here's the thing: maybe Jack is bonkers. There's a lot you can do with a character who's actually insane, though the insanity is soooo subtle, you don't see it at once. You could weave what Mel Keegan called "a darkness incandescent" about him. And I have no doubt John Barrowman will be absolutely, bloody amazing in the part, if only the audience can hang on long enough to watch ten potentially depressing episodes.

Here's something else that's interesting. The British style of acting is not "satisfying" to American critics. To Commonwealth eyes, the performances on Torchwood (and esp. this last series) have been utterly outstanding. American reviewers referred to them as mediocre. It's the style of the performance which doesn't "jive" with the American dramatic requirement ... so, again, we can look for subtle differences in the new one -- Torchwood: The New World.

And there was I, hoping "the new world" might be Mars or Castrovalva, or maybe Callufrax. No such luck!

UPDATE:
Two things. Several people asked why I didn't run a video or an least a pic of Jack and Ianto in full-on romance mode, and that's a hell of a good question ... so here it is:


Second thing: thanks so much to Jade for "cross pollinating" with me on her latest post, and if I helped to inspire the shots where (whooooo!) Jarrat and Stone finally get it together, then ... well, I'll just do a few laps of the room without touching the floor here! And check this out:


Here's the post where the full set of images appear. At risk of sounding like the kid in the movie, with the bowl and the spoon, "Can we have some more?"

Stargate - Congratulations!

Congrats are in order to the entire Stargate crew. TheMGM newsletter was just delivered, with these words:

We are pleased to announce that the Stargate franchise is nominated for 22 LEO Awards. In addition, executive producers Brad Wright and Robert Cooper will be receiving the Outstanding Achievement Award at the ceremony.

...and here's the ones you've been waiting for:

Best Lead Performance by a Male in a Feature Length Drama: Michael Shanks – Stargate: Continuum

Best Lead Performance by a Female in a Feature Length Drama: Amanda Tapping – Stargate: Continuum

Best Dramatic Series: Stargate Atlantis (Joseph Mallozzi, Paul Mullie, Brad Wright, Robert Cooper, Carl Binder, Martin Gero, Alan McCullough, John Smith - Producers)

Best Lead Performance by a Female in a Dramatic Series: Jewel Staite - Stargate Atlantis – “Tracker”

Best Lead Performance by a Male in a Dramatic Series: David Hewlett - Stargate Atlantis – “The Shrine”

Now, that's cool!

Viggo Mortensen -- trilingual is terrific!

I'm in a Viggo mood today ... because he's been on the box promoting GOOD, which is just one of his new movies.

So, what the hey? Let's have some Viggo stuff today.

Let's start with the GOOD trailer ... which is a marvelous piece of filmmaking in itself. Listen to that accent! Viggo is "doing" the gorgeous British accent we heard in Lord of the Rings. Aragorn speaks! Have a listen to this...



This is going to be such a good movie. Next ... since we're on the subject of
accents and languages, you have to check this out:



Being bilingual would be fantastic. I always wanted to speak a second language. Viggo, it turns out, speaks at least three. He did CAPITAN ALATRISTE in the Spanish language:



And yes, I have a copy of ALATRISTE ... in Spanish ... with English subtitles, thank heavens, or I wouldn't get one word in three of what's being said!

Lastly ... well, let's get naughty. Chuckle! Enjoy:

Michael Caine: Happy birthday, 2009

Would you believe it? It's Happy Birthday to Sir Michael Caine today ... and he's 76 years young. I've been watching Michael Caine since I was old enough to be allowed to see Zulu, which he made in the mid-1960s, when he was something like 32 years old -- um, about the time I was born, I suppose. My favorites among his movies are (still!) Zulu, and Ashanti, and Deathtrap. Those three, I can watch any time -- and thank gods for DVDs.

(You know AG by now: love the part in Deathtrap with Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve in a clinch, with a kiss! In fact, the film company apparently called this the "$10 million kiss," because they reckon that when the movie was made, this was how much revenue the bad publicity cost them ... thank gods things have changed! Sorry about the quality of the capture at left: best one I could find.)

Here's his page on IMDB ... check out that filmography. I'm impressed.

Jack Harkness: immortalized in comics

Comics?! Yep -- comics.

In fact, this is really cool. First, I happen to like comics; second, modern comics have incredibly high production values. Third, John and Carole Barrowman are writing this one. Fourth, John has made "his face" available to the character, so you get very, VERY nice artwork...

See this: Captain Jack And The Selkie’ Comic Strip First Look, for a sneak preview and the story behind the story!



Looks like being a blast, and it's great that John's sister Carole has gotten into this. (She has her own webpage, incidentally.) It's so great that Torchwood is a massive success -- it's even gone well in the US, which surprised the heck out of me. US networks are really picky about coarse language, sexual references, nudity and whave have you, and I'd expected them to handle Torchwood with tongs! In fact I think they did to a degree. I read a quote from John Barrowman where he says the next season (he could mean the third or even fourth, depending on how old the quote is, and this is something I can't say) of the show will be toned down. He said words along the lines of "We won't be swearing or doing anything close to the bone, so the show won't have to be heavily edited for US audiences." That's not a verbatim quote, but it's darned close ... and I can't find my way back to the original page for love or money!

Okay -- now the part you've been waiting for. The eye candy! Shut up and paste the pictures in, Aricia....

Viggo, Orlando -- and that other cute dude from TROY...

I've got some reading for you today -- good, meaty stuff ... if you're in a Viggo mood, and I am. There's a really good feature article you need to get your teeth into, so after you've grabbed the eye candy below, go over here:

Mr Good Bard

The feature is running on the Sydney Morning Herald -- the Australian paper, so you might not have seen it. And staying in Aus, and staying with things sorta-kinda Lord of the Rings -ish, here's another beaut:

Eric Bana and Orlando Bloom show their revhead side

...that one is on the Daily Telegraph, and allow me to give you the hook: "THEY'RE two of Hollywood's leading hoons and Orlando Bloom and Eric Bana hung out to talk the secret men's business of custom motorcycles in Sydney yesterday."

Can you imagine working at a bike shop in Sydney, and looking up over the keyboard, or out the window, and Eric Bana and Orlando Bloom just walked in??? You'd have to drop your Pepsi stright into the computer. I mean, you'd have no choice, would you?!

Anway -- there's some reading for you; also food for thought. And now the eye candy!

Mistaken identity in exotic eastern environs

Pick the booboo in the following, and win ... well, a feeling of satisfaction at knowing your Bond stuff!

This, from easier.com Motoring, under Bike Industry news:
Hollywood has always looked to two wheels to bring a little sexy glamour to a movie – think Lucy Liu and Pierce Brosnan handcuffed to a BMW R 1200C, Charlie’s Angels riding motocross, or Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft raiding tombs on a 664 CCM. But Britain’s romantic bikers would rather ride with their other half than movie megastars like Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren, Sean Bean or Antonio Banderas.Asked to name who they would most like to take a fantasy ride with, twice as many bikers nominated their partners than Kylie, Star Wars’ Ewan McGregor, Valkyrie’s Tom Cruise or Bond’s Pierce Brosnan. One particularly lovelorn soul taking the Motor Cycle Industry Association (MCI) surveySkoda nominated “Rachel from the office next door.”

(...the feature continues -- On course for love, 5 February 2009 ... but the boo boo's already there ... along with a whole lot of dropped names!)

Spot it yet? Let me help:


Here's the stunt scene where the Chinese lady agent was cuffed to the BMW with 007... and it's a wow of a scene, best in the movie ...


...and here is Lucy Liu, who seems to be largely a lingerie model, and often quite difficult to recognize with her clothes on, and...


...here is Michelle Yeoh, who is a kick-butt martial arts movie star, most recently seen in The Mummy 3. Also in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

The martial arts star looks nothing like the lingerie model ... and the first person who says something about "Chinese all look alike" will have ME to answer to, because one of my first serious crushes was Bruce Lee, and -- it ain't true!

And it's NOT that I have any prejudice against underwear, lingerie, and hot bods being photographed while wearing same! But when someone like Michelle Yeoh has worked a lifetime to get that kind of skill, that kind of impact -- the right performer deserved to be credited.

I guess I can sorta kinda understand the guy who wrote the article for a bike magazine being fixated on a lingerie babe -- or at least, Ms. Liu seems to strike an awful lot of poses in undies! Check your Google images and see!

Here she is, apparently about to eat Demi Moore alive. Do I label this kissyface?!

Kissyface. definitely. I can't help wondering where the heck Lucy's right hand is...

Jack's back! Pop the champagne!

John Barrowman fans -- break open the champagne!

Here's the story running today on The Daily Record:

New trailer revealed for Torchwood's switch to BBC1 - watch it here
Feb 6 2009
FANS of Doctor Who spin-off series Torchwood have been given a sneak peak of the sci-fi series’ new episodes.

The show, which stars Scots actor John Barrowman alongside Eve Myles and Gareth David-Lloyd, makes its BBC1 debut this year after initially launching on BBC3.

The new series, titled Children of Earth, will be shown over consecutive nights on the flagship channel, and sees the Cardiff-based trio investigating why children across the world have suddenly frozen.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/2009/02/06/new-trailer-revealed-for-torchwood-s-switch-to-bbc1-watch-it-here-86908-21101682/

And what's more -- here's the trailer!



Woah -- this is going to be good!

Here's more: Jack's back: new Torchwood season unveiled ...from which the following is the quoteworth quote in, uh, this, um, context: "It wouldn't be Torchwood if people (and aliens) weren't having sex all over the place, all the time. Captain Jack finally has to face the consequences of having random relations with random people when his daughter turns up. Of course, that won't stop him from getting it on with the adorable besuited Ianto."

Ohhhhh, yes! And, while we're here --

Headin' back through the Stargate in 2009

And the good news is ... they're revving the Stargate up again. She's powered up, ready for a new series entitled Stargate Universe. Great news for those of us who enjoyed having our spectacles glued to Richard Dean Anderson, Michael Shanks, Ben Browder and company! Moreover, the thinking viewer's hunk is back:

Any chance the SGC would let O'Neill grow his hair long and color it blond in the new show...? Rats. It would've been nice.

Anyway -- this story just showed up on I09.com: http://io9.com/5139871/dr-daniel-jackson-first-gater-to-cameo-on-stargate-universe, and in it, Michael Shanks says...

"There will be a Stargate SG-1 movie [for DVD], probably filmed around the same time the Atlantis movie is filmed this coming summer," he added. "So that's all going to be going on....as far as I know, is pretty Rick-heavy, pretty O'Neill-heavy," Shanks said. "So I don't know much more than that, but I will most definitely be involved in it."



Puts me in a mood to watch the old DVDs. It's going to be great seeing the characters back. Though I don't think Daniel Jackson will be allowed to lay a full-on smooch upon the tender lips of Cameron Mitchell ... as Michael Shanks has been known to do to Ben Browder:


Kewl. I mean, that is seriously kewl. Opens a whoooole perspective on the stories they could tell in the future. How's about a mirror univers (like the one where Spock has a beard), where everything's in a tangle and things get steamy?? Well, somebody should pitch the story idea! They can only reject it...

In honor of ther occasion, let's have a few more pictures before we move on to the other topic of today's fascination:


Who's buff now?! He must know every machine at the gym by its first name...


There you are, you see? He has got a great bod. Beats hell out of everyone why he refuses to show it. I think the scripts ought to have the aliens rip his shirt to shreds at least once per episode. I know, I'm wicked. I've been told.


Now, some folks professed to have some reason to protest the situation when Rick Anderson took a couple of years off the job to be with his family while his kids still remembered who is is, and his place in the show, and on the team, was filled by Ben Browder. And being thoroughly disgrunted, they took out their ire on Ben, as if there was something wrong with him filling in. Good grief, people!! Try cleaning your glasses once in a while, and have another look!!