islanded in a stream of stars

Happy belated Avengers Appreciation Day! I celebrated this occasion two days late by rereading Saints and Avengers: British Adventure Series of the 1960's and listening to clips of Laurie Johnson's fabulously retro score for the Emma Peel years. The slinky flute cue when Emma follows the "Escape in Time" allyway has always stuck out in my mind in particular.

(In other words, I have turned in three college applications early this morning/late last night, depending on your perspective on time. The fifth of seven total will be sent tomorrow. This is what I sacrifice my nonexistent social life for.)

Number 86 reporting: (thanks for the suggestions!)

I'm in the midst of watching the Danger Man episode "Whatever Happened to George Foster?" and I noticed some interesting parallels:

the Avengers
-So many people named Jones...
-the shot of Peter Jones's casket being lowered reminded me of the dog being buried in "The 50,000 Pound Breakfast" and that other one where Steed pretends to assassinate Mrs. Peel in "The Murder Market"

James Bond:
-the initial exchange between Pauline and Drake reminded me of the Bond-Moneypenny banter.
-Bernard Lee as Lord Ammanford here, M in the Bond films up until For Your Eyes Only
-Certhia breaking into Drake's home is reminiscent of Sylvia Trench doing so to Bond in Dr. No. That, and Eunice Gayson is in the DM/SA episode, "A Man to Be Trusted."
-Scruffy beat-up Drake looks better than scruffy beat-up Connery in Dr. No.
-"Borrowing" a police car-I think that's reused in Live and Let Die?
-"No hard feelings?" (the Living Daylights) after making a man go through a lot of trouble
-Hiding in an apartment (Live And Let Die)
-the girlfight (OK, it's nowhere near as intense as the one in From Russia With Love, but you have to see something of a parallel!)

Is it just me, or is the end credits music a tone higher than normal?

And now I introduce to you a new feature of my LJ, Snark Notes on Cult British 60's Spy Shows and Other Cultural Phenomena that Endlessly Fascinate Me.

Snark Notes for 1/7/05: Upon repeated viewings, the Avengers don't hold up so well if you start thinking about the plots. Take this episode, for example. First of all, why would a Ministry of Defence official be that interested in a bunch of ceramics manufacturers going totally insane? It's not a very nice situation, but I wouldn't think it's that vital to national security. Sure, there's the whole profitable industry being trashed, but does that fall under the jurisdiction of the MOD? And all of those ceramic manufacturers are easily prone to nervous breakdowns; I don't think that many people would have to enter a mental hospital for over a week if they saw a spider. And really, can you get some sort of machine to process somebody's psychological evaluation to tell you what he is afraid of? The interesting thing about the Avengers is that there are a lot of episodes dealing with the possibility of potentially beneficial technology that's being abused for some diabolical purpose besides the typical 60's battles against communism (i.e. Russia) and other lovely political quandries like that. Certainly it's likely that companies did hire consulting firms to scope out the weaknesses of competitors so that these companies can exploit their competitors, though nowhere to the same extent as the Business Efficiency Bureau. The black and white series had the better storylines most of the time, if you ask me, but the relationship between Steed and Peel is so much better developed in the color series, and the dialogue is even more sparkling.

But on the brighter side, we get Mrs. Peel looking quite stylish. I'd totally steal her wardrobe from this episode if it was possible; the white dress that looks like it has some sort of hankerchief panel underneath is a rather intriguing design. Not only that, but you get some fun lines between Peel and Steed about birds. And among her many other talents, we discover that Mrs. Peel also sculpts as well as paint and play the piano. That, and she has an extremely high fear index; her only apparent fear is the "universal" fear of pain. I must say I agree with that one. We see a slightly harder edge to Steed's character in a few brief moments, though we also get to see him smash a lot of pottery and pose as a very charming efficiency expert as well as a cheerful yet ruthless businessman. The whole overtly elaborate fight in the dirt pit has a lot of really obvious usages of stunt doubles, but the fight in the dark is one of my favorite, albeit brief, end fight sequences. Patrick Cargill is his oozingly smooth yet slimy ruthless industrial mercenaries who gets pushed to the limit (like his performance as number 2 in "Hammer Into Anvil" of the Prisoner). Still, I don't see *why* all of the villains have to wear sunglasses indoors. Heh, the villains always have to have some kind of quirk on the Avengers, but it does make them more interesting.
[/Snark Note]

The trivia contest today during class meeting was totally rigged. If we're trying to build some sort of class unity, some sort of collective class spirit, then we're miserably failing. At this point, I honestly don't see why we have to force people to bond. I personally have no animosity towards anyone in my class, but I'm not especially close to some people, and at this point I really think we're running out of time to suddenly make friends with someone we don't know so well during these class meetings. Perhaps I'm taking everything too seriously, though.

And just a little mindless fun from an acquaintance's (sp?) LJ even though I have no idea what Battle Royale is:

LJ Battle Royale! by monmonito
Username
Weapon you got:	Magnifying glass
Your goal in the game:	To kill the beautiful.
Number of students killed:	68
For fun, you kill:	lastgiraffe
Out of a personal vendetta, you kill:	centimetre
Accidentally, you kill:	pinkbubbles101
You have an alliance with:	leflyingolive
You develop a puppy-love romance with:	horosha
Watch out for:	glerf
Percentage of survival possibility:: 93%
Dying words:	"A little help?"
Quiz created with MemeGen!

Not that I have a grudge against any of you, of course :) And glerf, I will get you a copy of the Goodbye, Lenin! soundtrack for Monday.

It's a pity the title reminds me of that stupid headline for the first day issue of the paper. Gah. Why must I come up with the cheesiest headlines in existence? Tabloids look almost classy in comparison...

Feeling VERY tired. Hmmm, I wonder why. Stupid rooster. My neighbor's rooster, of course, finds the most inconvenient times to start crowing like mad. Like today, after my three-day weekend. Gah. Lucky taity. He gets a 2 week holiday! And he has something like 4 months of school left.

I'm almost dreaming of sleep. Stupid stupid rooster.

I almost admire my complete idiocy. The Avengers '67 DVD I rented turned out to have three episodes that I've already seen! Baah. Thankfully 2/3 are some of my absolute favorites. I must've mixed up the DVD's on the shelf or something. I watched "The Hidden Tiger" last night before going to bed, tee hee. I don't care if it's just mildly cheesy, I love it! Mwahahahahaha. I'm not an obsessive fan, am I? Actually, there seem to be quite a few more Avengers fans out there. Then again, I'm probably one of the youngest, along with Martina. But there's nothing wrong with being mildly obsessed with a cult British '60's show, is there? Of course not.

I had the Avengers theme (ending credits) stuck in my head this morning, and somehow it morphed into "All I Care About" from Chicago. I think my brain is suffering from too many times of being hit against random objects when walking. At least my left eye isn't twitching.