The first recording today is something of a curiosity. It’s Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, a movie that looks amazing, has a small but impressive cast, but which wasn’t a box office success, and whose writer/director never made another film.
It was shot digitally (still unusual in 2004) and most of the sets were digital. Perhaps the look of the film, coupled with a fairly weak story, meant it didn’t catch on. But it’s a fascinating one-off nevertheless.
It’s set in the 30s, and really goes hard on the art-deco designs. Here’s the Hindenburg III docking at the Empire State Building in a snowstorm, tipping us off that this is a bit of alternate history.
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Gwyneth Paltrow plays plucky reporter Polly Perkins, who’s reporting on some missing scientists, and is contacted by another one who has read her stories.
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Michael Gambon makes a brief appearance as her editor.
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Polly’s meeting is at Radio City Music Hall, where they’re showing The Wizard of Oz. The scientist tells her that whoever is killing the scientists goes by the name of Totenkopf. I’m slightly sad they didn’t get a Toto joke in there.
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As soon as she comes out of the cinema, New York is attacked by an army of giant robots. Seriously, why wasn’t this film more successful?
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The eponymous Sky Captain is called, and fights the robots in the streets of New York. One odd thing about this world is that Sky Captain appears to have a privatised army. “World leaders must once again call upon the elite mercenary forces of Sky Captain and his army for hire to uncover the meaning of these mysterious events.”
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He’s played by Jude Law.
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Giovanni Ribisi plays Dex, his chief engineer/man in the chair.
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This is the weirdest bit of product placement I’ve ever seen.
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Polly and Sky Captain (whose name is Joe) have a past, so unfortunately we do have to suffer the obligatory “two prickly exes snipe at each other” for a large portion of this. I’m beginning to see reasons why this wasn’t more successful.
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They visit the scientist’s lab and find a tiny elephant, which reminded me of Iain Stewart and the tiny elephants of Madagascar.
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They’re attacked by a mysterious woman who had also attacked the scientist.
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Now there’s planes with flapping wings. This really is bonkers.
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Dex is captured, just after he locates the location of the enemy’s secret base – Nepal. There’s more robots, these ones with spindly arms.
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Sky Captain’s plane goes underwater!
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Joe and Polly retrieved some documents from the scientist’s home, including information about the mysterious Totenkopf, and he’s played here by Laurence Olivier, who had been dead for 13 years at the time of filming, and mostly appears in photographs. I can’t remember whether there was any fuss about using the image of a dead actor like this. It feels like an odd choice.
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They land in the mountains, and are met by a friend of Joe’s, Kaji, played by Omid Djalili. He’s turning up everywhere.
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There’s running away from a huge explosion.
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They have to land to refuel – on a Helicarrier! This film might be a little creaky, but it keeps delivering delights like this.
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Commander of the carrier is Frankie, played by Angelina Jolie.
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There’s a nice moment, when they arrive from an underwater chase into Totenkopf’s base, Polly sees the upside down reflection of Joe’s plane’s number – h.11.od.
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This place has big birds.
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They find Totenkopf’s big project – he’s building an Ark.
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There’s a great moment when they’re about to be overrun by robot nasties, standing on a high walkway, when suddenly a craft appears from below them, piloted by Giovanni Ribisi. OK, so it’s a shameless rip-off of a similar moment in Aliens, but it works.
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They have to stop the Ark from taking off, because “When the rocket reaches 100 kilometers at the edge of space, Earth will be incinerated.” So they have to find Totenkopf. They find his office, which has the most flamboyant Ring doorbell system ever seen, which a CG-rendered Laurence Olivier. The voice doesn’t sound a lot like him, if I’m honest.
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They find the actual Totenkopf in his office. He’s been better.
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Joe has to get on board the ship and sabotage it so the main engine doesn’t fire and destroy the Earth. Polly wants to go with him, as there’s no escape from the ship. They kiss, then he punches her in the face. This seems terrible in so many ways. Even if they do sort-of pay it off later when she punches him. But even so, it’s quite unpleasant to see.
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Joe has to fight the mysterious assassin from earlier. She even does the Matrix beckoning motion. This really is shameless.
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Lucky for him, Polly recovered from his right hook and still wanted to come and save him, and she bashes the assassin around the head with a baseball bat or something. Somehow that doesn’t seem as bad, especially when it’s revealed the assassin is yet another robot.
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They get to the top of the rocket, and there’s a control panel in German. I think it’s implied here that Polly can read German because the button that’s labelled “Dringlichkeitsfreigabe” changes to read “Emergency Release” so she pushes it, and the ship jettisons all the cargo of animals which, rather nicely, all get released and fall with parachutes.
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Joe manages to stop the countdown to the thing that would destroy the Earth, but the rocket still explodes.
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But Joe and Polly got out in an escape pod.
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And they finally pay off a running theme, where Polly only has one shot left in her camera and keeps finding amazing things she could take a photo of. When they’ve landed, she could take a photo of all the animals drifting to the sea, or the fleet of helicarriers, but in the end she takes a photo of Joe.
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Media Centre Description: Sci-fi adventure in which a reporter joins forces with an aviator to find out why scientists are disappearing and there are huge robots attacking New York.
Recorded from Channel 4 on Sunday 23rd December 2007 16:28
The recording ends with the start of an episode of Scrapheap Challenge.
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The other recording today is another showing of the last episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip – What Kind of Day Has It Been. Seen just a few days ago.
Media Centre Description: Drama series about a late-night comedy sketch show. The long night comes to an end for Danny, Jack, Jordan, Tom and Simon. Matt and Harriet look forward to a new beginning.
Recorded from More 4 on Sunday 23rd December 2007 23:13
After this the recording stops with the start of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Here’s the ad breaks for Sky Captain.
And the ad breaks from Studio 60.
Adverts:
- trail: Snoop Dogg’s Father Hood
- Dove
- Ratchet & Clank – Tools of Destruction
- Homebase
- The SImpsons Movie on DVD
- 118 118
- Essence de Femme Hugo Boss
- Dogs Trust
- MFI
- Rush Hour 3 on DVD
- Boots
- MFI
- Armani Code
- Ralph Lauren Romance
- B&Q
- Skoda Fabia
- Energizer Lithium
- Lexmark
- Shrek The Third on DVD
- Transformers on DVD
- The Golden Compass in cinemas
- Oxo
- MFI
- Glade Flameless Candle
- Sky
- Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
- T.K.Maxx
- VO5
- Intimately Beckham
- The Golden Compass in cinemas
- Ernest Jones
- Currys – Rufus Jones
- Co-op
- Transformers on DVD
- Kleenex Velvet
- Orange
- Stella by Stella McCartney
- Skoda Fabia
- Rimmel
- Shrek The Third on DVD
- Transformers on DVD
- Maybelline Superstay
- ? – Perfume?
- Furniture Village
- BT Total Broadband – Kris Marshall
- Apple iPod nano
- Intimately Beckham
- Peugeot 308
- trail: Christmas with Gordon Ramsay
- Co-op
- J’Adore – Charlize Theron
- P.S I Love You in cinemas
- B&Q
- The Famous Grouse
- trail: Film 4
- Santa on Trinny and Susannah
- trail: Unveiled: Satin Rouge
- Blossom Hill
- Apple iPod nano
- Marks & Spencer
- Stella Artois
- Furniture Village
- Lacoste
- Homebase
- Blossom Hill
- trail: True Stories: My Enemy’s Enemy
- Baileys
- Benecol
- Apple iPod nano
- I Am Legend in cinemas
- Marks & Spencer
- Disney DVD
- Bath Store
- Stella Artois
- trail: The IT Crowd
- Threshers
- Philips Sonicare
- H. Samuel
- Sainsbury’s – Jamie Oliver
- Nivea for Men
- Givenchy – Liv Tyler
- P.S. I Love You in cinemas
- Peugeot 308
- Fahrenheit 32
- Transformers on DVD
- Glenfiddich
- trail: Peter and the Wolf
- Glenfiddich
- National Lottery Christmas Bonus
- Marks & Spencer
- PG Tips
- iPhone
- Olympus Tough
- MFI
- P.S. I Love You in cinemas
- Guerlain Insolence
- Articulate
- trail: The Big Lebowski
- Santa on politically correct gifts