Category Archives: daft
The Burger Restaurant At The End Of The Universe
"Aye, but are ye a Catholic robot or a Protestant robot, wee man?"
Regular listeners to the podcast may remember we talked a wee bit back about the legendary Buck Rogers Burger Station.
For those who missed it, or who haven’t heard of this minor miracle of culinary marvel, it was a burger bar in Glasgow back in the days when burger bars were a rarity. The pilot for a franchise of restaurants, it opened on Queen Street in late 1982 and closed in fairly short order after being damaged by a fire in the building next door.
Name changes did little to rescue it and eventually it became the Archaos nightclub.
A unique place – the only real competition the town had at that point was a Wimpy – with videos of the first two episodes from the Gil Gerard series running on screens, along with new films made in a studio on the premises featuring Scots acting legend Russell Hunter, and with Kevin Devine – who would go on to find fame as one of Esther’s Boys on That’s Life – as a dancer entertaining diners.
For years the restaurant’s taken on a sort of urban myth status here – not least because of the lack of decent photographs which can be found to confirm the place’s existence.
But some deep hunting online has uncovered something truly beautiful. A scan of a page from Look In! magazine when the restaurant opened. Now, we don’t know whose scan this is – it came up on Google Images without any links to the original uploader – although we can probably take an educated guess. And if it’s yours, please get in touch so we can credit/venerate you appropriately.
But in the meantime, click to expand, sit back, and enjoy the delights of a menu where you have to pay for everything in dribbles and get offered a ‘Happy Landings’ by a dwarf in a robot costume.
Any old fucker with an Equity card
"Now then now then..."
Interesting news this morning after Mark Gatiss let slip (sort of) on Graham Norton’s radio show that he was working on a drama about the origins of Doctor Who.
Now this shouldn’t necessarily come as a shock in itself. After all, it’s not that long ago that the BBC screened the magnificent Road to Coronation St docudrama on BBC4, recounting Tony Warren’s efforts to write and cast Corrie, to mark the soap’s 50th year.
And with next year marking the golden anniversary of An Unearthly Child airing to a country still shocked at the news of President Kennedy’s death, it’d be an obvious route for them to go down. In fact, the only surprise would be if BBC4 DIDN’T have some kind of drama looking at the early years of the show – from Verity Lambert landing the producer’s gig to Ray Cusick’s famous designs for the show’s most iconic monsters.
Gatiss is an obvious choice for it – a noted lover of period television and of Doctor Who, with experience of writing for BBC4 (among other channels). And, interestingly, he had a somewhat controversial crack at the secret origins of Doctor Who before…
Revealed: The second wave of Before Watchmen books coming this year
Coming from DC this fall: More Before Watchmen
In a Thumbcast exclusive, we can reveal the second wave of Before Watchmen titles coming later this year.
Bubastis is a four-part story looking at the origins of Ozymandias’ faithful genetically engineered supercat. Subtitled The Lynx Effect, it will tell of how Adrian Veidt’s life was saved from a hoard of rampaging pheromonal women by the sacrifice of Bubastis’ mother, leading to Veidt growing and nurturing the supercat in her honour.
Psychic Squid is a six-part story telling of the life and adventures of the giant celaphopod which destroys New York and inadvertently brings about world peace before the traumatic trip across the dimensions. A crime fighter in its own dimension, the true origins of OctoPsych and his plucky empathic langoustine sidekick The Shrimp will leave you in tears.
Moloch: The Vegas Years is a one-shot which tells how pointy-eared supervillain Edgar Jacobi turned to a life of crime after being driven out of his successful show at the Palms by David Copperfield, and the terrible revenge he inflicted on the hairy-chested gitwizard.
All three titles will be in bound with old rope special editions later in the Fall.
Winding Refn’s Seven
Pisspoor photoshop mock-up courtesy of the BBC Visual Effects Dept (CSO division)
It takes either a fuckton of bottle or absolute stupidity to turn down one of the best directors in the world for your TV show. Yet clearly Steven Moffat has one or t’other, going by an astonishing interview.
If we should take what was said by Nicolas Winding Refn seriously – and he’s a bit off-hand in his interview with Shortlist, so it may be tongue in cheek – then last year he wanted to direct an episode of Doctor Who, and got KBed.
Let’s stop and consider that for a minute. Winding Refn, who won the best director at last year’s Cannes Film Festival for his work on the acclaimed Drive, wanted to do a Doctor Who episode last year. And the production team at Upper Boat turned him down.
What next?
“Dear Meryl Streep. Thanks for your interest, but we’ve decided to go with Meera Syal for the role. All the best, Moff”.
“Thank you for your script, Mr Sorkin, but unfortunately we feel it is not up to the standard set by Stephen Thompson with The Curse of The Black Spot and thus return it to you. Good luck in your future ventures. Gary.”
But while you’re picking your jaw up from that revelation, Winding Refn – who also helmed the brilliant biopic Bronson and the stylish Scottish-set Valhalla Rising – ups the ante…
“Maybe if they revive Blake’s 7 I could do that. I love it. It’s great. That could be fun to update.”
Blake’s 7? BLAKE’S 7?!
And you’ve got to presume he’s being serious, because he clearly knows his kitsch 70s sci-fi, having taken on directing duties in the remake of Logan’s Run.
So, as a bit of spurious link-bait… sorry, speculative writing, what exactly would a Winding Refn Blake’s 7 look like?
Well, since he and Ryan Gosling are so tight, you’d got to think the Baby Goose would be a shoe-in for rebel leader Roj Blake, wouldn’t you? The calm, centred, charismatic presence at the heart of the outlaws seems an obvious fit for Cara Ellison’s future husband.
So who would play the Kerr Avon to Gosling’s Blake? Well, how about Tom Hardy? Winding Refn cast Hardy as Charles Bronson in the biopic of the notorious prisoner – and with his recent roles in Warrior and the forthcoming Batman threequel he’s got the action chops. But it’s his turn in Inception as the laconic, dry Eames that puts us in mind of the sardonic anti-hero.
Carey Mulligan, his Drive lead actress and occasional flatmate, is no stranger to working on cult genre roles after her time as Doctor Who companion that never was, Sally Sparrow, in Moffat’s Blink. Maybe casting her would be a good up-yours to the production team that decided he wasn’t the right man to helm Doctor Who.
Winding Refn’s full of praise for Amanda Burton too – having worked with her on both Bronson and his episodes of ITV’s Miss Marple remake. So how about her as an older, wiser Jenna? Might be a nice break from Waterloo Road, particularly now cast and crew have left Sunny Manchester for the attractive climes of Greenock.
Mads Mikkelsen would have to pop up somewhere, with the Dane a regular member of Winding Refn’s Danish-language productions, including the Pusher series and Valhalla Rising. But I can’t quite picture him playing Villa somehow, so perhaps we’d see him as Travis.
So instead how about John Turturro – the star of his acclaimed but spectacularly unsuccessful Fear X? We’ve seen he can do quirky and twitchy comedy, although that may just be a side-effect of being directed by Michael Bay.
As for Gan. Meh, who cares, it’s Gan after all. Could be James Lance for all we fucking care. But if we’re continuing the drawing on his back catalogue, then let’s say Ron Perlman for completism and hope for the best.
While we’re at it, how about Christina Hendricks as Servalan. As with her turn in Drive, it need only be a cameo role and it’d be fun to see her vamping it up Joan Holloway style in a succession of ever-more-ludicrous dresses.
As for the voice of Zen – well, these remakes/reimaginings always have to find some way of paying tribute to the original show and, with Peter Tuddenham long since dead, how about Paul Darrow or Michael Keating voicing the grumpy Liberator computer.
Hell, it’s not much more outlandish than some of the ‘reimagined’ Blake’s 7 audio casting that’s gone on (Daniella Nardini? Really?) and it’d make for quite the ensemble cast on the big screen. Go on Nicolas, have a crack at that once you’ve finished Logan’s Run.
Meantime, Moffat, if a big name Hollywood director comes up to you and asks to work on your show, you say YES. Unless it’s Renny Harlin…
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