GALACTICA: THE PLAN!! THE PRISONER!! THE PYTHON!! AEON FLUX Blu!! DARKSIDE!! HercVault!!

I am – Hercules!!

Notes on Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, directed by Edward James Olmos (“Islanded in a Stream of Stars”) from a screenplay by Jane Espenson (“The Hub,” “Deadlock”). * The movie deals with 10 months in the lives of two John Cavils. It begins two weeks before the destruction of the colonies and ends with the events depicted in “Lay Down Your Burdens,” the two-part second-season finale that introduced us to both Cavils and New Caprica besides. * Order of billing: Edward James Olmos Dean Stockwell Michael Trucco Grace Park Michael Hogan Aaron Douglas Callum Keith Rennie Kate Vernon Rick Worthy Lymari Nadal Matthew Bennett Rekha Sharma and Tricia Helfer * Olmos’ top billing is marketing ploy; new footage of Bill Adama is scarce at best. Dean Stockwell overwhelmingly gets more screen time than any other player. * Lucy Lawless is glimpsed in a new scene, but it’s likely a swatch of archival footage. Perhaps she was busy with “The L Word” at the time. * The unfamiliar name is Lymari Nadal, who plays Giana O’Neill, a pretty refugee who comes under Tyrol’s supervision soon after the destruction of the colonies. She is also a wife and mother. She played the same role for perhaps 12 seconds in the original miniseries, but she’s given considerably more to do this time around. * I confess I was hoping to see some long-ago scenes depicting (even briefly) Cavil’s creation, Cavil betraying his makers, and Cavil starting Sam Anders, Galen Tyrol, Tory Foster, and Saul and Ellen Tigh on their human lives, presumably decades before Cylon War II. “Battlestar Galactica” ends with these scenes unshot. * It turns out the titular “plan” the Cylons had wasn’t the least bit complicated. The survival of Anders, Tyrol, Foster and the Tighs comes as a complete surprise to Cavil. “It’s amazing,” he confides to an injured Ellen Tigh. (And there’s no explanation of that scene in the “Razor” webisode in which Doral arranges for Lee Adama to be assigned to Galactica immediately prior to Cylon War II.) The Cylons don’t arrange for the Galactica to escape the holocaust. The Cylons don’t seem interested in tricking the colonists into leading the Cylons to Earth or anything. It turns out Cavil was merely determined to wipe out the straggler humans in the fleet. That was the whole plan. * The movie starts with what I believe is Caprica taking the place of Earth in the familiar Universal Pictures logo. * We learn at last how that flesh-and-blood Six got off the Galactica after she tried to frame Baltar. * We also get a better look at how Boomer was able to sabotage the Galactica’s water supply without being aware of her own complicity. * As with the “Caprica” pilot DVD issued in April, “The Plan” comes with a surfeit of bare butts and breasts that won’t been seen when this movie hits Syfy next year. * The reason to pick up the Blu-ray edition is the eye-popping depiction of the colonies, which is comes off as T2 times 12. We not only get to see Picon, Scorpia, Gemenon, Aquaria, Libron and Canceron up close, we get to see them all bathed in nuclear destruction, a marvel of multiplanet Armageddon. * The new version of the title music heard over the closing credits is wonderful. * Its revelations are not planet-shaking, but the movie is taut and compelling, and perhaps a more worthy conclusion to the series than the episode that implied Kara, Baltar and Six were angels or something. EXTRAS: * Commentary by Olmos and Espenson (111:16). Essential listening, as it reveals all sorts of little homages to the series I was utterly clueless about while watching the movie. And it walks you through what’s old and what’s new footage. Learn the shot of the Final Five’s bodies lying in their resurrection tanks were designed before anyone had seen the similar shot of the actives’ beds featured in the title sequence of “Dollhouse” (which Espenson also worked on). Learn that Frank Darabont (“The Mist”) was originally supposed to direct “The Plan,” but fell out at the last minute. Learn it never occurred to Espenson that the Cylon basestars were “hinge-y in the middle.” Learn that the debris of the Galactica hanger deck set, bulldozed subsequent to the completion of the mother series’ final episodes, became the ruins of Picon. Learn the movie’s slutty Six is one we hadn’t met before. Learn that John, the hungry kid, was cast and wardrobed to resemble a very young Dean Stockwell in “The Boy With Green Hair.” Learn that the series’ “no bluejeans” rule was violated to give the kid his “Green Hair” wardrobe. Learn that, in the original plan to create three post-series movies, Mark Verheiden (who went on to “Heroes”) was supposed to write one, Bradley Thompson & David Weddle (who went on to “CSI”) were supposed to write the second, and Espenson (who went on to “Dollhouse”) was supposed to write the third. * Deleted scenes (13:58) Footage explaining why Sam Anders was training in the mountains and Ellen Tigh was on Picon when the nukes fell, footage of Anders staring at a column of smoke, footage of Cavil telling tales of human resettlement on Picon, footage of Boomer and Caprica Six trying to free human captives, and more. * “From Admiral to Director: Edward James Olmos and The Plan” (6:48) Rick Worthy, Dean Stockwell, Grace Park, Tricia Helfer and others praise their helmer. Learn Olmos directed Stockwell on “Miami Vice” as well. Learn Olmos finds energy by chewing sunflower seeds. See Olmos bid the franchise adieu. * “The Cylons of The Plan” (6:52) Learn that C Cavil was the name of the Cavil on Caprica, and F Cavil (the one with the fleet) was the one who actually masterminded the human genocide. * “The Cylon Attack” (4:04) Learn that the guy lobbing the pyramid-ball wasn’t really a great shot. * “Visual Effects: The Magic Behind The Plan” (19:03) Learn the initial draft of “The Plan” did not call for a lot of effects shots. Learn that “Galactica” writers don’t typically put a lot of detail into their descriptions of effects shots. Learn that the show’s effects work is so complex that its “render farm” must have three separate air conditioning units running at all times to prevent the computers from heating their room to more than 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

The new set comes in both DVD and Blu-ray.

Readers seem to be all kinds of confused about HD! Some even believe only TV shows shot in HD can make the leap to Blu-ray. Most old TV shows, though, were shot on film, and usually 35mm film, which has a much higher resolution than 1080p. (I hear 16mm is closer in resolution to 1080p.) Less lucky are shows like “All In The Family” and “Monty Python,” which were shot on videotape and therefore aren’t likely to benefit from an HD remastering. But if you can get you hands on a TV show’s original film or negative, you can make an HD Blu-ray out of it. This is why we have the original 1960s “Star Trek” on Blu-ray now and also why we’ve just been gifted with a Blu-ray edition of The Prisoner: The Complete Series. Like “Star Trek,” the 1967-68 version of “The Prisoner” (the finest British hourlong ever made if you’re scoring at home) is an usually visual series, a mesmerizing mix of secret agents and sci-fi. The Prisoner’s pretty prison was actually a resort village in Northern Wales called Portmeirion. In HD, wide shots of the local architecture are stunning. Closer in, the place looks more weathered and shabby in places than you’ll remember from the DVDs. It’s easier to see that the sinister Rovers really are just oversized ballons made menacing via the inspired manipulation of splicing and audio. And you can now see the map of The Village below those spying agents on that strange rotating crane. COMMENTARIES: 1.1 “Arrival.” Film librarian Tony Sloman and production manager Bernie Williams. 1.2 “The Chimes of Big Ben.” Writer Vincent Tilsley. 1.4 “The Schizoid Man.” Director Pat Jackson. 1.5 “The General.” Director Peter Graham Scott 1.7 “Dance of the Dead.” Editor John S. Smith, Sloman and Williams. 1.12 “A Change of Mind.” Writer Roger Parkes. 1.17 “Fall Out.” Editor Noreen Ackland and music editor Eric Mival. OTHER EXTRAS: * “Don’t Knock Yourself Out” (94:50) A strong documentary delving into the history and ongoing influence of the series. * “The Pink Prisoner.” (9:24) Peter Wyngarde, who played Number Two in “Checkmate,” windily shares his recollections. * “You Make Sure It Fits” (9:16) An interview with the series music editor Eirc Mival. * “Promo For AMC’s The Prisoner Miniseries.” (:32) A commercial very familiar to fans of “Mad Men.” * “Arrival Original Edit.” (50:38) * “Arrival Original Edit With Music Only.” (50:38) * “Arrival Original Edit Restoration.” (3:59) Simply a side-by-side comparison of a washed out old print against a vivid new one, using the familiar sequence that transports the title character from London to The Village. * “The Chimes of Big Ben Original Edit.” (50:35) In miserable standard definition. * Textless Title Themes (3:04) The familiar title sequences as scored by three different composers: Ron Grainer (who provided the one used for the series), Wilfred Josephs and Robert Farnon. Boy, did they ever pick the right one! * Textless Title Sequences (10:35). The openings sans credits. * Image Galleries with music suites for all episodes. * Exposure Strips Gallery (10:32). One frame from every shot in the series, with captions. * Ad bumpers (:15) Two fleeting animations featuring the famous end-credits bicycle. * Filing Cabinet Footage (2:29). Filing cabinets filmed with labels in various languages for non-Anglophone markets. * Rover footage (:25) Test shots of a weather balloon in high winds. * “McGoohan montage from “Arrival” (:50) More of the photos that demonstrated that the title character had been long under surveillance before he adventures in The Village. * Trailers for all episodes. * Generic Trailers. * Image Archive. * Production Paperwork Archive.

Had I known how engrossing IFC’s “Monty Python: Almost The Truth” is, I would have started watching it much earlier. Instead I started the first episode of the six-hour documentary at the end of a long day, and wound up not being able to turn it off until 5 a.m. My sleeping schedule was profoundly fouled. One of the masterminds behind the project is Terry Jones’ son Bill, and one does sense an extraordinary level of access and investment. When I’d initially heard about “Almost The Truth,” I’d reasonably assumed it was just a repurposing of the (also excellent) new documentaries shot for the complete-series collector’s edition that hit DVD last November. Not so. All the interviews are new, and aside from the “Flying Circus” clips there’s surprisingly little overlap. The November set’s hour-long “Monty Python Conquers America,” especially, fills in a major gap “Almost The Truth” leaves, including the tale of how the creators came to own the original 45 episodes produced for the BBC. Because “Almost The Truth” is on IFC, no one bothers to bleep out the many bad words. Each of the six hour-long episodes features its own wonderful version of the “Life of Brian” title song, tailored with new lyrics to fit each leg of the troupe’s journey. (They even brought back Sonia Jones to sing it.) “Episode One: The Not So Interesting Beginnings” looks into the team’s influences, how they became aware of each other, and how they came to team up. Learn Terry Gilliam grew up in Minnesta without indoor plumbing. Learn that the Pythons are so old they all grew up listening to radio comedy. Learn Peter Cook had written two different shows running simultaneously in the West End while he was still an undergraduate. Learn “Frost Report” star Cleese quit performing for a year and a half so he could spend time with new American wife Connie Booth. “The Much Funnier Second Episode” looks at how and why “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” was created. (Hint: John Cleese thought Michael Palin hilarious.) Learn Cleese was the only member of the group considered a TV star when the series began, even though everyone else had considerable on-screen experience. Learn why Dean Martin proved instrumental in bringing the show to America. Learn the record album “Matching Tie and Handkerchief” was a bizarre practical joke. “And Now, The Sordid Personal Bits” looks at why the Flying Circus disbanded. (Hint: John Cleese grew bored.) Learn Terry Jones saved the original episodes from getting wiped out of existence by a pound-foolish BBC determined to recycle its videotape. “The Ultimate Holy Grail Episode” explains how and why the group came to make the funniest movie ever. Learn why “And Now For Something Completely Different” was such a problem. Learn Bruce Dickinson, portrayed with no accuracy by Christopher Walken in SNL’s “More Cowbell” sketch, played a vital role in getting “Holy Grail” made. Learn the movie originally began with the “bring out your dead” scene and why it no longer begins that way. Learn why Graham Chapman gave up alcohol. “Lust For Glory” follows the making of “Life of Brian.” Learn Cleese wanted to play the title role. Learn George Harrison was so anxious to see the movie that he mortgaged his home and office to finance it. ("It’s the most anyone has paid for a cinema ticket in history," points out Eric Idle.) “Finally! The Last Episode (Ever) (For Now … )” explains why Python flew apart for good. (Hint: Palin thought it pointless to continue without Chapman.) The final hour takes us from “Live At The Hollywood Bowl” to “Meaning Of Life” to “Spamalot” and ends with the surviving Pythons all keeping busy off-camera: Jones and Palin taking a train to Bristol to voice an Aardman project, Cleese adding his voice to another “Shrek” movie, Idle writing songs, and Gilliam editing “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.” Entertainment Weekly gives it an “A” and says:

Six hours of silly bliss … They say analyzing comedy kills it, but in this case, it's one revelation after another. Add rare footage of their early years, some non-Python TV appearances, tense on-set footage filmed during the making of their movies, and clips of their greatest hits, and you've got Monty nirvana. …

The Los Angeles Times says:

… excellent … beats any Python documentary yet made for comprehensiveness and depth. …

The Chicago Tribune says:

… excellent … The Pythons are still in fine comedic form, and their self-deprecating anecdotes are even more fun than their still-palpable delight in goading each other …

The Washington Post says:

… Six hours is deliriously too much to look at, or look away from … Fans will bathe happily in IFC's documentary series … And as for non-fans? Well, they were always a dour lot, weren't they? …

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:

… comedy catnip … History. Hysterics. Silly walks. All bundled into an everything-you-wanted-to-know-or-rediscover chronicle of this legendary British comedy troupe … No soaring introductory pronouncements of what Python accomplished and represents. That will be spelled out, step by step, in the fullness of six hours, as interviews, film and audio clips decipher how Monty Python became the most groundbreaking, transforming wellspring of comedy in the history of the world (OK, maybe a wee exaggeration). …

The Newark Star Ledger says:

… for every boy (and, in rarer cases, girl) who, like Fallon, ever tried to do a silly walk, or entered rooms with the taunt, "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!," or simply wanted to know how the most legendary sketch troupe of all time came up with their signature bits and rewrote the rules of comedy in the process. …

Variety says:

Exhaustively splayed across six wonderfully messy parts … There's some fat here, to be sure, but producers Bill Jones and Ben Timlett have assembled so much juicy stuff as to make this destined DVD release indispensable for Pythons fans and a more-than-just-nostalgic introduction for anyone else. …

EXTRAS: The six episodes are contained on two of this set’s three discs. The third disc contains material not aired on IFC, including: * Extended Interview: Michael Palin (17:42) Learn Palin, who is one-quarter American, as a preteen found Jerry Lewis films “absolutely wonderful” and found Elvis “strange” and “thrilling.” * Extended Interview: Terry Jones (6:55) Learn Jones’ decision to pursue arts instead of science at age 12 put him at odds with his father. * Extended Interview: Eric Idle (10:49) Learn Idle became a hero at his boarding school because he snuck away to see an Elizabeth Taylor movie. Learn Idle is no fan of Simon Cowell’s shows. * Extended Interview: Terry Gilliam (13:32) Learn the spiders in “The Thief of Bagdad” gave Gilliam nightmares. Learn that Gilliam moved to Panorama City when he was 12. * Extended Interview: John Cleese (17:14) Learn that Cleese’s mother lived till 101 and that he appears to be the only man alive named Cleese. Be reminded that Cleese and Chapman wrote on “The Magic Christian,” which came out the same year as “Flying Circus.” * “The Seventh Python” (4:14) A discussion of whether Carol Cleveland, Neil Innes or even Dan Aykroyd is the true seventh Python. * “The Hendon Sketch” (2:23) Terry Jones discusses how he came up with the ending to a “Frost Report” sketch about the world’s most boring man. * “The Origins of the Cheese Shop” (2:50) John Cleese explains how his repeated vomiting during a seabound “Flying Circus” shoot led to the writing of the Cheese Shop sketch.

* “Steve Coogan – The Undertaker” (1:26) Coogan recites the Python sketch about cannibal undertakers. * “Python on Python” (8:01) The Pythons discuss each others’ characteristics. * “The Spam Museum” (3:51) A short piece about a 16,500-square-foot building across the street from the Hormel meat-packing plant in Austin, Minn., devoted to Spam. One corner of the museum, built in 2002, is dedicated to the Python sketch, which can be played by visitors on a TV monitor. Which means you can hear Graham Chapman screaming, “I don’t like Spam” as you pass through the museum’s halls. * “Python in Texas” (1:59) The British Emporium Store in Grapevine, Texas, organizes a quite impressive “Silly Walk” in honor of “Spamalot” coming to town. (Incredibly, I was firmly entrenched in the Grapevine school system when the PBS station serving Grapevine, Dallas-based KERA, became the first U.S. TV station to carry “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” in autumn 1974. The fact that this is going on in Grapevine, of all the many Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs, is mind-blowing to me!) See Texans dressed as everything from the Spanish Inquisition to massive blancmanges! * “Tomorrow’s World’s ‘The Broken Bottle’” (5:14) An old sketch apparently created by Palin and Jones for the BBC’s “Tomorrow’s World” series. * “Bruce Dickenson Registers A Complaint” (5:40) The Iron Maiden vocalist tells a funny story involving legal prostitutes and the Hamburg police. * “Elvis Was A Python Fan” (7:05) The king of rock & roll, we’re reminded, was a fanatic for Python and in particular “Holy Grail,” which was released just two years before Presley died. (That fat old pistol-toting, pill-popping, fried-banana-scarfing Mississippian had astonishingly good taste in film comedy; another of his all-time favorites was Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove.”) Cleese says he’s happy Elvis was a fan, but says he’s far happier when he learns of Python’s influence on the comedians he admires. * “The Origins of Fawlty Towers” (6:06) Learn that Basil Fawlty is based on a rude and imperious Devon hotelier named Donald Sinclair, who once showed Terry Gilliam how to eat his food. Learn Sinclair also had Michael Palin’s briefcase placed outside against the hotel’s garden wall because he was concerned it contained a bomb. Learn that most of the Pythons, frustrated, relocated to a different hotel after two days but Cleese remained behind, sensing Sinclair a source of material. Learn Sinclair eventually emigrated to Miami. Learn the names Basil and Sybil may have come from from a pair of old married communists. * “Terry Gilliam Picture Gallery” * Sketches: The Parrot Sketch (5:17) The Spanish Inquisition (4:21) The Fish Slapping Dance (0:23) The Ministry of Silly Walks (4:07) The Lumberjack Song (2:04) The Cheese Shop (5:48) Spam (2:47)

Monty Python: The (Highly Unlikely) Rise Of has nothing to do with the just-aired IFC documentary. It is in fact a re-packaging of two excellent documentaries that first appeared on last November’s Monty Python complete-series collector’s set, specifically: * “Before The Flying Circus: A Black and White Documentary” (55:31) A thorough and fascinating look at pre-Python careers. Learn that Graham Chapman’s dad was a cop and his older brother pursued medicine as well. Learn that all five British Pythons independently adored radio’s “The Goon Show” with Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. Learn that John Cleese still considers “Beyond the Fringe” with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller the funniest show he’s ever seen. Learn that Gilliam studied political science at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Learn that while all the five British Pythons got their first big break on “The Frost Report” as writers, Cleese was the only one who also served as one of the show’s stars. Learn that the live “Frost Report” was an instant hit, drawing 14 million viewers weekly. Learn that Chapman was promoted to star for “At Last The 1948 Show,” which also starred Cleese and Marty Feldman. Watch a hilarious clip of the six-episode Palin/Jones project “The Complete and Utter History of Britain,” which apparently led Cleese in February 1969 to phone up Palin about doing a show together. Learn the group’s first full “Python” meeting happened two months later, in April. “Python” premiered six months after that, on Oct. 5 at 10:55 p.m. * “Monty Python Conquers America” (54:52) is even more wonderful. Judd Apatow, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Paul Rudd, Luke Wilson, Jimmy Fallon, David Hyde-Pierce, Hank Azaria, Jay Roach, Robert Klein and Carl Reiner are among those who express their adoration for the show. Learn what role Victor Lownes, an American Playboy Club executive living in London, played in bringing the series to America. Learn that a key Columbia Pictures exec shelved “And Now For Something Completely Different,” made for American audiences unfamiliar with the series, because he did not enjoy its Twit of the Year sketch and the troupe refused to cut it. Learn how many Americans first encounter Python via their long-playing records. Learn that Python’s American record company, Buddha, played a big role in convincing Columbia to release “Different.” Learn that on the Pythons’ first tour of Canada (which got the show years before the U.S.), Graham Chapman claimed to have seduced a Regina Mountie. Learn that John Cleese, who has married at least three Americans, was the only member unwilling to come to America following the Canadian tour. Learn that the five other Pythons made their American network TV debuts doing 20 minutes of material on a disastrous episode of “The Tonight Show” guest-hosted by Joey Bishop. (They also taped an appeared on NBC’s “Midnight Special” during the same swing.) Learn that Dallas PBS affiliate KERA became in October 1974 the first TV station in the U.S. to air “Python” because KERA station manager Bob Wilson (father of movie stars Luke and Owen Wilson) found himself crying at the lumberjack sketch program manager Ron Devillier screened for him from the stack of tapes syndicator Time Life Films forwarded. Learn that Wilson still speaks of the night he dined with the Pythons in a Mexican restaurant overlooking Dallas. Learn that “Python,” airing Sundays at 10 p.m., immediately scored by far the biggest ratings in KERA history and grew substantially from there. Learn that the other PBS stations were very excited by this news. See promos and appearances members of the cast shot for various PBS outlets. Learn that “Holy Grail” enjoyed a blockbuster opening during its exclusive run in New York -- in stark contrast to “Completely Different,” which had years earlier closed in New York after only a few days. (Lorne Michaels reportedly first met Chevy Chase in line for one Manhattan “Grail” showing.) Learn that the troupe was appalled when ABC bought the show’s final season for two 90-minute late night airings and carved out jokes to make room for the many late-night commercials. Learn that Palin and Gilliam flew to New York in an effort to get the American court system to stop ABC from airing the final 90 minutes. Learn that the court case resulted in the Python members taking control of the broadcast rights of all 45 episodes from the BBC. Learn that a rock-concert haze of marijuana permeated the Hollywood Bowl appearances.

I haven’t seen an “On The Road” segment in more than two decades but I remember loving them back in the day. Acorn media didn’t forward a copy but your $35.99 apparently gets you more than six hours of material on three discs.

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