This Week in Geek (2-8/02/09)

Buys

None. I was a little busy either being away or blogging like mad so it wouldn't show I was away. All improv-related, of course.

"Accomplishments"

DVDs: Flipped Primeval Vol.1 which contains the first and second series of the plucky UK sf program about temporal anomalies letting prehistoric animals out into our world. Hey, I liked it, if only because it was made by the same people behind the Walking with... documentary series. The show walks the line between old school episodic adventure and Lost-style deepening serial mysteries, but is probably more of the former. 2 of the 13 episodes have commentaries, and there's a good, long making of for each series. I'll be looking for future series.

Improv: My improv troupe had a show this week of such interest to this blog that you can expect a longer post about it when I can get my hands on the pictures taken of the evening. What we do: Completely improvised 3-act plays. We each work on various elements on our own - sets, costumes, music, props, etc. - and improvise the basic mise en scène about an hour before the doors open. Then, we ask the public to assign us some random element. Each play is of a different genre (though most are comedies). We've done Greek tragedy, Postmodern, Tim Burtenesque fantasy, a western and a musical, for example. This time: A superhero comedy, complete with special effects. Here's the poster (in French) featuring our special guest, Christian Essiambre, a young actor from the region who's gone on to bigger projects in the big city (and a good friend) and who is high energy and hilarious:
I won't give away the details until I post about it properly, but it was a roaring success. Move over Iron Man and The Dark Knight! (Poster image totally pilfered from Alex Ross' Super-Obama.)

Someone Else's Post of the Week
New on my watch list: De's Best Picture Derby. De plans to watch and review every single motion picture nominated for Best Picture by the Academy from 1928 to today. That's a massive undertaking - the kind of thing I'm not a stranger to - and is both informative and entertaining. I can't wait til he gets to films I've actually seen, but the look into early cinema is interesting nonetheless.