Riverworld

What's the word for the situation whereby something you come across one day, you subsequently encounter all over the place & frequently?

Probably coincidence.

but following my homage to Tom Mix...

SunnyO: Happy Birthday Dad!

... I was lying on the couch the other day watching all sorts of rubbish on Sky while recovering from a tummy bug (you may not have noticed the absence, since I struggled up now & then to post yet more drivel). And along came an adaptation of Riverworld. You may recall from my post that it is a series of books by Philip Jose Farmer, recounting the adventures of resurrected Tom Mix, Alice in Wonderland, Sam Clemens etc etc.

So I tarried for a spell.

And the first thing to note is that - and what does this say about the producers? Do they not think we've heard of Tom Mix? - Tom Mix isn't in the film, his part has been changed to Astronaut Jeff Hale, who is a fictional character.

The second thing to note is that the production is just stuffed with Kiwi actors, leading me to speculate that this was some sort of pilot movie hoping to recreate the er... "magic" of Xena & Hercules. It even had Kevin Smith in it - although not for long, causing me to further speculate that this may be the production that he was working on to the end...

The third thing to note is that it is utter garbage.

But still... I thought it was an interesting coincidence.

Also seen that day Winged Migration, which is a nature doco featuring the most amazing, astonishing, fantastical... etc... footage of migrating birds. Honestly, I cannot begin to describe how jawdropping some of this stuff is. At the beginning, they tell us that no special effects were used, and that is scarcely believable.

Something like 16 cinematographers filmed for 4 years to get the footage. They used motorless flying cameras to fly with the birds, and they fly high over continents, low over lakes, through cities, over & under bridges, planes land beside them. And all sorts of stuff I hardly remeber because I was delirious on the couch.

Just. Astonishing.

And some creepy footage too, like the poor broken winged bird on a beach, trying to escape those creepy crabs you've seen in other footage (I dunno what they are, but they are creepy), ending up under a big crabby, clicking, ripping scrum. RIP. I think if I'd been the cameraman I'd have found it difficult not to save the beast.

Anyhow. That's nature I suppose. Although lets hope they didn't toss the poor thing onto the beach to get the sequence (ewww...). And did I mention this bit was creepy?