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Personal addenda from Jack Yan, supplementing his work blog, with posts on humour, politics, the media, cars and anything else that might be of interest.
Recent Posts Tagged With '2008'
US Life on Mars gets a thumbs-up
US Life on Mars got off to a good start. The script was neatly changed (though I wonder about the whole Colin Raimes kid scene at the end replacing the Sam on the rooftop one), and i...
Last pre-broadcast reviews for US Life on Mars
The Los Angeles Times has both a video and a written review of tonight’s US Life on Mars première. Mary McNamara finds it largely positive; Robert Lloyd has a few minor reservations. Hop over to th...
Lucire home page evolves
[Cross-posted at Lucire] Regular readers might notice, if they scroll, a few changes to Lucire’s home page. We’re not Facebook, so the change is designed to be evolutionary and not upset reade...
US Life on Mars: another review emerges
Jace at Televisionary has seen the US Life on Mars and says it still falls short of the original (especially Jason O’Mara versus John Simm in the role of Sam Tyler), but his comment...
Renault Laguna Coupé: elegant and fluid
Renault also showed its Laguna Coupé at the Paris salon, although Lucire first reported on the car when Renault boss Carlos Ghosn drove one to Cannes. Here are two videos: one f...
First review of US Life on Mars online
Someone has seen American Life on Mars already: Kelly West at Cinema Blend, who gives it 3½ stars. A lot more photographs on the page as well. Ms West makes no comparisons with the UK original and gi...
Renault Mégane Coupé—salivate now
Two more videos of that beautiful Renault Mégane Coupé. Posted yesterday at Lucire. Read and post comments | Send to a friend ...
One more from our Miss New Zealand ’08 shoot
[Cross-posted at Lucire] Doug Rimington has a few behind-the-scenes shots from Tuesday’s shoot with Miss New Zealand Samantha Powell. I snapped one to finish off a roll of film myself, which is be...
Year of the fist
These ads are not new, and American viewers will have already seen them. They are interesting to me because it shows this new première has taken on a lot more of the origin...
It was a draw
I don’t think there were any winners in last night’s presidential debate. Sen. McCain went off on his own tangents, and Sen. Obama sweated the small stuff, which I don’t think a potential presid...
Just don’t stand under it if it drops
The weather has improved a lot since I shot this at Civic Square two weeks ago, though it is windy at the moment. Read and post comments | Send to a friend ...
Lucire issue 26: download your free supplement
Top: On your newsstands, Lucire no. 26, with cover by Kelly Thompson. Above: The cover to thedownloadable free supplement, with cover by Morand/Zwirner Photography (the full shoot appears in the newss...
May the Wilberforce be with you
Marshall Lancaster’s best line in last night’s Ashes to Ashes on Prime was cut. I can understand the need to cut for advertisements in New Zealand and we will always argue on what...
First US Life on Mars scene revealed: the American Gene Genie!
Is it just me or is this still inferior to the original British scene despite the addition of Harvey Keitel as Gene Hunt? This is the first scene shown to the public from the US re...
Scots College reunion, 2008
I have been a tad busy to upload a lot of these photos. First up was my high school reunion last month, which took place a few days after my Form II reun...
A glimpse into 1982
The Daily Mail has shots from the making of the second series of Ashes to Ashes, which began production this month. See Philip Glenister in a bathrobe eating a banana—a far cry from the ‘overweigh...
‘KITT happens’
Life on Mars isn’t the only show that has had a producer change and rejig Stateside. Knight Rider, shown as a telemovie earlier in 2008, has gone through many changes, though J...
‘My name is Sam Tyler. I had an accident and woke up in New York’
ABC has also released individual cast members’ photographs. The first is for Jason O’Mara as Det Sam Tyler of the NYPD: note the background is now New York, ra...
McCain gets to give his full speech
Triangle did, to its credit, broadcast Sen. McCain’s entire RNC speech ex-PBS tonight, running till past 1 a.m. I liked the speeches tonight. While every day of the DNC there were pretty out-ther...
The other people from the Life on Mars universe
Irish actor Colm Meaney appeared on Breakfast back in April to talk about his new film, Three and Out, as well as his portrayal of Capt Gene Hunt of the LAPD in the Life on Mars ...
Simm and Glenister are back
My name is Sam Tyler. I had an accident and woke up in the 1980s as a career criminal, paired with an overweight, over-the-hill, tobacco-stained, borderline alcoholic homophobe with a...
If we used the same defence for Palin as we did for Obama
I put on someone’s blog how interestingly perceptions worked. I would guess if you asked a typical American, ‘Who is the most experienced out of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Sarah Palin?...
Quietly, Sarah Palin is McCain’s running mate
I first read about Sen. Joe Biden’s nomination to be Sen. Barack Obama’s running-mate through the MSM. It was probably on Google News, in the headlines. Then I saw it here on television, albeit br...
Democrats reject Barack Obama for Dick van Patten
Free-to-air coverage of the DNC in New Zealand is delayed till our late-night viewing hours, so I haven’t seen Sen. Barack Obama’s speech yet. And I was quite busy at work today so I didn’t tune...
Ain’t that a kick in the head
Here’s a way to flush one’s sporting career down the toilet: Ángel Volodia Matos of Cuba attacks the Olympic referee, Sweden’s Chakir Chelbat, in the 80 kg taekwondo bronz...
Life in the twenty-first century
When I was a kid, those predicting the future in sci-fi would say we would drive around in tiny cars resembling boxes and they would run on electricity come 2000. The former was ...
How old is He? Even Red Chinese newspaper says 14
You’ve all heard the controversy over whether Red Chinese gymnast He Kexin is 14 or 16. A hacker has found documents in the Baidu (the Red Chinese search engine) cache that indicate she is 14. Some ...
That’ll be the Daewoo
The last time they made a car called the Chevrolet Cruze, it was a rebodied Suzuki Wagon R: and, before Holden started selling Daewoo Kaloses, was considered the worst model...
New cars this month
The new Ford Ka, based on the Fiat 500 platform, looks good, but the other débutante, the Renault Symbol, looks like a Clio that swallowed a Nissan Tiida. I imagine the looks ar...
’08 Olympics captions no. 2
Reuter photo by Jim Lampen, reproduced for parody purposes only. ‘They said it was impossible. But I was on a mission. This one’s for you, Uncle Jim.’ Read and post comments | ...