Friday Was Fun!

Yes my day off was really nice. The Date and I spent pretty much the whole day together until she went to work in the late afternoon.

At seven on TCM one of the best thrillers of all time, Night of the Hunter with one of the most iconic villains of all time (Reverend Harry Powell) with his Love and Hate tattoos.

Robert Mitchum burns up every scene with his menacing presence as he hunts down ten thousand dollars he believes a condemned man hid with two children. This classic was Charles Laughton's directing debut and the end of his directing career as well. As with many movies of the time it was a box office failure that found an audience years later.

It is hard to imagine how this movie would have been received. It is a very dark movie as Harry Powell stalks and terrorizes children while beguiling the adults with his prison charm. Laughton did a masterful job of using shadows, room angles, and camera trickery to bring you into the scene with Powell and all of his malevolence.

It is a shame that he only directed one movie. Laughton was a brilliant actor in his own right from the blood thirsty Captain Bligh to the sympathetic Quasimodo, his acting range was untouched by many of his peers.

After Night of the Hunter was over I flipped channels for a while until Stargate: Universe came on. Again this series shows me why it is quickly becoming one of the best scifi shows on TV today. I wish I could get into the details of this episode however you know I hate spoilers and won't. It is worth it to watch it for yourself though and see what I'm talking about. So I'll give a spoiler free summary for those of you not inclined to take my advice.

SG:U isn't becoming an episodic show with the alien race of the week format. Instead it is more serial in nature with the story carrying on episode to episode. The imminent threat that was to destroy The Destiny in the last episode wasn't neutralized and in fact became a very good thing. The Destiny is a very smart ship, almost with a life of its own. Ancient technology, again the race that built the Stargate system, has a way of taking care of the things it has set in motion. Not so much a deus ex machina as it is just plot point of not knowing what The Destiny is capable of.

Without spoiling things The Destiny is in trouble and a lottery is held to draw the people who are to be sent off to safety. The emotional effect of the lottery on the characters was heart stopping as they knew they were going to certain doom. The survivors were certain to deal with their own issues as they were to be saved from a horrible fate by the luck of the draw.

I'm hoping SG:U enjoys several seasons of twenty episodes each. It is that good to me.