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Nice clip - for me it's nice to see Dredd speaking fairly naturally, and sounding like a relatively normal person; it's easy to imagine Dredd speaking like Dirty Harry all the time, though in film it just means you're doing a knock off Dirty Harry.

There lived a certain man in the age of Dynasty
Through his weapons crest, he found his identity
A lothario and thief, with a taste for all things wild
But to Dmitri Romanov he was just a bastard child
He caught the eye of Princess Jena
Though she was daughter of the Czar
He fought both armies just to see her
War was never far

Na na Nikolai, oh that sexy Dante guy
He lived his life for danger and thrills
Na na Nikolai, made the Russian ladies cry
He was a cat who was too cool to kill

The Romanovs tried to get the kid in line
They trained him up and they gave him Rudenshtein
Taught him loyalty and let him have his fun
But most of the time he looked after number one
He stole the Dark Star from its keeper
But his estranged wife's death he saw
Saved the Princess from her evil suitor
Sparking the Czar's war

He led a ragged band and it felt like suicide 
Though he did at least have Elena on his side
Comes face to face with Jena in a duel
Though he spared her life - he was just a love struck fool
He beat his turncoat brother Konstantin 
Declared "heroes all be damned"
When they thought the battle was won, he was
Shot by Jena's hand

Na na Nikolai, Romanov on the front line
He led a squad of deserters and thieves
Na na Nikolai, hero of the Rhudenstein
But he still got the girls on their knees

The Romanovs fall, betrayed my their own kin
The Czar's top man turns out to be Konstantin
Tired and lost, the Romanovs retreat
The patriarch cannot live with his defeat
Dante was set free by Princess Jena
Returns to a life of thievery
Reunited with his pirate mother
And the open seas

He save Jena's life from an evil terrorist
With her demon spores it turned out to be his sis
But he had found his lost love Lauren on the way
It seemed as if he keep could not keep the girls at bay
Captured by the Imperial forces
Made to work in the Czar's name
Fighting extradimentional forces
From another plane

Na na Nikolai, Romanov on the front line
He led a squad of deserters and thieves
Na na Nikolai, hero of the Rhudenstein
But he still got the girls on their knees

It doesn't last  long fighting on the Czar's side
When he sees how the Czar was still prone to genocide
Arkady brings him down when he tries to murder Vlad
Jena rescues him and cuts herself off from her dad
They create a mighty rebel army
From a band of thieves and whores.
Vowed to rise and defeat this evil tyrant
And end Russia's wars

They capture Vladimir and put the Czar on trial
For a regime change they offer him exile
Arkady flips - seems Dmitri isn't dead
He kidnaps Jena to force her soon to wed
Dante starts a bloody revolution
His mother kills Dmitri off and dies
Vladimir escapes for retribution
But Nikolai survived

Na na Nikolai, redeemer of imperial crimes
Then beat the Czar in Russian Roulette
Na na Nikolai, half his friends and family died
The sacrifices he won't forget

Na na Nikolai, fighting on the people's side
He killed Konstantin in a duel
Na Na Nikolai, then took Jena for his bride
And Russia celebrated Dante's rule

Oh, those Romanovs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vov3rLdSJEI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Just seen the first TV ad for it, during the excellent I'm Spasticus (CH4)

Though many things will be unforgivable to fans, I think we have to remember just how much the movie industry has changed: it was the era of action movie stars. Today, just the knowledge that a film is based on a comic book seems to bring in the crowds, who don't seem to care if they have heard of the actors before. Even if Stallone of Cannon had desperately wanted to keep the helmet on, or make it darker, their hands may well have been tied - Hollywood is about accountancy. True, the Batman films were underway, starting the whole comic book adaptation trend... but for me they were overhyped and just as unrepresentative, the first one having very little plot. Most sci-fi from those days just looks terrible, or doesn't work. It took years before the audience, the infastructure and the techniques were there to do comic books. The alternative to something similar to Judge Dredd would have been... no Judge Dredd.

Clearly the church leaders like to have the monopoly on wearing outlandish costumes, blaring out tuneless songs and causing offence to those of differing beliefs in old buildings.

Feel free to contact me.

Ah, the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.

Well, that was all rather good. I wonder what hobbies they will be covering next year.

Don't know if it's been mentioned.

Brigand Doom.

I never read it but it looked fun.

Wasn't that supposed to be the thinking behind the finale in the last series? "Back to the shadows" and all that?

Oh yeah I forgot about that. It's a very good idea if followed through: They've done to death the idea that The Doctor's name alone can somehow magically halt an army.

Prior to Moffat taking over I actually made myself a list of ways I thought the show should be improved, and to my surprise he's done most of them, and surpassed.

[edited to repair quote—IP]

It's hard to imagine that many more series in which each series story arc gets more and more epic; after The Doctor has saved the Earth, the universe, and "reality itself", there's not much else left. Moffatt had a bit of a masterstroke though with the crack in time, effectively 'saving history', though I wasn't one of those able to follow it to the end, and the latest one looked similarly convoluted, with even Moffatt sayng it doesn't make perfect sense. I would be happy if they just piped down and went smaller scale, though it seems to be part of the hype machine that it has to somehow ramp it up each time, or perhaps that's just what people expect now after RTD set the template.

I'm sure it mostly was... it just seemed what was there was subtle and well integrated enough to not be obvious.

The thing which still strikes me about Watchmen is how many genres it covers in the same book, being equal parts superhero adventure, film noir, murder mystery, conspiracy thriller, soap, sci-fi, psychological horror, romance and black comedy - it's amazing it holds together - I guess that's something about the comic strip medium is it gives it all a consistent style by virtue of being drawn, while film directors generally have to find a style and stick to it. No wonder it confused audiences.

I personally think its clever structural idea possible mask how much soul there is in the book; Dan and Laurie's story is the beating human heart of the book, while the internal battle between Rorchach and Walter is just incredible right up to the end. It sounds disturbing, but I see parts of him in people all the time as multiple personalities battle for supremecy. The part which really struck me on re-reading some time ago was the way he lodges with a prostitute much like his own mother, despite his 'disgust'... as if trying to gain some kind of mock closeness to a maternal figure. To me one of the most stunning parts of the book is the frame when Rorchach see himself in the child's eyes and stops himself exposing her as a prostiture - the compromise which would lead up to his final compromise later. Walter's fightback. Perhaps despite everything, the therapy worked.

Well I guess there was that, though perhaps because logically it had to be, rather that being particularly bad CGI. Perhaps that moment was showing off a little more for the trailer.

I've rarely liked superhero movies, the exceptions being the Superman and X Men films, and the more 'believable' they become for me just betrays their fantasy roots, exposes the hokum of the original idea, and and results in urban crime thrillers with a couple of the characters in fancy dress (I'm not interested in crime dramas).

Is it just me or is Dark Knight Rises a convoluted but stylised way of having[spoiler] a villain with a disability hijack an enormous bomb with which to kill a large number of people for fun, to be foiled and killed by the hero with gadgets seconds before to bomb goes off?[/spoiler]

It's a very successful attempt in making Batman realistic and believable (not sure why you would want to do that). It's certainly a film for fans of the first two parts. Apparently it's a very intelligent film. For me it was just complex.

However, for me the problem with his filmmaking, and other recent films such as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, is the way that, as the story takes precidence, they play like a 3 hour montage, with no scene really beginning or ending, and with continuous looming but unmelodic mood music.

Credit should be given to the effects though, especially, I suspect, the model shots, as I couldn't identify a single moment of CGI - by usual bugbear?

It must be a lot harder for them to write the show now on account of everything they have gone through -originally it was basically the classic class-based British sitcom formula (one happy slob and one who wishes to rise above their station, constantly failing), that just happened to be set in space. Now they are pretty much on the same side so all the content really has to come from the sci-fi twists. Also, as with some other shows, the better the production values become, the colder it gets in space - it was really designed as a bit of knockabout sketch comedy. Back to Earth seemed to work a lot better than the later BBC shows though, and I was impressed how Craig Charles seem to ratchet up his acting, though it's a pretty different kind of show now.