From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V5 #161 Reply-To: chakram-refugees@smoe.org Sender: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk chakram-refugees-digest Sunday, June 26 2005 Volume 05 : Number 161 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [chakram-refugees] Intimate Strangers [cr ] [chakram-refugees] Return of Callisto [cr ] [chakram-refugees] OT - More On Liz Friedman ["bookdaft" Subject: [chakram-refugees] Intimate Strangers And now I'm on to Intimate Stranger. What a brilliant start to an ep. The story turns into a nightmare as Ares forces Xena to kill Callisto again - then Xena wakes up. Except that the sleeping 'Gabs' suddenly turns into Callisto - and Xena wakes up again. She's telling Gabrielle about her dreams when Gabrielle starts getting even more judgemental than usual... and Xena wakes up yet again. They did it to us _three_ times running..... brilliant! The Callisto-Xena switch leads to all sorts of delightful situations. "All right Gabrielle - I'm Callisto". Gotta love the irony - Callisto-Xena is saying the exact truth and Gabs thinks she's speaking metaphorically. Hudson and Lucy are excellent at playing each other. They must have studied each other's styles. Lucy gets that half-amused cynical expression that Callisto has. Hudson seems much more serious and darker than usual. They even seem to move like each other. I wish we had interviews on this ep or better still, a commentary with Lucy and Hudson. cr ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 00:23:25 +1200 From: cr Subject: [chakram-refugees] Return of Callisto Just watching the commentary of Return of Callisto. My eyesight must be getting better with age. I spotted the famous gas cylinder in the last ep (Girls Just Wanna Have Fun) for the first time ever, and now in this ep I saw an even bigger booboo (I can't remember what term we decided on). Just after the title sequence, as Xena and Gabs walk up the stream talking, there in the distance directly behind is the white-painted upper storey of a house! All the time from when 'Executive Producer Rob Tapert' to 'Directed by T J Scott' is on screen. And I'm sure this has been noted before, but it's the first time I noticed it for myself - the young girl in the fight scene in the village, that Callisto throws the dagger at, is Rose McIver - Daphne in Little Problems. Is it the first time I've watched this ep since I saw Season 5? -maybe.... I hadn't realised the ep was directed by T J Scott - or rather, when I first viewed it, the name meant nothing to me (until I'd seen Sin Trade). Even then, I associated Girls Just Wanna Have Fun with its wild camera movements, with T J, and overlooked Return of Callisto. But with hindsight, the constantly circling camera in the jail sequence is typical T J. So are the many close-ups where the camera is on the skew. So is the artist's eye for a striking image. The scene where Callisto kills Perdycorpse is classic - the characters are shot with the light behind them, so they're almost in silhouette. The moment where Callisto stands with her sword raised over Gabby, while Xena rides in from behind, has always been my pick for the most striking image in all of XWP. I'm kind of gratified to realise that TJ was responsible for it. In the Perdycorpse-killing scene, Renee commented that Lucy and Hudson were fighting each other in person instead of stunties. Lucy said Hudson was very good (unlike most guests), she wouldn't hit you by mistake (she added that Renee was the best in that respect). And I have a HUGE 'how the hell did they do it?' query. The very first scene in the ep - right up to when Callisto lifts the guard's dagger - is one unbroken take. This would be impressive enough in itself .... but the camera starts inside the cell, then goes through the window in the cell door into the corridor, views the guards feeding the prisoners, turns and goes back through the cell window, right round the back of Callisto's chair.... all with no cuts at all. This is freakin' physically impossible!!! Can someone tell me how they might have done it? The commentary was good value. Lucy and Renee were commenting how T J used the camera so creatively and had such a sense of style. And later on she commented what good use T J made of the script and how she remembers him rubbing his hands with glee at what he'd been given to shoot. Lucy's comment on Perdycorpse - "anybody who looks that sweet is gonna have to die a horrible death". Interesting insight from Lucy - Renee commented that it was strange introducing such a strong character as Callisto, who might take the attention away from the hero. And Lucy said that she soon found out that the stronger the foe, the stronger the hero, and the more impressive it made the hero look when she did inevitably beat them. (Or something like that). Also that the writers enjoyed writing for Callisto, she could do and say all sorts of things that the hero couldn't. (Though - my comment - Evil Xena could). Lucy and Renee also commented a couple of times on what a great role Callisto was to play, and how Hudson made the most of it. The chariot race - when Xena was being 'dragged across the sand', she was just lying on the sand holding a rope and they were shaking the hell out of the camera with a long lens, (T J's idea), nobody thought it would work but it worked perfectly. To the extent where the studio got all upset about them risking the star. Renee was really surprised and amazed - and disbelieving - that Xena actually let Callisto die in the quicksand (unusually, Renee didn't know that plot point - she was not there when that was shot). T J loved having it in his show (Lucy said). Looking at the video commentary, it's intriguing to notice that Lucy and Renee's hair is almost exactly the same length, same style (so far as I in my ignorance can tell) - except that Lucy's is the pale ash-blonde which is closer to Gabrielle's on-screen blonde than Renee's reddish tint is. cr ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 10:37:21 -0400 From: "bookdaft" Subject: [chakram-refugees] OT - More On Liz Friedman If you saw my post on Liz Friedman writing a script for Numb3rs, then you may like to see this additional information. Last night during the post-show credits, I noticed she is listed as the series' Story Editor (possibly the Executive Story Editor - the credits go by so fast and are usually reduced so they are hard to read). I think that is pretty cool! So good on Liz! bd ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ End of chakram-refugees-digest V5 #161 **************************************