Walk All Over Me

Tricia Helfer obviously understands a lot about image and fantasy. As a model, she had the versatility to show many looks and become many versions of ideal female beauty. On Battlestar Galactica, she’s had an opportunity to show some considerable acting chops as she plays the many different versions of Six, from triumphant to suicidal, brutal to seductive. As dominatrix Celene in the film Walk All Over Me, she seems to be drawing on the same well.

The film stars Helfer and Leelee Sobieski as roommates in Vancouver. When Alberta (Sobieski) runs into trouble with the mob, she impersonates her roommate in order to earn some extra cash. From the looks of the trailer, this gets her into a world of trouble. Didn’t she know it’s never wise to mess with a Cylon?

Though the film played at both the Cannes and Toronto film festivals, the distributor has asked that no reviews be posted in advance of its commercial screening, so I haven’t found any advance reaction to pass along. But chances are, if you’re a Tricia Helfer fan, or otherwise interested in a film about a pair of dominatrices, I doubt anyone else’s opinion matters.

Walk All Over Me opens Friday December 7th at Tinseltown in Vancouver. Members of the cast and crew will be on hand to answer questions after the 7pm and 9pm screenings. At this point, I do not have confirmation that Tricia Helfer will be attending.

Calling All Canucklehead BSG Fans!

Want to show your support for the Vancouver Canucks AND help Battlestar Galactica creator Ronald D Moore and other screenwriters from the WGA to put pressure on the big studios to resolve the month-old writer’s strike AT THE SAME TIME? Moore has just given you the opportunity with this post in his blog:

How would you like to go to a hockey game with the Chief?

That’s right, our own Aaron Douglas will take one fan to a Canucks hockey game, along with another buddy of his up in Vancouver. And how can you score this treat? Simple. By going to Pencils2MediaMoguls.com and buying as many boxes of pencils as you can. On the first page (which is a subset of United Hollywood) you’ll see a place to identify which show you’re supporting. Type in “BSG Aaron Douglas” and we’ll enter your name into a raffle, with the lucky winner getting to attend the hockey game with Aaron.

If you haven’t been following, the pencils campaign is modelled after the nuts campaign of earlier in the year, which saw “Jericho” get an order for more episodes after fans deluged the network offices with nuts, inspired by one of the show’s beloved characters who used to say ‘Nuts!” all the time.

I’m sure that spending an evening watching Roberto Luongo, the Sedin twins, Marcus Naslund and Trevor Linden do their stuff will be made even more enjoyable by getting to go with Aaron Douglas!

“Abso-frakkin-lutely!”

That’s actually a quote from Aaron Douglas, who served as MC for an event called “Boozapalooza” at the Commodore in Vancouver on Saturday night. It was the 10th anniversary celebration for local band The Town Pants. The club was packed and the music was great and the crowd was obviously having lots of fun. Aaron did a great job as MC, though I think “whiskey delivery boy” would be as good a title for his duties, as the band had to be re-supplied frequently for “toasts” to the crowd. Presto, Aaron would appear, shot glasses in hand!

Aaron wasn’t the only Galactica actor there, Ryan Robbins (Charlie Connor on BSG) played along on a couple of songs on the didgeridoo and Aleks Paunovic (Sgt. Fisher) was also on hand.

There were three of us from The 13th Colony there, and though we didn’t manage to introduce ourselves to Aaron or the other actors, we kind figured Aaron added in the “Abso-frakkin-lutely!” just for us.

Thanks!

Razor Frak Party

Why review the movie when you can review the party?

A bunch of us from The 13th Colony got together at Eighties Restaurant in North Vancouver to watch “Razor” on Saturday night. We’ve signed up several new members in recent weeks and I was thrilled to see so many new faces join us for the party. I hope we managed to make you all feel welcome, even if the sign said “Cylons Less Welcome.”

As usual, we had our “Donation Poll” going, asking people who they thought would win in a fair fight, Admiral Cain or President Roslin? Despite what new revelations we saw in Razor, our members still think Laura could kick Helena’s butt, no problem. She won by a margin of three to one. I’d say we have a few Mary McDonnell fans in our midst.

The conversation was lively over dinner and the new eggnog & rum cheescake was delicious. But of course, the crowd fell silent when the broadcast started and remained glued to the big screen for the next two hours, except for brief periods of frenzied bathroom breaks and coffee re-fills during the commercial breaks.

As I expected, the old guys got the biggest cheer. Their appearance would not have felt complete without at least one “By your command” and thankfully, the writers obliged the fans with that. After it was over, we each had ideas about what it means. The only thing we all agreed on is to go back and watch it again to catch all the nuances. We’re not thrilled with the long wait ahead, but we’ve got a few new things to ponder in the meantime.

All in all, a fine party!

We’re not the only ones!

Nice to know we are not the only ones who feel the urge to photograph our Battlestar Galactica toys in various locations! Check here for the latest of David Eick’s video blogs, which follows two sci-fi lovebirds who met online through the BSG community, got married and got a tour of the set.  Sure enough, they haul out a Cylon mini-mate and a viper and photograph them on one of the sound stages.  Wonderful!

For your viewing pleasure, at right are Frik and Frak getting ready for the weekend’s Razor Frak Party.  The coffee had to inspected thoroughly.  It passed.

Ready for the onslaught?

One of the best things about being the organizer of a fan club is that you get to meet other fans. Seeing as the club I run is a Battlestar Galactica fan club in Vancouver, where the show is made, I get to meet virtually, or in person, with BSG fans from all over the world.

The question I get asked most often is “If I come to Vancouver, can I see the Galactica Hangar Deck or CIC?” No. Unless you’ve got way better connections than I do.

Battlestar Galactica interiors are shot at Vancouver Film Studios. Unlike say Universal Studios or Disney in California, the film studios up here are not open to the public. Film crews go quietly about their business, generally not disturbed by the friendly Canadians. We like it that way. As I recently told a reporter who asked, rather than pestering the film crew, we would much rather they get on with the business of making the show we want to watch. (Of course, they’re not doing that right now, but that’s another blog post…)

One of the BSG fans from afar that we got a chance to meet recently while she was vacationing in Vancouver is millari. You’ll be hearing from her soon in this space. She can tell you about what an odd bunch we 13th Colonists are, and I must congratulate her on having the courage to meet up with us for coffee while she was in town!

So why the title of this post? millari’s recent visit as a tourist to Caprica/New Caprica/Kobol/Vancouver is going to be part of an article about The 13th Colony to appear soon at Wired.com

I have a feeling Caprica is about to become a major geek tourist destination. That’s OK. The locals are friendly.

BSG Set Damaged in Windstorm

Vancouver’s first major winter storm of the season came through town yesterday, and the high winds took out an outdoor set for Battlestar Galactica. What the news called “ancient ruins” were in fact in ruins as the picture here shows. A spokesperson for GEP Productions, Geoff White, spoke to the news crew after surveying the damage, saying he hoped they would be able to do repairs and still shoot at the location in the coming week.

The set is on Centennial Beach in Tsawwassen, south of Vancouver. For more info, the news story is streaming live here at the Global TV BC website, under the link for Vancouver Wind. The timecode for the BSG set is roughly 1:43 to 2:11 in to the story.

Rooting for the Underdog

Good news for Battlestar Galactica Season Four…Jake will make another appearance. No word yet on whether or not he gets a new bowl.

Recently spent some time going through Ronald D. Moore’s Q & A session over at the Scifi.com forum and found that little tidbit.

As D’Anna Biers noted when she met him on New Caprica, Jake doesn’t care if someone is human or Cylon.  Perhaps therein lies the key to a lasting peace.

Pegasus Refresher

A bunch of us from The 13^th Colony got together over the weekend to re-watch three of the Pegasus episodes from Season Two as a sort of warm-up for the upcoming Razor TV movie. Besides snacking on frak-furters, toaster snacks and ambrosia, we watched the extended episode of Pegasus and both parts of Resurrection Ship.

A few things leapt out at me:

Admiral Cain clearly recognized Baltar as soon as she stepped foot on Galactica and seemed very surprised to find him aboard. I have to wonder if this detail isn’t going to figure in to the Razor story since we know it will deal with a different version of Six who got close to Cain before the attack that destroyed the Colonies. Cain and Baltar have a lot in common and I wonder if Cain knew that.

I realize that “artistic license” can be used as an excuse for a lot of decisions made in the writing room, but it still seems to me that the rules aren’t clear for how much certain Cylon models are aware of what their counterparts are experiencing. “Head Six” had no idea the prisoner on the Pegasus was another Six, yet “Athena” remembered Adama’s speech about finding Earth when she had been down on Caprica with Helo at the time. Who knows, maybe there are different rules for Head versions than physical models.

Nit-picking, yes. Just because it’s so damned intriguing. 

To Frak or Not to Frak?

I was surprised at how much thought I put into the question of whether or not I should call our next event “Razor Party” or “Razor Frak Party.” It’s not like frak is a real swear word, or that it means we’re getting together to have sex with shaving gear, it’s just a phrase that helps other BSG fans recognize us. In the end, I chose to include it. So, The 13th Colony will be holding a Razor Frak Party on November 24th at our favourite diner, Eighties. Here in Vancouver, Space Channel will start airing the movie at 6 pm, so we’ll gather early and have plenty of time to settle in and whip ourselves into a frak frenzy. (Ok, now that one did sound a little rude…)