Blood and Bone China

I can't remember if I'd raved about this new vampire film before on the blog ... but even if I did, I'm going to do so again.

It all started life as a web series from a very talented and personable soul called Chris Stone ... the idea was to present a decent quality vampire story over several ten minute episodes. The result was Blood and Bone China.

The channel that the web series is on is here: http://www.youtube.com/user/BloodandBoneChina?ob=0, and there's a trailer as well:






The website for the production is here: http://bloodandbonechina.com/

Having completed the web series, obviously the next stage was world domination, and so Chris has edited the story into a single film presentation, and last night I was lucky enough to spot that Chris was offering free entry to people to see it ... so I duly added my name, and Sam and I then headed down to Stoke-on-Trent - where it is set - to watch the premiere of the film as the opening attraction to this year's Stoke film festival.

And it was worth the journey.

Chris has created something fascinating and original, which blends the old tropes of vampires with the tale of a man's hunt for his lost brother. Vampires are at large in Stoke, feeding on the unwary and dragging their bodies off to goodness knows where. Behind it all is Linus Hemlock (David Lemberg), the man behind the Hemlock pottery which makes perfect and strong bone china at knock down prices. His vampire slave, Victoria (Lara de Leuw), has been hunting, and her victims include Doctor ('I'm not a Doctor, I'm a vet!') Howell's (Anthony Miles) brother. Howell joins forces with feisty reporter Anna Fitzgerald (Rachel Shenton) to try and get to the bottom of the mystery. Along the way they are attacked by vampires, join forces with hunter Alexander Pyre (John James Woodward), meet up with a band of Steampunk Victorians, and battle creatures of the night in Hemlock's pottery. All great stuff.

What is incredible is that Chris has created this film on a micro budget - BUT IT DOESN'T SHOW! There is minimal CGI that I spotted (some neat eye effects towards the end), and some superb performances, great settings and location work. The camerawork is excellent, and the script which, while in places shows it's webcast roots with a little to much retelling of the plot, is generally first class.

There is a standout performance from - I think - Lewis Brindley as the young boy Aaron. He steals his scenes and gets the best laugh of the film. But everyone is really top notch. Kudos to Rachel Shenton as Anna, who manages to bring a modern girl kick ass sensibility to a Victorian reporter, and to John James Woodward for his creepy and yet brilliant vampire hunter.

I loved the final scenes - which I won't reveal here. They made me smile greatly, and for some reason reminded me of the Underworld franchise and the film Van Helsing for no reason that I can think of ...

Hearty congratulations to Chris and all his team for bringing this film to life. I can't wait to see what you turn your hands to next.

Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography

Biographies can be a bit of a mixed bag ... sometimes they are gripping and revelatory, other times they seem to skim over lots of important stuff and deal with inconsequentials. Over the last few years we have seen a great many books by Doctor Who celebs coming out. Some have been great, some less so. But none was more anticipated than that of Elisabeth Sladen ... but then she passed away, and fandom heaved a great sigh of despair - perhaps the greatest outpouring of grief ever. Part of our childhood, taken far too soon. But this then put great expectations on the book ... would it even come out at all? And if it did, would it be a worthy testament?

The answers to these questions are all yes, thankfully, but in part, I have to say, the book disappointed me. The difficulty is that Lis, it seemed, didn't intend to write about Lis ... the book explains that Elisabeth Sladen the actress, and Elisabeth Miller, the wife and mother, were two totally different people. As her daughter Sadie states up front in the book: 'my mum ... who will not be shared with anyone'. This is a book about the actress, the stories that Lis thought her fans wanted to hear. She didn't want or intend to talk about her private life - though there are of course elements of that here as well - and so the book comes over as just catching a glimpse of Lis rather than getting to know her.

It's unfortunate that the hand of her co-author, Jeff Hudson, seems very apparent. There is far too much knowledge of Doctor Who here for it all to have come from Lis. This is a similar problem that plagued the John Nathan-Turner assisted memoirs of Nicholas Courtney. Every actor, whoever they are, and whenever they are mentioned, has to have their Doctor Who role mentioned as well. It's not necessary, and it spoils the story. Lis wouldn't have known that person X who she worked with in rep had a role in a Patrick Troughton episode of Who ... so why mention it? I found this element perhaps the most disappointing. It takes what is a great personal story, of interest to many, and casts it as something which is only of interest to Doctor Who fans ... and they already know which story person X appeared in, and so don't need to be told.

As I read through the book, I noted that there was a lot of fascinating material on Lis' early years. It's nice to hear how she met Brian, her husband, and of all the work she did leading to being cast in Doctor Who. I have a feeling though that some of the stories about Doctor Who are not her true memories, but are tales being reported from her co-author (or other source) and then retold by Lis. I guess this doesn't really matter too much, but I think people are, as this is an autobiography, looking for Lis' own words and thoughts rather than reportage on what she has been told.

And in Lis' own words, Jon Pertwee doesn't come over well at all. Although she seems to have tolerated him, he appears very conceited and self-centred here, a far cry from how he is usually remembered. But then Lis herself often rationalises things her own way, not apparently considering that from an outside viewpoint they might look different. So she explains that she is a private person and preferred to sit with the make-up girls in between takes rather than relax with the other actors. But to the other actors, this might look as though she was deliberately distancing herself from them, and taking some prima donna approach. Thus she comes over as a lovely person, trying to get through the day, but justifying all her actions when perhaps none was needed.

She loved Tom Baker though, and this shines through. His arrival must have been like a breath of fresh air after the somewhat dominant figure and personality of Pertwee. The stories about this period of her career seem fresher and more naturally told, and I suspect this is because she relished remembering them all, and perhaps has far more happy memories of the time.

You come away from the book feeling that you know Lis a little better. That although she could be hard work, she loved her job and her family, and was intensely private about them. She often kept her true feelings hidden from others, and presented a mask to those around her. An example is when she badly hurt her leg during the recording for the David Tennant episode, and went through an interview being very short in her answers because she was in such discomfort and pain - so the interviewer probably thought she was difficult to talk to, when in fact she was in great agony throughout. All she had to do was explain the issue to the interviewer and something would have been sorted out.

As a final coda to the book, the contributions from her daugher Sadie and husband Brian are truly lovely. They loved Lis very much indeed, and to have her taken from them must have been the worst thing ever. I admire their bravery and courage in allowing the book to be published, and to let everyone catch a glimpse of Lis as she crossed the timestreams and travelled through many different shows before ending up, once more, a kids heroine, adored by millions, thanks to the foresight and appreciation of Russell T Davies.

It's a great read, and contains much that was not previously known about Lis and her life. It stands as one of the best of the Doctor Who autobiographies, and the only regrets are that Lis chose not to really open up to her readers, and that she is no longer here to see how much she is loved and missed by everyone who watched her, grew up with her, and knew her.

Nothing At The End of the Lane

The third edition of this fascinating and pretty incredible Doctor Who fanzine is now available, and it lives up to the standards of the first two editions. Given that there has been six years between issue two and this one, and standard of research is pretty darn good, and the magazine sets out to answer some of those niggly questions which us Doctor Who fans ask every so often.

The issue kicks off with a very lovely pic of Peter Purves and Jackie Lane with Sheena Marshe during rehearsals for 'The Gunfighters', along with a selection of smaller shots. I won't keep saying that I have never seen the pictures before, but pretty much every photograph in the magazine is new, and for those fans who love photographs, they are worth the price of admission alone. Just one very minor gripe, and that is that some of them are printed quite small and I would have liked to have seen them larger.

Then we're into the written content and we kick off with a piece wondering (and answering) what happened to the Dalek props given away in the TV21 competition. Well now we know ... and at least one was auctioned in 1992 by Bonhams. We move on to the Quaker Oats competition as well ...

Way back in 1989, I printed information about a Peter Cushing Doctor Who radio show in my fanzine The Frame, and now we have all the available information about it, BBC memos, notes, background, and even the script for the pilot episode! It's an incredible piece of research, and wonderful to read.

Next up is a selection of colour photos from the location filming for 'The Smugglers', some of these are somewhat black and grainy, but they are lovely to see.

William Hartnell's stint in Panto after leaving Doctor Who is covered next with some nice vintage photographs and playbills, followed by some beautiful colour costume designs from 'The Space Pirates'. I'd never seen these before and they are superb. I especially like the designs for Zoe, and her outfit turned out pretty close to the design.

A long-running unknown is revealed next, with a piece all about just who was cast as the original actress to play Sarah Jane Smith ... this fact was recently revealed in the BBC DVD release of 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs', but it looks like Richard Bignell actually had the scoop here and was pipped to it by the DVD ...  There's a nice recreated Radio Times cover to accompany the piece.

Black and white pics from 'The Enemy of the World' follow, and it's great to see some new shots from the filming here. Then we have some more random facts covering a third big screen movie, lost Scorpion Automotive Daleks, toys from 'Galaxy 4' which never appeared, and a selection of Louis Marx Dalek prototypes which never made it to production.

Continuing the Dalek theme, and the next piece investigates the Daleks given away in the 'Write Your Own Adventure' competition run in the Radio Times in 1972. More brilliant photographs and investigations here, revealing much about these enigmatic creations.

'The Living Planet' is a lost storyline from the early days of the show, written by Alan Wakeman and commissioned as part of the build up to the first season. Here we have the complete storyline reprinted as well as the script for part one.

Colour photographs from the filming of 'The Invasion' are next, and it's good to see some of the costumes in colour for the first time ...

Next up is an extensive section which explores all the story ideas and storylines submitted by writer Brian Hayles (he who created the Ice Warriors). There are loads of them from all eras of the show. Very interesting stuff indeed.

Next up are some lovely photographs from 'The Evil of the Daleks' from designer Chris Thompson, along with more telly snaps from fans which have come to light.

Finally, the magazine presents an indepth look at the background to the aborted anniversay story 'The Dark Dimension', revealing far more than had been previously known about it's development, who was involved, and why it was ultimately never made. It's another tour de force of research from Richard Bignell, and contains designs and photographs to illustrate it, as well as story outlines of the plot in its varying incarnations.

Overall Nothing At the End of the Lane represents fan research and writing at it's very best and Richard Bignell is to be congratulated for pulling together such an incredible array of images and facts, covering areas of the show which were previously unknown or little known.

For copies, head to the website at: http://www.endofthelane.co.uk/

Trolls and Aliens

Sometimes you go for new films on something of a whim, not really knowing if they will work for you or not, and thus sometimes the selections turn out to be not really what you wanted or to your taste. Thus it is with the latest two offerings, Troll Hunter and Cowboys and Aliens.

Having been impressed by many foreign language films, and not having any issue with subtitles, Troll Hunter was popped in the machine. Oh dear.  I had heard that it was a little like The Blair Witch Project in its conceit of presenting 'recovered' footage, but unfortunately this has resulted in a film which is almost unwatchable as the picture jumps and jounces all over the place.  After about 10 minutes I was feeling ill (I get motion sickness) and so had to give up on it.

We did zoom through the rest of the film to see how it developed and what we saw did not improve the opinion that this was a very very amateur hour production, nowhere near on the same par as Rare Exports, and really hardly worth bothering with.  I can't offer a full review as we didn't watch the full film, but it was disappointing.  The trolls look OK and reminded me of many book illstrations over the years, but the dreadful acting and rolling camera made this one very much a thumbs down for us.

Disappointed with Troll Hunter, we then turned to Cowboys and Aliens, hoping at least for a watchable film. Well, it is watchable, but someone involved with it forgot the 'and Aliens' bit and it concentrates way too much on the Cowboys and Indians ...

Daniel Craig is excellent as the loner Jake, and the rest of the cast is likewise pretty good, but it's a slow burn film, with lots of material which just drags.  I felt that the whole Harrison Ford and Son subplot could have been removed without hurting the main film at all, and it is way overlength at 119 minutes as well. If it was cut back to 90 minutes then it might be a much more interesting and exciting watch.

The basic plot is daft, a bunch of aliens arrive on Earth in 1873 in order to steal the gold from the ground (we don't know why) and a group of Cowboys and Indians, helped by another alien in the form of a beautiful woman (Olivia Wilde), have to send them packing.  Along the way the aliens kidnap loads of locals for no apparent reason - perhaps to experiment on them? - and leave them all standing in a room on their spaceship looking at the light. The aliens are fast moving insectoid things and are nicely designed, but there isn't much in the way of intelligence shown by them - which is odd given the high-tec of their ship, guns, gold collecting process and so on.  It's a very ragged film.

What should have been an action/adventure shoot em up with guns and lazers is instead a slow moving affair, with a fair degree of angst and a whole 'Indians don't get on with Cowboys but can work with them and respect them' subplot in there as well.

So a disappointing evening overall ... I hope the next ones we choose are better.

Fright Night and Kronos

Another two films to discuss this time ... one from ages ago, Hammer's Captain Kronos, and one current, the remake of Fright Night ...

Heading back in time first, and 1974's Captain Kronos is one of the better Hammer films, made even more special by the overall concept which was fully intended as a trial for a possible series of films (I hope I'm right saying that and it's not just an urban myth). Unfortunately the copy we got was very murky and degraded - no clean up whatsoever had been done on it and it had white marks down the screen for some of it ... and anything in the dark, well forget seeing anything much there!  Nevertheless it still stands today as a great take on the vampire myth - that here the vampire feeds on the youth of the victims and leaves them withered husks, while the vampire stays looking young and vibrant.  I suppose it's another twist on the Countess Dracula idea that bathing in the blood of virgins would keep you young.

The film contains some brilliant performances, and particularly of note are the leading triumbrate of Kronos (Horst Janson), Grost (John Cater) and Carla (Caroline Munro). These three manage to make for gripping viewing, and it's really nice to see in a film of this period that the hunchback servant (Grost) is not an unintelligent man, but a doctor and essential to Kronos in his work. Caroline Munro also brings great empathy to the role of Carla, who could have been nothing more than some pretty window dressing. But she manages to hold her own, to help Kronos in his battle, and even to dominate some of the scenes. It's a shame she is left behind at the end really, as I really wanted her to travel on to more adventures.

Other stand-out roles include the ever reliable John Carson, and Shane Briant as Paul Durward brings a baby-faced malevolence to every scene he is in. Lois Daine as Sara Durward has a cool modern short haired look which is very fetching indeed, and Wanda Ventham as Lady Durward does well with the limited material she is given.

Watching the film today, you can see that Hammer really pulled out all the stops for it, and the characters cry out for more adventures. If there was one film which could do with a remake and a reimagining then it is this ... and I wonder what a modern take and approach to the adventures of Captain Kronos would be like.

Which is totally the opposite to the way I feel about Fright Night. The original 1985 film has gone down in time as a quiet classic. Chris Sarandon's turn as a sexy vampire is memorable, and the characters of Charley Brewster, his girlfriend Amy, and best friend Evil Ed, all helped by TV Horror presenter Peter Vincent all gelled perfectly to create a film with many subtexts about sex and power, and how belief can win over against the odds.  It was a strange choice of film to decide to remake as there really isn't anything wrong at all with the original film.

But remake it they have, and in doing so they have managed to completely miss what it was that made the original so appealing. Which is strange as Tom Holland, who scripted the original, is also credited as providing the story for this ... maybe he didn't understand himself why the original became a cult classic. The actual script is by Marti Noxon, a name which seemed familiar, and IMDB confirms that she wrote several episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and was also script editor/producer/exec producer on many more ... which might explain why the new film feels more like an episode of that series than anything else.

In the new version Charley (Anton Yelchin) again finds himself living next door to a vampire (Colin Farrell) but here Jerry Dandridge doesn't seem to be hiding - he kills kids right outside his door, and makes no attempt to disguise what he is. His 'Renfield' is missing from the plot this time, and that's a shame as this element added much to the original plot. Rather than being a 'plain Jane', Amy here (played by Imogen Poots) is a stunner and acts in a very Buffy-like way throughout. The seduction of her by Dandridge is missing, and this led to some of the most powerful scenes in the original film (in the club for those who know it). Although they do recreate the club scene, it has little power as Amy is basically drugged by Jerry with his own blood and forced to become a vampire against her will - in the original film there was the subtext that Amy actually wanted this to happen, and that Jerry was more of a man than Charley could ever hope to be (even down to the sounds of Amy climaxing on the soundtrack as she is bitten in the 1985 version - something she never did with Charley).

But the biggest mis-step is in the reinvention of Peter Vincent from a small-time, washed out TV host who has something to prove (superbly played by Roddy McDowell) into a top-of-his-game arrogant stage magician played by David Tennant. In the new film, there is no reason at all for Vincent to help Charley, and indeed the idea that Charley would ever get to even meet him is laughable - there would be several layers of 'people' to get through before even the sniff of an interview was available.

I am a massive fan of David Tennant. Everything I have seen him in, he has been brilliant. Except here. This is played a little like a drunk tenth Doctor, all fast speaking, garbled dialogue, asides and mannerisms which are straight out of the TARDIS. Tennant even uses his 'Doctor' English voice for the part which adds to the feeling that he is just strolling through it. I'm so sorry if you are a big fan of Tennant in this role, but for me it just didn't work at all. I preferred him when he wore the wig and beard at the start, but when he strips it off, like the character, all the magic goes.

Overall I found the film boring and pointless. There was nothing to really interest or excite me. I did like the moment when the girl being rescued by Charley explodes as soon as she gets into sunlight, and I liked that Amy's vampire face echoed the same scene in the 1985 version. There's also a neat cameo from Chris Sarandon as a hapless driver who gets savaged by Dandridge ... but as I mentioned before, what was the point of remaking it?  The original version was and is much better, has more interesting characters who have proper motivations for what they are doing, and was made at a time when the prosthetic effects were of a standard to impress. My advice then, ignore this and get the DVD of the original film ... you won't regret it.

Cereal Killers

When I was a kid I used to love those cards you got with bubble gum in packs. There were a couple of series I collected and still have - all the Kung Fu cards from the TV series with David Carradine, a set of Universal Horrors cards and a set of Hammer Horror ones. The set I always wanted was the Outer Limits one and I did have a few cards from it (now lost), but sadly never managed to get a set of the cards - now they cost far too much to buy!

I mention these things as I recently came across a new company called Wax Eye who are doing a set of cards with the title Cereal Killers, and they are simple awesome. I just had to order a set from the US to see them for myself.

The art is by Joe Simko and the cards are all pastiches of popular breakfast cereals. Obviously the place of origin being the USA, there are several which I am not familiar with, but the conceit is good enough for the series to really work. So there are 'Frosted Freeks', 'Loco Puffs' and (probably my favourite of the punning titles) 'Chucky Harms' among many others. Each card has some crazy and impossible puzzles on the back - like match each card to it's silhouette (ie all the black rectangles are the same) - and other items of humour. I liked one which has a 'scratch and sniff' back which reveals that the cereal in question smells of standard grade card used to make trading cards ...

But the company isn't content to just leave it there with an amazing set of 56 cards ... oh no ... they come in little cereal boxes made to look like the ones on the cards - I got a set of three which are all shrink-wrapped together just like the little individual portion ones you get from Kellogs. Each box has 20 cards, and also an eyeball gum candy, and a premium which might be a magnet, skin transfer or black light stickers. There are also foil cards and original sketch cards included though I wasn't lucky enough to get any of those.

For anyone with a sense of humour, these are just amazing. The art is clever and all the details are right, so for 'Halloweeties' the box says 'The Breakfast of Maniacs' and proudly claims 'Made With 100% Real Pain'. The 'Exorcrisp' cereal claims it 'turns milk into pea green vomit colour' ... lovely.

If you are in the USA then the cards are apparently being stocked by Toys R Us, but in the UK, you might find them in specialist comic or genre stores, or they can be ordered direct from the manufacturers from their website.  The total cost for a pack of three boxes, plus shipping, came in at around £25 - perhaps a little steep for trading cards, but given the love and care that has gone into these, they really deserve to do well.

Wax Eye can be found online here: http://www.wax-eye.com/

Gorgon Boxing

Two films last night were anything but like each other. Different decades, totally different subjects, and yet both good and satisfying.

First up was Boxing Helena, a film from 1993 that I had never got to see before. The version we have on DVD has a strange Korean or Japanese cover which spells Julian Sands' name wrong (as Julian Sand) and has a typo in the tagline ('A deep dark obsession that bares a woman's body and a mas's soul') so this didn't bode well for the DVD, but it was fine. In English and not some incomprehensible tongue, and not something filmed on 8mm from the back of an auditorium in Shanghai.

As we're just watching through David Lynch's Twin Peaks at the moment, it was fascinating to see Sherilyn Fenn (who plays Audrey Horne in Twin Peaks) as Helena, a somewhat bitchy and self-obsessed young woman, who has the misfortune to have doctor Nick Cavenaugh, played by Julian Sands, as a stalker. He went out with her once, and cannot let her go. He climbs a tree outside her flat so he can watch her wander about in her undies, calls her on the phone but then cannot say anything, and invites her to his parties. He's a strange effete chap, but Sands plays Nick's obsession with Helena very well indeed. Then, after conspiring to keep her bag and address book, he lures Helena to his house, where she is hit by a car on leaving, which smashes her legs. So we cut forward to Helena, now with both legs amputated, an unwilling houseguest in Nick's residence ... now he has her just how he wanted, in a position that he can help her and tend to her ... but this is not enough, and so he amputates her arms as well ... leaving her only a head and torso, now totally dependent on him.

The film is written and directed by Jennifer Lynch - daughter of David - and you can see some of her father's influence in the style and approach the film takes. Helena is shown to be a complete bitch, and so you're not really feeling sorry for her, however Nick is just strange - as a stalker and obsessive, he professes his love for the girl, and yet she screams at him to look at what he has done to her! It's a disturbing film, and I recall it causing some ripples at the time of first release, though this might be the news of Kim Basinger pulling out at the last moment, and then being successfully sued for breach of verbal contract (though it seems that a court of appeal then overurned that ruling, and the case was settled out of court). It's strange to see singer Art Garfunkle in an acting role as well, though he is very good as Nick's friend Doctor Augustine.

Overall it's a memorable film, mainly for Sands and Fenn's performances, and also for the twisted nature of obsession and what it can lead people to do. One wonders what a remake might do with CGI-powered amputations ... a roomful of ex-girlfriends reduced to essential components perhaps?

The other film is one of the great Hammer titles, The Gorgon. I'd not seen this for an age, and so it was good to revisit it. The story follows the story of Doctor Namaroff (played with effortless style by Peter Cushing) who is puzzled by a number of local deaths where the bodies of the deceased have turned to stone. The latest victim is Paul Heitz's father, and Heitz (Richard Pasco) and Professor Meister (Christopher Lee) believe the deaths to be the work of the Gorgon, who walks among them every full moon ...

There's much to like about this Hammer horror. It's orginal for one thing, eschewing the traditional fare of vampires, patchwork monsters and mummies, for a mythical Gorgon, a creature with snakes for hair which can turn you to stone if it looks at you directly. There's a subtext that it's actually the bite from the snakes which does the work - the victims all have bite marks on their foreheads - but this seems to be glossed over. Barbara Shelley does a good job as Carla, Namaroff's assistant, and the Gorgon itself is a lovely piece of work from actress Prudence Hyman, combined with Roy Ashton's makeup and Syd Pearson's prosthetic snakes. She remains a spooky figure, shrouded in the distance until a couple of effective close shots in the climax ... lovely stuff.

The stone bodies are very well done, looking remarkably like the actors, and the interim grey make-up as the hapless victims turn to stone is also effective. One concern would be the length of time it takes to turn though - Heitz' father is able to get back from the castle to his home, and to write three pages of a letter before he succombs, wheras others collapse almost immediately. Maybe the venom (if that's what it is) takes longer to act on some people, or perhaps the dose is different.

Our copy of the film came with a superb little booklet by Hammer historian Marcus Hearn, and this is a great addition to the disk, revealing much about the making of the film, and containing some excellent photographs.

The Wonderful Book 1965

Now here's a thing ... inspired by the tremendous work done by everyone on The Brilliant Book 2010 and 2011, two fans have gone and created an equivalent work, but for 1965 ...

Paul Smith and Joe Cannon have done the most incredible job and have created The Wonderful Book 1965, and it deserves to go down in history as one of the best produced and funniest spoofs on the series yet. The book was originally produced as a PDF, free to download, but due to the interest, decided to make a very limited number available to buy using POD processes to create a lovely softcover book version. All copies are now sold out ...

The book covers the first season of Doctor Who, from '10,000 BC' through to 'The French Revolution', and follows the same layout and concept as The Brilliant Book with a mixture of interviews, comments, classic moments, all beautifully illustrated with photographs and artwork. But ... all the interviews here are made up, and all the facts have been delightfully mangled to produce a pastiche which treads the fine line between reality and fiction.

I love how in the 'interview' with Carole Ann Ford she is looking forward to Season 2 immensely ... that Barbara is a man-magnet, and how William Hartnell is grumpy. There's a lovely look at all the wigs which Hartnell tried for the part - of course representing all the hairstyles of the future Doctors ... and then there's the facts ...

That Reg Cranfield, who played the policeman at the start of the opening episode, was a real policeman (so cast because Fred Rawlings, who played the part in the Pilot was not convincing enough); how all the skulls in the Cave of Skulls were made by pupils at the Gum Lane primary school; how the Dalek actors were given LSD to make them act 'trippy'; how William Hartnell fell asleep on the floor at the start of 'Inside the Spaceship' ... and so on.  I loved these and there are many laugh out loud moments as the writers crash fiction with fact and come up with something better than both!

There's even a short story included which describes the events leading to the start of 'The Sensorites' ... nothing is left out, and the book contains so much detail - factual and fictional - that Smith deserves something of an Oscar for writing it all!  And the layout is professional and expertly done.

I have never seen a fan-produced spoof as lovingly and as carefully put together as this, and many, many people are now asking for a 'proper' Brilliant Book for all of the earlier seasons of the show as a result.

To enjoy The Wonderful Book yourself, then head for http://www.wonderfulbook.co.uk/ where the PDF is still available for free download.

Turks and Crusades

A couple of audios to talk about this blog. We don't often get the pleasure of being able to listen to CDs, but several long journeys over Christmas meant that we had the opportunity.

First off is the new Doctor Who CD from Big Finish. This one is called The Silver Turk and is by Marc Platt. Now, I have to give due acknowledgement here and say that Marc is one of my oldest friends, and one of the best writers around ... which meant that I was expecting a lot from this CD, especially as it doubly features the Cybermen, my favourite monster ...

The initial problem I had was that the Doctor (in his 8th Paul McGann guise) had as his companion Mary Shelley ... yes, that Mary Shelley, she of the Rights of Women and Frankenstein. Personally I think this is a step too far. I can see that Big Finish have to keep pushing the boat out and bringing in new companions and ideas, but to have such a famous historical figure grated with me.

The plot involves the Doctor and Mary arriving in Vienna in 1873, and straight into a strange situation with a 'silver Turk' - a game playing machine which actually turns out to be a Cyberman. Now here the next problem surfaced, as Sam asked me why the 'owner' was feeding the Cyberman with soup ... as far as she knew, the thing didn't eat food. But this wasn't explained, as the audio expects the listeners to be au fait with all the various Cyberman designs and versions and to have worked out from the cover that this was an early Cyberman, which was perhaps more man than cyber ... but this then led on to more continuity which listeners were expected to 'get' - advance scout parties from Mondas ... It was all a little confusing.

And then Marc starts to bring in all manner of allusions to Frankenstein, with the Cybermen rebuilding themselves from body parts, to being powered up by an electric storm, and Mary keeps banging on about how they should be pitied and so on ... it was all way too obvious a lead in to where she got her ideas for Frankenstein from.

There's another plot too, where a puppet maker called Drossel (inspired no doubt by The Nutcracker's Drosselmeyer) who makes realistic human automatons and then gives them human eyes - not quite sure why ... nor why there then needs to be a Cyberman as a chess-playing robot, when Drossel could build something to do that anyway ... the puppets all sound clattery too, explained by them wearing wooden clogs ... not sure why that should be though, except that it sounds good on audio.

Overall then, I found it disappointing. The Cyberman were somewhat wasted in the overall scheme of things, and they were also very hard to hear - the electronic distortion on their voices making the words impossible to make out. As with all the Big Finish audios, the production was very good, and the quality of the packaging and art superb. I think what let this down was the basic idea.  Sorry Marc.

The Silver Turk can be obtained from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/153-Doctor-Who-The-Silver-Turk

The other audio we listened to was one of Fantom Films' audio readings of the Time Hunter series. Again, my interest here is that Telos published the original novellas, and so I edited and worked with the writers on them. But Fantom are doing a cracking job at recreating them as audio books.

This one was Deus Le Volt by Jon de Burgh Miller, and was read by Terry Molloy.  The plot sees our time travelling heroes Honore and Emily, thrown back to 1098, to the siege of Antioch in the Crusades, where they find the Fendahl from Doctor Who is at large, killing the knights and growing in strength.

Molloy does a brilliant job with the reading. Every character (and there are a lot of them) has a separate and distinct 'voice' and the plot rattles along at a great pace. This was perhaps the closest that the Time Hunter series got to a pure historical - it's not until the last act when all sorts of wierdness starts happening - and it really works as an audio.  I'm looking forward to hearing more of these when we get the chance.

Deus Le Volt can be obtained from Fantom Films here: http://www.fantomfilms.co.uk/audiobooks/timehunter/timehunter9.htm

2011 Thoughts

It's that time of year when thoughts turn to what the New Year might bring. And so I thought I'd post a few thoughts here about 2011 ... not one of the best years for me personally, but one in which lots of lovely things happened too.

It was the year I turned 50! 50! That's almost ancient. And yet I feel the same as I did when I was 20! We had a lovely party down in Surbiton and lots of my friends and family came along to celebrate. It's events like that which show you who your real friends are.

My vast family extended again as my sister gave birth to a lovely daughter, bringing her family up to five children. I can see that I'm going to be a great-uncle before very long and probably multiple times. Also, my son James got married to Rachel, and they had a lovely wedding in Cambridge. It always feels strange when your own kids leave home, get married and lead lives of their own. Andrew is 18 next year too, and planning to head off to University - both James and Andrew are hardworking and intelligent and I am so, so proud of them both. I guess the next thing will be when I become a granddad ...

Other things happening over the mid-year period included Sam having to undergo a major operation. She had been suffering with chronic back pain for months and nothing seemed to be affecting or improving it, and eventually we realised that it was a side effect of other issues she was having, all of which resulted in her having to go to hospital in July for a hysterectomy to try and sort it all out. After several weeks of bedrest, followed by months of recovery time, she is now doing very well indeed, and is back to her old 'up and at em' ways.

All of this happened over the course of the summer, and the less than good news continued when I was released from my work contract with LTSB at the end of July, as I had worked the maximum duration with them in one stint. The work there was hectic and busy, involving lots of overnight support, and with what was happening to Sam, all this left me exhausted and drained to say the least.

Thus, heading into August (my 50th birthday party) and September, I was not in a good state. I was tired and worried about all sorts of things from finances to Sam's health, to my ongoing divorce ... too many things to try and juggle all at the same time.

Thus, what then happened at and after the annual British Fantasy Society, FantasyCon, hit me totally for six. I don't wish to dwell on it here, but I made some fundamental errors of judgement (described by one of my friends as me being a 'muppet' which is about right) which, in hindsight are very easy to see. But with my own mind being split many ways by everything else that was happening, I was relying on my friends in the BFS to ensure that everything was OK, and perhaps to have mentioned to me their concerns, or tried in advance to help out. But not a single person said a word beforehand, but a great many chipped in afterwards.

The convention was a success, but the fact that people connected with me and with Telos Publishing won some of the BFS Awards in the usual fair and democratic vote which has been used since the awards started in the seventies, caused some people to get so upset (starting with a grumpy rant by Stephen Jones in which he accused me of all manner of things, most of which he has done himself in the past), that without even talking to me to find out my side of the story, they petitioned the BFS' President to remove me as Chair and to replace me with an acting-Chair of their own choosing to try and sort 'it' all out. I had little choice in the matter, and found out I was standing down when the BFS announced that they had cleared me of any wrongdoing in the administration of the Awards.

Then, people who I had considered friends, and some of whom I had known for some twenty years or so, set out to try and destroy me and Sam online, making claims of corruption where there was none, insinuating wrong-doing when there was none, and perhaps worst of all, claiming that Sam's novel, Demon Dance, was not a worthy winner of the award for Best Novel. It had been voted on by the members of  the Society in a fair vote, but the fact that it won seemed to be a travesty in their eyes, a major blip that needed significant action to try and resolve. So they took control of the BFS themselves, put in place completely new rules for voting so that 'this can never happen again' ... what can never happen again? Sam win an Award? The whole thing was just awful. The worst part of all is that all these people that I looked up to and respected as friends stabbed me repeatedly in the back, never once trying to see it from my point of view, never once actually coming to me to ask what happened, never once stopping to think that there were real people at the other end of their barbed comments, put downs, and veiled accusations. I felt and still feel so betrayed and upset.

I shudder to think what might become of an organisation which purports to celebrate the whole of the fantasy and horror genre, but will only do so if it is the 'right' fantasy and horror, if a book has been written and published by those who are in with the 'right' people and cliques. The arrogance of these people astounds me, and their self-rightiousness over whatever they perceived to have been 'wrong' here - all without ever actually stating in public what was 'wrong' - beggars belief. They could have just talked to me. We could have sorted out the Award voting and rules in a civilised and friendly way, but they wanted blood. It was and is all just so nasty and unnecessary.

Sam and I won't be attending FantasyCon again, and at the moment I really don't want to see any of these people again. I still don't know what Sam and I actually did so wrong to be treated the way we have been treated. She wrote a book. It was published. People bought it and liked it. Members voted for it in the awards and it won ... isn't that something to celebrate rather than to pour scorn and hatred on? I admit in hindsight that the person administering the Awards should have no vested interest in who wins them (or even who is shortlisted), and apologise for not seeing this in advance - but the rules at the time did not bar this, and in any case, the BFS was several people down on helping out and so I did what I hoped was the right thing, and did what I could to ensure that everything that needed to be done was done, I also tried my best to ensure that the voting was above reproach and had someone independent check everything and do the final counts and tallies. I realise now that I should have just told the rest of the BFS committee that there would be no awards unless someone else came forward to do everything - as I say, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I would like to thank the very few people who publically supported me and Sam, and to note that there were many, many more who offered support in private emails, phone calls and notes, but who didn't want to go public because they were worried about what those 'in charge' would then do to them ... a climate of fear is not a good one in which to run a society.

As Stan Lee would say ... 'nuff said'.

Writing and selling books is a hard, hard thing to do though, influenced by many factors, and the most important thing is to stay positive, stay focussed, and to keep on moving forward. So despite the rocking that our confidence took, we are doing just that, and looking forward to a positive and productive 2012.

My own collection of fiction, talespinning, came out in September, and I'm very proud of it. It collects just about every piece of fiction that I have written over the last thirty years or so - including some unfinished novels and a couple of screenplays. It has had some brilliant reviews, and is selling very well indeed. Hopefully we'll get a digital edition up at some point in 2012.

Sam and I have been invited to several conventions and events next year as guests, which is fabulous. We both love travelling and meeting people, and so are looking forward to doing that next year. One problem that this gave us though was that we realised that we simply couldn't fit in or afford our annual trip to LA for the big Gallifrey convention in 2012 ... and so we reluctantly made the hard decision to miss it next year, and to try and save our pennies for the 2013 event - which, as this is the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, should be the biggest and best yet. We can't wait to see all our
friends there then.

I have enjoyed writing more to this blog over the year - sharing my thoughts on Doctor Who toys, films, television, and the occasional diversion from all of these things and I hope I can keep it going. Part of the reason why I have been able to do this is the lack of paid work, and obviously I am hoping that 2012 will bring another job with someone to whom I can bring my experience and expertise to bear.

So to everyone who has enjoyed reading this blog in 2011, to all my friends, I'd like to wish you all a happy and prosperous new year!

The Time Tunnel

[opening narration for most episodes]

'Two American scientists are lost in the swirling maze of past and future ages, during the first experiments on America's greatest and most secret project, the Time Tunnel. Tony Newman and Doug Phillips now tumble helplessly toward a new fantastic adventure, somewhere along the infinite corridors of time.'

Having just finished a mammoth run of watching all of the sixties Irwin Allen show The Time Tunnel from beginning to end, I had to write something about it ...

When I was a kid, I loved watching Doctor Who (natch) but also my other favourite show was Lost In Space. This was on ITV and we saw it in black and white (not having a colour telly until 1972). I remember being out one Christmas and catching sight of an episode of Lost In Space in full colour on a television in a TV shop - what a revelation that was. I suspect my parents had to drag me kicking and screaming away from it!

Anyway, as well as Lost in Space, Irwin Allen also made some other shows. There was Land of the Giants which I could never quite get into, and also Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea which was better, but the one which I really liked was The Time Tunnel.

The premise is pretty simple, two scientists, Doug Phillips (Robert Colbert) and Tony Newman (James Darren), get themselves thrown about in time via the Time Tunnel, which is operated from 1968 by General Kirk (Whit Bissell),  Dr Raymond Swain (John Zaremba) and Dr Ann MacGregor (Lee Meriwether), sometimes assisted in the early episodes by Jerry (Sam Groom). They seem unable to bring the scientists back home, but at the end of each episode throw them off and onwards somewhere else.

I have always considered that The Time Tunnel is what Doctor Who could have been if the latter show hadn't discovered the Daleks early on, and realised that the science fiction element was the way to go forward. For the best part of its 30 episodes, The Time Tunnel stays resolutely rooted in the past, with every significant moment in the history books being the location in which poor Doug and Tony get dumped. Each episode follows a similar pattern, they arrive (tumbling head over heels into whatever place it is), are immediately set upon by whoever the natives are, whether pirates or cavalry or indians or townsfolk or whoever, as a result of which Doug and Tony are split up, and the remainder of the episode is them trying to figure out where they are and what's happening, while the folk in the Time Tunnel back in 1968 have to locate them in order to get them out of there before whatever historical event it is happens.

One of the big problems with the series is that it is inconsistent. The production team obviously made a decision that each episode would be stand alone - there is never anything carried from one to the next, and even Tony and Doug's clothes inexplicably 'reset' each time. But this is carried over into the scripting, with random mcguffins being introduced one week and then forgotten about the next. For example in the Billy the Kid episode, we're told that if the Time Tunnel in 1968 tries to talk to Doug and Tony in the past, then this drains the energy to the extent that a switch cannot then be attempted for another 3 hours, but in the very next episode, Kirk is merrily chatting away to them without a care in the world.

They also seem able to send whatever they want through to whatever time the travellers are in - a ring, detonators, a sort of flashing rod thing - and even people can be sent there, like a doctor. Others can be transported back to 1968 with ease - a pirate, a kid with a bomb - and yet despite all this they are totally unable to bring Doug and Tony back no matter how hard they try.

It all gets a little laughable when you watch the episodes in succession, as these elements are highlighted and made very obvious.

It's also brilliant how Dr Swain is so negative all the time. Whenever he's asked to do anything, it can't be done, there's not enough power, we need to check ... and then when Kirk insists, it's all carried out with no problem at all. Then there's Ann, who fawns over Doug and Tony, and yet who sometimes can't get a fix on them at all - 'Let me try,' says Swain, and of course the man can achieve what the woman found impossible.

There is a story editor credited on the show, but I've no idea what he was doing as the scripts vary wildly in all regards. Bob and Wanda Duncan have the idea that for the Time Tunnel to get a fix on Doug and Tony, they need to know the precise date and location to do that. Other writers don't worry about such things. Sometimes there needs to be a 10 second countdown to switching them out, other times it's done instantly ... all these things are little niggles in the wider enjoyment of the show. There's one episode where someone steals a component from their equipment to stop them interfering ... and they have no replacements!  So the whole of this complex under the Nevada desert has no replacement parts at all? That if something goes wrong, then, they are totally stuffed! It beggars belief really.

As the series progresses, so the historical situations start to become more and more random ... and Doug and Tony seem to know everything about every time period. It's common for them to observe a rampaging battle (presumably nicked from another film or TV production) and to be able to tell where and when they are from the outfits and guns in use. Other settings are more esoteric, as when they join Robin Hood and his merrie men, or Joshua as he prepares to attack the city of Jericho... even Merlin and King Arthur get a look in - myth or real seems to make no difference to the Time Tunnel.

However it is some of these episodes which work the best - possibly because they are not strictly tied to historical fact. The Merlin episode is nice as the magician is powerful and can pop back and forth between the Time Tunnel and the events in the past.

It does become apparent, though, that the series is working with a small number of sets and locations, and that they crop up time and time again. There's the Western Town, the jungle, the beach, the tent, the rocky desert area, and various house and hotel interiors. After a time, it seems that the travellers repeatedly arrive in the same place! The stock footage is always well integrated though, and whichever films they took it from, they always try to ensure that it matches what the show is doing, even down to the right costumes and settings for the stock to be included into.

Then there's the final two episodes, where the series finally properly discovered science fiction. There is an earlier episode featuring aliens, and one where they head off on a chase through time which breaks the mold a little. However the last two are perhaps the best of this format. The penultimate one features some fly-headed aliens in the desert preparing to destroy the Earth as part of a 'rite of passage' for the alien leader (who strangely has a human face rather than a fly-like one). At least the alien make-up is better than a couple of the earlier episodes where aliens all had silver faces and wore silver suits. I liked that the explanations here were a little out of the norm - not conquoring or anything, just as a 'point' in becoming an alien commander. The episode also has 'drone' aliens, and I like that the ideas have been thought through at least in principle that this alien society has several levels.

The final episode is perhaps the best of all of them, featuring some crystalline aliens in black cloaks who are intent on stealing all the oxygen from the Earth. This was one I remembered as a child, their shakey hand outstretched to touch you, and if they did, then you could be turned into an alien yourself. it's well done and very creepy. It's a great shame that this is the final episode, and moreso that there is no ending - Doug and Tony just get thrown on somewhere else.  I do wonder why they didn't take the opportunity to film a sequence where they do get back, where the people in 1968 greet them, and it's the end of their journey. This could then have been tagged onto whichever was the final episode made, whenever that was ... but this sort of forethought tended not to happen unfortunately.

A lot of the alien 'tech' seen as the episodes progress is stolen from Lost in Space, as are some of the sound effects and musical cues, but this doesn't seem to matter. Overall, for me, the episodes which feature some fantastical element work better than the purely historical. And this brings me back to the comparison with Doctor Who. Subjects covered by both shows include the French Revolution, the Aztecs, the Trojan War and Marco Polo, and yet despite the high production values of The Time Tunnel, Doctor Who seemed to have the edge on the scripts and apporoach taken to the historical events. And, as mentioned, the fact that Doctor Who delved far more into the science fiction element meant that that series thrived and diversified, wheras The Time Tunnel became somewhat stale and samey, even though the historical events were different each time.

Despite all these observations and comments, I have really enjoyed revisiting the show. It has a charm, and is always well made and watchable. The explosions and fights are all really nicely done, and some of the ideas and concepts are just brilliant.

A list of all The Time Tunnel episodes is on IMDB here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060036/episodes

Rare Exports

It's Christmas, so what better film to watch than a Christmas film! However, being as this is me, I'm not looking at more traditional Christmas fare, but something a little bit out of the usual.

We stumbled across Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale in our weekly trawl of Blockbusters looking for interesting things to watch. First of all, it's subtitled - the original film is Finnish - and then the lady in the shop was saying she wasn't sure we'd like it ... we weren't sure ourselves as it looked like it could be some slasher/torture fare perhaps, but decided to give it a try. And I'm glad we did!

The film is about Santa Claws, but not the sanitised, Coca Cola happy bearded man variant. This is the original, dark, demonic Santa who came and took away and ate children who were naughty. It's set in an isolated Finnish village, all ice and snow, and a group of Western scientists/explorers have found something buried under one of the local mountains. In a nice touch, one of their drill bores has discovered a vast layer of sawdust and woodchippings deep underground - the waste from Santa's workshop perhaps?

Alongside this story, we follow the lives of two kids, Piatari and Tommi who are worried that the explorers have found Santa and will set him free. Piatari finds footprints outside his window, and the reindeer are all found slaughtered meaning that the village will have no income for the next year. The boy's father, Rauno, sets a bated trap, and they capture what seems to be Santa himself - a filthy old man, naked, and with a long white beard. He is mute and plays dead and deaf, but becomes alert when Piatari is close ... and they realise that what they have is not Santa, but one of his helpers. And that Santa is actually still captured at the Scientists' base.

The film is charming and very imaginative. I loved the idea that Santa's 'elves' all look as we might expect Santa to look - old men with beards - but they are basically going around kidnapping all the children, and also making plans to defrost Santa himself from the huge block of ice that, The Thing-like, he is trapped in.

The direction is assured and the cinematography lovely, with all the ice and snow lending a superb backdrop to the events. The actors are great, with little Piatari stealing the show. From the cast list, it seems that Onni Tommila who plays him may be the real life son of the man playing his father, Jorma Tommila, and it's great casting!

Peeta Jakobi plays the Elf who is captured, and he does a brilliant job of making this Santa look-a-like creepy and disturbing.

The film has a strand of humour running through it which lightens it all, and the ending is imaginative and memorable, giving the whole thing a sort of fairy tale (more Grimm than Andersen) feeling.

If you get on with subtitled films, then this should be added to your 'should watch' pile along with other fare like the NightWatch films, The Adventures of Adele Sec-Blanc, and of course A Chinese Ghost Story. It's perhaps better than the recent Dead Snow as well ... definitely a Christmas Treat to be enjoyed.

8mm Rise of Captain America

Some more films watched, so some more reviews and comments ...

First off, Super 8, a new film from Steven Spielberg. We had little idea what this might be all about, having picked it off the shelf of Blockbusters in desperation. As it turned out, it's not a bad little film at all. I was initially concerned that it might be like Blair Witch or Cloverfield, presented as though it had all been filmed on 8mm stock by a bunch of kids, but thankfully it's not like that at all.

The plot follows a group of children in an American Town. They are making their own 8mm zombie film, and have roped in various friends to help. The main focus is a boy called Joe who recently lost his mother in an accident at work. Joe is doing the make-up on the film (as he is a dab hand at making horror model kits) and takes a shine to Alice, the daughter of a man who his father (the local deputy sheriff) blames for the death of his wife - I hope you're following all this! - as he went off sick on the day she died and she did his job instead.

Anyway ... it's 1979 and these kids are filming some stuff at the local train station, when a train comes through and is hit by a man in a van causing destruction of the train in flaming fireballs. The kids try and film some of the aftermath, but something alien, alive, and angry was on the train and it escapes.

Thereafter the kids use the army men as a background to their own film, as the army cordens off the place and tries to find the alien while it rampages about killing people and generally causing havoc. Joe also has a strange white cube that he found at the crash site ... a cube which seems to have mysterious properties.

I liked the way the film built, the characters were all good, and you could relate to them. If I have a criticism, it's that the alien isn't seen soon enough - you get lots of fast CGI flashes, but the slow burn to its eventual reveal is too long! But the effects are good, and the ideas original. 1979 is very well recreated, with no mobile phones or video - instead they have to wait 3 days for their film to be developed ... I remember those days well!

The ending is a little ET (well, this is Spielberg) and of course Joe and Alice are united as best friends. Overall, it's maybe an 8/10 from me.

Next up we decided to sample Rise of the Planet of the Apes. An interesting idea, to create a prequel to the original Planet of the Apes films, but the downside of doing that is that you know what the plot is and what the outcome will be. Despite this, we really enjoyed the film. The main reason for the enjoyment is the simply amazing, standout performance of Andy Serkis as Caesar the ape.

I feel that Sirkis is simply the best at this sort of thing. His performances made the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the recent King Kong remake, and the argument that he is not worthy of any award for his work as these characters are CGI is a nonsense. Without Serkis' heart and soul, the characters would be dead. As it is, they live and breath and you totally understand them.

Thus it is with Caesar. The film follows his life from a baby rescued from an experimental facility where they are trying to find a cure for conditions like Alzheimers by experimenting on apes, to his life as the 'pet' or more truthfully companion to the scientist who rescued him, and then to his teenage and adult years.

Sirkis brings real pathos to the character, and his facial expressions and body language is awesome. Caesar is eventually confined to an ape sanctury sort of place where the beasts are abused, and slowly Caesar uses his enhanced intelligence to work out how to escape. The film ends with the apes rampaging through the city, destroying all before them ... and you are on the side of the apes the whole time!

I loved the film. I thought it was well made and had heart and feeling. I cried with Caesar at points, and the action scenes made me cheer with enthusiasm. So for a film which set out to join some pre-existing dots, it does so much more. Certainly a 9/10 from me, and the hope that Sirkis finally gets some industry recognition for his amazing work.

The final film watched this last week is Captain America: The First Avenger. Now I've probably mentioned before on this blog that I'm not a comics fan, so as usual I have no idea how accurately the film follows the comics. It's basically about a man who wants to be a soldier like his Dad, but who is too small and sickly to get in. This is until he stumbles across a government programme to actually find a soldier who has heart and who cares for others rather than someone strong and fit.

So the weedy Steve Rogers is pumped full of some experimental stuff, and is transformed into the tall and strong Captain America. The realisation of this is all quite clever, as Rogers is physically shorter and very weedy beforehand, and is tall and muscly afterwards - yet both parts are played by the same actor, Chris Evans (the flamey one off of The Fantastic Four).

His nemesis is the wonderful Johann Schmidt, played by the even more amazing Hugo Weaving (The Matrix and Lord of the Rings amongst others). Johann is really a character called Red Skull, so called because he has a ... red skull ... and I'm not sure why he pulls his human face off mid-way through and then never replaces it - why bother with the human face at all in that case! Never mind.

The film follows Captain America as he is initially used for propoganda by the Army, but then single-handedly rescues 150 men from behind enemy lines. He then lines up for the final face-off battle against Red Skull who plans to deliver nuclear bombs to all the major cities of the earth.

It's fast and furious, well made and pretty exciting in a 'leave your brain at the door' way. The characters are all larger than life, and Captain America makes a pretty neat hero all told. Probably give this one something like 8.5/10. It's worth watching!

Siren Song

Trying new films can become a little addictive, and I quite like discovering something in the local Blockbuster which turns out to be OK ... but sometimes low budget films can be a little bit hit or miss.

Take a film called Siren for example. It's got a great cover showing a bikini clad girl holding a big knife ... It's not bad at all overall. The basic plot follows a man Ken (Eoin Macken) and his girlfriend Rachel (Anna Skellern) who head off on a boat trip with another male friend Marco (Antony Jabre) who is an ex-of the girl. The very start of the film shows a gorgeous woman in red waiting to be picked up at a lonely crossroads, a car drives up and she gets in, then the couple try and have a liaison in a deserted toilet block but she thinks she sees someone and it all stops ... but then we realise that the couple are play-acting and are in fact Ken and Rachel.

This opening is great but doesn't have any relationship to the rest of the film. The trio arrive at an island where a man swims out to them. He doesn't speak English but has blood coming from his ears. He dies on board so they decide to take him to the island to bury him. There they find another girl, called Silka (Tereze Srbova), who seems to know what is happening but won't say. Silka seduces Rachel, and the two men both find her very attractive as well ... but then the film goes off into a little world of its own with hallucinations and doubles, wandering about, finding bodies, people vanishing ... and all completely unexplained.

It seems that Silka is a Siren and kills men (but why, we don't know). We also don't know why she is seducing Rachel - I thought maybe Rachel was the Siren but didn't realise it, or that she and Silka were sisters ... but no. Eventually Silka is killed, and Rachel is left on the island alone as both the men have been killed as well ... and the film ends.

It's beautifully shot and really well acted from all the cast, but the script really needed some work to focus things and to add some sort of context. If Rachel was the Siren, and was just 'play acting' as human, then that would have linked nicely into the opening sequence. But as it is, the film starts well, but loses it's way about half way through, and then limps to an ending which, if not making much sense, just leaves the viewer hanging with no real closure.

Overall it's enjoyable to watch and has a nice claustrophobic feel to it. The locations are well chosen and used, and the cast excellent ... just don't expect it to make sense.

It's a Wind Up

Among the myriad of Doctor Who toys which cross my path are some which are really simple and cute and do what they say on the tin. When some of the stuff being released costs literally hundreds of pounds to buy, it's great that there are some true pocket money toys out there.

I recently got the three new releases from Blew, a company which seems to have offices all over the world! They have released some lovely little wind-up Daleks and a TARDIS, all for a rrp of around £6, but which can be found in some of the cheaper shops (like B&M) for half that.

The TARDIS is a nice little model - it even has a wood grain effect on the outside rather than being smooth which I liked. The action on this one is that you initially pull it back, and then release it. The TARDIS then spins round 360 degrees while moving forward. A very simple and effective desktop toy. Why it's therefore called a 'wind up' TARDIS I don't know, as you don't wind it up.

Here's a video of it working:




Along with the TARDIS, there's also two variants of Dalek available: a red one and a yellow one. Personally I like the yellow (Eternal) one - every Dalek seems to be in red or blue, so to have something different is nice. The Daleks are slightly different from the TARDIS in that when you wind it up and release them, they then patrol forward, the head swinging from side to side. It's a simple toy and yet something which I find quite brilliant.

Here's a video of the Dalek in operation:




The toys would make ideal small presents for the Christmas tree, and I hope we get to see more brilliantly simple examples being released.

Where's David

This weekend I'll be at the lovely Waterstones store in the Arndale Centre in Manchester selling copies of my collection TALESPINNING and chatting with anyone who wants to chat!

Sam's there too with her Vampire Gene series ... so please pop along if you're there doing your Christmas shopping ... we'll have a tin of Roses chocs on the table too :)

WATERSTONES, Arndale Centre, Manchester, 17th December 2011.Sam Stone will be signing copies of her new book, Hateful Heart, Book 4 The Vampire Gene Series, at this very popular store. David J Howe will also be there with his new collection talespinning.

Time: 12-4pm Date: Saturday 17th December.
Address: Waterstones, Arndale Centre, Manchester, M4 3AQ