Favourite Movie Posters: Number Three

Aaaww - what a cute little egg!

Battlestar Galactica –Season 1 Disc One Review

This is a terrible confession – I have never seen BSG. Good, that’s better. Why? I seriously don’t know, except that everything always seems to get in the way. Work, errands, a wife who doesn’t want to watch it, a son who is not bothered either, work, a love of films that always seem like a better proposition, work, fighting for TV time, books, work and falling asleep in front of the TV (a post-40 year old issue) are all valid reasons. But now this is going to change because I am determined to watch them all (along with Buffy, Angel, and a host of non-sci-fi material). I have heard so many friends saying you must watch it, and magazines remonstrating that this is essential viewing that the time is now here. So without further ado I bring you the review of disc one from the British box set. (The mini-series I am not counting here).

33 The opening episode is a corker. Following on beautifully from the mini-series it has a wonderful edge with the crews of the Galactica and the rest of the fleet teetering on the brink of disaster. Their humanity is highlighted by the mistakes they make when tired and battle weary. The Cylons, on the other hand, are clearly machine-like in the way that they keep coming back every 33 minutes. You just know that this clear polarisation is going to underline everything in the show to come. Other interesting binary opposites include military (Cmmdr Adama) versus civilian (President Roslin), strong (Number 6) versus weak (Gaius) and authority (XO Tigh) versus rebellion (Starbuck).  My only gripe comes with the sticker on the clock set for 33 minutes. Does this mean that the clock is only ever set on the hour? Or am I being daft and this isn’t a clock but a stopwatch? Overall a great start.

8/10

Water A solid episode – if not having the ‘edge-of-your-seat’ qualities of the opener. A bomb set by the Cylon sleeper agent  - ‘Boomer’ – destroys the water tanks on board the Galactica.They then have a job trying to locate water on all the available planets/moons in the nearby system. Failure will mean catastrophe for the fleet. I like the way you really start to wonder where the Cylon model 8 stuff is going. Why does Boomer feel so human? What is she ultimately going to do? What about the other number 8 on Caprica and where does Helo fit into all this? Lots of questions more than answers.

7/10

Bastille Day My least favourite episode so far. Need to get water off the moon. Need a workforce to do it. Cue prison ship with revolutionary leader on board who mounts a coup and then takes prisoners. “We do not negotiate with terrorists …. blah, blah.” All a bit predictable and formulaic for my liking. However, this being BSG there were still a couple of stand-out moments, The first was Caprica Six to Gaius talking about Starbuck - “Do you think she’s a natural blond?”. Claws out meeeoooowww. The other was Tigh rejecting Starbucks offer of reconciliation. Lovely.

6/10

Act of Contrition The first of a two-parter this was, for me, the best episode so far. A non-linear narrative begins with flash-forwards of Kara involved in fighting the controls of a  stricken fighter and is joined by a powerful sub-plot involving Kara's guilt in the way that Zak Adama died. The episode immediately cranks up with the death of thirteen pilots in a freak accident. The military are therefore charged with replacing them with new pilots from the rest of the fleet. The responsibility for training the pilots lays with Starbuck who wont pass anybody if they make even the slightest mistake. Cue a great deal of soul-searching – particularly when Commander Adama finds out about that Kara passed Zak for service when he wasn’t ready to fly fighters (which ultimately caused his death). The episode ends, as it begins, with the cliff-hanger involving the fighter falling to the surface of a moon after Starbuck almost single-handedly keeps some Cylon raiders away from her squadron of ‘nuggets’. Cracking stuff.

9/10

Favourite Movie Posters: Number Two

You don’t see too many art deco cinema posters. This just so happens to be one of them!

Most Anticipated Films of 2011 - Cowboys and Aliens

Why?
It has cowboys. It has aliens. It's based on a graphic novel. Isn't that enough reasons?

Who?
Jon Favreu at the helm, Harrison Ford as the bad guy, and Daniel Craig as, well ....... Daniel Craig. Potentially a great combination.

When?
Looks like the likely release date is July 29th.

By the way who else thinks that the teaser poster looks like it could be Freddy Krueger in 'Nightmare on Elm Street 2'?

Favourite Movie Posters: Number One

The fifties posters were just the bees-knees weren't they?

Dog Blood - Review

I really enjoyed 'Hater' - David Moody's apocalyptic vision of Britain struck by a virus (maybe?) that polarises society. The virus makes people 'snap' so that they attack and kill unaffected people, often in bloody and violent fashion. The attacks are indiscriminate and the 'haters' as they become known will attack strangers and family alike. Even young children turn against parents and husbands against wives. The haters are not zombies, however, they are still rational, thinking people. The book ends with a complete breakdown in 21st century civilisation as the virus reaches epidemic proportions.

The sequel - 'Dog Blood' - was therefore a must read and it has (on the whole) not let me down. Creating a narrative that deals with a post-apocalyptic world has been popular fare in science-fiction since its early days. Making that narrative a good one is sometimes more problematic. Look at the TV adaptations of 'The Andromeda Strain' or 'Flood' if you want proof of this. After the excitement of a build up and then the climatic events of virus, meteor, earthquake, or whatever the humdrum of life is bit harder to capture. Moody may well have wondered where to go with his narrative in Dog Blood, but on the whole it is gripping throughout while sometimes being insightful and thoughtful about the consequences of this new existence. Don't get me wrong - this is no 'I am Legend' or 'Day of the Triffids' - but has enough about it to make me want to read more.

The book begins as the last one ends with Danny McCoyne our hater protagonist searching for his daughter Ellis who he knows has also become like him. The plot thereafter see saws in perspective between Danny and his search and Mark Tillotsen, an 'unchanged' man living with his pregnant wife in a ghettofied part of London. This change in the POV lends weight to the already powerful polarisation happening geographically and socially. In fact the book is full of binary opposites that hook the reader and begin to make you wonder how you would react in the same situation. How this affects the family unit is particularly enthralling. This new society is also one in which the traditional boundaries of class, ethnicity, age and gender are removed completely. In this scary new world (zombiefied without the zombies) everyone is equally a problem. On the one hand you have a set of unchanged desperately trying to hold onto the past where they can, and on the other the hater anarchists intent in demolishing this past and everyone who is a part of it.

Moody never shies away from the violence that typified the first book. It is never gory or 'over-the-top' but is still graphic at times. The final few chapters I read at a breakneck pace as the 'coup-de-gras' of an attack on London is delivered and he skillfully describes a city in panic as months of hardship and fear take their toll.

Overall, I enjoyed the book immensely. Sure it is easy to read and 'thriller-like' in its delivery, but it was free of cliches and there is enough weight in it to ensure that I was never bored. Make sure you read Hater first though.

Rating: 8 out of 10