Captain’s log: stardate 5928.5 The last live action television episode chronicling the adventures of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), Science Officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) is a bit of a mixed bag. It was the first time someone else besides Shatner played Kirk, but the story itself sure could…
Month: June 2017
The Twilight Zone (1961) – A Game of Pool, The Mirror, and The Grave
Paramount Pictures just keeps guiding me deeper and deeper into the Twilight Zone with their Complete Series on blu-ray. This week’s trio of episodes are a lot of fun. First up is A Game of Pool, penned by George Clayton Johnson, this episode first aired on Halloween, 31 October, 1961. Honestly I would have expected…
Marvel Spider-Man: Inside the World of Your Friendly Neighborhood Hero (2017) – Matthew K. Manning
Spider-Man. For a lot of kids, myself included, Web-Head is our first introduction to the world of superheroes. Over time some of us may leave him behind, some of us stay with him our whole lives, and some come back to check on him time and again, like an old friend. I think, whether we’re…
Star Trek: Pawns and Symbols (1985) – Majliss Larson
Ok. It’s just about time for someone to step in and rein in some of these stories. I know it can’t be far off, but at this point, some of them are really starting to annoy me. This week’s Book Shelf lets me visit a non-canon adventure of the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Let’s…
Star Trek: The Original Series (1969) – The Savage Curtain and All Our Yesterdays
Captain’s log: stardate 5906.4 The Savage Curtain. It doesn’t get much simpler in terms of themes or ideas than this, the antepenultimate episode of the Original Series. Written by series creator Gene Roddenberry and Arthur Heinemann, it aired on 7 March, 1969. I always liked this one because it’s so simple, and has Captain Kirk…
Stephen King’s Triple Feature
Stephen King has legions of fans, and consequently, every now and again, a studio crafts another run at one of his novels, and while It! is on its way to screens in due course, Paramount Pictures and CBS DVD are releasing a collection of three of King’s mini-series in a very affordable collection. Over the…
Battleship Potemkin (1925) – Sergei M. Eisenstein
DK Book’s The Movie Book brings me the next big title they highly recommended, Eisenstein’s seminal Battleship Potemkin. Running at a lean 76 minutes the story follows the crew of the titular ship during the Russian Revolution of 1905. The crew stage a mutiny against the ship’s officers who rule with tyranny, events spin out…
A Scanner Darkly (2006) – Richard Linklater
Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly is the last recommendation from the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book in the Fantasy, Sci-Fi and Horror genre. Based on the story by Philip K. Dick, the story is fascinating from a couple of perspectives – it’s a digitally rotoscoped animated film, and it features some top…
Doctor Who (David Tennant) – Evolution of the Daleks and The Lazarus Experiment
So after the introduction of a human dalek (Erik Loren) last week, where does Evolution of the Daleks go? Written by Helen Raynor the episode premiered on 28 April, 2007. The Doctor (Tennant) and Martha (Freema Agyeman) are still in the 30s, and confronting the Cult of Skaro as they seek to evolve and change…
Dark Matter Set Visit
It’s a cold December morning, the holidays are on the horizon, a storm cloud of twinkling lights, gift giving and and family. Clambering aboard the tarnished grey subway cars that burrow their way through the city, Sue and I prepared for a day in the far-flung future… The TTC delivers us, like a yuletide gift,…
The Mind Reels 