Chuck (2007) – Versus the Imported Hard Salami, and Versus the Nemesis

Chuck (Zachary Levi) starts a new relationship with Lou (Rachel Bilson) after he and Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) ‘break-up’ their cover relationship, but love comes into conflict with duty in the first episode up this week. Chuck Versus the Imported Salami was written by Scott Rosenbaum and Matthew Miller and first debuted on 19 November, 2007….

Star Trek: Renegade (1991) – Gene DeWeese

Gene DeWeese delivers a pretty standard Trek tale for this week’s instalment of the Book Shelf. This is his third Trek novel, and while it’s not a horrible tale, it’s just a run of the mill story. Set during The Original Series, the Enterprise is called to a pair of warring planets to mediate their…

Lovecraft Country (2016) -Matt Ruff

This week I dove into Matt Ruff’s brilliantly entertaining Lovecraft Country, which takes all the things you love about a good Lovecraft story; otherworldly horror, science fiction mixed with horror, and some other familiar horror tropes, the creepy doll, the haunted house, and deliver it without Lovecraft’s far too prominent racism. As much as I…

Star Trek: Enterprise (2003) – The Shipment, and Twilight

Captain’s log: date unknown Chris Black and Brent V. Friedman pen this episode of the Xindi arc that first debuted on 29 October, 2003. Archer (Scott Bakula) discovers a mining operation that seems to be compiling resources and components for the Xindi weapon that is being prepared for Earth. He, Reed (Dominc Keating) and Hayes…

Ocean’s Eleven (2001) – Steven Soderbergh

George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon headline in the next film that I watched as I work my way through Ten Bad Dates With De Niro. The list this title comes from is Remakes That Are Better Than The Original. And on this count, I agree. As much as I love the Rat Pack’s…

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009) – Jack Perez

How bad? So bad. The next title in DK Canada’s highly enjoyable Monsters in the Movies is so horribly bad it doesn’t even come close to the so bad it’s good concept. This is just a horrible horrible horrible example of shoddy filmmaking, terrible computer graphics, and not even wooden acting, closer to soggy cardboard…

A View To A Kill (1985) – John Glen

Since there was a James Bond novel on the book shelf this week, it means I get to revisit a Bond cinematic adventure that I haven’t previously covered for the blog, and that brings me to 1985’s A View To A Kill. This is a bit of a mixed bag for me, and will always…

Star Trek: Enterprise (2003) – Impulse, and Exile

Captain’s log: date unknown Johnathan Fernandez pen the teleplay for this episode from a story he developed with Terry Matalas. It first debuted on 8 October, 2003. The Enterprise discovers another anomaly in the Delphic Expanse, when they respond to a distress call from a lost Vulcan ship. When they arrive they find the crew…

Chuck (2007) – Versus the Alma Mater, and Versus the Truth

Chuck (Zachary Levi) has some issues with his past this week when Anne Cofell Saunders pens Chuck Versus the Alma Mater. It first debuted on 5 November, 2007. When one of his former professors Fleming (Scott Alan Smith) – a bit of a nod to James Bond’s creator – from Stanford is kidnapped, Chuck must…