Mario Bava’s fantastic gothic feature, Black Sunday aka The Mask of Satan is the next title in Ten Bad Dates With De Niro. This brilliant film, which I had never seen before, has all the enjoyable gothic ambience of Corman’s takes on Poe like The Fall of the House of Usher, and some wonderful gore…
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2013) – The Lawless, Sabotage, and The Jedi Who Knew Too Much
“Morality separates heroes from villains.” Chris Collins continues the Darth Maul (Sam Witwer) and Savage Opress (Clancy Brown) arc that sees the pair settling in with their criminal army on the planet of Mandalore, and their resident criminal faction, Death Watch. Maul uses Duchess Satine (Anna Graves) to draw out Obi-Wan Kenobi (James Arnold Taylor)…
The White Gorilla (1945) – Harry L. Fraser
Well, as one of my favourite music groups will tell you, sometimes, bad is bad. This entry in the chapter called Monstrous Apes in DK Canada’s highly enjoyable Monsters in the Movies book is pretty horrid. It marries footage from a 1927 silent three hour epic called Perils of the Jungle, which clashes with the…
Star Trek: Enterprise (2003) – Regeneration, and First Flight
Captain’s log: 1 March, 2153 Mike Sussman and Phyllis Strong pen this episode that debuted on 7 May, 2003, and brings the Borg into this Trek series. Of course, they can’t be mentioned by name, because at this point in Trek chronology humanity is unaware of them, except for the people involved in the events…
Chuck (2007) – Versus the Tango, and Versus the Wookie
Matthew Miller throws Chuck (Zachary Levi) into a whole new mess this week as Chuck Versus the Tango is the first episode up on the blog. With an original airdate of 8 October, 2007, Miller’s story finds Chuck working to prove he’s assistant manager material at the Buy More, while also dealing with a stolen…
Star Trek: Home is the Hunter (1990) – Dana Kramer-Rolls
The Human Adventure continues as this week’s Trek tale continues to give us stories from the time period following the events of The Motion Picture. All well and good, but like the previous novel, this one feels like a bit of a miss as well. I love the setting of the book, I just couldn’t get…
Absolution Gap (2003) – Alastair Reynolds
I return to Alastair Reynold’s Revelation Space universe this week, with this, the third novel in the ongoing storyline involving the Inhibitors and the struggle of humanity, in all its forms, to escape extinction. We are introduced to a slew of new characters in this titanic space opera, while reacquainting ourselves with old friends. The…
Star Trek: Enterprise (2003) – The Breach, and Cogenitor
Captain’s log: date unknown Chris Black and John Shiban pen the teleplay for this episode from a story by Daniel McCarthy. It’s a Phlox (John Billingsley) episode that first aired on 23 April, 2003, and was directed by Voyager’s Robert Duncan McNeill. Phlox finds himself in an ethical dilemma when the Enterprise is summoned to…
Bride of the Gorilla (1951) – Curt Siodmak
DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies continues allows me to continue my journey through the jungle of monstrous apes, and this time brings me a couple of familiar faces in a very familiar story. Raymond Burr and Lon Chaney Jr. star in this film that sees Burr playing Barney Chavez, a plantation manager deep in…
Robot Monster (1953) – Phil Tucker
DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies book, by director John Landis brings me a 50s title that is so bad, it’s come around to good, passed that and slapped it for being out too late and travelled back to bad again. It’s also become iconic, in that the monstrous ape, the chapter I am currently…
