Miami Vice (1985) -Whatever Works, and Out Where the Buses Don’t Run

Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) and Ricardo Tubbs (Philip Micheal Thomas)  find more darkness under the glitz and glamour as I dive into this week’s pair of episodes of Miami Vice. First up is Whatever Works. Written by Maurice Hurley, the episode first debuted on 4 October, 1985. Sonny’s Ferrari Daytona Spyder gets seized by police…

Star Trek: The Original Series (1967) – The Deadly Years and Obsession

Captain’s log: stardate 3478.2 The Deadly Years soared onto screens on 8 December, 1967, with a script by David P. Harmon. Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy), McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Scotty (James Doohan), Chekov (Walter Koenig) and Galway (Beverly Washburn) beam down to Gamma Hydra IV. Once there they discover that the entire outpost is…

Vertigo (1958) – Alfred Hitchcock

Perhaps one of Hitchcock’s best films, Vertigo, is next on the list of recommendations from the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book. With the combined star power of James Stewart and Kim Novak, this romantic thriller defines obsession as well as fear. Stewart is John ‘Scottie’ Ferguson a San Francisco police detective on…

Lost Girls (1999) – Andrew Pyper

  Every one has been suggesting that if I liked all the other Andrew Pyper books I’ve read to date (and I have) that I desperately need to read his first novel, Lost Girls. Well I finally did! And like his other novels, I enjoyed this one as well. I love how he balances the…

The Prestige (2006) – Chrisopher Nolan

  The Sci-Fi Chronicles book has been a welcome addition to my library, and I was delighted to see that the next subject for me to cover is director Christopher Nolan. I’ve written about most of his other films, and all the ones the book recommends previously, but for The Prestige, and one other film….

Black Swan (2010) – Darren Aronofsky

  The next recommendation from my viewing of Gold Diggers of 1933 in the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book, is less musical, but more behind the scenes of a production, and the lead’s gradual descent into madness, in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. The beauty and sensuality of the ballet, Swan Lake, is…

Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus (1818) – Mary Shelley

  So having spent some time with the cinematic incarnations of Frankenstein and his creature, I thought, as it was mentioned in the Sci-Fi Chronicles book, that I would revisit the original tale, on which all of them found their inspiration. I hadn’t read the original tale since 1984, when it was on a list…

Books of Blood: Volume 1 – 3 (1984 – 1986) – Clive Barker

  There are few authors that can get under my skin with their stories and nightmare imagery. In fact there is only one, Clive Barker. With the imminent arrival of The Scarlet Gospels in May, I thought I would throw some of his books back into my reading cycle, and what better place to start…