Doctor Who - The Church On Ruby Road

 

The Paradox Children

Doctor Who -
The Church On Ruby Road
Airdate: 25th December 2023
BBC plus some evil purse strings

Well, this wasn’t bad and, it certainly wasn’t, as someone in my house said, “Bloody awful... put me off watching Doctor Who!” By the same token it wasn’t great either and, yeah, possibly not quite good. The new split off version of The Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa teams up with his new companion Ruby Sunday, played by Millie Gibson, for an adventure which all circles around her origins as an orphan and begins a thread which will, if I’m not mistaken, run through the whole of this next season, which begins properly in May.

Okay, so the story of The Church On Ruby Road, such as it was, involved The Doctor and Ruby trying to prevent her foster mother’s new baby, the 33rd she’s adopted (which maybe a reference to LP playing speeds, given that one of the upcoming episodes features Abbey Road and The Beatles) from being eaten by goblins, itself a ploy by the goblins to, I would assume, get their hands on Ruby. Which they do after being defeated by The Doctor, by using the goblin ‘physics of coincidence’, if I’ve got that right, to fracture time and kidnap Ruby from the steps of the church she was left at as a newborn baby. The Doctor goes back and saves her and picks up his mysterious new companion once the timeline is set back, stupidly not following the mother himself because, hey, it makes dramatic sense to dangle that mystery over the audience for the rest of the year (I’m guessing). I wonder if Ruby has a pocket watch. Probably not, two hearts would definitely show up when they’re doing checks on foster kids, for sure.

Okay... so Gibson seems fine. Gatwa looks absolutely perfect as a new Doctor but, there’s still something about the way he’s playing the character which I’m not liking and, I can’t quite put my finger on what that is. Something about the voice and attitude seems a bit off, to be honest. Still willing to give him time though... unlike other members of my household, it has to be said.

And there’s the other trap that either I’ve fallen into or Russel T. Davies has accidentally sprung on himself. Doctor Who was always, as far as I remember, supposed to be a family show, rather than just a kids show. And this episode is nothing but childish malarkey from start to finish it seems to me. Now, I think one of two things could be happening here... and the thing I hope that’s happening is that he just wanted to do a  very light hearted, drama free, kid pleasing tale for Christmas. The whole episode felt like a poorly CGId version of The Dark Crystal or even The Muppets, to be fair. But, it could be just a concession to Christmas with more serious drama and peril on the way later (I mean, seriously, just eat the kid already and move on, there are no high stakes or real threats in this episode).

Or... and I suspect some newspaper reviews may well take this tack in the next morning’s papers but... is this new, child-like tone a sign of the Disneyfication of Doctor Who? Remembering that it’s Disney who are injecting finance into this thing now (although not enough to make the goblins look ‘all that’... apparently). Now, this was my first thought but, being as the preview trailer for the new series starting in May looks like that won’t necessarily be the case... I’m not going to rush to any conclusions and keep my fingers crossed that the whole Disney element and the child-like atmosphere in this episode was just a big, Christmas fuelled coincidence. I hope. Keeping my fingers and toes crossed for this... I’m just not sure.

Also, I didn’t see any Daleks or Cybermen in the trailer and, as much as I hate that they keep returning with alarming frequency over the last ten years or so... if you want to establish the new guy as The Doctor, then you should get him sharing screen time with those established villains as soon as possible, would be my take on that.

Still, it was nice hearing Murray Gold return to the show with some pretty good music and I can only hope that Silva Screen will be releasing a proper CD of that soon... along with the Murray Gold season which they never got around to releasing all those years ago, preferably (or even instead of this new one because, they should be releasing these things in order anyhow).

And that’s me almost done on Doctor Who - The Church On Ruby Road other than... did someone mention Mavity. Yep, again, instead of gravity. That’s been turning up since the episode Wild Blue Yonder (reviewed here) and I can only assume that it’s going to turn around and bite the audience in the backside at some point over the next two years because, obviously, those timelines aren’t quite rightly settled yet, are they?

Anyway, I don’t think this episode was a total disaster and I’ll withhold judgement for a while. I'm ot looking forward to the new series all that much but I'm still hopeful. Time, as always, will tell.

Merry Christmas from NUTS4R2 2023

Merry Christmas 2023

Well, it’s that time of year again. By the side you’ll see the three covers of my Christmas card designs from last year. Christmas songs remade as newspaper articles, which you should be able to read if you click on them and expand the images (then unpinch or zoom in).

It’s been a long and, mostly, dreadful year again but there’s something about Christmas that, if you’re lucky, brings some escape or temporary respite from the troubles of our times and personal burdens. Like a collective agreement to be more tolerant of others and either reach out to loved ones or embrace a welcome touch of solitude. Again, if you’re lucky enough to be in that position and are not out sleeping on the streets or in other, even less pleasant circumstances. 

Anyway, I hope that some of you, if you are on your own this Christmas, find some time to discover something to your liking on this blog. There’s my Annual Cryptic Movie Quiz (right here) for a start, if you want to puzzle some of those out... and if you go into the ‘list by year/month’ index in the right hand sidebar on this page and click in December of each year, you should be able to find a whole bunch of Christmas themed movie, book and comic reviews, if you are so inclined. 

I also hope you all manage to find some time to get cosy and let the world spin by without you for a bit. I always cherish the precious time I have off this holiday, away from the negativity and bustle of the work environment.

The reviews should hopefully continue coming, more or less, every day this week... at least that’s the plan (normal service will settle back down to three per week in the New Year). If the extra reviews don’t turn up then either something very good or very bad happened to me, I guess. And if you are playing along on the Cryptic Movie Quiz, check the comments section every few days as it’s my intent to throw in a clue or two this week to help out, so to speak.

That’s it. Merry Christmas to all and I hope the New Year brings us all better fortune, for sure.

Carfax House

Ghosts Of
Christmas Past

Carfax House
by Shanni Struthers
Story Land Press
ISBN: 9781838220419

Clocking in at only 160 pages in length, I’m not sure whether Shanni Struthers’ Christmas laced tome Carfax House qualifies as either a novel or a novella but I can say one thing with certainty... and that’s the fact that I’ve had a very good track record this year with Christmas themed reading for the blog. This makes three out of three books I’ve read this season that were all excellent and I’m really pleased that I blind bought so well this year (alas, the same can’t quite be said of the Christmas movies I viewed).

So, just as a caution to temper expectations, Carfax House, subtitled A Christmas Ghost Story, has nothing whatsoever to do with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, despite the titular house and Stoker’s famous abbey sharing a name. So put that out of your mind before you dig into this one... it doesn’t even come up. Instead, it’s the story of a young couple, Liz and Al Greenaway, who have just bought the house, a big property with its own land, as an unexpectedly cheap ‘fixer upper’, isolated and few hours train ride between London and Birmingham. And it deals specifically with the days leading up to Christmas and Liz’s first week in the house, there to begin the gradual renovation of the property while her husband, a London lawyer, finishes up a murder trial before joining her there in their new home for Christmas.

And in reality, there are few characters and a lot of the time it amounts to what is a kind of monologue of Liz as she begins to settle into the place to find that the house is, indeed, haunted by something or someone. Which sounds like it could get kinda dull but, it really isn’t. I was sceptical of this tome at first but Shanni Struthers totally pulled me into the mindset of the main protagonist and made me care about her.

I mean, it’s a grim book, for sure, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Case in point, Liz loves Christmas (like me, these days) and always pushes the boat out to make everything just right. But, as the tale wends its course and you find out that the presence that resides in the house is rekindling the memories and tales from Liz’s own past, you begin to realise that maybe Liz loves Christmas for all the wrong reasons. There is a power to her back story which, once you begin to discover it in the books third act, permeates everything that’s gone before and colours it with new information given.

And it’s got a nice ending too, as it happens. This is still very much a Christmas story and the direction it heads in embraces all that’s best about the season, tempering the negative energy and slow creeping dread of Liz’s childhood experiences to present a conclusion that not only resides in the festive spirit but also introduces the idea of a haunted house that heals... pretty much anyone who has a troubled past... via a tragic Christmas story locked up of its own.

And, short review that this is, I don’t think I want to say too much more about Carfax House other than, it kept me guessing and upended my assumptions about the characters and, as any regular readers will know, that takes a lot of doing in my case (and so I’m delighted that my Christmas reads this year have all included an element of surprise which I didn’t see coming in the first few pages... this is almost a new experience for me). So, yeah... I see that this lady has written a few Christmas supernatural books so, yup, I suspect I’ll be picking up one or two more to review for the blog for around this time next year too. Carfax House is a pretty good read and I’m really glad I’ve discovered another new writer.

It's A Wonderful Knife

Fallen Angel

It's A Wonderful Knife
Directed by Tyler MacIntyre
2023 United Kingdom/United States/Canada
Shudder

Warning: Kinda spoilers.

Hmm... this was not the film I was hoping it would be.

When I first heard they’d made a horror version of what is, after all, the greatest Christmas movie ever made... It’s A Wonderful Life (reviewed by me here), I was thrilled. I love this new trend of taking something which already exists in its own right and putting a horror or sci-fi or slasher spin on it (even though I hate slashers... I personally prefer gialli). And in the marketing, the spirit of some of those kinds of films which I loved such as Happy Death Day (review here), Happy Death Day 2U (review here) and, quite specifically named in the trailer... Freaky (review here)... is certainly invoked. However, after a not terrible opening, It's A Wonderful Knife very quickly turns into a bit of a mediocre mess of a production, it has to be said.

The film stars Jane Widdop as Winnie Carruthers, who lives in Angel Falls and who is having a tough time at Christmas as she has been rejected from a place at the university she wants to go to and whose boyfriend is, unknown to her at the time, straying in his amorous intentions. And then her best friend is killed by a psycho stalker the night he goes on a rampage. She manages to kill and unmask the killer but, a year later, while things have improved for everyone else in the sleepy, suburban town as a result of her actions... things are still bad for her. And so, with the aid of some supernatural shenanigans I really didn’t understand, she wishes she was never born and then she gets her wish, navigating an evil tinted version of Angel Falls where she wasn’t there to stop the psycho, as the killer has been murdering more and more people every week. It’s up to her to kill the killer(s) and somehow manage to get herself back to her own version of reality.

So, yeah, the film tries its best to be a parody of the Frank Capra classic, with dialogue exchanges such as “You’re George Bailey!” “Will you be my Clarence?” and I even noticed the marquee of the local cinema, when Winnie runs past it, shows that they are playing The Bells Of St. Mary’s... just like the cinema was when James Stewart’s George Bailey runs past it in Bedford Falls in It’s A Wonderful Life. But, yeah, some nice sly references do not a classic make, for sure.

Now I’ve been trying to figure out why the film doesn’t gel for me. I mean, it jams inclusivity/wokeness down your throat somewhat but that’s really not enough to make me give up on a movie and, while it is a bit overpowering, it didn’t really bother me too much. And it did have the odd moment that was really good, especially from the opening sequences before the title comes up. For example, when one of the girls is kissing her boyfriend, she comes up for air and says he tastes funny... the reason being that, when they were lip locked, the killer comes up behind him and pushes a shaprened candy cane through the back of his head and out through his mouth... which was a nice, surprising moment (kind of a shame they give that one away on the trailer, to be honest) but, these stabs of poetic violence are in short supply throughout the film and it really could have used more of that kind of thing.

Also, I really didn’t care about any of the characters. Possibly because I couldn’t identify with any of them but, honestly, that’s never stopped me investing emotionally in characters before. I really didn’t care who lived or died in this movie. I would have been quite happy with nobody making their way out of this one alive, truth be told. And the story is a bit of an illogical mess with seeming contradictions at every turn... at least, that’s what it felt like to me.

The one thing I did like about the production was the musical score by Russ Howard III, which reminded me just a little of something Bear McCreary might have written for this kind of film... with the odd Christmas tunes plundered and turned into more sinister versions of themselves throughout. I’d buy a CD release of this one in a second, if it got one.

And that’s me done with It’s A Wonderful Knife, I think... this is not a great movie. Granted it’s really not too badly made (although, as I said, some of the story seems a bit woolly at best) but it’s certainly not a good film either and I really don’t need to ever see this one again during my lifetime, I think. Not a glowing recommendation from me, I’m afraid.

The Christmas Jigsaw Murders

Puzzledunnit

The Christmas
Jigsaw Murders
by Alexandra Benedict
Simon and Schuster
ISBN 9781398525375

Eagle eyed readers of the regular kind will probably notice that this is the second ‘December tome’ that I’ve read this year by Alexandra Benedict. The first was Murder On The Christmas Express (reviewed here a couple of days ago) and I was delighted to find a second Christmas themed novel by her out for this Christmas... The Christmas Jigsaw Murders. However, I got it wrong again. Near the start of this story, the main protagonist mentions that something wasn’t quite sitting right about a murder story in the news...  that murder story being the one detailed in Murder On The Christmas Express. All well and good, a shared universe is a nice thing and means characters can cross over in later novels... but then I remembered that a similar comment was made about a murder in the news by another character in the previous book and, sure enough, when I checked, this is actually the third Christmas murder story that Benedict has written, the train set story being the second. So, next year for my December reading, I’m hoping to still be able to pick up her first in this loose trilogy, The Christmas Murder Game (if there are still hardback editions to be had) and, who knows, perhaps she’ll have written a fourth by then.

This one concentrates on a story concerning main protagonist Edie O’ Sullivan, an 80 year old ex-teacher and crossword setter for a local newspaper. And when I first read this on the synopsis of the book on Amazon, I assumed that this would be the writer’s homage to Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple stories but, no Edie is absolutely nothing like Miss Marple, although she clearly possesses a sharp mind, for sure. If anything, I’d say there’s more than a little of Ebenezer Scrooge in her and, I’m possibly reading too much into it but, I think their are a few vague connections to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in this one.

That being said, Edie is a completely sympathetic character who just happens to hate Christmas and most people... and there’s nothing wrong with that (although, personally, I started to embrace Christmas myself, when I was older and had enough money in my pockets to be able to buy people presents). The story involves a series of murders in the town of Weymouth, which seem to be personally targeted at Edie from a person in her past. A person who is posting puzzle pieces from murder scenes as clues, in brown envelopes, through her door as a challenge to stop each murder before it happens. A challenge Edie takes seriously since the endgame, if she is figuring out the puzzle pieces properly, seems to be the death of her nephew Sean, a detective in the local constabulary who has warned her off from working the case in her own way and to leave it to the police.

But, of course, if she did that, then there would be no exciting story to read about. Now, I have to say, after the excellent Murder On The Christmas Express, I wasn’t expecting this one to give it much more than a good run for its money in pacing and addictive reading. I mean, murder mysteries set in railway sleeping cars is always a great setting so to expect something even more unputdownable from the writer would be, I felt, an unfair expectation. But, as it happens, The Christmas Jigsaw Murders is actually even better than the prior Christmas flavoured tome and I found myself feeling for the central characters even more than in the last one. And, I actually didn’t figure out who the murderer was either (although in that particular part of the game, I did feel it would have been impossible to do that, once I knew the solution). So it kept me guessing (which is almost impossible these days) and it also had a couple of surprises in terms of what happens to the main character before the novel had finished... which was cool.

Once again, the writer’s obvious penchant for puzzle solving has been highlighted in the book in a similar manner to the prior tome. For instance, one challenge she issues is to solve hidden anagrams of Dickens novels, thrown randomly in to the book. Another is to name hidden songs in the text... in the prior volume it was Kate Bush songs and, this time, it’s the turn of Fleetwood Mac (not a band I’m familiar with, in all honesty but, my cousin would love it). Finally, there’s a prize to claim as well, for the first person to unscramble all the letters, one given in a puzzle piece heading for each chapter, to reveal a Christmas song... so that’s nice.

I do have one slight criticism with the book and, I’m more than happy to overlook it as a mistake made by one of the characters as a deliberate character embellishment by the writer, rather than suggest she was at fault herself. In one scene there is a reference to a 1940s film noir one of the characters watched which featured a briefcase with unseen insides which glowed. Now, I can only assume this is a less than veiled reference to the Mickey Spillane movie Kiss Me Deadly. If so, it’s not a forties noir... the movie was released in 1955.

Other than that, though, I would have to say that The Christmas Jigsaw Murders is one of the most enjoyable and pacey December reads I’ve been through in some time and have nothing but good words for anyone wishing to read either this wonderful volume or the prior one. As I said, I intend to return to the Christmas writings of Alexandra Benedict next December, for sure.

Santa Claus Conquers The Martians

Martian Santa-Hunter

Santa Claus
Conquers The Martians
Directed by Nicholas Webster
USA 1964 (released 1966)
Public Domain

Wow, this is terrible. Cheaply made and badly written and... I dunno... somehow completely charming and captivating.

Santa Claus Conquers The Martians is a film I’ve been meaning to get around to seeing for a good four decades or more and, it’s really not what I was expecting. I mean, I was expecting more of a family film but it became apparent very quickly that this one is aimed squarely at the kiddies. Which is fine.

A quick summary of the plot. You have Santa, played really well and likeably by a guy named John Call, getting ready with his elves for Christmas but, something is happening to the kids on Mars, who are being all depressed and despondent, even as they watch television broadcasts from Earth and enjoy the documentary interviews with Santa by a news crew. The martian leader Kimar, played by Leonard Hicks, goes to see the surprisingly sinister (for a kids movie) elder martian who says they need to get their own Santa Claus to teach the kids of Mars how to play and have fun. So, with a few plot wrinkles, Kimar, along with some of his martians including bad guy Martian Voldar (played convincingly mean spiritedly by Vincent Beck) and atrocious comic relief martian Dropo (played by Bill McCutcheon), head to Earth where they kidnap a couple of children and also Santa Claus, to set up a toy factory on Mars (one of the martians seem particular enamoured of a toy they describe which is a Slinky, which was back in vogue at the time).

Despite Voldar trying to blast all three of them out into space, they survive the trip and help out the martians, also stopping Voldar’s uprising and, in the process, teaching Dropo how to dress up and play as Santa, so he can take over and they are free to return to Earth, just in time for Christmas Eve.

And it really is a cheap mess, all shot on interior sets (four days shooting in an airplane hangar, apparently)... while at the same time being bizarrely addictive.

Some things I found interesting are... well, for starters, the colours are going for bright greens and reds but the film stock isn’t exactly technicolour (okay, just looked it up, it’s Pathécolor apparently) and so it all looks incredibly muted, even though it’s trying to be bright. Like a dulled down pastel variant of Christmas which, I have to say, I really liked.

The documentary newscasts which come in are interesting in that, at no time is it suggested that anyone on Earth does not believe in Santa Claus, He’s a newsworthy celebrity and these opening segments where he and his wife, Mrs. Claus, are being interviewed, seem really unusual. By the way this is apparently the first movie to depict a Mrs. Claus... a shame she’s not called Mary... you know, like in Mary Christmas... but still, relatively early days, I guess. The newsreel footage is also used to provide a series of narratives on the martian ‘UFO’ and so stock footage of various military responses can be montaged in with this really bland but, again, likeable soundtrack... literally to help pad the movie running time out every now and again. Although, the last you hear of the military is when they are trying to trail the martian ship to Mars... then they simply drop out of the narrative with no explanation.

Also, there are not that many people seen on Mars, it has to be said. Maybe seven or eight including the only two children (of the apparently many) you’ll catch a glimpse of on Mars... one of them being played by a young Pia Zadora in her debut movie role. When I was a kid in the 1970s, Zadora seemed more well known for films with more erotic content, if memory recalls... but here she’s just another green painted kid with not much personality.

Now, the film is studio bound but it does spend hunks of time in fake, outdoor painted environments standing in for locations like the martian landscape and the North Pole. It looks okay though but... the special effects are something else. The big, fairly useless but aesthetically pleasing hunter robot Torg looks like it's straight out of a Japanese tin toy store but it’s likeable enough. As for the fierce polar bear that bothers the kids and scares a martian off, however, well it’s hilarious. Literally a man crawling around on his knees wearing a polar bear head with a furry sheet thrown over him. This was never going to convince anyone but, honestly, from this side of history, it all just adds to the charm of the thing as far as I’m concerned... as does the saccharine opening and closing credits song... Hooray For Santy Claus.

And that’s me done with Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, I think. It’s bloody awful and cheap looking and probably an embarrassment for most of the actors working on it but... I kinda loved it and would certainly not mind seeing it again. At the moment, the Blu Ray of this is pretty expensive but, maybe it’ll come down in price in a few years time. I can’t really, in all good conscience, recommend this one to most people but... all I’m saying is that it kept me smiling, possibly for a lot of the wrong reasons. And I’ll leave it at that.

Murder On The Christmas Express

Deeper Sleeper

Murder On The
Christmas Express
Written by Alexandra Benedict
Simon and Schuster
ISBN 9781398519824

Regular readers may remember that I don’t always have the best of luck when it comes to choosing December, Christmas themed reads to review on the blog. I usually go for either whodunnits or horror stories and, for some strange reason (since I do love a good ghost story), I usually have much better luck at this time of year with the old school crime stories. This year I’ve hedged my bets by going for, not one but two Christmas themed crime thrillers (by the same writer, too) and one ghost story. Hopefully I can get them all read and reviewed here before December the 25th is upon me.

Okay, so the first tome on the list is Alexandra (aka A. K.) Benedict’s novel Murder On The Christmas Express, which arrived from Amazon as a nice, handsome hardback, signed by the writer herself, no less (I hadn’t realised I was ordering a signed copy so that’s always a nice surprise). A really nice thing about this train bound story of murder is that the sides of the pages on this edition, are coloured red with white train track running through it... so, yeah, I’m a sucker for that kind of attention to graphic design features, for sure. There’s also a map of the main train carriage and the occupants of the various sleeper cabins, in case you need to refer back to it in the text, on the inside front and back covers.

And then the opening notes by the writer really pulled me in. It seems that the lady in question is a lover of all things quiz-like (I wonder how she’d do on my regular Annual Christmas Cryptic Film Quizzes? You can play this year’s edition right here). Case in point, she gives us a list of some of her favourite Christmas prose and poetry and says that all of the titles are hidden as anagrams in the book. Furthermore, she says that there is a pub quiz at the end of the book to reward the reader and, yeah, there are indeed three rounds of Christmas themed questions at the end. And finally... and this one really got me... there was a prize to the first reader to contact her with six of the names of the many Kate Bush songs hidden in the text.

Now, I have to say, I got none of the anagrams (I was too busy concentrating on the story to play along, to be honest) and only a few of the songs from one of my all time favourite pop artists (I mostly listen to film scores... as some of my readers may remember) but it’s a really nice idea and it made me happy that someone with this devious kink in their brain is writing mystery fiction.

The story itself tells of the ‘just retired’ former police inspector, Roz, who is going home for Christmas on the last sleeper train out of London, to be with her daughter in Scotland for the birth of her grand-daughter. Or so she hopes. It’s all caught up in a story of a killer on the train, the death of a social media influencer (I still don’t understand that modern phenomena, I’m obviously very old fashioned) and her horrible boyfriend and.... yeah, so much more, including shadows of Roz’s troubled past (or should that be Roz’ past?) coming back to haunt her as she tries to find the culprit on a train which has derailed in the Scottish wilderness, with no help from the authorities for a good long while that can reach them. Oh... and did I mention that Roz is supposed to look like Kate Bush? Another plus in my book although, due to the various quirks of the human mind, even when presented with that information right from the start, I still imagined Roz as looking somehow quite different. But there you go, that’s just me.

And that’s all I’m saying about the plot but I will say that this Christmas I got really lucky on at least one of my choices... it’s an excellent and enthralling read from start to finish, that’s for sure. It opens like an old 1960s Marvel comic, structurally, in that it starts with one of the key incidents (yeah, always open on a slice of action in the ‘Mighty Marvel Manner’) to grab the reader and pull them in, before flashing back, setting up all the characters and then catching up to that sequence somewhere later ‘down the line’ (no pun intended but now that I’ve written it I’ll just go and flag that one up with inverted commas as a token gesture to the God of serendipity).

From then on it’s a cracking read with some nice turns of phrases, some of them highlighting the writer’s love of film... “If someone had drugged or poisoned the dates, Mary would be their Indiana Jones monkey.” and an obvious love of film scores too. Amongst the various musical references. I was loving the fact that the music Roz’s daughter was listening to in labour included the Goblin scores for Profondo Rosso and Suspiria although, a point deducted for spelling the Italian title of Deep Red wrong (although, maybe it was a deliberate typo and this was one of her cunning anagrams... I should go and check).

So, all in all, my first Christmas book of the year, Murder On The Christmas Express, was a very positive experience for me and lovers of the old ‘cosy whodunnit’ might want to give this one a try. I also learned a couple of new words/phrases too... I now know what Casein is and also what ‘Blood Eagle’ means, although, in the case of the latter, I kinda wish I hadn’t googled that one (although lovers of the movie Midsommer might want to familiarise themselves with this particular form of viking torture)... so maybe not so ‘cosy’ after all. Fantastic read though, couldn’t put it down.. although, I kinda had to otherwise the shower would have made the pages go all soggy on me, for sure.

The Three Musketeers - Chapter II: Milady

Fleur-de-Eva

The Three Musketeers
Chapter II: Milady
Directed by Martin Bourboulon
France/Germany/
Spain/Belgium 2023
Pathe
UK Cinema Print

Made back to back with The Three Musketeers - Chapter I: d’Artagnan (reveiwed here) over a 150 day shoot and released in cinemas in the same year as the first installment, The Three Musketeers - Chapter II - Milady picks up from the cliffhanger ending of the first film but, not before providing a lengthy recap of the events as they played out in the first part (not unlike Richard Lester’s The Four Musketeers did back in the 1970s - review coming in 2024). And this one probably needs it more than most versions if you’ve not seen that first part in a while because, well, to say that this ‘adaptation’ plays hard and fast with Alexandre Dumas’ original writings would be an understatement. I don’t mind that so much because I’ve honestly never seen a filmed version of The Three Musketeers which didn’t stray far from the source material but, yeah, don’t go into this one thinking it’s a faithful version, just because it’s French. It’s got all the tragedy of the original in regards to certain characters but... yeah, the producers do try to have their cake and eat it here by quite pointedly leaving it open for a character to return in some kinda sequel... who certainly didn’t survive beyond this point in the original book.

Because it was all made in one lump, all the cast from the original movie are here for this including the wonderful Four Musketeers played by François Civil (d’Artagnan), the always brilliant Vincent Cassel (as Athos, I’m really not used to seeing this guy playing a heroic character), Romain Duris (Aramis) and Pio Marmaï (Porthos). There’s also Lyna Khoudri as Constance (hardly appearing in this part of the story at all... much like Raquel Welch dropping out of the narrative for a while in the Richard Lester versions) and the incredible Eva Green as arch villainess Milady. Despite playing fast and loose with the character of Milady (not to mention d’Artagnan’s almost complete lack of amorous interest in her compared to his actions in the original story), Green sets the screen on fire as she always does and makes a very memorable version of the character... not to mention getting more involved with the brawling and sword fighting this time around.

Like the first movie, it’s enjoyable hokum and it’s filmed in a very gritty style. Lots of moving camerawork and with most of the fights being done in either single or very long sets of takes with the camera following the action and splitting off at multiple key moments to ‘catch what the next person is up to’ in the heat of battle. What this does is adds a sheen, no matter how artificial, of truth via a fly on the wall style approach to the squirmishes, lending the film a much needed air of credence to counteract just how many liberties are being taken with the story. 

The gorgeous score by Guillaume Roussel also keeps things grounded in the grit and speed of the unfolding story, giving the beautifully shot scenes an audio resonance that distracts from the narrative departures effectively.

So, yeah, look on the way the story unfolds as just a different set of directions for the tale which, in all honesty, still very much has the seeds to take the same cast into the next part of the saga... Twenty Years After, should they decide to come back and do that at some point. Perhaps sooner than later because, for some reason, this new movie version very much leaves things on a cliffhanger ending again... which I wasn’t expecting.

A short review alas but, all in all I have to say that The Three Musketeers - Chapter II: Milady is an enjoyable romp and a good piece of adventure cinema which keeps the blood pumping, displaying equal parts action, romance, comedy, betrayal and tragedy as it gallops towards its conclusion. Will definitely be picking this one up on Blu Ray when it comes out.

Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special 2022

Christmas Bacon

Guardians Of The
Galaxy Holiday Special 2022
Directed by James Gunn
2022

A quick note... I’m writing this very brief review in  the last days of Christmas 2022 and so it’s probably bad timing to put this one up before 2023. I’m going to pre-empt myself here and say that, by the time this review is published in December 2023, I will have already seen and reviewed Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 3 for the site (right here). Therefore, any character arcs and terminations (which I suspect will be the case) are not yet known to me as I’m writing these words... so please read this in that context since, I’m sure some of the things in this might seem a little contradictory by the time this review sees the light of day.

Okay, so we have a specific Marvel Christmas special this year (as opposed to a Christmas TV miniseries such as Hawkeye... reviewed here). I have to say that I’m the only member of my household who actually thought this was any good and the only one who stuck with it properly until the end (even though it’s only 41 minutes long). There are a few bad things about it and also some good stuff. And this is going to be a fairly short review so, let’s look at the good stuff first.

Okay, so we have the film starting on a flashback sequence done in a late 1970s/early 1980s variant of rotoscoping animation, telling of how Yondu (played by Michael Rooker) ruined Peter Quill’s Christmas. So, yeah, the start looks deliberately cheap. Quill, aka Starlord, is once again played by Chris Pratt and he’s joined by series regulars Vin Diesel as Groot, David Bautista as Drax, Karen Gillan as Nebula, Bradley Cooper as Rocket Racoon, Pom Klementieff as Mantis and Sean Gunn as Kraglin. Once Mantis and Drax are told this story, it switches into live action and the two pledge to bring Christmas back into Starlord’s life... by travelling to Earth and kidnapping Peter’s longstanding childhood hero in the GOTG series of films... Kevin Bacon, in order to present him to Peter as a christmas present. Comedy shenanigans ensue and Bacon eventually finds himself hanging out with the Guardians on their newly acquired base on Knowwhere (following on from Avengers Endgame).

There are some nice jokes, some songs (mostly terrible, although I liked the first one... nobody else in the house did), some tiny comic action sequences and... a bit of sentiment here and there. It’s pleasant and mostly harmless fun and, yeah, I guess for me that’s fine but I think others in the household wanted a lot more from it.

There’s some bad stuff too, though... but the one thing I will bring up in that context is Groot. I mean... what? What happened to the CGI stuff? Did they use it or not because, frankly, if looks like someone wearing a bad Groot costume for most of the time. It just looks cheap and horrible and I can’t help but think that maybe more extensive use of CGI effects might have been planned but either money or, perhaps more likely, time... was not on the side of the crew here? Yeah, I don’t know why but it just felt wrong. I’m hoping this is not the same kind of effect/look they’re going to be going for in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 3 when it comes out... but if it is, you’ll certainly already know that by the time this review sees the light of day on this blog.

Countering that though, Mantis seemed a little less subdued as a character and given much more to do, asides from being revealed to Peter as being his half sister. She was great in this. I could have done with seeing a lot more of Nebula and Rocket though, truth be told.

And, yeah, that’s me done with Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special 2022... it was basically fine but, certainly in my household, I was in the minority. Most people here seemed to think it was pretty rubbish so, whatever, I certainly think it was by far the best of the stand alone Guardians Of The Galaxy adventures though*... which, to be fair, isn’t saying much but, no, again, it’s basically fine.

*Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 3 is better than all of them by a long chalk, it turned out.

Quizwoz 2023 - The Annual Cryptic Movie Quiz

 

The Annual Cryptic
Movie Quiz 2023

Welcome back, once again, for this year’s Cryptic Movie Quiz for the festive period.

How you play...

Check out the grid above and you’ll see spaces for 14 movie titles running horizontally and, below this intro, are the cryptic clues to assist you in working out what these 'non-Christmas' movie titles are. To help out, I’ve filled in a line of letters vertically downwards spelling out MERRY CHRISTMAS... so you have a letter in its correct position for each of the titles. Please don’t forget to click on the grid to see a larger version of it and maybe print it off to help yourself.

Email your answers to me at nuts4r2@hotmail.com before January 9th 2024 to get your entries in. A few days after that, I’ll stick up the name of the winner (or winners, if it’s a tie or a group effort), along with all the answers, here on my blog. No prizes, it’s just for fun but, if you like solving piuzzles and have some down time during the Christmas break, maybe give it a go.

By way of an example, here’s a question from last year’s quiz, followed by the answer...

Example question:
Game of an Egyptian God as a North American warrior.

Example answer:
So Game, an Egyptian God could be Ra and a North American warrior could be called a Brave.
So put those three together and you get... Gamera The Brave.

Or just check out the January solution pages from the last few years to get a feel for how to put these things together (you often have to make adjustments for the puntastic nature of the solutions). If you keep checking back in the comments section below, I will probably put the odd extra clue down there every now and again to help you out throughout the Christmas period.

Full marks are rarely scored by everyone so... if you’re feeling a bit stuck, there’s still everything to play for. Some people have won it with less than half the grid correct. So send me what you’ve got anyway.

I hope you enjoy playing. Make sure you have lots of fun this Christmas period, drink responsibly and play irresponsibly. Here are the questions...

1. Somebody visually recorded Italy’s capital city.

2. 16th Century firearm demonstrating one more organ of auditory processing than the average human.

3. The monster maker swore at his creation.

4. Using oars to steer thre author of Delta Of Venus towards the shore.

5. Scrambled by the hello.

6. If the four lettered town in Switzerland started and ended with the same two letters.

7. Enthusiastically expelled breath on a device manufactured to give out light.

8. Auditory organ sandwiched in a backwards, long playing record album.

9. The cannibal ate his girlfriend. He was...

10. What you get if a Pokémon goes down with a nasty skin condition... from a certain point of view.

11. Family tribe of the light coloured James Bond car in The Spy Who Loved Me

12. “Oh, Mr. Neeson!” called John Thaw’s Detective Inspector.

13. Daniel goes for a walk next to The Bridge On The River...

14. This verion of the International Space Station is powered entirely by the sun.

Godzilla Minus One

Gojira Warfare

Godzilla Minus One
Directed by Takashi Yamazaki
Japan 2023
Toho
UK Cinema Print

You know, I’m at that age where I don’t go out to the cinema on week nights anymore. I get up at 5am for work the next day so I tend to restrict my cinema time to the weekends if possible. But then Cineworld had an Unlimited cardholders preview of the new Japanese Godzilla film, just in time for next year’s 70th Anniversary of the character and, well, regular readers will know this would not be something I could resist. So I braved it out last night to the preview and... wow.

I’m not a fan of the usual hyperbole that enthusiastic audience members use to describe new films in a franchise just because it’s new and shiny. So please don’t take it lightly when I say that Godzilla Minus One is, probably the greatest Godzilla movie ever made (to date). Taking its cues from the original 1954 Ishiro Honda classic movie, this one... in my humble estimation... actually manages to pay homage to that version while somehow surpassing it.

Now, it is a reboot, so to speak and in some ways I’m sure some people will see this as just a remake from the original material but, no, it’s not. It shares some similar traits (quite deliberately and rightly so) but it is its own beast of a movie and it’s actually set just after the Second World War, as seen from the Japanese perspective. Starting towards the end of the war, the main protagonist Koichi (played by Ryunosuke Kamiki) is a kamikazi pilot who can’t see the sense in carrying out his mission now the outcome of the war is obvious. So he lands it on the fictional Odo Island (which is an island featured in the original Godzilla movie) and the mechanic team there try to figure out what’s wrong with his plane when, actually in many ways, it’s the pilot who needs fixing.

Then the creature talked about by the locals, Godzilla, shows up and leaves all but Koichi and one mechanic dead, in a truly frightening sequence. The remaining mechanic blames Koichi for not using his aircraft guns against the beast in the hopes of saving the lives of those colleagues who were either stomped, thrown or eaten and this continues the strand of emotion running through the whole film... guilt. Especially survivor’s guilt... of the chaos of war and the new terror of Godzilla. 

When Koichi returns to a war flattened Tokyo, finding both his parents dead, he befriends a woman (played by Minami Hamabe) who has ‘stolen’ a baby and is being pursued as a thief when she tries to steal it food to keep it alive. The baby is not stolen... it’s left in her care by a dying parent and Koichi’s life becomes inextricably entwined with her and the child... not to mention the presence of Godzilla who, after the Bikini Atoll test bombs, is irradiated and changed, growing larger and gaining the ability to emit a nuclear death ray from it’s mouth. And that’s mostly what I’ll say about the plot but it’s a film which is all about personal redemption and ultimately doing the right thing in the face of lethal and overwhelming odds.

Like the original film, so many decades ago, the director wisely sticks to keeping Godzilla’s screen presence to a minimum. The creature only gets about 11 minutes of screen time in a 125 minute film. Instead, the focus is on the human drama at the heart of the story and also creating many characters that the audience can really get close to. So we have a director who understands that by keeping The Big G’s appearances to a minimum, the scenes of spectacular devastation when he does put in an appearance every so often, become intensely magnified in contrast to the heartwarming, grittiness of the drama of an American occupied, post-war Japan.

And there are some wonderful nods to the franchise too, especially the original film. For instance, there’s a device which appears to me to be a version of the famous Oxygen Destroyer from the first movie and in one sequence of gripping rampage, the iconic shot where Godzilla starts chewing on the train carriages is replicated but given a new spin too, as one of the main protagonists is aboard the train and finds a way to narrowly survive that experience.

And it’s just brilliant. The film has a lot of heart and the human drama and the story of the various characters is, as I said, the main focus here, punctuated with appearances of the title monster when appropriate. Godzilla is not a character you’ll be rooting for here either. Like in the very first couple of movies, he’s very much the villain of the piece and you will want to see him stopped by whatever means possible.

And the musical score by Naoli Satô is brilliant too. I am hoping this gets a CD release because it’s phenomenal, not just in the nods back to the original franchise... although speaking of that...

By about three quarters of an hour into the movie, I was assuming we wouldn’t be hearing any of original Godzilla composer Akira Ifukube’s music interwoven into the film which, I was almost disappointed by but, honestly, the film was working so well without it, I really didn’t mind. Except, no it’s here, they just make you wait for it with some cunningly spotted sequences, bringing in the first of Ifukube’s themes for a big Godzilla moment and then, later, bringing in the full Godzilla march during a climactic action sequence. Talking of which... the leitmotif for the march seems almost twisted around this time. It’s not so much scoring the majesty of the creature... more it’s scoring the rag tag band of humans who have come out to fight Godzilla and it becomes their heroic fanfare, of a sorts. But it works very well in this capacity, I must say.

One last thing... given the trials and struggles of the lead characters leading up to the end of the film, I was surprised that the finish of the story was quite so optimistic. Two things happened which, well I won’t say I didn’t see them coming, they were always a possibility and certainly didn’t surprise me... but they did almost disappoint me in their fall back on Hollywood style optimism and hope for the future. That being said, I don’t begrudge the audience the almost impossibly happy ending the film has and, yeah, it’s not really a complaint either.

Bottom line is, I absolutely loved Godzilla Minus One and, as I said, I think it’s the best one yet. I hope this gets a sequel set in the same period following some of the same characters, for sure. Go and see this one at a cinema, is my advice. Kaiju Eiga fans will not want to miss this one on a big screen.

The Cthulhu Stories of Robert E. Howard

Necro Crom Icon

The Cthulhu Stories
of Robert E. Howard
Edited by Paul Di Filippo
Word Fire Press ISBN:  9781680570984

If you are into H. P. Lovecraft you’ll know that his most famous legacy, a common thread running through many of his stories recalling ancient, tentacle, aggressive God-like creatures known in its various guises as Chtulhu... was not just something that Lovecraft wrote himself. He freely gave friends and correspondents licence to also reference this, sometimes somewhat tenuous thematic tentacle, in their own writings... often published in similar pulp magazines as Lovecraft’s own tales. So you had people like August Derleth and, I believe, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch and Fritz Leiber. One of these writers and pen pals was the late, great Robert E. Howard, who would be best remembered for his tales of his Cimmerian barbarian Conan, not to mention such characters as Solomon Kane and Kull The Conqueror. And it’s some of his stories which feature, rather tenuously I should add, in terms of this selection at least (I hear there are many other examples of his tales with Cthulhu elements) in the volume The Cthulhu Stories of Robert E. Howard, which was published a couple of years ago.

Now, I am mostly only familiar with Howard's Conan and Kane stories so I was very pleased to have this. As it is, there is a lot of stuff in here which I find oblique in terms of accessing even the sometimes hard to pin down Cthulhu element of Lovecraft’s tales and I have to warn you that if you are expecting horror stories full of madness and creeping dread... well, there are a few of those but there are also a lot of other things which are less likely to make you think of one of Lovecraft’s slithering horrors. For instance, I’d read one of the tales in this tome before... a Kull story called The Shadow Kingdom, in an equally unlikely tome for it to be collected in... a complete Conan in Weird Tales collection (reviewed here). The most this and, a fair amount of the other twelve tales joining it in this collection, has in common with the spirit of Cthulhu is maybe a brief reference to an ancient alien race, perhaps originating from the stars. Some of the stories will make more pointed references to Lovecraft creations such as Dagon and the demonic book known as The Necronomicon and, yeah, others have almost no tenuous grip on the subject at hand, it seemed to me. There are, however, a few tales which are absolutely fitting  in with the spirit and atmosphere of the tales and, as you would expect, Howard has his own way of doing things...

The editor makes the point, in his introduction, that Howard’s version of this ‘horror brand’ is less likely to result in the descent into madness for his main protagonists... Howard being someone who would have his characters meet the lurking dread in a less passive and more heroic manner. Indeed, by way of an example, there is a ‘round robin’ collaborative story near to the end of this volume which was issued as a challenge to some writers from Fantasy Magazine. The story is called The Challenge From Beyond and it’s started off by C. L. Moore and the writers A. Merritt, H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard and Frank Belknap Long all add excerpts of the story as a chain to bring it to a conclusion...

It’s interesting to note that the authors of the piece really don’t do too much to hide their own style and although the story certainly gets from point A to B, the small chapters all seem to have a different energy to them. Once Moore has set things up and Merritt further has the main character’s mind transformed through the power of a well worn, black stone cube... we get to Lovecraft’s section where the whole thing is turned to absolute bleak terror and a fate worse than death for the main protagonist as he finds his mind swapped across the cosmos with an alien creature, with absolutely no hope of returning to his body. But then Howard comes in and suddenly, the hero is pretty happy with his lot because he is in an alien body with a human thinking mind and, taking just a shard of rock, overpowers the various aliens on their own world and becomes their God. So, yeah, not a passive madness but a conquering spirit for sure. What really annoyed me about this story, however, is that the year before I read a book called The Complete Fiction of H. P Lovecraft (reviewed here) and this tale certainly wasn’t included... how the heck is that complete then?

And it’s a hit and miss affair, as you would expect but there are certainly some things of note. For instance, Howard uses a black, monolithic stone to run a common thread between some of his unrelated tales and there’s more than one story in here which has people transformed from his present day in the 1930s and back to ancient times to have an adventure, before returning to their modern day guise. One of these is actually, although people may want to argue with me on this (and I don’t care), a Conan story. People Of The Dark was written a month or so before the first of Howard’s more widely acknowledged Conan tales and tells of a man who, on his way to murder a rival in love with a pistol, gets magically transported back to ancient times at the same location and spins a tale which is a metaphor for the one going on simultaneously in the 1930s. Granted it’s all told from the first person but much if it is told by the barbarian character Conan who also, of course, invokes his God Crom. So, frankly, I don’t know why this isn’t included in collections of the Conan stories just because it’s considered by some a prototype (perhaps even by Howard himself) because it seems pretty plain to me.

And talking of Conan, there’s even reference in another story in here, again set in more contemporary times to when it was written, where the black ring of one Thoth-amon is invoked. So, yeah, there are Conan references in these tales as well as the Lovecraftian mentions.

Now, in the 1970s, I remember there were one or more story collections which were basically tales of different Howard characters that were transformed, by unscrupulous publishers who shall not be named here, by changing the character and location names to ones found in the Conan tales and reprinted as Conan stories. I believe the story in this collection entitled The Gods of Bal-Sagoth may indeed have been a victim of this practice at some point over the decades... and possibly more than one of the tales in this story may have been further transformed, perhaps.

There are some other tales which almost seem like dry runs for Conan stories by Howard here too... as you might expect. More than one story included here is a little close in structure or idea to existing Conan tales which may have come later and, certainly, the tale here entitled Worms Of The Earth, which tells a tale of Bran Mak Morn, the king of the Picts... and his vengeance unleashed on certain agents of the Roman army, seemed to me to bear a striking structural similarity, in a much simpler and less round about form, to Howard’s one and only Conan novel, The Hour Of The Dragon, if I’m not mistaken. I can see where he may have built on the idea at play in this tale.

My favourite story in this collection, however, has little to do with Cthulhu. It’s called Skull Face and it’s obviously been ‘inspired’ by Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu stories, if Fu Manchu was called Skull Face and was a hideous, resurrected Egyptian sorcerer mummy. Starting in the opium dens of Limehouse, the main protagonist actually starts off as a henchman, of sorts, owing the titular character the debt of his life but, soon, the beauty of an oriental girl and the heroism of another character inspire him to attempt to kick his hashish habit and team up against the atrophied but powerful, demonic wizard. It’s one of the longer stories in this volume but certainly the jewel in the crown, as far as I’m concerned. Although, I did find it interesting that, in another story called The Fire Of Asshurbanipal, the two adventurous heroes have to avoid looking at a demonic manifestation causing destruction around them to their enemies, much like the climax of Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

And that’s about it from me on this one. The Cthulhu Stories of Robert E. Howard is a handsome tome with a beautiful cover (on the hardback at least) depicting a Cthulhu terror and, on the wraparound, a man fleeing for his life as it doggedly pursues him. The tales are not all nearly Cthulhu enough, for my liking, for the tome to use such a title but, it doesn’t really matter all that much as it’s a fine collection and Howard is as good a writer when he’s telling tales that don’t involve his famous Cimmerian, as when he’s depicting the Hyborian Age. Definitely worth a read and some space on your bookshelf if you are a Robert E. Howard fan, for sure.

Doctor Who - The Giggle

52 Card Split

Doctor Who - The Giggle
Airdate: 9th December 2023
BBC

Warning: Spoilers right from the outset.

Ha! I totally called it... and have been amongst a few people for several months now at least. Wish I’d have written it in last week’s blog and backed myself more (goes back to check last week’s blog to make sure I didn't)...

Oh... okay... it turns out I did, actually.

Okay... well in that case... it needs repeating. So here’s a sentence from the last paragraph to my review of the Doctor Who episode Wild Blue Yonder (reviewed here) from last Sunday...

“Kinda half looking forward to next week’s show but not happy that Tennant will be leaving it then... if indeed he does and they don’t pull a ‘split regeneration’ on the audience, so they can ‘have their cake and eat a spin off series’ too.”

So, yeah, they totally went there. And, truth be told, I was both happy and disappointed with this direction at the same time. Happy because I’m sure the adventures of David Tennant's incarnation of The Doctor can carry on having adventures in a spin off series... probably one of the spin offs the BBC have been touting for the last year... but disappointed that this in some way dilutes the show for the next... sorry... split generation Doctor played by Ncuti Gatwa. Not that I thought he was a great debut in the role but... okay, getting ahead of myself again.

So, The Giggle... good and bad stuff in this week’s episode but mostly bad. Now, when Russell T. Davies had the reigns of the show before there was always the odd bad episode but, mostly I loved around 99% of his tenure on the show. So... I’m finding his decisions less likeable this time around and this episode was, for me, the worst of the new batch of three. So...

Okay, good things...

The opening in Soho in 1925 was good and I especially liked some of the eerie, surreal terrors found in the episode... such as the puppet babies trying to eat Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) which seemed, to me, to be lifted straight out of the original Barbarella movie... but with less blood. Still sinister though and I enjoyed the whole sequence in that room a lot. I bet that gives some of the kiddies nightmares, for sure.

And it was great to see Bonnie Langford as Mel again... although her inclusion seemed a little pointless, it had to be said. As far as anything in a work of fiction could be said to be pointless. But she was really great in this and I loved hearing about what became of Sabalom Glitz (died tripping over a whisky bottle... I’m sure the late Tony Selby would have loved that) and, also, I was pleased when Ncuti Gatwa mentioned Logopolis... one of my favourite Tom Baker stories.

Okay... the bad.

I don’t know who the heck Neil Patrick Harris is but he did a good job as a Doctor Who villain. Just not a good job as The Celestial Toymaker who, if memory serves, didn’t leap around that energetically and try to channel Joel Gray’s Master Of Ceremonies from Cabaret (which seemed so blatant to me that I can only assume it was a deliberate riff on that character) back when Michael Gough played him in the 1960s. That being said, I’ve only been following the show properly for 53 of its 60 years so, I’m not exactly an expert on it like some people are. But good on Harris from making a good job of what was written... just didn’t buy that writing, to be honest.

Generally, it felt like less was at stake because everything was just ‘made up’ all the time too, without limits. Although, the story about The Toymaker shrinking down The Master and putting him inside his gold tooth was a neat trick for bringing The Master back... I assume everyone spotted that his tooth remained and an unknown hand picked it up after The Toymaker had winked out of existence? A bit like Ming's ring at the end of the Flash Gordon movie.

Okay... not many surprises. My one surprise was when Tennant started dying and I really thought they might let that cash cow go a second time... except, nope, first ever (according to the writing) split regeneration brought about, to my mind, for all the wrong reasons, I reckon. It felt like a gimmick to hang onto future David Tenant ratings in a spin off series ‘cash grab’ rather than a genuine plot point to be honest. So was a little bit disappointed to tell you the truth (and I say that with the background that Tennant is my third, all time favourite Doctor... following closely behind Troughton and Pertwee).

Oh and.... ‘first split regeneration’ kinda but... it’s not without precedent in the show. Russell T. Davies already regenerated The Tenth Doctor’s severed arm and made a new Doctor from that (albeit a mortal one... which makes much more sense as a story thread to pursue since, you know, Tennant ages in real life) during his reign in the show. Yeah, I know it’s kinda different but... it’s also kinda the same.

Now then, the elephant in the room. I was somewhat underwhelmed by the way Ncuti Gatwa played The Doctor to be honest, “love”. Lots of confidence but coming off as a bit too full of himself somehow... which I didn’t expect actually. I was expecting to like the new guy right from the start because RTD has been saying some good things about him and, also, I know he’s already starting shooting his second season so... I’m guessing the producers are confident enough in him to pull in the ratings. But, you know, it’s very early days for this incarnation of the character so, if you felt the same way as me about him... I would caution you and say, let him settle into the role and we’ll see what he’s really like. I’m kinda hoping to be blown away by both him and also RTD again at some point soon. So, let’s not jinx it, right?

One last thing... no explanation has been given as to why Jodie Whitaker’s regeneration into David Tennant had the costume regenerate with her/him this time around... for the first time ever in the show. A friend showed me a quote from RTD saying he didn’t want to have Tennant in female clothes because it mocked ‘drag culture’ or some such rubbish. My friend also went on to point out that Jodie was wearing a pretty gender neutral costume anyway and she agreed with my less than elegant response to such a terrible decision. Either way though, it still doesn't explain why, in the world of Timelord physics, The Doctor’s clothes suddenly changed with him instead of just The Doctor... thus destroying all verisimilitude within the show. Not to mention, why did Gatwa’s new Doctor emerge from Tennant’s body with half a costume on? It makes absolutely no sense and, I’m sorry, if you’re going to pull such ridiculous nonsense on an audience, at least come up with a reasonable explanation of it within the world of the show. It just makes the writing feel a bit amateurish, to be honest. Like nobody actually really cares about the world of Doctor Who.

And I think that’s me about done on this one but, while I’m at it... The Giggle was my least favourite, by a long chalk, of the three new 60th Anniversary specials but, honestly, although I kinda liked the first one and quite enjoyed the second one... I thought that, all in all, this was not the way you celebrate a Doctor Who anniversary. Sorry to be a bit of a stick in the mud and probably a little bit old school (no, just old... yeah, I know) but I want a lot more old companions and a lot more Doctors teaming up together to save the universe from an extinction level event in this kind of celebration. I thought the two 50th anniversary shows... The Day Of The Doctor (reviewed here) and the original cut (don’t get me started) of An Adventure In Space And Time (reviewed here) were hands down ten times better than these ones... so, yeah, bit frustrated by the lack of celebratory goodness here. Not to mention the absence of a stand alone Radio Times special celebrating sixty years of the show (I still have my 10th Anniversary Special with Jon Pertwee on the cover).

So, yeah, more than a little underwhelmed and I am not really looking forward to the new Christmas special, to be honest. But, yeah, of course I’m going to watch it and I hope it proves way better than I am expecting. As always, I’ll let you know my thoughts about it here... probably on December 26th, I would think.

Opening The Cage: A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin

A Lizard But
Taller, In London*

Opening The Cage:
A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin
Written by Keri O’Shea
Warped Perspective No ISBN

Just a very quick shout out to Keri O’Shea’s new monograph, Opening The Cage: A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin. I have to admit, I bought this one thinking it would be another modern take on one of my favourite gialli which I would probably disagree with and ultimately become enraged by but, how often do you see a dedicated study on Lucio Fulci’s A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin? So I plonked down my money and received my copy a very quick two days later, accompanied by a brief note by the author thanking me for my support (I always love it when that happens.... it’s just a shame she didn’t sign the copy too).

And I have to say, I was quite joyfully surprised by this one when I started to read. I mean, okay yeah, if I ever sat with this lady in a pub there might be possibly be some slight disagreement in the difference in genre between giallo and horror in cinema but, honestly, this was a refreshing, intelligent look at the movie through none of the obfuscating prisms... nor, indeed, the usual paths I was expecting from modern film criticism.

I mean, if you’re looking for an in depth look at how the film was made or marketed etc then you are possibly at the wrong venue. What we have here instead, is an analysis of the film which goes into other areas less well travelled. And where the thing does stray to make its point, it does so in a very thorough manner and, perhaps my appreciation of this particular work on the subject comes from the fact that the writer is, indeed, taking me into areas where I don’t have nearly as much knowledge as she... so I was always going to find this one interesting, at the very least. But this isn’t “the very least”... it’s so much more.

For instance, the chapter entitled A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin And The Curious Death Of The Age Of Aquarius is one of many chapters highlighting the two ‘LSD blinded hippie witnesses’ in the movie but explains how the films main protagonist...and, okay yeah, spoiler warning, don’t read on if you’ve not seen the movie... antagonist, played by Florinda Bolkan, rejects the hippies as a negative factor (whilst obviously embracing some of their lifestyle for at least a little of the movie, in her recent back story) and how this is filtered from Lucio Fulci’s own attitudes towards them and their falling out of favour with the world after incidents like the Manson Murders. Indeed, the next chapter entitled We’re Not In Wonderland Anymore, Alice gives a good background on Manson and his followers, as other chapters veer off into such fascinating subjects as LSD and various locations in London where the movie was shot (I learned that some of it was also shot in Italy, doubling for London, which I didn’t realise before).

Above and beyond the high quality of the writing and the thought behind it, the whole book is presented well too. Starting off with the famous poster image on the front cover of Leslie McRay... who wasn’t even in the film but modelled for the advertising (see my review of The Female Bunch here for more details)... the book is really well designed and put together as an attractive package featuring lots of colour photos. Admittedly, the section on Fulci’s burgeoning interest in art and his use of it in the movie could have used a few illustrations of the paintings in question and, yeah, there are just a couple of pages where legibility and readability are slightly threatened by the colours on the underlays but, I can’t complain because the whole thing hangs together really well and just looks fantastic!

And I even learned a new word and now know what Cruention is so, yeah, the book is certainly informative in ways I wasn’t expecting it to be, too. All in all then, Opening The Cage: A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin is a very positive read on aspects of one of my favourite Fulci films that are often not considered and this one clearly demonstrates how various writers can bring their own, very valid spin to things. If you’re into the movie then I’d say snap this one up while you can. Copies can be ordered direct from the publishers at https://warped-perspective.com/index.php/shop/

 *Yeah, if you can work out that pun title... you're really good. ;-)

Chinatown Kid

Frisco Fu Fighters

Chinatown Kid
aka Tang ren jie xiao zi
Hong Kong 1977
Directed by Cheh Chang
Shaw Brothers/Celestial Pictures
Arrow Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Spoilers in this one.

Chinatown Kid is the eighth of the films presented in Volume One of Arrow Films ShawScope Blu Ray boxed edition and, like all but a couple of the films included in this box, it’s a first time watch from me. There are two very tonally different versions of the film presented here, the slightly happier ending 90 minute version and the darker, more shades of gray original cut, lasting almost two hours and with a much less optimistic ending (if either ending could said to be optimistic).

The film follows two characters, the primary being main lead Sheng Fu as Tan Tung. Now, I’ve seen Sheng Fu in a number of films in this set and I’ve quite warmed to his mischievous on screen personality and Beatles style mop top... so I was sad to learn, in one of the extras presented here that, at the height of his career and happily married to singing sensation Jenny (who also co-stars in Chinatown Kid), he died in a car crash at the age of 28, in the same period as he was filming The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter... a film I’ve not seen as yet but, when I watch it, if I notice his character suddenly dropping out of the narrative, well, at least I now know the reason why.

This film follows him getting in trouble in Hong Kong by basically helping somebody out and then having to exit the country hastily, after he is framed for drug possession and the police are after him. He flees Hong Kong, heading for a destination that we also see his co-star Chien Sun as Yang Chien-wen also go to.  Yang comes from a completely different class background, having won a scholarship to study abroad. So they both pitch up in San Francisco, where cinema marquees for such famous pornographic films as Deep Throat and The Devil In Miss Jones act as a perfect time capsule of the era.

The two co-stars meet and get illegal immigrant jobs in a restaurant but when Tan, who is very much the focus of the film, keeps getting into trouble defending people using his Kung Fu skills... he eventually finds himself out of work and out on the streets. However, the combination of his blind naivete and wanting to help people out means he’s suddenly working for one of the king pin bosses of Chinatown, going from rags to extreme riches in a matter of weeks. However, when he finds out his boss is actively involved in drug dealing, he then sets out to destroy that trade. It’s lots of ‘to’ing and ‘fro’ing through a moral minefield as Tan constantly strives to do the right thing and is constantly getting himself into more trouble every time he falls into the trap of helping people. Indeed, as the movie goes on, various people who he’s helped, then reject his friendship and he even finds himself at odds with Yang after a while.

The film has it’s fair share of fight scenes where Sheng Fu gets to show off his formidable martial arts skills, facing off against some opponents who seem to be almost as good as him. Occasionally, like in the big fight at the end of the picture, he fights side by side with Chien Sun, when Chien’s character finally understands just how Tan has been secretly helping him... by funding his studies with his fat cat gangster money.

And it’s an interesting film regarding the morality of the characters portrayed. In terms of the various gangland factions throughout the movie, there are no good guys. Everyone is either the ‘bad guy’ or the ‘not quite as bad guy’ but, of course, by the end of the film, even the slightly less sinister gang turns out to be just another bunch of ruthless criminals. The only real innocents in the movie are the two male leads... Tan due to his ignorance, naivete and loyalty to people and Yang, out of a sense of wanting to keep up with his studies (which leads him to drugs to stay awake to study after a long shift at work). And, as I said, it’s a nice time capsule movie too... I mean, how many films are there where the corrupted, innocent hero gets involved with the wrong people due to his desire to own a digital watch? Indeed, it’s a sign of the times and also a nice comment on the character that, when he is dying from his wound in the final scene (he’s just arrested in the shorter version), he tries to give Yang his digital watch as an ultimate symbol of their friendship.

And that’s me done on Chinatown Kid. It’s refreshing to see a Kung Fu filled Shaw Brothers movie actually set in times contemporary to when it was made. I mean, okay, The Mighty Peking Man (reviewed here) was, for sure but... yeah... that wasn’t a martial arts movie. I can see how pictures like this might have influenced the next generation of film directors and certainly, for instance, John Woo... who was an assistant director at Shaw Brothers in the late 1960s. So yeah, a funky score (excluding the terrible title song at the start, which Tan is forever quoting the lyrics from throughout the movie) of needle dropped cues from the De Wolf library, a chunk of which are included on one of the two accompanying soundtrack albums in Arrows mighty ShawScope Volume One box set and, even a dagger disguised as a belt buckle... make this a lively and fun watch. Worth a look.