TTA mags

New issues from TTA Press are out now...


Interzone #249 includes my regular 'Laser Fodder' column of DVD & blu-ray reviews. Here's the line-up with ratings:

Ikarie XB-1 (7/10)
Lifeforce (8/10)
Grimm - season 2 (6/10)
Dr Mabuse, The Gambler (7/10)
The Night Of The Hunter (5/10)
Pacific Rim (8/10)
Under The Dome (6/10)








Black Static #37 has my latest ''Blood Spectrum' review-column. This month, I'm looking at a batch of 21 titles:

The Body (6/10)
Byzantium (8/10)
No One Lives (7/10)
The Walking Dead - season 3 (6/10)
Only God Forgives (8/10)

    RetroGasm
Squirm (6/10)
The Mummy (4/10)
The Wicker Man: Final Cut (6/10)
Halloween (8/10)
The Witches (5/10)
Creepshow (7/10)
The Fury (6/10)
The Headless Ghost (3/10)
Pin (6/10)
The People Under The Stairs (7/10)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - part 2 (7/10)

    Tolerable Cruelty: Round-up
The Last Exorcism - part II
All Superheroes Must Die
I Spit On Your Grave 2
The Disco Exorcist
Thanatomorphose 

Pleased to get my name on the covers again!

Holmes

At first, I was a bit sceptical about Elementary... 

By making Dr Watson female (just a gender-switch gimmick?), and Sherlock a troubled junkie in recovery, have they changed the characters too much? 

No, I found this TV show really works as a refreshingly contemporary updating of the classic detective franchise. Far more than just a formulaic variation of Monk meets Lie To Me, this crime drama set in New York revitalises the iconic Holmes and Baker Street lore in ways that the BBC series Sherlock  largely failed to achieve. 

Entertaining as comedy (without ever lapsing into sitcom mode), and winningly effective as psychological character study, Elementary is appealing and fun as mystery, and - at halfway point through the superb season one - I'm enjoying this DVD boxset a lot more than any other TV 'cop show' that I have seen recently.         

WC4

Weng's Chop #4

Weird genre movies zine Weng's Chop #4 includes my comments on the best of Lucio Fulci, in a 'geek round-table' feature about House By The Cemetery... 

WC4 boasts an impressive and eclectic range of content, with articles on Larry Cohen, SyFy movies, Sonny Chiba, interviews with the likes of Tim Doyle (who did the cover artwork), a section of columns featuring writing by Steve Bissette, and many pages of reviews - covering at least 50 films you have never seen, and probably a dozen or more that you've never heard of before!  

Order this issue from: CreateSpace.There's also a choice of covers available. Just search the site for Weng's Chop to see art options.

BS 36

Black Static #36 (Sept. - Oct. 2013) arrived, yesterday. This issue has my latest rants and raves about horror on blu-ray and DVD. Here's the line-up, with ratings, for my 'Blood Spectrum' column:

The Car (7/10)
The Returned (6/10)
Escape (6/10)
Possession (9/10)
Dark Skies (5/10)
The Last Will And Testament Of Rosalind Leigh (4/10)
Evil Dead - remake (5/10) 
The Moth Diaries (5/10)
Dead Sushi (5/10)
The Fall Of The House Of Usher (6/10) 

     Debris Fields: round-up
Apocalypse Z (1/10) 
A Field In England (0/10)
Little Deaths (2/10)
The Seasoning House (3/10)
Deranged (2/10)
Into The Dark (2/10) 

     Afternoon update... 
Interzone #248 just arrived. This issue features my 'Laser Fodder' column of blu-ray/ DVD reviews.
The sci-fi and fantasy coverage includes movies and TV, and here's my ratings:

Defiance - season 1 (4/10)
The Host (3/10) 
Blancanieves (0/10)
Pi (4/10) 
Oblivion (3/10)
Space Battleship Yamato (5/10) 
Olympus Has Fallen (6/10)
The Four (7/10)

Helicopter blues

Model helicopters in blue... I collect them because I'm very keen on helicopters in movies and TV (see my unique website RotaryAction.com), and blue is my favourite colour. To me, these models are cooler than a freezer full of ice-cream. This is the most expensive one I've bought so far: Blue Thunder, a diecast model based upon the modified Aerospatiale SA-341 Gazelle seen in John Badham's techno-thriller Blue Thunder, and its follow-up TV series.

Blue Thunder model by Organic (Japan).

The model is 1:32 scale and produced in Japan by Organic's dream machine project. Blue Thunder is certainly the most iconic helicopter in cinema, especially with its sci-fi dimension as a stealthy urban surveillance platform with limited capabilities as a gunship. The model's geeky qualities include rotors that turn, a swivelling and tilting front-cannon, and a removable cockpit canopy to view the cabin's interior detailing. There's a pilot figure, but no back-seat observer. Of course, it's an exquisite scale model, not a toy, and so many of the plastic parts are very fragile. The model comes with a long black plinth, but it can also be displayed without any stand, on its own landing skids. In my cabinet it shares pride of place with the 1:48 model of Airwolf (made by SGM-08).

The model Gazelle that I have is only a small 1:70 scale but, as it's a French helicopter I wanted this vintage red one for contrast, and because it was actually made in France by Majorette.     

I don't own one of the smaller and older 'Blue Thunder' collectables (made by Ertl, I think), but I do have a Matchbox 'Mission Helicopter' in a blue finish (they produced several different colours), which is quite obviously copied from Blue Thunder.

Collectors of diecast stuff might also like the Hot Wheels toy 'Sky Knife' - clearly inspired by the 

likes of Blue Thunder and other helicopter names such as Airwolf.