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)

Miserables

Les Misérables

More than just a typically stilted musical in a period setting, and certainly better than Tim Burton’s black comedy horror Sweeney Todd (which also featured the always wonderful Helena Bonham Carter), this is a grandly cinematic adventure, a saga of surviving the hardships of poverty and finding a heart-warming redemption in coldly unsympathetic society of 19th century France. Russell Crowe is a sturdy presence as Javert, even when he’s not on-screen, and there is a great supporting performance from the talented Anne Hathaway as Fantine, easily vaulting far higher (like Catwoman meets Wolverine!), from the emotional depths of her blameless downfall than the lesser scales attained by Hugh Jackman’s weaker voice and acting ability as Valjean. Amanda Seyfried’s typical spectacularly-elfin glamour is subdued for her pivotal role as Cosette as “the pain goes on and on” for broken lives and failures in this longwinded retelling of an already familiar story of tragedy and misery. But, at the end of the day, I must admit that Billie August’s 1998 version, played - much less hysterically - as straightforward historical crime drama, remains a superior entertainment. The blu-ray is out now, and it looks and sounds great.

Ironic chancellor

I woke up with all this rattling around in my headache, so it’s as much a satirical rant as political commentary.

Why this man is a fool -->

Shark-boy

Campaigners for the separation of church and state often miss the point. It’s not just the encumbrance of traditional religions, and lobbying by modern cults, that hinder social progress; it’s also the many and varied, but all misguided, attempts to manage economies on national or global scales. Economics is simply another belief system, not a practical science. Consequently, there is no good news on political fronts, and I doubt there will be, unless the people demand/ enforce some radical social changes.    

Ministers in government can trace their jobs back to positions in the imperial system.The current Chancellor of the Exchequer probably thinks his job can be traced back to a royal treasurer for kings and queens, but he’s actually a modern version of the court jester. In popular mythology, King Canute became his own ‘fool’ when he seemed to believe that his royal blood granted him some kind of magical authority over the waves. Since tides are prompted by the Moon, what ‘delusional’ Canute really needed was anti-gravity technology.

That famous misquote: ‘the business of America is business’ no longer holds true, in any sense, because America itself seems no longer to be a nation, it’s just a business. Now, it's just too late to be an optimist.

Meanwhile, some notes for a hopeless manifesto:

For the 21st century, government needs inspired leaders not jobsworth managers. Of the currently elected officials, none are capable to solving the problems of a corrupted economic system. The political tools might well already exist, but the will to use them is not there. We need a new political system, and a social contract with a global reach. Something based on secular principles of a ‘united world’, not just a United Nations. Is it any wonder the dream of utopia (as process not destination) is lost?

Wild beasts

On the Mississippi delta, there’s a post–Katrina disaster area where levees are so broken that “everything beautiful is gone.” Indie hit Beasts Of The Southern Wild is a picture maintaining legends of a noble primitivism that glorifies political and cultural stagnation. This is Sundance bait with a deeply romanticised ‘plot’ of irrational nonsense. It presents us with a defiant sensibility so keen to stress the importance of feelings, as if logical thought holds no sway or relevance, that overdose on folksy hippie sentimentality seems a likely response to its worst moments of backwoods charm, all seemingly inspired by the worst pretensions of magical realism.

Helicopters pass overhead, appearing as far away as comets, and no more in touch with the plight of the protagonists below their flight path. If taken on face value, this has some marvellous fantasy images but it has all been created in the service of third world survivalism without hope of progress. Being content with less is portrayed here as hardly one step above blissful ignorance. Living in squalid flooded slums with nothing at all worth having is not the ultimate in spiritual freedom, despite this movie’s exploration of bohemian dreams. A compassionate humanity in a perfect kind of balance with feral nature must be far more than just a commune of scavengers (or tribal ‘beasts’), southern or otherwise.

New monsters

Monster movies used to be taken seriously, whether creature antagonists were oversized beasts, farfetched chimeras, or weird fantasy chosen from legend to menace the present day. Even in comedy–action treatments of the subgenre, like Tremors, there may well be a strong element of disgust (such as body horror). 

One way to almost certainly ensure grimly sombre reactions from viewers is to put children in peril, but Irish flick Grabbers fails to strengthen its appeal with any coldly fiendish moments. It succumbs to complete irreverence and plays out as a pub night siege, with a bunch of stereotypically characters pitted against a Lovecraftian yet frivolously weak invader.

Directed by Jon Wright (Tormented), its efficiently cartoonish presentation means there is no overt sense of dread, in spite of some grotesque imagery for the aliens. Grabbers can be fun, if watched as lightweight cross–genre fare, but it remains only modestly successful as a throwaway monsterama sitcom; something like Father Ted meets Slither.

 

Nowadays, of course, slithering up from the downmarket regions of parodic threats to humankind, an overabundance of straight absurdity has emerged, and the trend for silly mutant hybrids like Sharktopus continues in Jim Wynorski’s utterly farcical Piranhaconda. 

This is a tepid actioner, where a crew making a tacky horror movie on location in Hawaii are violently interrupted by a ‘real’ terror: part snake, part fish, all CGI. There is a pair of them and they do not get along. Gangsters act out a routine kidnapping sideshow to keep guest star Michael Madsen amused, so his heroic professor won’t simply collect his paycheque and wander off, muttering about a regrettable downturn for his career in genre pictures. 

Of course, this is not actually a ‘proper’ movie; it is just the punch–line for a childish joke: what is huge, and yellow and black, and swallows human prey whole - leaving only a red mist of arterial spray? It is a fairly typical example of the low–budget art of trash movies, today, and simply an accessory (and could or should be a free gift), when you buy beer and popcorn.

 

Lens flare

Since when did lens flare become trendy for cinematography in blockbuster movies?   

Enterprise... oh, shiny!

J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot was the first big screen movie that overused lens flare for its live-action scenes aboard the Enterprise, and the constantly over-lit and blurry images proved to be so irritating it spoiled the whole movie. It did not present us with a brighter future, or some kind of spontaneous and organic creativity, it only looked far too amateurish to be taken seriously. 

Vulcan death rays

Abrams continued his apparent fascination with the visual noise of lens flare in the supposedly down-to-earth adventure Super 8, and it resulted in a terribly annoying train wreck of a movie. His malign influence on TV series Fringe is also noticeable, with a detrimental effect on the camera work.

Super 8 train wreck

Len Wiseman’s Total Recall is another remake that abuses viewers’ eyesight with its ridiculous glare from both on– and off–screen lighting. Many scenes are rendered all but unwatchable by streaks of whiteness that obscure details, and negate any sense of space within the frame. 

Total mood-lighting failure

Is it stylish? I certainly don’t think so. Babylon 5 used lens flare so that computer-generated scenes of the orbiting habitat, and varied starships, might appear as if they were filmed with actual cameras. It made a kind of sense… at the time. It could be perceived as a clever visual, even if it was not always artistically valid in frequent repetition. A similar conceit was used for many of those digitally created space battles in the BSG remake. Other movies troubled by a migraine blaze of lens flare include Michael Bay’s Transformers: Dark Of The Moon.

Blazing Transformers

CGI aside, lens flare is (of course) caused in actual cameras by light bouncing around inside the lens itself. The solution used by professional camera experts is to fit a hood on the lens. With recent big screen offerings that mess up clear views of expensive set designs, while also mistaking jittery handheld camera movement for real atmosphere, you might wonder if there is a shortage of lens hoods in Hollywood. I hope this stupid fad is over soon, but Abrams sequel Star Trek 2 is due soon, so I fear the worst is yet to come, and it’s been announced that Abrams will direct a new Star Wars feature.

Star Trek 2 - into the light!

Ultimately, lens flare is invalid as a subjective style or first–person–cinema technique simply because our eyes do not work like camera lenses. This futuristic dazzle for the look of sci-fi movies is so bright that we may have to squint to see anything at all.

Last Pioneer

Neil Armstrong (1930 – 2012)  

Man on the Moon

It’s difficult for me to write anything coherent about Neil Armstrong’s death. I have a memory of watching the Apollo 11 landing on TV (it was shortly after my eighth birthday), but iconic images of the Moon flights have been broadcast so often that now it is difficult to separate my childhood experience of seeing ‘history being made’, from all the repeats of it in so many documentaries - of the sort I have always been fascinated by. For me, the astronaut’s death feels like a very sad ending to a once promising era of possibility. The Apollo programme was the grandest achievement in history. Will our species ever do anything that great again?   

I always liked Ray Bradbury’s poetic quote about a race standing tall “across the Void, across the Universe and all?” Lately, I wonder if that will ever be us. Armstrong’s own words: ‘one small step for man… one giant leap for mankind” became immortal, but since that all-too-brief age of the greatest optimism, I have become a pessimist. The rocket scientists launch robotic probes to Mars but no manned flights. Armstrong is dead, and there is no Moonbase. There may be a thousand reasons why NASA space programmes of exploration were cancelled or afflicted by cutbacks in funding, but as this new, so frequently science fictionalised, century goes on I can’t see why the lack of effort continues. Has the first person to walk on Mars been born yet?

Today, it’s easy for Hollywood to make space movies about exciting missions to the planets and other stars, but it’s become harder than ever to imagine anything like that actually happening. What are we all waiting for? Was ‘ordinary superman’ Armstrong really the last of his kind?

SHIELD1

Since reading Bendis and Reed’s The New Avengers: Illuminati a couple or three years ago, I’ve been expecting a big epic historical conspiracy from Marvel, and here it is – SHIELD: Architects Of Forever by Jonathan Hickman and Dustin Weaver.

“This is not how the world ends” but it’s a splendid sci-fi/ fantasy romp spanning centuries, from Egypt to China, from 1950s New York to a secret city under Rome. It features Da Vinci as the first astronaut, a cyborg Tesla, and Nostradamus in a dungeon for 500 years. With Imhotep and Isaac Newton, Galactus and Howard Stark, and magic in the age of reason, this blends Dan Brown with 'Men in Black' and delivers tons of clever twists and surprises from its plotline about Earth’s immortal protectors.

Next on the reading pile is Future Foundation, Hickman’s take on the Fantastic 4.          

Assembly

I saw the Avengers movie, yesterday. This isn't a review (I shall wait for a release on disc before attempting a proper critical assessment), it's just a few general comments, and my initial reactions to a movie that I've waited decades to see…

Well, I liked it a lot! It's a great super-team adventure, but I'm not convinced (yet) that it is a real classic of genre cinema about comicbook heroes. I'd have to see it at least a couple of times more, to decide on whether it's an 8/10, or 9/10 (for effort), movie. Avengers Assemble managed to fulfil my expectations of it, but failed to surpass them. That said, Joss Whedon was faced with a quite impossible task - of pleasing fans of Marvel comics and followers of the franchise of recent movie productions, including Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America. 

The director and cast took it all seriously, but still made it good fun. Whedon's best movie to date is not in the same class as The Dark Knight, or Ang Lee's Hulk. Thankfully, however, the level of humour in Avengers Assemble is judged almost perfectly, throughout, with very few jokes at the expense of the characters, and no embarrassingly bad scenes that may have prompted me to cringe at slapstick or blatantly camp performances – of the sort we have seen before in The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, X-Men, and Iron Man movies.  

I don't much care for that poster, though, as I would prefer a proper artwork version, such as this one. I hope the movie is a huge success, and would like to see production planning for a sequel (or two), starting next year. I'd also really like to see an extended version of Avengers Assemble on blu-ray, perhaps before Xmas… Is that too much to ask?

TV choices

The last programme item that I went to at Olympus, was a panel about 'What do we want on TV?'

I'd prefer any genre anthology series - Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, etc. Want some originality and more diversity? That's what anthology TV does best. I'm sure we can all think of 100s of short stories that'd make good or even great TV episodes. Why viewers choose serialised storylines over standalone tales, I cannot figure out... Is the appeal of the familiar really that strong and comforting? Although the Twilight Zone revivals have been patchy in terms of quality, when it gets everything right - like Shatterday - it's brilliant entertainment.

Let's have the shock of the new with every episode, please. Bring back one or both of the big anthology shows! At the very least, they could be used as a proving ground for talented new scriptwriters, who can't sell their spec screenplays, but might be able to contribute something fresh and different to the on-going variety of such short-form TV productions.

Sunday

Bloody Sunday started after Newbury feeding time with a panel on 'Biology of the zombie apocalypse, where I was joined (in the long-walk-away room 12) by "world experts in necrological studies" Dr Bob, Rob Haines, and Bill Sellers, moderated by Tom Womack. I was the lowly horror movie geek amongst the boffins, as we tried to figure out what makes the undead shamble about in search of human flesh. The hour went by quickly and the panel was certainly a lot of fun to do. Miraculously, nobody mentioned the taste of chicken.

Just before 11am, I was rushing to the Green Room for a drink, before meeting fellow panellists Dev Agarwal, Martin Easterbrook, and Graham Sleight, with moderator Lapswood (Chad Dixon), for my third and last programme item '20-odd years of CGI'. This was a particularly interesting topic as we tried to highlight various/ best examples of digital animation used in two decades of movies.

At noon, I went to hear Paul F. Cockburn, Paul McAuley, Martin Andersson, and James Treadwell talking about the current 'Sequelitis' affecting Hollywood, but had to leave early because I needed a drink and wanted to visit Ian Sales' launch party for the Rocket Science anthology he's edited for Mutation Press. After lunch, I went to the panel on 'Scientists and the media' in the Commonwealth main hall, where David L. Clements was moderator for Caroline Mullan, Paul Cornell, Jennifer Delaney, and Marek Kukula. It was a very worthwhile panel, as was the next discussion group for 'the science of Rocket Science', with the book's editor Ian Sales, and contributors Iain Cairns, Deborah Walker, and Martin McGrath.

At teatime, I was back in the main hall for a lively panel on 'The nature of heroism' with two guests-of-honour: Tricia Sullivan and George R.R. Martin, plus author Joe Abercrombie, blogger Genevieve Valentine, and moderator David Anthony Durham. Sullivan and Martin were both great, although in disagreement. After Jessica Yates talk about 'Superhero comics, graphic novels and the films they inspired', I went to the panel on 'Fantasy in our time' where Edward James, Andy Sawyer, and James Treadwell, were moderated by Graham Sleight, for a discussion about the influence of Tolkien and Howard.

The busy evening continued wiith the programme item 'Death of the author' as Ian Whates moderated for Ian Watson, Tanya Brown, Roz Kaveney, and Adam Christopher, in a discussion of shared-worlds in fiction. As expected, Watson was hilarious in a 10-minute talk about his contribution to Warhammer 40K. I wasn't keen on 'Multicultural steampunk', anyway, so I left that panel item after listening to a few minutes of authors talking, somewhat defensively, about diversification in a subgenre that seems like a lamentable dead-end in SF. The night's programme was obviously winding down by 10pm, as only a couple of the panellists for 'Worst and best movies of the year' bothered to turn up for the discussion, which started late and seemed haphazard, and was a bit disappointing for me.

Saturday

After breakfast for Olympians, in the Brasserie (where the service is better than in Newbury rooms), I went to 'Ethics of AI' as first panel (at 10 am). Simon Bradshaw, Paul Cornell, Louise Dennis, and Lilian Edwards talked about whether machine sentience should have human rights, and if it's switched off by its creator - does that amount to a death sentence. I spent the rest of the morning looking around the art show, and the dealers room - where Roy was selling Black Static and Interzone, and assorted books.

My first panel, 'Superheroes in the movies' started at 1pm, I was joined by John Coxon, David Anthony Durham, Ian Millsted, and Jesscia Yates for wide-ranging discussion of the best, the worst, and the failures in adapting comicbooks for the screen. Of course, I got in a plug for my forthcoming book about Ang Lee's Hulk. It went quite well, I thought, but John disagreed with my criticisms of Samuel Jackson (who's become a parody of himself, nowadays), and 'the Hoff' (a campy cartoon, not an actor!), as Marvel's boss of SHIELD, Nick Fury.

Drinking through distractions, it was soon 4pm, and time for 'the Fantastic Landscape', a panel where Paul McAuley, Jaine Fenn, and Nina Allan, discussed literary examples of metropolis and forest. I also kept missing interesting stuff on the programme (where does the time go?) until 8pm, when 'Private road to space' was a particularly informative panel with Dev Agarwal (best moderator I've seen so far at this con), in charge of author Geoffrey A. Landis, and tech industry experts like John Bray, and Gerry (no last name).

Returning from the bar for umpteenth time today, I went to see Gaspode (John Medany) lead a review of 'Worst and best TV of the past year', with commentators Paul Dormer, Genevieve Valentine, and Carolina. It was interesting to hear about lots of genre telly that I haven't seen on DVD yet.

Olympus

OLYMPUS - SF convention
Arrived at noon on Friday, and found my room on 4th floor was ready, so that's an improvement on last year when I had tpo wait until after 2pm.

First programme item I went to was 'Is Europe winning the space race?', where the likes of David L. Clemments and Geoffrey A. Landis (plus two that I'd never heard of before) discussed options and projects which suggest ESA is outdoing the failing NASA... I think the biggest problems are politics and capitalism. Back in the 1960s, when America viewed its future in space as a human federation in Star Trek, it seemed the galaxy was just waiting for explorers and adventurers to colonise it. Nowadays, with numerous astro-ambitions cancelled and small-minded focus on profit-making, it seems that American society is not going to develop into Starfleet, after all. They are more likely to become the Ferengi.

'Pushing the boundaries of genre' in the same room, was a more lively panel, with Gillian Redfearn as moderator for the line-up of Paul Cornell, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Robert V.S. Redick, and Sophia McDougall. As expected, they seemed to reach agreement that marketing and branding rule the genre divisions.

Since I started the Female Archers in Movies & TV page on Facebook, I thought Mike Shevdon's talk about 'Archery in fantasy film & TV' would be interesting, and indeed it was. Video-clips from various movies demonstrated how stunts using bows and arrows often get it very wrong.

The 'opening ceremony' was a short introduction to the guests of honour and committee members, and the organisers should be commended for finishing the presentation in about 20 minutes, so we could all rush off to the bar.

Cory Doctorow's interview by Patrick Nielsen Hayden offered many fascinating and very entertaining insights into the author and his dotcom works.

After teatime, I went to 'Beyond Red Mars' item, were author Paul McAuley moderated the panel of writers Geoffrey A. Landis, Ian Whates, Gareth L. Powell, and Mary A. Turzillo, thorough a discussion of exploring the Solar system.

Beer was followed by a visit to the top-floor Room 42 to see the late night horror: Jesus Christ - Vampire Hunter, which proved too low-budget and wholly predictable, so I gave up watching it around midnight.

Anytime movies

A spectacularly successful time for genre cinema, the 1980s began with the likes of Altered States, Flash Gordon, and Scanners. The decade gave us three classic genre movies in 1982: Blade Runner, Carpenter’s The Thing, and Videodrome - all of which, for me, rank highly in a list of the very best pictures of all time. But there were many other favourites made in the 1980s: offbeat movies that are always watchable, and are well worth repeat viewings. They provide seemingly endless fun and I simply never get bored of seeing them again and again. They are ‘anytime movies’. They are problem solving choices when I cannot decide what else to watch.

They are resistant to easy pigeonholing or any strict categorisation. They are usually combinations of adventure, comedy, romance, and music, with plenty of action. They cannot easily be defined as one particular genre because they mix together sci-fi and fantasy or horror elements, blending themes and tropes without becoming bland. As they are made with plenty of good humour, all of these movies have memorable and quotable dialogue, which is part of what ensures their cult status.      

Each of these anytime movies is uniquely entertaining, and manages the clever trick of creating its own little universe for the screen. A great many other genre works also create unique worlds that are instantly engrossing, but anytime movies deliver some wonderful amusement and they never fail to be enjoyable viewing, no matter what sort of mood I am in at the time. They may not always be groundbreaking in their originality, and often draw upon an impressive variety of sources for inspiration, but they are all rule-breakers, shattering typical cinematic conventions and storytelling traditions with a subversive edginess or satirical intentions. Here’s a listing of my top five anytime movies…  

The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai:
Across The Eighth Dimension (1984)

Director: W.D. Richter

A comic-book pop culture masterpiece that’s partly inspired by Doc Savage: The Man Of Bronze (1975), and Invaders From Mars (1953), this stars Peter Weller as scientist and hero Buckaroo, whose fantastic ‘Team Banzai’ (played by Jeff Goldblum, Clancy Brown, and Lewis Smith) are fighting against a race of weird aliens, Lectroids from Planet 10, led by Dr Lizardo (John Lithgow). It’s fast-moving and wildly imaginative, and set in a world of half-reality where “Nothing is ever what it seems, but everything is exactly what it is.”     

Big Trouble In Little China (1986)

See my review on VideoVista archive.

Director: John Carpenter 

Heathers (1989)

Director: Michael Lehmann

Slick black comedy about a couple of teenagers on a killing spree, this is a witty spoof attacking everything wrong with modern American society and culture. Although it’s centred on a doomed high school, the murderous misadventures of new girl Veronica (Winona Ryder), and the psycho antics of her eager accomplice J.D. (Christian Slater in a career-defining performance) make this a darkly amusing treat. Although school movies by John Hughes, such as The Breakfast Club (1985), and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), have lost their charm over the last 25 years, Lehmann’s more acerbic flick-knife satire has kept its edge.      

Repo Man (1984)

(my review)

Director: Alex Cox

Streets Of Fire (1984)  

Director: Walter Hill

Billed as ‘a rock ‘n’ roll fantasy’, this remixes 1950s biker movies and ‘cowboy cliché’ dialogue with glossy pop video aesthetics for an urban rescue thriller. Ultra–stylised, visually impressive, and full of musical energy, with songs by Jim Steinman and Dan Hartman in an eclectic Ry Cooder score, this features Diane Lane as the kidnapped rock singer, Michael Paré as the laconic hero, and Willem Dafoe as the chief bad guy.

   

E-books

A few thoughts about e-books, collated from my various forum posts

Meta-novels are, I expect, an inevitable product of a digital age. Every text will have info pop-ups & hyperlinks built-in. The next generation of readers will demand such things, no matter what ‘book lovers’ say. I think age is the key factor in this debate. Like some of you, I’m also of the last generation who grew up reading (and learning!) solely from books, but the Internet has changed all of that, whether we like it or not. We might cling to our cherished reading habits and wallow in a love for the printed books (page-turning is an important part of the pleasure of reading), but, eventually, technological progress catches up with publishing. Kids of today are growing up with interactive texts, downloadable content, and multi-player everything else. I just can’t imagine buying or using any type or model of e-reader device but, in the related tech of being able to get online anywhere, I still enjoy the convenience that wi-fi hotspot connectivity offers.  

I remember LPs of vinyl, 78s of shellac, and Betamax videos - but I have got an MP3 player, a blu-ray and a hi-def TV. I write monthly columns for niche markets like the printed magazines Interzone and Black Static, but I realise that the whole publishing industry is drifting from print to online, and there are valid ‘green’ and/ or economic reasons for doing so. Should we quickly abandon reading and collecting books? No! I have become a hardcover snob, and I no longer buy or read paperbacks (unless they are non-fiction or comic-books). And yet, it seems to me, our book-loving culture cannot last for much longer. As public libraries close, I suspect that ‘book museums’ will be a major growth industry for this century! 

Just as office tech of the 1980s gave us desktop publishing, re-launching the ‘fanzine’ phenomena, and gave us ‘semi-pro zines’, now the Internet distribution of e-books is presenting us with another publishing revolution; one that’s already underway. With the new century’s growth in self-publishing, and the process now being made simpler by e-book formats, it’s becoming very clear that we really need critics more than ever. As what used to be essential filtering functions of editorial gatekeepers in traditional publishing houses are more frequently avoided (although without the actual need for skilled editors being made obsolete!) by many writers, there will still be a vital place for critics to occupy in the buffering zone between writers and readers. 

As the supply of newly self-published work as e-books increases, somebody needs to identify (if not actually ‘police’) what’s good and bad, and find the best stories and/ or non-fiction to help inexperienced and new readers choose from the ‘slush pile’ - because that’s the big risk of e-books and it’s what seems most likely to happen. The slush piles of trad publishers will all get self-published by their writers, and the route from desktop or laptop to downloadable ebook is unlikely to have any editorial oversight whatsoever.

Blood Spec

The latest Black Static (#23, June-July) includes my Blood Spectrum column of DVD & blu-ray reviews, with 30 releases (including a couple or three boxsets) covered in 9,000 words over 11 pages. Here's the line-up, with my rating scores...

Chatroom (5/10)
Confessions (5/10)
Enter The Void (5/10)
Time Traveller (5/10)
Salon Kitty (4/10)
Black Swan (8/10)
Spartacus: Blood And Sand - season 1 (4/10)
Trackman (4/10)
The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (6/10)
Fertile Ground (4/10)
Red Canyon (2/10)
Stanley Kubrick: Visionary Filmmaker Collection (7/10)
Agnosia (6/10)
Fading Of The Cries (2/10)
5150 Elm’s Way (3/10)
Psalm 21 (6/10)
Seconds Apart (5/10)
Zombie Undead (1/10)
Cross (2/10)
Cross Of Iron (6/10)
Demons Rising (0/10)
Red Hill (2/10)
Apocalypse Now (10/10)
Eaters: Rise Of The Dead (1/10)
Needle (2/10)
Trail Of The Screaming Forehead (0/10)
Witchfinder General (7/10)
Savage Streets (3/10)
Neighbour (3/10)
The New York Ripper (2/10)

BS #22

Black Static #22 received today from TTA Press.

This issue includes my regular 'Blood Spectrum' column of DVD & blu-ray reviews. Here's a list of month's line-up (coverage of 24 releases on 10 pages), but due to budget deficit cutbacks affecting numbering of ratings, there are no 8, 9 or 10 scores this month. The figures won't run to anything that high!

And Soon The Darkness - remake (3/10)
Bathory: Countess Of Blood (4/10)
Death Notice - Ikigami (3/10)
Marchlands (1/10)
Phenomena (7/10)
Saw: The Final Chapter (6/10)
The Beyond (7/10)
Savage (5/10)
Age Of The Dragons (3/10)
Husk(2/10)
Island Of Death (1/10)
Primevil (3/10)
Demon Empire (6/10)
Wake Wood (3/10)
Blooded (1/10)
Caged (3/10)
The Last Lovecraft (1/10)
Prowl (2/10)
The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest (7/10)
Monsters (7/10)
Rubber (6/10)
Tekken (3/10)
Chain Letter (2/10)
The Door (7/10)

BS #21

My 'Blood Spectrum' DVD & blu-ray column in Black Static #21 (TTA Press) has 22 reviews on nine pages:

Shogun Assassin (6/10)
Piranha 3D (5/10)
A Serbian Film (9/10)
Mirrors 2 (3/10)
Outcast (5/10)
Amer (7/10)
I Spit On Your Grave - remake (5/10)
Buried (8/10)
Let Me In (5/10)
We Are What We Are (3/10)

        Damage Control: Round-up
Ghosts Of War (4/10)
Choose (2/10)
Open House (3/10)
Sinbad And The Minotaur (1/10)
In Their Sleep (3/10)
Burke & Hare - remake (5/10)
Gnaw (0/10)
Bedevilled (3/10)
Terror Trap (1/10)
Damned By Dawn (3/10)
Someone’s Knocking At The Door (4/10)
The Unforgiving (1/10)

Best foreign film

Told in flashbacks, Oscar-winning Argentinean crime drama The Secret In Their Eyes concerns a retired judge, Espósito, writing a novel about an actual rape and murder case - one that he believed sent the wrong culprits to prison, two men who were framed by a corrupt authority for the sake of legal expediency. Haunted by the outcome of this ‘Morales case’, Espósito re-opens investigations to expose the injustice, and convict the real killer. 

Director Juan José Campanella maintains a fluidity of pacing in the unfolding narrative that most clearly resembles a superior TV movie, but its genre elements are too few for any serious consideration as horror or thriller, despite fine performances from the main cast in an intriguing mystery storyline, and some romantic complications of the protagonist’s life, which broaden the film’s appeal.

Lasered

My ‘Laser Fodder’ column of DVD and blu-ray reviews, for Interzone #232 (TTA Press), includes coverage of:

Metropolis (5/10)

The Avengers – series 6 (7/10)

Ultramarines: A Warhammer 40,000 Movie (1/10)

K-20: The Legend Of The Black Mask (6/10)

The Hole (5/10)

Mindflesh (8/10)

Dead Space: Aftermath (2/10)

The Shock Labyrinth (7/10)

Oh, and I got my name on the cover, at last.

Yay for me!