Just published

Behold, a new issue of Black Static (#32) - with the free 'scent of darkness'!, and the latest Interzone (#244), too - boasting cover artwork by the great Jim Burns. Here's a listing with ratings for my first DVD and blu-ray review columns of the year...

'Laser Fodder' (IZ)

Death Watch (7/10)
The Arrival Of Wang (5/10)
The Castle (6/10)
The Lord Of The Rings (8/10)
U.F.O. (1/10)
Continuum - season 1 (6/10)










'Blood Spectrum' (BS)    

     URBAN MONSTERS
The Amazing Spider–Man (6/10)
The Dark Knight Rises (8/10)
Dredd (6/10)

Sound Of My Voice (4/10)
Southern Comfort (8/10)
Zombie Flesh-Eaters (2/10)
Berberian Sound Studio (6/10)
When The Lights Went Out (5/10)
The Possession (6/10)
House At The End Of The Street (5/10)
Stitches (1/10)

Hulk nerd

The new Black Static (#31, Nov-Dec 2012) is out now, and Peter Tennant’s regular ‘Case Notes’ column contains a review of my book, and I’m pleased to read that he has many good things to say about it (see pages 85-6 in the mag) … 

Jennifer Connelly in-joke.

“Tony Lee abandons his usual acerbic style to produce a fanboy treatise on Ang Lee’s 2003 film HULK (Telos Publishing) … this isn't simply a critical assessment, but on occasion feels like an attempt at canonisation ...

Agree with him or not, Lee’s enthusiasm is infectious and his amiable prose makes his arguments all the more convincing. Taken on its own terms, the book is a powerful piece of polemic, and there is no doubting its value as a source book for those who wish to appreciate Ang Lee’s achievement ...

All things considered, this is a nicely packaged text that’s insightful and informative, and a pleasure to read regardless of how you feel about the source material.”

This issue of the British Fantasy Award winning magazine also features my latest ‘Blood Spectrum’ column of DVD/ blu-ray reviews. Here’s a listing of what’s covered – 38 titles including a couple of TV boxsets, sprawled over 15 pages - plus my ratings:

 

            Die & Die Again

Zombie Contagion (1/10)

Ultimate Zombie Feast (4/10)

            Halloween Pro

Blade II (6/10)

Blade Trinity (5/10)

Lady Snowblood (6/10)

Lady Snowblood: Love Song Of Vengeance (6/10)

Basket Case (5/10)

Basket Case 2 (5/10)

Basket Case 3: The Progeny (5/10)

Cube (7/10)

The Devil Rides Out (7/10)

The Mummy's Shroud (3/10)

Rasputin: The Mad Monk (5/10)

The Curse Of Frankenstein (7/10)

            Wonky-Cam Blues

Closed Circuit Extreme (1/10)

Apartment 143 (2/10)

Chernobyl Diaries (3/10)

Lovely Molly (2/10)

Cabin In The Woods (7/10)

The Pact (5/10)

Snow White And The Huntsman (6/10)

Spartacus: Vengeance (4/10)

Rosewood Lane (4/10)

The Thompsons (5/10)

We Are The Night (8/10)

Grimm - season 1 (5/10)

Red Lights (4/10)

Storage 24 (4/10)

            Samhain Round-Up:

Silent House (4/10)

The Harsh Light Of Day (2/10)

Dead Man's Luck (3/10)

My Ex (1/10)

Inbred (0/10)

Some Guy Who Kills People (1/10)

Cockneys vs. Zombies (3/10)

Monstro! (4/10)

Killer Joe (3/10)

Excision (6/10)  

Interzone #243 (Nov-Dec 2012) has also just been published, with excellent use if colour throughout, and my usual ‘Laser Fodder’ column of DVD/ blu-ray coverage appears at the end of the mag. Here’s the line-up of reviews, with my ratings:    

            Alien Agenda

Avengers Assemble (8/10)

Prometheus (8/10)

Fringe - season 4 (7/10)

Alcatraz - season 1 (3/10)

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (5/10)

Demon Hunter – The Resurrection (6/10)

Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World (1/10)

Supernatural - season 7 (4/10)

            Retro Spex

The Testament Of Dr Mabuse (7/10)

The Birds (8/10)

Short Circuit (5/10)

Flight Of The Navigator (3/10)

The Man In The White Suit (7/10)

 

 

Booklets

Just received copies of two magazine issues…

Black Static #30 (TTA Press) includes my ‘Blood Spectrum’ column of DVD & blu-ray reviews, this time sprawling over 12 pages due to the booklet style format. Here’s a listing of the movie coverage with rating scores:

            Phenomenal inactivity

Amityville Haunting (1/10)

Paranormal Incident (1/10)

            Dead reckonings 

Zombie 108 (1/10)

Remains (3/10)

Extinction: The G.M.O. Chronicles (3/10)

[REC] 3: Genesis (6/10)

            Snowy summer

Snow White: A Tale Of Terror (5/10)

Snow White: The Fairest Of Them All (4/10)

Sydney White (4/10)

Grimm’s Snow White (3/10)

Mirror, Mirror (8/10)

Blood Car (5/10)

Orlando (7/10)

The Reverend (2/10)

The Victim (3/10)

Elfie Hopkins (2/10)

Gone (4/10)

Livid (8/10)

The Aggression Scale (3/10)

Dark Mirror (3/10)

The Hunger Games (5/10)

Curse (2/10)

            Decay products: round-up

The Devil In Me (2/10)

Axed (1/10)

Creature (1/10)

The Fields (2/10)

Truth Or Dare (2/10)

Piranha 3DD (3/10)

The Raid (5/10)  

Latest news is that Black Static has won this year's BFS award for 'best magazine'.

Also switching to the new smaller format (which boasts a laminated cover, more pages, and a spine), Interzone #242 has my ‘Laser Fodder’ column of movie & TV reviews, and this issue’s line-up features –

            Nazi stomp

The 25th Reich (4/10)

Bloodstorm (2/10)

Outpost II: Black Sun (5/10)

            Animagic

Planzet (3/10)

Starship Troopers: Invasion (5/10)

Ao - The Last Hunter (3/10)

Battleship (5/10)

Lockout (4/10)

Alphas - series 1 (5/10)

Wrath Of The Titans (6/10)  

Both titles have the advert for my movie book about Ang Lee's HULK, available to buy from publisher Telos, here.  

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?

Hulk reviews

Angry Man update -

20 years ago I was contributing SF reviews to Starburst (#168, August 1992, has my coverage of C.J. Cherryh's Heavy Time and Hellburner), for a 'Bookshelf' column edited by David Howe.

This month, my HULK book (from David and Steve's indie press Telos) is reviewed on the Starburst website...

"it's a fascinating film... one which Tony Lee dissects in admirable detail...
Hulk is very serious film criticism, with Lee tackling the film's symbology, literary references and subtext...
Lee's enthusiasm is infectious. Ardent haters of the film won't be argued with, but go in with an open mind and you may find yourself convinced by his writing. Admittedly, I was sympathetic to Lee's cause to begin with, but I found myself looking at certain scenes in a different light...
Hulk is a well-written, deftly researched, intelligent and thoughtful book on one of the most misunderstood and under-appreciated comicbook movies of our time."
8/10

Of course, I'm quite pleased with that one.

HULK is also reviewed on SF CrowsNest: "You will come out of this book better informed by the author’s enthusiasm", and Sci-Fi Bulletin: "an interesting defence of an often-derided movie... take the DVD off the shelf and give it a re-watch with fresh eyes" (7/10).