sci-fi
Away, Netflix review - pioneering voyage to Mars descends into astrosoapFriday, 11 September 2020
Could you cope with spending three years away from your family and loved ones while you went on the first crewed mission to Mars? This is the question that underpins Away, Netflix’s new space exploration drama.Certainly it’s a daunting ask, but if... Read more... |
New Mutants review - superheroes and the supernatural collideThursday, 03 September 2020
It hasn’t been an easy ride for Josh Boone’s New Mutants. Delayed production, reshoots, the acquisition of 20th Century Fox by Disney, Covid-19, and accusations of whitewashing, have all contributed to it being dubbed a ‘cursed’ film. Now, with... Read more... |
Tenet review - a heady delightWednesday, 26 August 2020
Go back over Christopher Nolan’s films and count the clocks. He has an obsession that would give a horologist a run for his money. Time is a continual motif of his body of work and it finds its zenith in his latest work Tenet. Beneath the... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Flash GordonTuesday, 04 August 2020
Queen, performances and production design drive this campest, funniest and sexiest of the post-Star Wars space boom. Flash Gordon is a film about a classic American comic-strip hero made by a cynical English director, Mike Hodges, and dreamy Italian... Read more... |
Roswell, New Mexico, ITV2 review - they've landed!Wednesday, 24 June 2020
It fell out of the sky in the summer of 1947, and crashed on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. UFO-logists and conspiracy fanatics insist it was an alien spacecraft, but the US Air Force says it was a meteorological balloon.For the purposes of this... Read more... |
Joseph Mazur: The Clock Mirage review – brief histories of timeSunday, 21 June 2020
The Greek philosopher Zeno’s paradoxes, which have plagued thinkers for around 2500 years, tell us that super-speedy Achilles can never outrun the tortoise and that an arrow in flight must always occupy a fixed position at intervals of time – and so... Read more... |
The Vast of Night review - perfectly paranoidSaturday, 30 May 2020
The Vast of Night’s premise scarcely guarantees originality. Non-science-fiction buffs scoping Amazon’s film listings will probably move on quickly when they learn it’s about two late-'50s teenagers discovering that an alien space craft is... Read more... |
Album: Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - The Mosaic of TransformationThursday, 14 May 2020
A singer-songwriter of somewhat mystical bent, originally from a forested island in the US Pacific Northwest, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith really came into her own when she discovered vintage synthesizers. In particular, her masterpiece, 2016's EARS,... Read more... |
Westworld, Season 3 Finale, Sky Atlantic review - Dolores’s plans come to fruitionTuesday, 05 May 2020
After a season that sought to redefine what Westworld could become, the finale exposed the confused arc, before limping towards an emotionally weak ending. This season began by recoding itself into something schlockier, more high-octane,... Read more... |
Westworld, Season 3, Sky Atlantic review – a cyberpunk triumphMonday, 27 April 2020
In the time since the show’s inception four years ago, arguments have raged as to whether Westworld is a dud or a cult classic. For every dedicated fan, there’s someone out there crying, "The Matrix did it first!" and complaining that the plot didn’... Read more... |
Sea Fever review - more ooze than aahsFriday, 24 April 2020
When Sea Fever premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, no one could have guessed its story about an Irish fishing trawler attacked by a giant jellyfish would in one respect prove prophetic. Toward the end of writer-... Read more... |
DVD: The Year of the Sex OlympicsTuesday, 21 April 2020
Originally aired in BBC2’s “Theatre 625” slot in July 1968, Nigel Kneale’s The Year of the Sex Olympics has gathered a reputation as a groundbreaking piece of TV drama which uncannily anticipated the broadcasting future. Its depiction of a society... Read more... |
