sci-fi
The Event, Channel 4Saturday, 23 October 2010
Don’t you hate it when you have weeks like the ones poor Sean Walker, played by mini-Tom Cruise Jason Ritter, has been having? You go on a relaxing Caribbean cruise with your bride-to-be Leila (Sarah Roemer), you get friendly with another couple,... Read more... |
Edgar Allan Poe: Love, Death and Women, BBC FourThursday, 21 October 2010
The recurrent image in this somewhat staid documentary is a monochrome photograph of Poe’s moon of a face with its panda-like eye sockets. Occasionally the camera moves in for a close-up on those eyes - perhaps hoping they’ll reveal something that... Read more... |
The First Men in the Moon, BBC FourWednesday, 20 October 2010
Obviously the world has decided it needs Mark Gatiss, and it keeps finding things for him to do. An influential figure in the latterday revival of Doctor Who, as well as co-creator of the BBC's recent Sherlock, Gatiss's forte is turning out to be... Read more... |
Turner Prize 2010, Tate BritainTuesday, 05 October 2010
There may be some who feel this year’s shortlist for the Turner Prize has done little to forge ahead with anything new, innovative and different. And then there may be others who will welcome the rather more established artists on this year’s list,... Read more... |
Earthquakes in London, National TheatreWednesday, 04 August 2010
What sound does a screaming foetus make? It’s not the kind of question that most theatre plays provoke you to ask, but Mike Bartlett’s new piece about climate change is not a normal play. At the end of the first half of this rollercoasting epic,... Read more... |
The Deep, BBC OneTuesday, 03 August 2010
Wasn't The Deep the title of a 1970s movie starring Jacqueline Bisset and Nick Nolte? Something about sunken treasure and a stash of morphine off the coast of Bermuda. I have a hunch it may have been complete twaddle. No less preposterous is this... Read more... |
SpliceThursday, 22 July 2010
Although it has taken over a decade to come to fruition, Splice still feels like a timely piece of work with its macabre and gruesome take on notions of genetic mutation for commercial gain and the god-like delusions of the scientific community. In... Read more... |
PredatorsTuesday, 06 July 2010
The original Predator from 1987 is perhaps best remembered for taking Schwarzenegger’s borderline homoerotic body-fetishism to new heights, as he stripped naked to mud-wrestle the titular alien hunter. It was among the more efficient of the big,... Read more... |
Ashes to Ashes, BBC OneSaturday, 22 May 2010
After the final episode of The Prisoner was aired in February 1968, Patrick McGoohan had to go into hiding after being besieged at home by viewers demanding an explanation about his teasingly obscure (and, I think, rather brilliant) ending. It’s... Read more... |
Ditch, Old Vic TunnelsWednesday, 19 May 2010
Dystopia is a genre that works like a rhetorical device. Take a government policy — let’s say the war in Afghanistan — then list the bad effects that this has had on the British people, exaggerate by a factor of ten, or more, add some obscure but... Read more... |
DVD: World on a WireSaturday, 15 May 2010
Rainer Werner Fassbinder lived fast, died young and left an awful-looking corpse, in 1982, at the age of 37. But not before writing, directing and producing dozens of movies, as well as plays, television series and the odd radio drama or book.... Read more... |
A Thousand Stars Explode in the Sky, Lyric HammersmithWednesday, 12 May 2010
During the past week, as the first coalition government for 70 years has been formed in the UK, we were frequently warned that failure to find a solution might be the end of the world. It’s a solid, if usually over-used, metaphor. But what would... Read more... |
