Featured Stories
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Sci Fi Day: Transformers
Prior to Transformers I’d say I’ve probably got more entertainment from Paul W.S. Anderson’s films than Michael Bay’s, so it’s fair to say I’m not a fan. It’s not that... -
Sci Fi Day: Donnie Darko – The Director’s Cut
Is Donnie Darko SF? Yes, but it’s much more than that, it’s a drama about family relationships, a mystery that will have your brain working overtime, it even flirts with... -
Sci Fi Day: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
This is really Sci Fi Day Part 2, picking up where we left off last weekend. Spielberg’s classic family film is essentially Lassie meets Close Encounters, of course the ‘dog’ in... -
Sci Fi Day: Aliens vs Predator – Requiem
I’m one of the few who liked Paul W.S. Anderson’s Alien Vs Predator, so maybe I’ve got a higher than normal tolerance for crap films but this follow-up makes Anderson’s... -
Sci Fi Day: Phase IV
This is the 2001 of ant movies! Part alien invasion part Animal Planet it has Nigel Davenport and Michael Murphy out in the desert trying to understand recent changes in... -
Sci Fi Day: Godzilla
This original Godzilla film will come as a shock to anyone who’s only seen later entries in the long running series. The main difference is that the Big G we...
Latest Reviews
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The Weekend Western: A Bullet for the General
This is an overtly political spaghetti western from Damiano Damiani and, with its anti-American intervention message, it’s still very relevant today. The story deals with an American who falls in... -
Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting: The Street Fighter’s Last Revenge
This third outing for Sonny Chiba’s Takuma Tsurugi comes as something of a letdown. Gone are the insanely gory deaths of the first two films, replaced by a lot of... -
The Friday Night Fright: The House of Whipcord
This sleazy little film was a lot more enjoyable than I was expecting. Director Pete Walker generates a fair amount of tension early on, and populates the film with some... -
Comic Tales: Superman IV – The Quest for Peace
Christopher Reeve’s reign as The Man of Steel comes to a rather ignominious end with this, his fourth outing. Not that Reeve is bad, in fact he clearly still had... -
Watching the Detectives: Ryoko Shinohara is Natsumi Yukihira in Unfair – The Movie
This spin off film from a Japanese TV series suffers on two counts, firstly it’s trying to be Die Hard in a hospital but hasn’t got nearly enough action to... -
Literally Speaking: Winter People
I’m a bit of a Kurt Russell fan, in fact I get a bit of ribbing by family members over how big a Kurt fan I am. That’s not to... -
I Spy: The Constant Gardener
In the modern world big business has as much to hide as governments, and Fernando Meirelles’ film of spy story supremo John le Carré’s novel is an espionage story where... -
Comic Tales: Death Note – The Last Name
This sequel to the original Death Note picks up directly where the first film left off, no real surprise as the films were made at the same time, and has... -
Watching the Detectives: William Powell and Myrna Loy are Nick and Nora Charles in Shadow of the Thin Man
This is my favourite of the series so far, with William Powell as Nick Charles not only having to get to the bottom of the usual murder mystery but also... -
Literally Speaking: The ODESSA File
Frederick Forsyth’s onscreen blurb at the start of the film tells the viewer that the film (of his novel) is based on real events but how closely the film mirrors... -
I Spy: Thunderball
Bond hunts for two stolen nuclear warheads and comes face to face with SPECTRE’s Agent 2, Emilio Largo . By this point in the Bond series the freshness had started... -
SF & Fantasy Sunday: Tokyo – The Last Megalopolis
Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis blends the development of Tokyo as a city in the early years of the twentieth century with the occult battle between the powers of good and... -
The Weekend Western: Yankee
Before he became famous as a director of erotica, Tinto Brass made this early spaghetti western that’s very much in the Fistful of Dollars mould. A stranger known only as... -
Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting: Zatoichi the Outlaw
This was the first Zatoichi film produced by Shintarô Katsu’s production company and it’s trying a little too hard to be a blind swordsman epic. The storyline is more complex... -
The Friday Night Fright: The Eye
I’ve a lot of time for the Pang Brothers, their films are visually stylish but not at the expense of character and they’ve managed to avoid getting pigeonholed as horror... -
TV Tomb: The Guns of Will Sonnett – Season 1
While I remember several of the western TV shows of the ‘60s this one escapes me, in fact I’m not even sure it was ever shown on UK television. It’s... -
Comic Tales: Fantastic Four
Anyone expecting the serious minded superheroics of X-Men, or the angst-ridden thrills of Spider-Man would perhaps have been a bit disappointed by Fantastic Four, but for me it does a... -
Watching the Detectives: John Wayne is McQ
Stan Boyle, a friend of Lon McQ’s, is found badly wounded and the veteran cop is convinced local villain Manny Santiago is behind it, so he goes looking for a... -
Literally Speaking: No Way Out
No Way Out starts with Lieutenant Commander Tom Farrell (Kevin Costner) being questioned, by whom and about what isn’t really clear. The film then jumps back three months and starts... -
I Spy: The Spy with My Face
Evil organisation THRUSH (the series never explained what the acronym stands for) attempts to infiltrate UNCLE (that one stands for “United Network Command for Law and Enforcement”) by replacing their... -
SF & Fantasy Sunday: Battlefield Earth
It’s one thing to read how bad a film is but until you actually experience it first hand it’s hard to appreciate just how truly awful it can be. Case... -
Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting: Return of the Street Fighter
Sonny Chiba returns as Takuma Tsurugi for the orgy of violence that is Return of the Street Fighter. Chiba’s character may not be quite as cold and merciless as he... -
The Weekend Western: Ulzana’s Raid
When Ulzana leads a band of renegade Apaches off the reservation, Lieutenant DeBuin is assigned to capture or kill him. Along with his cavalry detachment DeBuin is assigned two scouts,... -
The Friday Night Fright: Die Screaming, Marianne
Die screaming? Die of boredom more like. Pete Walker’s first venture into the horror genre after producing cheap sexploitation flicks is a pretty dull affair. More thriller than horror, its... -
Comic Tales: Superman III
With Superman II we got a blend of two visions – Richards Donner and Lester – and while the finished article wasn’t perfect it was certainly an entertaining ride. With... -
Watching the Detectives: Peter Lorre is Kentaro Moto in Mysterious Mr. Moto
This is the best film in the Moto series so far. Things start with a prison break from Devil’s Island, with Moto disguised as a prisoner in order to infiltrate... -
Literally Speaking: To Kill a Mockingbird
Films that give us a child’s view of the world often seem to touch something in the audience, a little glimmer of the child that dwells within each of us... -
I Spy: Syriana
Not really a spy movie as such, Syriana does feature a spy as one of its central characters. Bob Barnes, played by a bearded and slightly podgy George Clooney, is... -
SF & Fantasy Sunday: Highlander
Highlander was a big success, less for box office business and more for starting a franchise that to date includes four live action sequels and one animated, plus two live... -
The Weekend Western: The Bounty Killer
This is a decent little spaghetti western from Eugenio Martín, who went on to make the Peter Cushing/Christopher Lee monster-on-a-train flick, Horror Express. Rather than the usual wide open vistas...
