TV Review – Star Trek: Discovery. The Vulcan Hello and Battle at the Binary Stars

I decided to review both these episodes together as pretty much everyone will have watched them back to back. This is a big return for Star Trek, the first TV show in 12 years, and the landscape of television has changed dramatically in the intervening time. Viewers have embraced serial storytelling rather than episodic TV. …

Dave’s 100 Greatest Films 95. Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150AD

95. Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150AD - 1966 Starring - Peter Cushing, Bernard Cribbins, Roberta Tovey, Jill Curzon, Ray Brooks Director - Gordon Flemyng Screenplay - Milton Subotsky There is a specific stage in being a fan of Doctor Who when you discover that the show made it onto the big screen in glorious techncolour …

Dave’s 100 Greatest Film – 96. Black Belt Jones

96. Black Belt Jones - 1974 Starring - Jim Kelly, Gloria Hendry, Scatman Crothers and Eric Laneuville Director - Robert Clouse Screenplay - Alexandra Rose, Fred Weintraub and Oscar Williams When I first watched Enter the Dragon the most striking performance aside from Bruce Lee was that of Jim Kelly as Williams. His combination of …

Dave’s 100 Greatest films – 97. District 13

97 - District 13 - 2004 Director - Pierre Morel Starrring - David Belle, Cyril Raffaelli, Tony D'Amario, Dany Verissimo and Bibi Naceri Screenplay - Luc Besson and Bibi Naceri   When the art of Parkour first came to popular attention it thrilled and astounded. Young men pulling seemingly impossible acrobatic moves to navigate around …

Dave’s 100 Greatest Films – 98. One Spy Too Many

98 - One Spy Too Many - 1966 Director: Joseph Sargent Starring: Robert Vaughn, David McCallum, Dorothy Provine, Rip Torn Screenplay: Dean Hargrove   I have loved The Man From U.N.C.L.E. since I watched it on BBC 2 in the 90s. I have memories of seeing it before then but that is when I first …

Review – Blackwing

Blackwing Author: Ed McDonald Publisher: Gollancz RRP: £12.99 Released: 27th July If you have even a remote interest in fantasy fiction then there is a good chance that you have seen the title Blackwing being bandied about somewhere. The Gollancz publicity department have thrown the full force of their hype machine enthusiastically behind it. They …

Dave’s 100 Greatest Films – 99. The Three Musketeers

99. The Three Musketeers - 1973 Director: Richard Lester Starring; Oliver Reed, Raquel Welch, Richard Chamberlain, Michael York, Frank Finaly, Faye Dunaway and Charlton Heston Screenplay: George MacDonald Fraser As #100 on the list reflects my love of pulp adventures so this choice is indicative of my love of a good swashbuckling romp. Indeed this …

The 13th Doctor

I'm pleased with the choice of Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor. I'm pleased that all the seeding that has been done by Steven Moffat over the course of his tenure as showrunner has been taken it the logical narrative conclusion of casting a woman in the lead role. This was teased as far back …

The Casting of a New Doctor Has Never Been a Surprise, Nor Should It Be.

So we're entering peak silly season for Doctor Who. The new Doctor has been cast and tomorrow it is going to be announced on the BBC straight after the Wimbledon men's final. There are a huge amount of fans currently losing their shit about at least one aspect of these events, usually several. If there …

Doctor Who Review – World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls

Having been had a busy week after World Enough and Time was broadcast I was originally going to write separate reviews for it and The Doctor Falls but having watched the season finale I realised that it would be next to impossible to write a retroactive review of World Enough and Time as a lot …