Recent genre feature articles.

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Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol (Mark's take)
01/02/2012. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol still does not have the hang of what made the TV show so good. Instead of an intelligent puzzle for the viewer, it offers mindless excitement in one action stunt from Tom Cruise after another. But given that it is a Tom Cruise vanity piece and a mindless action film, it is one of the best mindless action films of 2011. Considerably better than the previous entries of the "Mission Impossible" series formerly animation director Brad Bird gives us quite a ride in his first live-action film. The film is a mixed bag of elements, but some are very good.

Dreaming while wide awake
01/02/2012. Writing stories is akin to dreaming while wide awake, except it’s depicted in words rather than dream images. It’s often said that everyone has at least one decent story in them. The problem a lot of the time is finding it. You should see my own ideas file as I’m still looking.

Whatever happened to the Megalomaniac?
01/02/2012. Wanted: Megalomaniac. Must be prepared to sit in a chair and look menacing. Desire to rule the world a must. Being totally ruthless as asset. A speculation by: GF Willmetts.

The Strange Case Of Angelica (Mark's take)
01/01/2012. This film is a Portuguese fantasy written and directed by Manoel de Oliveira. The pace is operatic and slow enough so that there is not much story here. Some dreamlike photography and a soothing musical score are pluses but slow, draggy telling is likely to frustrate the viewer and pay off with far too little reward for the effort of watching.

Hugo (Mark's take)
1/1/2012. There is a phantom haunting the Paris Train Station. Twelve-year-old Hugo lives in the walls of the station and maintains all the mechanical clocks. This film is about him, but also about a lot more. This is much more than a children's film about a little boy. Beautifully filmed in 3D it, turns into an education for the viewer on a subject near and dear to director Martin Scorsese's heart.

Miss Minoes (Mark's take)
01/01/2012. A cat is accidentally turned into a beautiful woman by a toxic waste accident. Minoes, now Miss Minoes, befriends a failing newspaper reporter and uses her network of cat friends to help get the reporter the news stories he needs. Dutch author Annie M. G. Schmidt's 1970 children's book Minoes is adapted for the screen by director Vincent Bal who also co-authored the screenplay. The result is a rather slight but pleasant family fantasy film.

Caretaker Who?
01/01/2012. A quick summation by: Geoff Willmetts. The Doctor likes returning favours, especially after landing on the Earth in a spacesuit as he scuttles a spaceship in 1938. With the helmet on back to front, a helpful neighbour, Madge Arwell, gets him to a convenient police call box. DON’T READ ON IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE 2011 YULETIDE STORY!!!

If mobile phones can do everything, what is the point of having a human around using it?
01/01/2012. In the past century, any media representation of the future tended to centre on labour-saving gadgets so we would have more time to do other things. Now, here we are in a future where we actually have a lot of labour-saving gadgets and I’m wondering what people are doing with all that extra time?

Something In The Missing Detail
01/01/2012. A ponderance by: GF Willmetts. Has anyone every wondered how Scott Tracy gets out of Thunderbird One when he’s on a rescue? After all, there’s no sign of a ladder and the fuselage has to be at least eight feet up from the wing landing gear. Although quite what the Hood is standing on when taking photographs of the interior in ‘Trapped In The Sky’ isn’t revealed.

Cosmic Voyage (1935): Mark's take
01/12/2011. A professor, a woman, and a Young Pioneer are the first to travel to the moon in a Soviet science fiction film rarely seen in the United States. The story is only mediocre, but some of the visual effects are just stunning. The film seems to be a Soviet response to Fritz Lang's Frau Im Mond and while it is not as effective, it provides its own rewards.

Most of the time, this world and its people are pretty alien to me
1/12/2011. Here’s something for you to ponder on: What do you say when something commonplace isn’t something you take for granted or even something you’ve experienced? Assuming neither of us have got amnesia or any other mental complaint, I’ve noticed that lately I’ve tended to remark, ‘That sounds pretty alien to me.’

Anne McCaffrey: The Grand Lady Of Pern
1/12/2011. It is very hard not to say ‘Anne McCaffrey’ and ‘The Dragonriders Of Pern’ in the same sentence. Most Science Fiction readers of my generation got hooked to her books through ‘Dragonflight’, the first in the ‘Pern Chronicles’ and read her other books waiting for the next book in the series.

Harbinger, Too
1/12/2011. a Psi-Kicks story by: GF Willmetts. Another Psi-Kicks where one of their number has amnesia and is hijacked to Somalia. Not helped by the fact that no one can say her name and she’s getting increasingly powerful.

The Last Circus (Balada Triste De Trompeta)
1/12/2011. This is a sensational surreal horror/comedy fairy tale co-written and directed by Basque auteur Álex de la Iglesia (The Oxford Murders). It has to be the weirdest and one of the funniest films I have seen in quite a while. As time goes on, everything in The Last Circus becomes more grotesque and dreamlike.

Doctor Who Season 33: an appraisal
01/11/2011. By: GF WIllmetts. The one thing that can be said about Steven Moffat’s tenure as producer and chief writer of ‘Doctor Who’, now into its second year, is that he does like playing with time and encourages his writing team likewise.

The problems of being immortal
01/11/2011. an examination by: GF Willmetts. With the recent announcement of the increased size of human population in the next decade in the UK let alone the world, this is compounded by how much longer people are living. In past centuries, it was often disease and wars that did the most for decreasing population but as we’ve become more peaceful (even recent wars haven’t caused general population reduction compared to the two world wars) and also resolved cures for major infections, the more likely more of us are going to live reasonably healthy to a greater age.

A Barber's Hairy Tales
01/11/2011. a hair-cut short story by: GF Willmetts. You know, there are some barbers who talk and some don’t. I’m one of those who talks. Did you know that some shrinks think it’s to do with distracting the upper brain while the hands get on with their work?

Sarah Jane Adventures season 5
01/11/2011. an appraisal by: GF Willmetts. In many respects, the fifth and final season of the ‘Sarah Jane Adventures’ was a build-up for another season what with the introduction of another child for Miss Smith to foster.

The importance of reading a book is you remember the text.
01/11/2011. But when you look up something on the Net, all you remember is where to look. It is frequently said that book reading is a dying art, which beggars the question that if that is the case why are so many of you, according to the media, out there investing in digital book reading equipment?

Contagion (Mark's take)
01/10/2011. Director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns give us a fast-paced and grim scenario of a nasty but all-too-possible avian flu was released and spread through the environment. There are about six strands of plot running through the scenario, each with a recognisable actor playing the main character. In spite of the presence of major stars Soderbergh gives us the confidence that he is not tweaking the film to exaggerate the drama or excitement. Even without the usual tropes of science fiction, this is - among other things - an excellent science fiction techno thriller.

Trollhunter (Mark's take)
01/10/2011. Trollhunter is a serious Norwegian horror film that is also a satire of The Blair Witch Project. University students making a documentary about a supposed bear poacher find the man is instead a government agent controlling and helping to keep secret the population of deadly trolls.

Touchwood: Miracle Day
1/10/2011. Appraisal day by: GF Willmetts. Forgive the multiple misspellings of Torchwood. Seems because of my weekly coverage of season four of Tombwood on the SFCrowsnest Forum, activated a certain removal virus rewrites whenever I put Touchewood. No matter, you know what I’m referring to. A cure for the removal of the T*****wood virus please by the end of this appraisal!

That door should stay shut until I want to read what's behind it, shouldn't it?
1/10/2011. There was a newspaper story a couple months back declaring that people felt happier if they knew the story endings than reading blindly from the start. Apart from anything else, this tends to go away from our reviews policy where we try to avoid giving too many spoilers, especially those relating to the story’s ending, so as you can experience surprises for yourself.

You Are A Chair
1/10/2011. A surreal story of sorts by: GF Willmetts. Or, Uncle Geoff gets his Haiku on!

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (Mark's take)
01/09/2011. The final Harry Potter film has Harry and friends searching out the last of the Voldemort Horcruxes for his final confrontation with Voldemort. If you don't know what I just said I recommend you bail out right now. The last Harry Potter film is a very substantial fantasy film, perhaps even beyond the level of one of the Lord of the Rings films. With one major omission the series comes to a satisfying and frequently spectacular conclusion.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Mark's take)
01/09/2011. The new Apes film is not into intelligent or even credible social comment but rather the digital spectacle of a battle between humans and apes. Human dominance of apes turns into violent rebellion when ape intelligence becomes widespread.

A Third Interview With Robert J. Sawyer
1/09/2011. conducted by: GF Willmetts. In the past five years, I’ve interviewed Robert Sawyer a couple times, so this makes for the hat-trick. After the single season of ‘FlashForward’, his name is now known globally so there is a lot more to chat about. Rob describes my interviews as a pleasant torture, which also means he’s a glutton for punishment, so let’s adjust the rack I’ve tied him to and get down to some serious questioning.

An Interview With Eric Brown
1/09/2011. by Patrick Mahon. Eric Brown is a prolific, award-winning British author of character-driven Science Fiction. He has been a published author for nearly twenty-five years, having had his first short story published by ‘Interzone’ in 1987. He has written fifteen novels and has won the BSFA Award twice for his short fiction.

August used to be such a quiet month
1/09/2011. The rioting and looting in London and other cities in the UK in August is a sharp reminder of what a powder keg this world is becoming not to mention how easy it is for such situations to be exploited both by people and governments. It makes some SF realities look tame in comparison and a sharp reminder that there are rarely simple answers to such problems and probably why we rarely see stories about economics in our own genre.

Interview With David Conyers
1/09/2011. by Rod MacDonald. David Conyers is an Australian Science Fiction and horror author residing in Adelaide. With John Sunseri, he is the co-author of the Lovecraftian spy thriller collection ‘The Spiraling Worm’ and the author of the sequel novella ‘The Eye Of Infinity’. He is the editor of the anthology ‘Cthulhu’s Dark Cults’, with Brian M. Sammons the editor of ‘Cthulhu Unbound 3’ and a contributing editor for ‘Albedo One’, Ireland’s longest running magazine of speculative fiction.