The first recording today starts with the end of Film File. Then it’s a repeat of Space 1999 – Dorzak. Media Centre Description: Dorzak: The alien craft requesting emergency assistance turns out to be a prison transport ship carrying Dorzak to a life sentence on an asteroid. Recorded from ITV4 on Tuesday 29th December 2009 09:28 The recording ends with the start of The Champions. The next recording is another repeat of Space 1999 – Devil’s Planet. Media Centre Description: Devil’s Planet:…

In 1987 a middle-aged guy loves to spend time on the computer. He and his dog watch A Nightmare On Elm Street on broadcast television then “wake up” inside a customized fantasy videogame, rescuing a guy with a TV head and traveling by map. Once the movie gets into game mode, I flashed back to Hundreds of Beavers – which was more ambitious but had totally different manic vibes to this movie’s good-natured dreamscape.

Two centuries after her death, a powerful human/alien hybrid clone of Ellen Ripley aids a crew of space pirates in stopping the aliens from reaching Earth. A good “reboot” of the Alien franchise, moving the story 200 years forwards, with clone-Ripley being more badass and indestructible. With a great ensemble, with Ron Perlman, Winona Ryder, Gary Dourdan, Dominique Pinon, Raymond Cruz, among others, under the direction of the Jean-Pierre Jeunet (The City of Lost Children, Amelie, Big Bug), this…

Pin a fresh sprig of celery to your lapel, it’s time to check in with the Fifth Doctor’s audio adventures again! The Key 2 Time concept might have been a bit weak in its own right, but it did pioneer the “mini-season” approach Big Finish would take with their monthly range in one form or another until it came to an end. No weird one-off companions that Big Finish would love to turn into a spin-off series here – we’re going to be focused on televised companion line-ups, though not always in the…

When I saw the trailer last year, I thought that might be one of those shows that I could either love or hate. Turns out, I absolutely loved season one of Pluribus! The show starts with astronomers discovering a strong radio signal originating hundreds of light-years away. After lots of guessing and experimenting, it turns out to be an RNA sequence. That got injected into mice, a mouse bites a researcher, and so a mysterious infection starts to spread. A bit later, Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn),…

The Machine continues to provide intelligence to both the United States government to deal with large-scale threats to national security, and to its creator, Harold Finch, to deal with crimes that are "irrelevant" on the large scale but hugely important on the individual. But, to Finch's distress, the Machine has also chosen a new operative, the hacker of dubious morality known as Root. As Root operates as the Machine's free-roaming agent of chaos, Finch's police allies are consumed by the…

“Untitled” (Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein’s Grave, Paris), 1992, ed. 1/4+1AP plus some other prints now considered non-work, but which are conceptually very fecund, this one sold at Christie’s in 2005 One of the great surprises in the exhibition catalogue for Felix Gonzalez-Torres (Always To Return)—which I brought up to curators Charlotte Ickes and Josh T. Franco in our conversation yesterday—is the essay by Joshua Chambers-Letson about Felix’s 1992 photo of flowers, “Untitled” (Alice B.…

Continuing an occasional series about artworks in feature films. This is a minor entry but a worthwhile one if only to draw some attention to an unusual fantasy film by Albert Lewin, an equally unusual director. Pandora and the Flying Dutchman was made in 1951, a British film with an American star (Ava Gardner) and a Spanish setting. Gardner plays Pandora Reynolds, an American nightclub singer living in the coastal town of Esperanza where she’s the centre of attention for the small colony of…

Classic string maps appear in Demon Witch Child (dir. Amando de Ossorio, 1974). ▲ Demon Witch Child (dir. Amando de Ossorio, 1974) ▲ Demon Witch Child (dir. Amando de Ossorio, 1974) ▲ Demon Witch Child (dir. Amando de Ossorio, 1974)

Went to the cinema for our anniversary. The movie was good, but the pace was a bit slower for my taste.

The necessity of a liberal arts background for STEM is made apparent nowhere moreso than AI research. Because clearly they have not understood Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. You know, the one subtitled “The Modern Prometheus”? It’s not “horror” in the modern sense. It’s horror in the sense of psychological dread, the unexamined consequences of one’s actions, and a creator’s responsibility toward the created. Being conscious and aware is a mixed blessing at best. The joke in Rick and Morty’s…

I watched Project Hail Mary at the cinema for a second time today, this time I was being a Dad to my boys. It was just as much fun a second time around.

PBS Masterpiece brings a reimagined version of John Galsworthy’s ‘Forsyte’ novels novels from the U.K.

🍿 Reflections on Jurassic Park: Ian Malcolm is gross and he has all the best lines. That shot of the T-rex with the banner falling is so iconic. (Forgive me the spoiler.) If you’ve been to Universal’s Jurassic Park area, this whole thing feels much more real because they did such a great job.

Marjoe Gortner and Lynda Carter in Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw (1976) Vitals Marjoe Gortner as Lyle Wheeler, wannabe outlaw New Mexico, Summer 1975 Film: Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw Release Date: April 28, 1976 Director: Mark L. Lester Costume Designer: Cornelia McNamara WARNING! Spoilers ahead! Background People typically cite two major reasons to watch the low-budget ’70s crime flick Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw… neither of which are Marjoe Gortner’s wardrobe. Is that going to stop me from writing…

Below Deck chef Anthony Iracane crossed over from Bravo to Food Network to compete in 24 in 24: Last Chef Standing, a high-pressure show. Let's check in on his progress!

An appropriate story for this week's issue: you'll recall that on Saturday, I highlighted a story about the changing face of baseball with the coming of free agency, and how Andy Messersmith, a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, won his arbitration case to become the first free agent. Messersmith signed with the Atlanta Braves, then owned by Ted Turner, who also owned WTCG. Not long after that, Turner announced a gimmick where the players would wear their nicknames on their jerseys, instead…

Buster and his co-star in 'The General' (1926).I'm back on the road this week to the Regent Theatre in Arlington, Mass., where they're screening Buster Keaton's 'The General' (1926) on Wednesday, April 29, with music by me.It's the third visit to the Regent this month, as the venue pursues a mini-series of silent screenings that included Cecil B. DeMille's 'King of Kings' (1927) and Harold Lloyd's 'Safety Last' (1923).'Safety Last' was part of a 110th anniversary show (the Regent opened in…

My brother Richard recently alerted me to this actress from Alabama; I was not familiar with her. Let's investigate.I've done a number of pieces on the blog about actresses whose careers began before 1960; some are linked from this post. Joyzelle Joyner is certainly one of those women from the state who found some success in Hollywood, although her career film career did not last very long. Lillian Joyzelle Joyner was born on August 27, 1905, in Mount Pleasant in Monroe County. She was one of…

Anaïs Mitchell has created something magical. I felt like giving a standing ovation after every song. Just pure theatrical joy delivered by a cast who know how to squeeze every drop of emotion from an audience. Perhaps it was sitting right at the front of the stalls, but the opening of Hadestown feels like dinner theatre; almost cosy in its intimacy. The first act is so busy - there are a hundred-and-one things happening on stage that it occasionally becomes overwhelming. The second act is…

American theatre usually explores it national characteristics, its State challenges, dilemmas and restrictions through the vehicle of family drama and in Fran Kranz’s blistering new play Mass arriving at the Donmar Warehouse, several different kinds of family are created and deconstructed as two grieving sets of parents come together to mourn their children and seek […]

It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals. In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is … Continue reading →

Despite a terrible start, April is the month I’m finally catching up with the TBR Challenge–and I’m even managing to post this review just shy of a couple of weeks late. The challenge theme was ‘fool’s errand’, described by challenge host extraordinaire Wendy as “some harebrained idea or scheme, some sort of desperate Hail Mary idea to worm their way out of a situation.” You will agree that investigating a murder to claim the reward money so your parents don’t lose their house, is pretty much a…

1984 SF comedy, dir. W. D. Richter, Peter Weller, John Lithgow: IMDb. The Oscillation Overthruster allows passage through solid objects… but it may lead to the end of the world.

HONKY TONK (1941), an excellent example of '40s MGM star power, was just released on Blu-ray by the Warner Archive Collection.Clark Gable stars as Candy Johnson, a con man of sorts who arrives in a new frontier town with his partner Sniper (Chill Wills) and promptly falls head over heels for young Elizabeth (Lana Turner), whom he'd first met on the train.Elizabeth believes her father (Frank Morgan), whom she hasn't seen in years, is a respectable judge, but he's actually an old friend of…

Our guy is a notorious artist of sexy paintings (pop star Kenji Sawada has made good movie choices, playing leads in Hiruko the Goblin, Mishima, and Happiness of the Katakuris). His pretty young beloved is sick at home with her parents, wants to elope but not right now, so Yumeji enjoys a heavy romp with a prostitute, picks up another artist’s model, and becomes obsessed with a widow(?) and her bizarre story, until her husband (the crazy guy from Zigeunerweisen, even crazier) arrives and chases…

Here’s the best career advice I ever received as a product manager: “product-manage your own career.” I wish I’d internalized it sooner. Early in my career, I stayed quiet and did good work, assuming the right people would notice. Spoiler: they didn’t—not because the work wasn’t good, but because nobody else was tracking it. Treat yourself as a product. What are your features? What are your bugs? What does your roadmap look like? And critically: who’s keeping the changelog? Nobody’s keeping…

More Lige, more lions. The above version is a chopped-down abbreviation of A FRESH START, which stars Lige and Jimmie Adams, both in moustache mode. I’d be willing to bet Lige got the idea of venturing before the cameras with a naked upper lip from Buster Keaton, along with much else. Our director for this […]