A distress call from a beautiful woman menaced by a “beast” reaches the beleaguered heroes of Farscape. So begins a thoughtful episode about how stories are passed on from one group or generation to another and how difficult it can be disentangling them from self-interested motives.

A faint sound of mechanical music, maybe a shadow on the wall, that’s all the warning you’ll get and If You Meet Sartana, Pray for Your Death. Or so says the title of the 1968 Spaghetti Western that introduced the popular character to audiences. Definitely closer to a superhero film than most of the best films of the…

Choosing a Doctor Who episode to watch for Father’s Day is much easier than Mother’s Day. There are several good candidates—obviously “Father’s Day” from the 9th Doctor era would be one—but I watched “The Doctor’s Daughter”. I think it was the second time since I first watched it. As is so often the case, it feels…

Now it’s Aeryn’s turn to rescue Crichton but she’ll need a little help from a rival for his affections. Not that Aeryn or Crichton are at a point where they would admit Gilina is a rival or that a situation even exists where anyone could be a rival.

I feel like talking about a few trailers to-day. Plenty have come out recently that may finally get me back in a cinema. I still haven’t gotten around to seeing Endgame, though, and I fully intended to see that, so who knows.

“Fight yourself and the part that wins doesn’t count. It’s the part that loses.” There’s a great film noir line for you from 1948's Inner Sanctum, a film based on a long running anthology horror suspense radio show. A low budget B-movie by the short lived M.R.S. productions, it nonetheless features an intriguing and…

Maybe the idea of an Otto Preminger movie starring Robert Mitchum and Marilyn Monroe put my expectations too high the first time I watched 1954's River of No Return. I find I like it a lot more now—those beautiful location shots in Calgary, Robert Mitchum’s performance, Marilyn Monroe’s beauty, and the story about…

In one of the most eventful episodes of Farscape, the series’ primary villain is finally introduced, familiar characters return after a long absence, and Chiana continues to distinguish herself.

I finally caught the first episode of Deadwood last night. I get to these things eventually, this one only took me fifteen years. I like it so far, only one episode in—please refrain from giving me spoilers though I’ve already looked up some of the real life counterparts of characters portrayed on screen and have a…

It was Colin Baker’s birthday yesterday so I watched The Ultimate Foe, his final serial as the Doctor. Perhaps more interesting for the behind the scenes drama, it certainly doesn’t feel like a final episode for an incarnation of the Doctor, and Colin Baker infamously refused to return for the regeneration scene of…

Unsurprisingly, NetFlix is currently streaming 1982's The Dark Crystal ahead of their release of a prequel series to that movie in August: The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. It’d been several years since I watched the original film so I thought I’d take the opportunity to refresh my memory. I’d never seen it in high…

So the Alien frightened you, so the Terminator thrilled you. Now get ready for the Alien Terminator (aka Top Line), a 1988 action/adventure/Sci-Fi film starring Franco Nero, Deborah Moore, and with the friendly participation of George Kennedy. There’s a goofy grace in this casually ridiculous mess.

A Scotland Yard Inspector’s holiday is interrupted by a murder, a murder complicated by the disappearance of the corpse in 1939's The Body Vanished. A “Quota Quickie”, the film draws on various familiar plot elements and character types in unremarkable settings but there is a strange charm in how plain it is, making…

A situation on Farscape where one group is bluffing about their identities to another group is complicated by an intelligent virus taking control of one individual after another. Miraculously, all this destabilisation leads to some solid and entertaining character development.

Life’s tough for Jiro. In 1958's Red Pier (赤い波止場) he’s the handsome young yakuza with a golden voice, born on the wrong side of the tracks, saviour of children, and the object of all consuming passion for two beautiful women. If you’re looking for a romanticised take on yakuza with a teen heartthrob, this would be a…

A couple months ago, NetFlix quietly released an “Extended” version of The Hateful Eight, Quentin Tarantino’s terrific 2015 Western. Except it wasn’t just a longer version of the film, it was the film recut as a four episode miniseries by Tarantino and his editor:

“Let that be a lesson to you, my girl,” says the Fourth Doctor to Romana. “Never take anything at its face value.” An appropriate lesson indeed in The Pirate Planet, a 1978 Doctor Who serial, the first to be written by Douglas Adams. People who appear to be villains turn out to be victims—even characters who prey on…

There’s a new chapter of my infrequently updated web comic, Dekpa and Deborah, online to-day. Deborah brings matters between herself and her family to a conclusion, of sorts, and frets about it. Enjoy!

The crew of Moya contemplate leaving the ship in an episode of Farscape that sees the ensemble ultimately in a more solidified family unit. But the ship herself has to break into four parts in order to reach that point.

Living among vampires for any extended period must be disorientating. This is why it may only be partially accurate to call 1970's Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Valerie a týden divů) a surrealist film. Sure, a lot seems to be taking place on this girl’s journey to sexual awakening that makes no literal sense. But…