Ant-Man (2015)
Jul23

Ant-Man (2015)

I Fought an Avenger and Didn’t Die: Ant-Man (2015)   “Get on the damned ant, Scott!” For some reason that great line sums up director Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man for me: a normal- sized man called Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) yelling at a tiny-sized guy called Scott Lang to get on the damned ant.  And it’s a flying ant, at that. Compared to the other films in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe to date, there is something quite loveably silly...

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The Chronicles of Conan – Volume 11 – The Dance of the Skull And Other Stories
Jul23

The Chronicles of Conan – Volume 11 – The Dance of the Skull And Other Stories

The Chronicles of Conan Volume 11 The Dance of the Skull And Other Stories   These ongoing pieces are overviews rather than reviews and therefore contain spoilers galore.   With writer Roy Thomas’s regular collaborator –the artist John Buscema — otherwise engaged, cult-favourite Howard (American Flagg!, Black Kiss) Chaykin had stepped into those very large boots for a few months. As I mentioned in the review for...

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Promethea – Book 1
Jul23

Promethea – Book 1

Promethea Book 1 Down from the Attic: 4   Back in the day, before Promethea went into the Attic, not to emerge for another fifteen years, this was the Alan Moore comic series that I had expected to have the most difficulty with. Now I can’t remember why, much less the reason I never bought Book 2.  Life just got in the way, perhaps. I seem to remember that a lot of the fans that I met in Dublin’s Forbidden Planet and then when I moved...

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Them: Adventures with Extremists (2001)
Jul17

Them: Adventures with Extremists (2001)

Them: Adventures with Extremists (2001)   “’Bloody Hollywood,’ [Tony Kaye] muttered.  ‘Bloody America.  I flew to the Caribbean last week to speak with a very wise man, a Nobel Prize winner, and he said that America was so bloody…so stupid…could you hold on a minute?’ “’Ok’ I said. “I heard Tony place the telephone receiver down onto the table. “’I don’t mean it,’ he said to someone, softly.  ‘I love America.’ “’That’s fine,’ I heard...

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Terminator:  Genisys
Jul10

Terminator: Genisys

The Future Isn’t Fixed: Terminator:  Genisys   Who could ever forget Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2:  Judgment Day?  Don’t get me wrong:  she was sweet and lovely in the 1984 original, but in the sequel she took the character to a whole other obsessive level.  With her body sculpted into planes that left not an inch of spare flesh, she looked like a scary wet dream of a paranoid survivalist who had something to be paranoid about.  ...

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