Category: News

A Doctor A Day – “Love and Monsters”

  • News
  • December 23, 2012

Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode,The Snowmen.

If Lars von Trier had thought of it, it would have been one of the Five Obstructions.  Make a Doctor Who episode, but don’t use The Doctor. It rather limits the drama, doesn’t it?  far from it, it gives you a chance to do a story about friends and mystery, and…

LOVE AND MONSTERS
by Russell T Davies
Directed by Dan Zefftumblr_l3nox1omkr1qa7yfto1_500-3198485Elton Pope (Not that Elton, and not that Pope) is relating his adventures on his video blog.  He’s just met The Doctor, who was fighting an alien in a disused industrial building…as he does.  Elton begins to relate his history a bit – he remembers seeing The Doctor in his kitchen back with he was a toddler, as well.  He grew up rather normal and has a pleasant life, until a couple years ago when London started getting regularly attacked by aliens.  The Autons, the Slitheen, the Sycorax, all seen through his eyes.  He begins to search about the Internet, and finds a blog by a young woman named Ursula Blake, with recent photos of The Doctor, who looks no different than when he appears in Elton’s kitchen decades ago.

Ursula introduces Elton to a group of her friends, fellow Doctor-sighters and searchers, who meet regularly in the local library.  They all share the tidbits they’ve discovered about him throughout history.  After meeting for some time, Ursula suggests the club needs a name. Elton suggests “LInDA” – The London Investigation ‘n’ Detective Agency.  LInDA slowly become more of a social club than a tin-hat society, and the all become proper friends.  That is…until Mr. Victor Kennedy appeared. A strange man suffering from a skin complaint (Exceezma…like Eczema, but far worse).  He claims to have information about The Doctor, and shows them that they’ve lost their way in their investigations.  Kennedy has access to a staggering amount of information about the Doctor, including data from Torchwood. He hands out pictures of Rose Tyler, and sets LInDA off on the task to find her. And  in amongst the investigations…the members of LInDA are slowly going missing.

Friends are made, loves are lost, and a monsters stands revealed. Oh, and The Doctor shows up, eventually.

There’s been bits of humor in every episode, but this is the first episode that’s elbow-deep hilarious.  The episode was created by necessity – the BBC asked for a Christmas episode with this season, but didn’t add any time or much money to the budget.  So the producers were forced to find a way to force a fourteenth episode into the schedule, one that would have very little of The Doctor and Rose, as the actors simply wouldn’t have time to shoot another full episode.  So with a short sequence at the beginning, an appearance at the end, and photos and mentions all in between, you get a great bit of sleight of hand that feels like a full Doctor appearance.  The acting in the episode is wonderful as well, featuring British comedy star Peter Kay as the baddie, and Camille Coduri making a return as Jackie Tyler.

LInDA is a name Russell T Davies had made up for a earlier children’s show he’d written years back called “Why Don’t You?”,  The Absorbaloff was created by a child as part of a Blue Peter competition. Russell begged for one more alien for the alien, with the opening sequence, and they gave him one.  He even gave it a name – the Hoix.

RANKING THE JAMES BOND FILMS, PART 3: THE TOP 3!

  • News
  • December 22, 2012

So today we finish up my rankings of all 23 of the Eon Productions JAMES BOND films, with the TOP THREE overall.

We looked at numbers 23-14 here and at numbers 13-4 here.
Remember, folks–stuff like this is entirely subjective.  We’re (mostly) talking my favorites, not the “greatest” or “highest grossing” or whatever.  This represents my views.

Without further ado, then, here are my three favorite Bond films, in order:

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3. Goldfinger

Hard to argue against this one, which really does have almost everything. I had it ranked second until yesterday when I re-watched it, and found it oddly disappointing in places.  My main complaint is that, given the larger scope of this one than its predecessors, Goldfinger’s scheme is not quite up to the world-ending level of many of the others—but that’s probably just me.  The middle is sort of dull, too, while Bond plays golf and then is held prisoner in Kentucky.  But the Aston Martin goes a long way–even if he never quite gets to use it as creatively as we might have liked.  And so does Honor Blackman (and “Jill Masterson” at the start ain’t bad, either). Odd Job is iconic.  And it has probably the second or third best theme song, too–and the most iconic.  It’s a great Bond movie.

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2. From Russia with Love
A simple, straight-ahead spy movie with vivid characters and great action.  Bond’s Turkish ally, Kerim Bey, remains a favorite, and Robert Shaw as the SMERSH assassin is very cool–is he the only actor to have fought both James Bond and (the shark) Jaws?! The visuals of Istanbul and along the European rail line are gorgeous—as was the leading lady, Daniela Bianchi.  The theme song is great–and, interestingly, doesn’t appear (with lyrics) in the opening credit sequence; it’s only at the end.  The story sticks just close enough to the novel to make it a tight, taut thriller rather than an over-the-top spectacle.  And you can’t beat a catfight in a Gypsy camp.

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1. You Only Live Twice
The prototype for seemingly half the rest of the franchise, with the original “supervillain base in a volcano.” Japan in the 1960s provides a great backdrop and Tiger Tanaka is rivaled only by Kerim Bey of “From Russia with Love” as Bond’s greatest “regional ally.”  Is it over-the-top, much of the way?  Sure.  Does the plot make sense?  Not a lot of it, no.  Will many criticize me for this choice?  Probably.  But it’s my list, and this one has always been my favorite.  And it has my favorite theme song of all, to boot.  This one is my favorite.

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So there you have my entire list–all 23 Bond films from Eon, in the order I like them (or don’t like them).  

Be sure to visit www.whiterocketbooks.com to listen to our James Bond podcast episode (or find it on iTunes) and also to check out the many great books we have available.  Thanks for reading!

Saturday Morning Cartoons (kinda): X-Men Stop Motion

  • News
  • December 22, 2012

The 1990s “X-Men” cartoon holds a special place in the hearts of many a fan, but that theme song– great the first 50 times, but if you’ve ever been at a comic convention next to a dealer that had the thing playing on a loop, you wanted to tear down their booth with your teeth after an hour.

Anyway, the team of Kyle Roberts, Nathan Pope, Zach Zellar and Colin Nance have created their own take on the famous opening. Take a look:

No Boom Today…

  • News
  • December 22, 2012

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The Mayan Apocalypse has been averted… but who did it? Superman? The Doctor? Buffy? Chuck Norris? John Constantine? Sam and Dean Winchester? Booster Gold (yeah, right)?

Cast your vote now! We want to know who to put on speed-dial when we have a boom tomorrow. There’s always a boom tomorrow. Sooner or later– BOOM!

FORTIER TAKES ON ‘ARCHIE MEETS NERO WOLFE’!

  • News
  • December 21, 2012

ALL PULP REVIEWS by Ron Fortier

ARCHIE MEETS NERO WOLFE
By Robert Goldsborough
A Mysteriouspress.com Book
221 pages
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If you are a lover of books, then the passing of a favorite writer brings on a great deal of sadness; especially if that writer had been the author of a well loved series.  Such was the case for thousands of mystery lovers when Rex Stout passed away in 1975.  For all intents and purposes this also brought about the demise of his beloved characters, Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.
The following eleven years saw most of Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries reprinted countless times in various editions; all of them treasured by his fans.  Still the thrill of joining these familiar figures on new cases seemed to be a lost cause.  Then, in 1994, journalist Robert Goldsborough wrote “Murder in E Minor,” a brand new Nero Wolfe mystery much to the delight of the majority of Stout fans.  Note, I say majority.  In matters such as these, there will always be the vocal purists who see new stories as sacrilegious and prefer such fictional heroes end their careers with the death of their creators.  We are clearly not of that attitude.  We thoroughly enjoyed Goldsborough’s efforts and felt he had captured Archie’s voice perfectly.  He would go on to write six additional titles in the series ending them in 1994 with “The Missing Chapter.” 
At which point, annoyed by the criticism of that minority we mentioned, Goldsborough went on to create his own original mystery series featuring a Chicago reporter of the past named Snap Malek.  Several of these have won prestigious genre literary awards.  Still, when looking at our Nero Wolfe titles on our bookshelf, we regularly hoped that some day he would return to that familiar brownstone on West Thirty-Fifth Street in which dwells the rotund detective and his handsome legman, Archie Goodwin.  That he has done so in such a spectacular fashion is a cause for unabashed celebration.
Not only has Goldsborough answered our pleas, but he has gone beyond our wildest dreams in offering up the story Rex Stout never did; the tale of Archie’s first meeting with Nero Wolfe.  Painstakingly culling through Stout’s canon, Goldsborough took the slim nuggets seeded throughout the dozens of books and short stories and meticulously put them together in a working timeline.  From these morsels he then went on to craft a truly complete and traditional Nero Wolfe mystery only with a major difference; we finally are allowed to witness the first ever meeting between these two remarkable characters. Let us assure you, it was worth the wait.  Reading “Archie Meets Nero Wolfe,” had us remembering our teenage high school days when we first picked up our first Wolfe paperback.  This book is in essence a joyous family reunion.
It should be noted that the very first Nero Wolfe mystery, “Fer-De-Lance,” appeared in 1934 during the days of the Great Depression.  Goldsborough deftly sets his story in the same era wonderfully researching his background for authentic slang, clothing, automobiles and the city itself so the reader is transported back into that time. 
Now the book’s actual mystery plot resolves around a rich hotelier’s eight year old son being kidnapped.  The man hires the famous Nero Wolfe to save the boy.  Wolfe, as is his habit, then recruits his regular group of private investigators; all of whom are quite familiar to any fan of the series.  Only this time there’s a new face in the crowd, an eager beaver fresh of the bus from Ohio who has connected himself with operative Del Bascomb.  His name is Archie Goodwin and he is very, very eager to show Wolfe how capable he is.  As ever Goldsborough delivers a true by-the-rules puzzle astute readers will relish in trying to solve before Wolfe’s traditional in-house gathering at the finale.  But the true heart of this book is the fun in watching a young, brash, would be private-eye encounter the man who is going to be his mentor and closest friend.  Goldsborough again captures Archie’s voice brilliantly and in doing so takes us on the ride we’ve all been waiting for a long, long time.
Mystery fans, if you or a loved one is a Nero Wolfe fan, you could not give them a better Christmas gift this year than, “Archie Meets Nero Wolfe.”  Then watch the smiles on their faces when they unwrap this truly great book.  Tell them Santa sent you.

The Point Radio: HOW STUFF WORKS Heads To TV

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The popular podcast HOW STUFF WORKS moves to a new medium early in 2013 when the Science Channel launches the HSW television series. We talk to the guys behind it on how they are creating a hybrid reality show/situation comedy, plus doing an episode dedicated to comic book movies. Meanwhile, KOJACK gets closer to a reboot and DC says goodbye to THE SPIRIT.

Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio  – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other  mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

A Doctor A Day – “The Idiot’s Lantern”

  • News
  • December 21, 2012

Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode,The Snowmen.

The Queen’s coronation increased sales of televisions in Britain faster than Howdy Doody did in the US.  But when one store sells sets for less than could possibly be profitable, The Doctor fears they may have an ulterior motive to expose everyone to…

THE IDIOT’S LANTERN
by Mark Gatiss
Directed by Euros Lyn“Are you sitting comfortably?  Good! They we’ll begin…”

The proprietor of Magpie Electricals is near bankruptcy until a strange new partner offers a way to turn his business around.  With the queen’s Coronation coming up, he suddenly finds a way to make TVs available for the outrageous price of five pounds a pop.  Needless to say, they’re selling like mad.

magpie_electricals__1920_x_1200__by_jarrrp-d4rdljm-300x187-2196629The Doctor and Rose arrive (accidentally, of course – they were aiming for Elvis’ appearance on Ed Sullivan) as sales are skyrocketing.  But at the same time, people are being taken from their homes, under blankets, by people claiming to be police.  Clearly seeing the proverbial Something is Going On, the pair investigate by visiting a family with one of Magpie’s tellys.  The husband is a right boor, controlling the family with an iron hand, but the wife and son are distraught.  Their grandmother has been transformed to a mindless, faceless shell.  Apparently, it’s been happening all over town, and it’s they who the police have been collecting up.

The Doctor finds where the victims have been collected and convinces the Detective Inspector to help solve the mystery as opposed to just cover it up. And Rose confronts Mr. Magpie, only to learn that he’s under the electronic thumb of an energy being called The Wire, who has been draining people of faces and brains via the new TVs.  Alas, she’s shortly in no position to impart this knowledge, as she’s promptly wiped.  When the police find her and bring her in, The Doctor goes cold and scary, vowing that there’ll be no stopping him.

They break into Magpie’s shop and find a number of odd things – a portable television set some three decades ahead of its time, and trapped in the televisions in the shop, the faces, and presumably the minds, of the victims of The Wire, including Rose.  The Wire plans to transfer itself to the portable set and connect up to the transmission station at Alexandra Palace, where it will be able to feed on everyone watching the Coronation.   Can The Doctor stop the plan in time?

Mark Gatiss’ episodes so far have had a very personal feel – large stakes, but ultimately featuring a small cast.  This one has London in the balance, but ultimately it’s about one family, and how the members of the family respond to the horrific changes around them.

The Doctor has had bad experiences on tall broadcast towers; he fell off one to his death, or at least regeneration, in Logopolis.  He’s faced more than a few energy-based foes as well—the Nestene Consciousness, the formless Gelth in The Unquiet Dead, and there was this foe from the Troughton days…oo, showed up twice…can’t seem to summon up its name now, can’t imagine why…

Magpie Electricals makes many more appearances in the series— since Mr. Magpie himself came to an unfortunate end, it’s presumed someone bought the brand name and used its notoriety to turn it into a powerhouse brand for literally centuries to come.  The Magpie brand shows up in all sorts of Earth-based technology up to and including the launch of Starship UK.  There’s been no suggestion there’s anything untoward going with them (tho one can never be sure), it seems more like it’s become a brand like the various products of KrebStar Industries on The Adventures of Pete and Pete, or the various food and cigarette trademarks in Quentin Tarantino’s films.

Ranking the James Bond Films, Part One: Numbers 23-14

  • News
  • December 20, 2012

Having read through Peter Travers’ travesty of a ranking of all the James Bond films, I decided the only thing to do was to create my own, much more accurate list in response.  That’s a little joke, of course, because it’s all subjective–few topics get fans more fired up than ranking any series of anything, and especially Bond movies.  But I’ve been watching Bond movies for four-plus decades; I grew up on them, as is my little daughter even now.  (Yesterday we finished her first viewing of “Dr. No” and she loudly demanded that we continue on into “Goldfinger!”)  So here is how I see them, beginning with what I view as the TEN WORST BOND MOVIES OF ALL:

23. A View to a Kill

Simply a wretched film under any circumstances, and the worst of the Roger Moore series—which is saying something.  I’ve watched it several times, and can’t get those hours of my life back, I’m afraid.  There’s virtually nothing redeeming about this movie.  Moore is a thousand years old.  Duran Duran does the theme song.  Dear lord.  It’s all just dreadful.
22. Octopussy

While overall not as terrible as “A View to a Kill,” it contains the single worst moment in any of the films: James Bond, in full clown makeup, pleading for someone in a circus audience to take him seriously and believe him that an atomic bomb is counting down toward detonation.  And they’re all laughing at him. YOU DON’T EVER LAUGH AT BOND.  Except, y’know, when he’s making one of his little dry jokes.  Just horrible.
21. License to Kill

Watching Dalton is as exciting as watching a layer of paint dry on your secret underground supervillain volcano lair, and the film looks more like a made-for-TV movie from the mid-1980s than a big-budget blockbuster.  Even “Dr. No,” made for about a buck fifty, looked more “epic” than this.  And a drug lord and his cartel–big in the Eighties as far as bad guys go–just seems so “yesterday” now.
20. Die Another Day

The parts are all there for a great Bond film–particularly the Korean DMZ opening, a locale we hadn’t seen before in any of the Bond films, and a very logical one for him to be seen at–but they came together in such a depressing way that this movie actually made me ready for Pierce Brosnan’s run as Bond to die thisday.  And that says a lot, considering he is my favorite Bond.

19. The Man with the Golden Gun

What seemed in the mid-1970s as an amazing spectacle—the fantastic Christopher Lee as the assassin “Scaramanga,” with his literal “golden gun,” flying car, and island base complete with lasers and fake Bond in the shooting gallery—now seems supremely cheesy.  Still, it did serve as sort of a backdoor pilot for “Fantasy Island,” so we’ll at least give it credit for that.  “The plane! The plane!”
18. The Living Daylights

While Timothy Dalton is the dullest Bond of all (and those who say he’s like the Bond of the books must be reading different books than I have), and while there are parts of the film that induce cringes to this day (toy soldiers shooting at Bond? Really?), it’s still tons better than Dalton’s other outing in the role.  Seeing Bond on the Rock of Gibraltar at the start was a nice touch.  Not horrible, but a far cry from “great.”
17. The World is Not Enough

As is true to one degree or another with all four of the Brosnan films, the pieces are there, but it doesn’t quite come together.  Love the villain; like the plot; don’t like the execution of any of it.  Denise “Nucular” Richards gets routinely trashed for her “contributions” to this film, and rightfully so; her performance in the final reel is the cruddy cherry on top.
16. Moonraker

Another that I have a particular soft spot for.  While the return of Jaws—in his new, comedic role—nearly sinks the picture, and while the plot is a virtual Xerox copy of the previous film, “The Spy Who Loved Me,” but in space rather than underwater, the deliciously understated Hugo Drax and the astronauts-with-laser-guns battle at the end save this movie for me.  Sort of.
15. Quantum of Solace

Parts of this movie—Craig’s performance, the whole “Quantum” bit that seemed to be setting up a modern-day SPECTRE, the theater sequence where he talks to the baddies over their communications link—border on spectacular.  Everything else (from Mr. Green to the Latin American dictator) slides over into the ridiculous.  The plotline involving Green’s girlfriend makes no sense whatsoever.  A huge letdown of a movie.
14. The Spy Who Loved Me

Others think very highly of this movie, but I am not the Viewer Who Loved It.  Part of it is personal, based on the circumstances under which I first saw it.  (It was 1977 and I wanted to see “Star Wars;” my brother wanted to see this.  He won.  I had to wait months longer to see “Star Wars.”) Part of it is that I’m not remotely intrigued by Barbara Bach.  Part of it is that, to borrow a phrase from Queen, “Jaws was never my speed.”  Hate me if you want, haters, but this one doesn’t do a lot for me.  Do like the underwater Lotus, though.
Back soon with numbers 13-4!  Then we’ll finish up with the three best of all.
If you loved –or hated–this list, please check out my weekly podcast, The White Rocket Podcast, where a special guest and I sit down each week for a one-on-one conversation about some topic (such as James Bond books and movies!) of interest to Pulp, comics, SF and pop culture fans in general.
You can follow me on Twitter: @VanAllenPlexico and find me on Facebook as “Van Allen Plexico.”  And my main web site is www.plexico.net.
See you next time!

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