Nextflix Review - Star Trek : Discovery

Want to know what to 'watch next' on Netflix? Check out my Nextflix Reviews

I always liked Star Trek as a kid and sci-fi and fantasy generally and watched a ton of it but I must admit to getting out of the loop with it. I grew up and entered my drinking years I suppose you could say and with the freedom of going out and partying I lost interest in what was on the gogglebox and the programmes I used to enjoy. I caught a few episodes of Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager but it was no longer must-see TV for me. Now I've slowed down with things from that chapter of my life (yes I'm getting old and past it), and since my redundancy I have a lot more free time on my hands and I'm going to see if I can track down and catch up on the shows I missed. Hopefully they'll be on Amazon Prime & Netflix* otherwise I may have to look for bargains. I will try and make a blog diary of it on HERE as I go.

(* I have since found most of it can be viewed on Netflix, yay!)

Anyway this new series Discovery is set 10 years before Kirk and the Starship Enterprise. The main character is Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) apparently Michael is a unisex name now?! Never knew of a woman called Michael but it could be in the future I guess!? She starts as 1st officer to Captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) on board the U.S.S. Shenzou but after things go awry during an encounter she ends up in disgrace and finds herself by chance on board the U.S.S. Discovery. Starfleet are now at war and as the series progresses she discovers more about the Discovery's mission and more about it's vital role in that battle. 

Discovery is staffed with lots of interesting characters and it's cool getting to know them as the series progresses although there are plenty of twists and turns that you may or may not see coming and later in the series there's a big upheaval that shifts things quite significantly. Also no character is safe, it's not the Star trek of my youth, people die, named characters, not just guys in red shirts. Apparently there is swearing too which I must admit I never even noticed it myself but that's probably down to my own normal 4-letter word heavy vocabulary. 

Star Trek during it's 50 years of existence has often been about progressive thinking, foreseeing technological changes and spearheading social change with it's message of unity on Earth and in space. It's often credited with having the 1st interracial kiss on US television with Kirk & Uhura in 1968 although that's not quite true. In this series there is a gay couple something that could never have happened back in the 60's I doubt. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we get some transgender characters in the not too distant future and that's a great thing, I doubt I'll be around in another 50 years, although it's possible, it'd be interesting to see how much it changes to stay current with the society of it's time and what things are on it possibly foreseeing what's to come.

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Film Review - Wonder Woman

I am a sucker for a superhero movie and especially those with DC comics characters as I am a big DC fan. I won't disparage any Marvel movies cos they've all been pretty decent but it annoys me all these Marvel fans that slag off the DC movies. They have a different focus with their films, more serious, not trying to be buddy movies and comedies. I was really hopeful that Wonder Woman would be a success, otherwise all the DC naysayers would've jumped on it as they always do. So I went to see this at the cinema with high hopes and I was not disappointed and in fact I was pretty delighted as this film got practically universal appraise. So now I have it on DVD too as I have to keep my super-film collection as up to date as I can 👸 (I was looking for a smiley and this one looks a bit like Wonder Woman)

As mentioned before in my Wonder Woman blog Diana and her tribe of warrior woman, The Amazons live on Themyscira. She is born of magic, the youngest person on the island, shaped from clay by her mother Hippolyta and brought to life by a thunder bolt from Zeus. It is her destiny to battle the evil god of war Aries if he ever returns as he is expected to do some day. Isolated on their island though they do not realise that war has encompassed the world of man beyond their magically hidden borders. They are alerted soon enough when Steve Trevor, an american spy working for the British crash lands into the sea. Diana rescues him just in time for boatloads of pursuing Germans to emerge through the magical island obscuring fog. After a battle where some Amazons die and the Germans are all eliminated they question Trevor and Diana becomes convinced that Aries is abroad in man's world and is determined that it is her duty to go out and put a stop to him.

So Dianna accompanies Steve to man's world during the end days of WWI, the armistice is due to be declared but General Ludendorff who she determines to be Ares and his scientist Dr. Maru have plans to prolong the war and even perhaps win it with the creation of a new terrible poison gas weapon. 

There's plenty of action and a dash of humour as Dianna is out of her element and unfamiliar with the way man's world works, the role of women in this era not being like it is today, I think they'd only just got the right to vote at this point in time in the UK. As you can imagine the top brass won't listen to her and no one believes in ancient Greek gods anymore. Eventually Diana with Steve and a small team of his friends go to Europe to face the enemy head-on in some great action sequences and end up confronting Ludendorff who is planning to drop gas and Ares finally appears for an epic battle.

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Nextflix Reviews - The Villainess

Want to know what to 'watch next' on Netflix? Check out my Nextflix Reviews


So I'm going to start reviewing any interesting films and/or TV series that I discover on Netflix as so many people are always asking, "Hey what shall I watch next on Netflix,?" and I normally forget what cool things I've watched. So if I make posts about it from now on I can remind myself can't I? 

So 1st up is the film The Villainess which is a high action, violent martial arts rampage of a movie. The opening protracted ultraviolent sequence plays a bit like Hardcore Henry meets Oldboy. In 1st person mode our heroine, (at least I think she's more of a heroine than a villainess to be honest, although she certainly is conflicted), plows her bloody way through a multitude of gangster looking types with guns and blades. We (or she) switch from this perspective after she gets her head smashed into a mirror. The rest of the bloodbath (and the film) then ensues in 3rd person mode. 

In the aftermath of this slaughter she is caught by a shadowy organisation, perhaps government sanctioned and trained by them as an undercover operative. A spy/assassin kind of akin to the film Nikita. She is found to be pregnant and has a baby daughter which she raises inside the organisations prison like training camp. She makes friends and enemies there and she eventually gets let out, the idea is she has to give the organisation 10 years of her life then she'll get her freedom. 

From then we see how she deals with life once she is released into the world and she tries to create a semblance of a normality for herself and her daughter whilst doing the agency's bidding and also being the focus of their machinations. Throughout we are shown flashbacks of her history and what led up to the initial bloodbath the movie started with and things from her past begin to catch up with her resulting in a clash between her new alliances and her old ones which doesn't leave very many survivors.

The action is fast and nasty and there were a couple of points that had me exclaim, "Ooh steady on there film, that was a bit much!"

All in all a very enjoyable, bloody, violent, action packed hit as far as I am concerned. It's a South Korean film, released in 2017 and has subtitles so if you're one of those people who don't like them it may not be for you. 

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Also starring Kim Ok-Bin

   

Also directed by Byung-gil Jung

DC Exhibition: Dawn of Super Heroes

So, I'd seen the ads, I'd seen people's posts about it on Facebook and I decided that I had to go and see it for myself, so off I jolly well trotted to the O2 at North Greenwich at 12 O'clock today to go and see the DC heroes on display. And jolly glad I am that I did cos it was fab. 

Click to enlarge

The venue was pretty quiet today which was nice, I could take my time poring over all the cool vintage art from 80 years of comics action. All the great names I knew from my collecting days and even a fair few I'd not heard of were on display. I was fascinated with the way it was put together with annotations in the borders and with the lettering and page banners etc all applied on top of the drawn page. You could see the alterations made as well and penciled guidelines. 

I love the older comics with their hokey stories and dated notions of romance, they have a kind of naive innocence of a bygone era that always tickles me.

If you are more interested in the movies rather than their source material then you shouldn't be upset as there are a wealth of props, models, costumes, concept art and storyboards from all the DC hero films and even some focus on the old 60's and animated Batman shows. The display rooms were divided by characters with focus on the more recent crop of movies. So Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Suicide Squad & The Justice League all got plenty of coverage. I would have liked a Green Lantern dedicated room as well but with the unfair negative feedback that movie got there was no chance of that!

Upon entering the exhibition you can get an audio exhibition guide which was easy enough to use and gave some fascinating insight into the comics world. My only real gripe was the lighting which was very muted. The info plaques were black with the white text on them in pretty small font and it made them hard to read. I also missed a load of the audio guide number prompts probably due to the lack of light also. (Although I am not sure if that was the fault of the light's dimness or my own!) Perhaps I was too enraptured by the art to notice the numbers.

Another small gripe but probably only specific to old bums with flat feet like me was that there could've been a few more seats to park weary butts in for a while.

Anyway, in summary I thoroughly enjoyed my couple of hours and thought it was excellent value for money. If it sounds like your cuppa tea the exhibit runs till September the 9th. 

Click HERE for more info.

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Geek Tee Friday - Cute-thulhu!!

Check out my other Geek Tee BLOGS

I love the stories of H.P. Lovecraft and the dark beings of his Cthulhu mythos but I also like a laugh and this cute Cthulhu shirt is great, especially when juxtaposed with my big ugly hairy mug!

I need more Lovecraft geeky tees for sure though. One is not enough really but I am trying to be good though as I have a blooming mountain of heavy metal shirts already.

Check out my Heavy Metal Cthulhu themed podcasts that I do every year for Cthulhu-mass (which I have decided is the 1st Sunday after Christmas) HERE.

Also check out the silly home horror movie that I made, it's very bad but I kind of like it
Cthulhu Fear

Have a look at the review I did of the London Lovecraft festival HERE

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DVD review - Kung Fu Hustle

Kung Fu movies, I love them, I maybe don't watch them so much nowadays and maybe I'm out of the loop but there don't seem to be as many coming out any more. At least not in the west, I am sure they are just as plentiful as they ever were in Asian cinema but I am just not seeing them advertised at the cinema here anymore or in DVD rentals at all. They are kind of like the 80's style action blockbusters, I just don't seem to see quality examples of the genre much around lately.


Now historically I am sure that Bruce Lee was the original martial artist that made it into the movies in Hollywood. He had to work hard to get what he could from the business but had a hard time trying to popularise Kung Fu movies and getting roles. I remember the TV series Kung Fu, I enjoyed it as a kid and I am sure I had a Kung Fu annual at some point. However that was a prime example of Lee being held down by the TV Execs. He came up with the idea for the show and they chose the non-Asian David Carradine to play the role of the half Chinese "Grasshopper" Kwai Chang Caine. 

David has a few more geeky claims to fame, he played Frankenstein in Death Race 2000 and Bill in the, Tarantino written and directed, Kill Bill movies. He actually learned martial arts later in life inspired by his role in Kung Fu. I'm just glad that inspired him and not his driving in Death Race 2000 😏 



  

Lee played the role of Kato in The Green Hornet. I never saw that at all as a kid, I don't know if the UK TV networks ever bought it. I don't recall it from the time but Green Hornet & Kato popped their heads out of the window in one of the Batman TV shows from the 60's. They also appeared as guests in one show solving a crime together. I only know this as an old customer of mine ripped me the whole series onto DVD-Rs for me but I left them at work when I was made redundant. Needless to say as the Batman series is now out on DVD it's on my to-buy list. I may well look into getting the Green Hornet series too, it only ran for one season though with 26 episodes running from September 9, 1966,  through to March 17, 1967. I am not sure if this series is even available now though. All I could find were a couple of movies, The Green Hornet and Fury of The Dragon cobbled together to cash in after Lee died 😢 I did discover that Kevin Smith had written a Batman/Green Hornet comic that followed up from the TV show story!! And there was a 1940's TV series of the Green Hornet where the master from Kung Fu plays Kato!

    

 I have the movie from 2011 and that was pretty cool. Hey another thing, off tangent, but did you know that Britt Reid aka the Green Hornet is a relative of The Lone Ranger?? He shares the same family name as Britt's father was the Lone Ranger's nephew. True story! 


As far as movies go the only one I really recall of Lee's was Enter The Dragon. (It was sadly practically his last, he died during filming of his next movie The Game of Death). It's a classic of the genre, no nonsense, no jokes just serious action. If you want this movie with jokes and silliness check out The Kentucky Fried Movie, it has a parody called A Fistful of Yen which is hilarious.

So Lee was historically first I think but for me I am sure that I was aware of Jackie Chan before I knew of him. I could be mistaken of course, my memory is naff as heck. I recall he was in a movie called Battle Creek Brawl (1980) that was on in the cinemas in the UK and I was too young to go and see it. This was the age of the video rental shops though and I did watch a ton of Chan movies over the years. Some I can recall are of course Drunken Master, Armour of God, Wheels on Meals and Police Story. His films were different from Lee's with the added element of humour, lots of fart jokes and terrible dubbing and sound effects. Also insane stunts, remember the crazy out takes scenes at the end of each film? It's surprising Jackie is still going with all the crazy bumps he's taken over the years. He's still making good films too. Check out my review of The Foreigner, it's got no humour in it at all but it's a cool serious film and Jackie is great in it.

    

Sho Kosugi is a name I remember too, with a number of "Ninja" movies from the early 80's being pretty good viewing at the time.

Of the 80's/90's action heroes Jean-Claude Van Damme was the most martial arts focused, with films like Blood Sport, Kickboxer, A.W.O.L, Double Impact and Street Fighter but his movies branched out from that with gun fights so I don't think of him as a total martial arts hero really. 



Fun fact: I found out he studied ballet for 5 years!! Well I never!!

Played Colonel Guile in Street Fighter and was the inspiration for Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat too!

A more recent series of films I liked were Ong Bak with Tony Jaa.

 The knees and elbows thrown in those are insane, it just looks damned painful watching it!! Those fight stuntmen earn every penny of their money and they probably deserve more really I reckon! I've not seen any other films by him though and there doesn't seem to be any martial arts action star that I know of bringing out a succession of great movies.  There are a few one-offs like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the Ip Man series, both of which are pretty entertaining. 

This film Kung Fu Hustle starring Stephen Chow who also did Shaolin Soccer is pretty huge though, looking it up I found out it was the highest-grossing Chinese-language film in the history of Hong Kong until it was surpassed in 2011. It came out in 2004!! Wow, time files huh? 

DVD night - Reviews for Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Leatherface and Alien: Covenant

Another movie date night with my gorgeous Mrs. She fell asleep after 10 minutes as she always does and I watched all these movies as she lightly snored and snuffled beside me on the bed. 

Kingsman: The Golden Circle was her choice and I was more than happy to watch it as we'd both thoroughly enjoyed it's predecessor. The films are based on the Kingsman comic book series by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons released in 2012 though I am sure I read a book that was very similar to this concept before as well which was very, very similar too I thought. I can't recall for the life of me what the book was called or any of the characters names from it but I was SURE it was based on it when I first saw the film. I have tried to have a google up to find it but had no joy there. 

   

Oh well, the 2nd film is another high energy, fight fest full of crazy action and far-fetched gadgets & plot scenes that see the last of the Kingsmen teaming up with members of their US counterparts the Statesmen to take on the drug cartel The Golden Circle who have poisoned their products threatening to kill anyone who has taken them and will only release the antidote if the world agrees to make them all legal! The organisation's leader has also kidnapped Elton John and seems to make a habit of getting her robot dogs to kill her failed underlings and then mincing and making them into hamburgers!! That kind of cannibalistic behaviour would help her fit right in with the protagonists of the next movie from this evening......

...Leatherface. This is not to be confused with Texas Chainsaw Massacre III which had the subtitle Leatherface and a cool Heavy Metal soundtrack, but there are so many chainsaw killing movies based in Texas now that I have totally lost track of them all! (This is #8 it seems!!) It doesn't really matter though does it, you know what you are getting when you buy or hire one of these out don't you? Well, normally I'd say yes you do but this is an origin story for this evil face wearing maniac so it's a bit different. There is still a family of wrong 'uns living on a farm in Texas somewhere and the mother who is raising her kids with very nontraditional family values has one of her boys taken away by the authourities after they kill a sheriff's daughter. There is no proof that it wasn't just an accident so there are no criminal charges instead he is put into what seems to be an asylum or at least a home for VERY maladjusted, twisted teens/young adults. I have to admit I thought that she had 2 children taken from her and Bud another character was Jedidiah's brother, the passage of time in the film and the fact I am sure there were 2 kids in the film's early sequence made me think this but Wikipedia says otherwise so I'll trust it over my own addled memory!

    

He'd been there for 10 years with his mother fighting to get back custody of him. After a bit of chaos caused by his mother a riot and a breakout ensues where he, his friend Bud (who I thought was his brother) and 2 other inmates escape, with a nurse as a hostage in tow. They are pursued by the very sheriff whose daughter they killed all them years ago and he is taking no prisoners. Along the way Leatherface is born making his deranged mother very proud I am sure!!

From a lunatic mother we move on to an alien mother!! Actually there is no alien brood queen mother in this film but there are plenty of eggs, facehuggers and a new alien that infects through mushroom like spores and emerges in splendidly horrific fashion! This, the 6th film in the Alien franchise is about the colony ship Covenant which is carrying settlers to a far off planet to make new lives there. Along the way the crew's stasis sleep is disturbed by an accident. Once awoken they discover signals from a nearby planet, seemingly human in origin they seek the planet out to investigate. Bad idea, terrible idea..... it ends badly. This movie is basically the follow up to the much reviled Prometheus from 2012 and the planet they go to investigate is the one from that movie and the android David played by Michael Fassbender is still living on the planet along with far too many alien killing machines to make it a safe place to visit. Fassbender plays 2 roles, he is David the android on the planet from the Prometheus ship that crashed there and also Walter the later version android from the Covenant. There is plenty of good action and gore and I liked it.

In fact all 3 films tonight were a hit for me :)

      

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Fun fact - Leatherface was filmed in Bulgaria not Texas!!

A Cool Display of Cosplay!!!

As I have doubtlessly mentioned it before I have never done cosplay as such. Fancy dress yes but cosplay no? I think there is a difference, probably dependent on how old you are haha I mean I have dressed as The Joker and a zombie and they are kind of geeky, so maybe I was cosplaying even though we just called it fancy dress back then!! What's in a name anyway? I had fun and whatever you call it having fun is what it's about! Anyway this post is another in my 'recommending something awesome from the internet that I have seen' sort of posts. So any cool blogs, or art or anything cool & geeky that catches my eye I'll make a post about it now and again.

So without further ado I heartily recommend that you check out the amazing page of  ‎Désirée Cosplay. She does a great Fallout cosplay as a lady version of Grognak the Barabarian, something that I think is referred to as a crossplay when someone plays a character of the opposite sex to themselves. Although I am not sure if this counts as that as in game you can wear Grognak's costume as it has a male and female version. Anyway enough of my rambling, check out this great photo and check out her page to see all the different and greatly varied characters she brings to life.

Photo by Michael P Hoover Photography

I particularly like this as in my PS4 playthrough of Fallout Grognak's Axe is my weapon of choice. Check out this video I made using it. 

Panasonic HC-V380

I have just bought myself a new video camera!! My old one has been having a bit of trouble of late as the shutter doesn't seem to open up properly anymore and sometimes you can see it when I am filming something and that simply won't do eh?! It will likely cost more to repair than to replace and I have had it going on 10 years at least. So I was thinking about getting a new one but I'm not that good with technology really. 

I went into a Jessops when I was up in Leicester and enquired about cameras but it seems that the video camera is not so much in demand now as every still-shot type camera now tends to have very good video capturing modes and so they have almost made the video style of camera redundant. For what I want to use it for, mainly recording at gigs and making geeky blogs I much prefer the shape and size of the vidcam. The branch of Jessops I was in was not a large one and they had no video cameras in store whatsoever. 

Later in the week for my lady's birthday we were out shopping and I picked up a new camera in Curry's PC World. They only had a choice of 3 in stock so I went with the most expensive one hoping it'd have all the bells and whistles I need to do a good job :) That's a good scientific way of doing it I reckon!!

So I made a little video about it, check it out if you didn't already and check out my newest gig videos to see what you think of the picture and sound quality. I am quite happy with it actually. Now I might need to get myself a new camera bag and perhaps a new tripod too.

      

London Lovecraft Festival - The Shadow Over Innsmouth

I have been getting a lot of adverts on my Facebook feed about a London Lovecraft Festival and being a big H.P. geek I had to have a look at it. It's a theatrical celebration of the great man's works and is running from the 6th to the 11th of February. Events include renditions of The Thing on the Doorstep, Pickman's Model, a gender switched Mountains of Madness, a Weird Tales inspired Improv and even a Lovecraftian crooner!!

I happen to have that whole week off of work but I have other plans already in place. I visited my brother and family at the start of the week. Then it's my girlfriend's birthday so I am taking her shopping one day, little pub gathering one evening and a romantic night in with a takeaway has to be done!! Then I have a gig to attend!! Then Sunday I will be recording my regular podcast show. I would've felt really bad if I missed it entirely so I have booked in for the very last show of the event on the Sunday night. 

The Shadow Over Insmouth is a bona fide Lovecraft classic, one of his most seminal works and I am very much looking forward to seeing it. This is how the event is described on the event page, it certainly sounds good for sure -

On a frankly tedious architectural tour of the coastline, Robert Olmstead happens across the ancient seaport of Innsmouth... 

What he discovers there will threaten his life, test his will and shatter his sanity. 

Featuring original music, puppetry and physical theatre, this darkly comic fast paced two hander brings a HP Lovecraft classic to the stage as you've never seen it before, and explores the complex and sometimes deadly relationship between man and fish.

I'll post up a review here in due course :)




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