BLU-RAY DVD REVIEW: AVATAR

This is just a quickie as I'm not actually reviewing the movie -I've done that twice already in this blog. No, this is just a brief comment on the unexpanded Blu-Ray edition.  But first, a word of explanation.

I watch DVDs on my desktop pc. It does have a DVD/Blu-Ray player but I've had problems actually playing blu-rays. Now I've been having a few problems which necessitated a couple of trips to the corner computer repair shop and mentioned the problems I'd been having. Anyway, along with the rest of the problems, he fixed it by simply downloading a few codecs. Result, I can now watch blu-ray DVDs on my PC. I've only got about 10 which are a mixed bunch including The Evil Dead trilogy, the expanded Metropolis with the recently discovered footage, Wall-E, The Sound of Music (no, I'm not going to explain), and the unexpanded version of Avatar which I bought by mistake from an Amazon marketplace dealer thinking it was the 3-disc version.

I confess that so far I haven't been overly impressed by blu-ray being barely able to notice any difference between that and an ordinary DVD in terms of picture quality. Until tonight when I watched Avatar. The detail was just fucking amazing. Like, totally awesome. Wow!

So what did I do? Buy a shitload of blu-ray DVDs? No, just one. The three-disc version of Avatar. Mind you, I might lash out on the complete blu-ray set of the extended versions of The Lord of the Rings.

BOOK REVIEW: FURTHER-BEYOND THE THRESHOLD by CHRIS ROBERSON

This is an expanded review which recently appeared on Amazon that, at the time of writing (30^th May, 2012) earned 28 positive votes out of 30 (28/30) which is quite a large number by my usual standards –anything over 10 votes is exceptional. Mind you, it was the first Amazon UK review of the book and being the first gets more attention. (The book itself I got for free, a proof copy for review without the snazzy cover shown above.) I think it’s possibly because, having seen a specific criticism on amazon.com, I opened the review with my argument against said criticism. I’ve revised it for this blog because I wanted to go into a little more detail.

The 4 star review’s title is: Enjoyable far future adventure.

That's 12,000 years plus in the future without any back to the Stone Age disasters in between. This immediately sets up the argument that such a period of development would create a society incomprehensible to modern man. I disagree for a couple of reasons. The first is that we are already technologically advanced and just because we can't understand how something futuristic works doesn't mean we don't recognise it for what it is i.e. the product of science. 

Arthur C. Clarke once wrote, or in words to this effect, that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. This sounds a clever thing to say when he said it decades ago but looking at it now it just sounds glib. It doesn't look like magic to our eyes, it just looks like technology. Having second thoughts, I don’t think it was a clever thing to say even then, it just sounded clever and, coming from the great man himself, it gained a lot of attention. I’m not being facetious here. Clarke is important in the history of science fiction and in populist writing about science. He was a genuinely creative thinker. But in this case he was wrong by, at the very least, a couple of hundred years and probably more.

The Renaissance brought about a great change in the way we saw the world, in particular that we are just a part of the universe and not the centre. For the next few hundred years, we saw the evolution in thinking about what call Science which exploded with the Industrial Revolution. A reasonably educated mid-Victorian would not be shocked or overwhelmed by contemporary technology once s/he’d had a change to take it all in. The changes in society would be far more overwhelming. 

The second reason is that, while it goes without saying that society will be vastly different in the future, it's unlikely that our basic intelligence will have changed much. 12,000 years is a blink on the evolutionary scale and I don’t think that it’s altered significantly since the invention of writing and probably longer. Of course there’s always the possibility our intelligence could be enhanced by genetic advances but I’m not going to go there. My argument is that society a few thousand years in the future may be strange to our eyes but it won’t be incomprehensible.

What Roberson does is to create and deftly portray to the reader just such an advanced society as seen through the eyes of an astronaut born a couple of centuries hence. The first half is concerned with our hero RJ finding his way in the new world and the second with his command of the first ever FTL spaceship. I should note that thousands of worlds have been populated by means of (wormhole powered gates and getting from one world to another is as easy as walking through a door. There's a varied collection of supporting characters, some human, some A1, some enhanced animals (including cats, dogs, chimpanzees and killer whales), but all intelligences are considered by society to be human. Except by...

Which is where the conflict comes in and the novel climaxes with an encounter with the 'except by'. It's all very readable and a promising start to this new trilogy. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the next one.

TV/DVD: NIKITA -the complete first season (2010)

Looking for a good time, sweetie? Try Nikita which might be the best action thriller TV series ever. Or it might not. But it is pretty good. What makes it outstanding, however, is Maggie Q in the title role.

I first came across MQ in Naked Weapon, an entertaining Hong Kong thriller and assumed she was just another HK starlet and that the Q stood for something unpronounceable to a Western tongue. Which was completely wrong. Quigly (dad American of Irish/Polish descent, mother VietNamese) is quite pronounceable. Taken under the wing of Jackie Chan, the hard working Q became highly proficient in faking martial arts moves. Several film and tv shows later, she'd also developed into a more than competent actress who now reminds me of (and I can't give any higher praise) a young Michelle Yeoh. She's also a vegetarian, active supporter of PETA, and owns three rescued dogs which ticks all my boxes.

On to the show. First the back story: Super secret agency Division, theoretically part of the US government, goes its own way under the directorship of the ruthless Percy. It recruits older teenagers to be agents and eliminates them if they don't make the grade. When they murdered top agent Nikita's teacher boyfriend, she went rogue and vowed to bring them down.

The set up. Nikita has recruited Alex (Lyndsy Fonseca) to infiltrate Division and pass information on to her so she can screw up their missions. Alex has her own secrets which are gradually revealed as the series progresses. Nikita is hunted by Michael (Shane Ward) who trained her but, even though they are enemies, they share an intense attraction. Two other major supporting characters working for Division are a computer geek with the hots for Nikita and Division's beautiful bitch counselor and information extractor. As the series progresses, Nikita finds other allies to help her. Not everyone survives and twist piles on twist by the season's end.

While it is a sort of mission of the week show, there is a lot of continuity with the characters and what happens to them. Alex develops from new recruit to full agent, undergoing many changes in the process. Not everything goes well for Nikita who is revealed to be more vulnerable, physically and emotionally than at first thought and Maggie Q is just terrific and completely believable. Not that the other actors are bad. Far from it as the acting is of a very high standard indeed from the principal players, particularly Xander Harris as the devious manipulative boss Percy. It's also good in all the technical departments and the action scenes are great.

Season 2 is out on DVD in September (can't wait) and a third season is already shooting. One of the producers said that they had about 4-5 seasons worth of story arcs. Looks like they'll get them too. Great stuff.

Nikita & Michael

Q & Fonseca

Captured by Division

GRAPHIC NOVELS: JUSTICE LEAGUE-ORIGINS; BATMAN-THE COURT OF OWLS; ANIMAL MAN-THE HUNT (DC THE NEW 52, 2012)

The first part of this review (The Justice League) has appeared on Amazon in a different form.

1.

Finally DC have begun to release the trade editions of their new universe - The New 52- and three arrived through my letterbox today. There's a two-page ad in various magazines like SFX which is a checklist of titles and release dates and I ticked about half of them to buy. Anyway, I'm starting with the one which was the first comic to be released -The Justice League.
2. 

To be honest, I'm being a little over-generous with a five star rating especially as it's basically a six episode fight scene with character beats. But they are good character beats and the individual characters come over very well -the over-confident eager to impress Green Lantern, the aggressive Superman, the sensible Flash, the ebullient Wonder Woman, the confident Aquaman, and Batman who's, well, just Batman. Throw in the origin of Cyborg who becomes a founder member of the new team and some good jokes by writer Geoff Johns and hyper-dynamic art from Jim Lee and you have a massively enjoyable origin of the new Justice League. Add in a few extras from the original comic and a gallery of alternative covers and you have a great package. 

Actually, this would make an even better movie than The Avengers and provide a great introduction to the characters without having single character movies first. Imagine this:

Black screen, the sound of gunfire, then streaks of light (tracer bullets), the sound of helicopters. The screen lightens, though it's still dark, and we are on rooftop level in Gotham city. Suddenly an alien appears leaping towards and over the camera. He's followed a moment later by Batman. The sound of gunfire increases and the camera pans up to reveal helicopter gunships trying to kill both Batman and the creature he's chasing. We hear fragments of radio chatter indicating he's very much a target. We follow hunter and hunted for a few moments as they dart from rooftop to rooftop, dropping down, climbing up. Finally Batman catches the alien and they fight. Then we see a flurry of tracer bullets about to hit Batman. There's a blinding glow of green light and we see a plasma shield protecting him. And there above surrounded by a glowing green aura is Green Lantern. "Turn the bloody light off, you idiot," growls Batman. 

So, Joss...

3.

Batman: The Court of Owls is set five years later than the JL and superheroes have become an established part of the landscape. The Bat's circumstances are not noticeably dissimilar in this new universe than they were before. The first Robin,  Dick Grayson, is Nightwing, ex-Robin Jason Todd is Red Robin and leader of the Teen Titans, Damian Wayne (son of Bruce) is Robin.

The story concerns the discovery by Batman of a group called The Court of Owls whose history is tied intimately with the history of Gotham City itself and they have a pet assassin, The Talon, who may be even more skilled than Batman. They may also have killed his parents rather than them being the victims of a random crime gone wrong.

It's written by flavour of the month Scott Snyder (American Vampire) with pencils by Greg Capullo who does a fine detailed job with good page layouts. I don't usually buy the Batman books but I thought I'd give them a try and this is very good. It's dark and intense with lots of twists and turns and unexpected revelations as Batman is taken to the limits of his physical and mental strength.

Good start.

4.

Animal Man is one of the biggest critical hits of the New 52 with much praise going to the rather contorted artwork of Travel Foreman as well as the script by Jeff Lemire.  The actual premise behind it is adapted from the Swamp Thing mythos created by Alan Moore. There, a human becomes a plant-creature, an avatar of the Green which is the embodiment of vegetation. In Animal Man we discover the Red the embodiment of animal life on the planet and again, there are human avatars. The twist here is that it isn't stunt-man turned superhero (now part time), actor and animal rights activist Buddy Baker but his daughter Maxine and his place is to protect her from the Rot (vile monstrous creatures) which want to take Maxine over. He's also told he needs the help of Alec Holland the Swamp Thing.

I'm really not  sure about this title yet and it may take another couple of readings before I make my mind up. The art, which can often be unpleasantly grotesque and ugly is a major factor in this which stands very much in contrast to the bright crisp super-heroics of the Justice League. On the other hand I do like the different take on the character which reminds me, albeit in a different way, of when Grant Morrison reinvented the character for DC/Vertigo. We'll see. I think it's a title which will polarise readers.

BOOKS: JOSS WHEDON THE COMPLETE COMPANION edited by MARY ALICE MONEY for POPMATTERS.COM

Slightly revised from an Amazon 4* review and entitled:
Welcome to Whedon's World

And it is about the world(s) created by Joss Whedon and not about JW himself (I'll get back to that point later). Fortuitously timed to cash in... sorry, coincide with the release of The Avengers movie and resultant raising of his profile, this book is a collection of essays about his TV shows, films, and comics. Given that the book was submitted to the publishers in November 2011, well before the release of The Avengers and The Cabin In The Woods (which are both terrific) don't expect anything of insight into them here.

There is, however, masses of stuff about his other, er, stuff with the biggest chunk being about, no surprise here, Buffy The Vampire Slayer. It's a mix of overview, interviews, and rather academic essays. As an example of the latter, one writer interprets Whedon's excellent run on The Astonishing X-Men in the light of the writings of modern historian Francis Fukuyama and if that sounds appealing to you then you're really going to love this book. If there is a preponderance of academic style essays in this collection, it should also be said that they're mostly reasonably accessible to the general reader.

If there's a tendency to find subtexts under every (metaphorical) rock in Whedon's work, at least some of the writers are aware of this tendency to see things which aren't there. As mentioned in an introduction, one writer (not represented here) wrote that the killing of the character Tara in Buffy was deliberately anti-feminist while the truth is that the actress playing Tara wanted to leave so Whedon used that to enhance the drama.

Basically anyone who's a fan of Whedon's oeuvre (i.e. in non-pretentious language: his work) will find much of interest in this very comprehensive book which goes some way to explaining why Whedon has become such a cult figure. In essence: we identify with his concerns and characters to such a degree that we feel that he is us and we are him. Or, as Nelson Mandela put it in his one acting role: "I am Joss Whedon." (Actually he said, "I am Malcolm X," but don't tell.)

What, however, this book won't tell you is much about Whedon the man and Whedon the life. I'm not knocking it for that; it is what it is. But what we fans would very much like is a, preferably, authorised biography of the great man which goes behind the scenes of his work and how the tv series and films were put together, his problems in doing so, his relationships with the production team, cast, crew, groupies (just joking), etc. With his profile so high, now is surely the time. Meanwhile we've got this to keep us going. 

And just to add colour, here are are some of his greatest hits.

WEATHER: BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

After three years of below average winter rainfall in the south of England, a drought order was brought in which meant banning hosepipes among other things. Of course if all the leaks were mended by the various water authorities there wouldn't be a water shortage in the first place but that costs a lot of money which would mean price increases and poor returns for the companies' investors and we couldn't have that.

We were told that for reservoirs to reach levels at which the drought orders could be removed it would have to rain pretty much nonstop for at least a couple of months. So you know what happened next. Exactly the same thing as happened in the summer of 1976 (or thereabouts) when a minister for drought was appointed and the rain started and didn't stop for quite a while.

Up here in the north east of England we didn't have that problem as rainfall had been pretty much as normal despite a very mild winter. On the narrow strip where I live, about 400 metres from the sea, we got absolutely no snow (at least nothing that managed to lay) at all for the first time in my life (63 at the time of writing). March, like the rest of the country had been positively mild to balmy, though as we know it didn't last.  Like everywhere else, the rain came, the temperature dropped, and the last two months have been consistently wet and cold.

The reason I mention all this is because I was up in the city of Durham on Saturday evening for a meal at the Cafe Rouge (a popular chain) and we parked on the riverside beside the weir. The meal was to celebrate the 60th birthday of my sister in law and it was a nice change. I rather liked the faux-french cuisine and the ambience of the busy restaurant, though a noisy baby put off some of our group. Below are a couple of photos with the restaurant visible at the left hand side of the bridge. As we were walking along, we had to speak loudly because of the sheer noise of the water rushing over the weir. It's a nice view but even better ones are to be had further along where the path becomes overgrown with trees and you can look up through them to the cathedral (for my money one of the most impressive buildings in the world) above. What you can see here though is the castle.

DVD: PANDORUM (2010, approx)

This is the third in what now seems to be an irregular series of reviews of DVDs I picked up very cheaply from my Amazon wish list pf films I was curious enough to try when the price got low enough. This one is the worst by far.

It's SF-horror which is fair enough; so was Ridley Scott's Alien and look how that turned out. But as it is SF I expect a higher standard of internal logic than a straightforward horror movie. I didn't get it and so have no qualms about writing a spoiler-filled review including the twist ending. Don't say I didn't warn you.

The set-up. In the not too distant future Earth is falling apart and a habitable has been discovered some light years away. A massive ship is built and filled with colonists in suspended animation with crew waking up on a rotation basis to check everything is okay. As the ship leaves, the crew get a message telling them not to come back because the earth will be destroyed in about... oh, pretty much now.

Some indeterminate time in the future (I guessed over a thousand years and wasn't far out), crew member Ben Foster wakes up with partial amnesia. So does bearded Dennis Quaid. And they're stuck in a room. Foster gets out through a hatch in the ceiling and, his memories returning, discovers that the ship is infested with ferocious meat-eating humanoids. I say infested; there seem to be lots of them where he and two scientists he meets are, though they may number in their thousands or only a few dozen. Who knows? To no great surprise (I'd already guessed) he learns that they are mutated colonists who were fed a drug (not that part) which would help them adapt to the new planet but inside they've adapted to the ship. Which makes it a pretty crap drug. Apart from feasting on the odd revival, all they really need to be able to do is open a suspended animation capsule and rip the slowly-waking colonist apart. They don't need to be super-fast.

The two people Foster meets and pals up with are a zoologist and a non-English speaking Vietnamese agricultural scientist. Considering the purpose of the ship, and given billions to select from, you'd think everyone on board would be able to speak the same language. And what's the point in these two waking up? Anyway, it turns out that the reactor needs resetting or boom! and that Foster knows how and of course it's deep in cannibal country.

Meanwhile Dennis Quaid has mainly been shouting down the intercom at Foster and talking to himself. Then he finds another crewman stuck in the ceiling and frees him. Naturally we know the crewman is up to no good as his story doesn't make much sense. Like most of the film in fact. He also starts telling quaid about Pandorum which is a mental illness that affects crew in deep space causing them to do not very sensible things like evacuating escape capsules full of people when there's nowhere to go. This has to be an extremely rare condition as only a few dozen people are ever likely to suffer from it -just the crew of deep-space ships. One would imagine that any such people would have been rigorously psychologically evaluated to weed out any such prone to this but it appears not.

Needless to say, Quaid is suffering from it and the crewman is an illusion of his younger self who went nuts on hearing the message from earth, killed his shift members, and put himself to sleep in someone else's capsule. So, surprise surprise, Quaid is nuts. Foster and the (female) zoologist arrive back (the agriculturalist was someone's lunch) having reset the reactor and are just in time to stop Quaid doing something stupid. Quaid then activates a viewing screen which shows the ship is under the water of the planet they were heading for. Quaid then does something stupid -lets in water- and our hero and heroine have to get into an escape pod and escape to the surface. Just as they're recovering, hundreds of other escape pods pop up. Humanity is saved! Hurrah!

We also see -here, I'll show you-

-that despite crashing in the sea, some of it is above the surface and yet this rigid structure has managed to bend without causing any cracks through which people or mutates could get outside. I'm also a little puzzled as to why the escape pods were full of people who were supposed to be in suspended animation containers. Or maybe there's no difference between the two -double duty. I don't know, I'm confused.

But not half as confused as this big dumb movie.

CINEMA/TV: WHEDON SMASH!

I'm rather pleased with that title because it can be read several ways. It's a reworking of The Hulk's favourite cry: "Hulk smash!" which he then does. It refers to the massive successive of The Avengers in the States this weekend -biggest weekend opening ever with 200.3 million dollars. It's a success with the critics and cinemagoers and word of mouth should ensure lots more taking plus repeat viewings -even I might go and see it again. It also means that Joss Whedon himself is a big success.

And, um, lots of others.

Starting out as a TV writer on a few episodes of Roseanne and Parenthood, he went on to write Toy Story (yes, Toy Story!), Alien Resurrection (which I still think is grossly underrated -Whedon has very interesting stories about it), Titan A.E., the original Buffy movie (which diverged from his original story). He created, sometimes writing for and directing Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, and writing directing Firefly's spinoff movie Serenity, wrote/directed a web-based musical comedy  Dr Horrible's Singalong Blog, created the underrated  TV series Dollhouse. Almost all of these are on my all-time favourites list. And now we're getting on for The Cabin in the Woods and The Avengers -see recent posts. Taking a two-week break from the latter he invited a bunch of his mates (including Nathan Fillion)  over to his house where they made a modern day version of Much Ado About Nothing based on an old play by some dead British geezer with Whedon writing and directing. "From the director of mega-smash The Avengers and with a budget as much as the cost of filling his freezer..." Still it'll certainly do very good business, or at least better than it would have done a week ago. I'll be there.

What's good about Whedon is... well, just so much. He creates great characters, has a knack for getting the best out of his actors, is particularly good at ensemble pieces, writes with great humour which is never forced, has a strong feminist sensibility without ever getting preachy, and there's a general compassion, warmth and humanitarianism about his work, a liberal (in American terms). Basically, he's a good person and this shows through in his work. He also has a geek sensibility which appeals to lovers of horror, fantasy, science fiction, and comics -like me.

There's a lot I could write about him and his work but books have been written about his work and a book about is due to be published later this month (yes, I have it on order) and this is just a blog.

Right now, he's probably one of the happiest people in the world. He deserves it and I hope he's allowed to make the most of it creatively.

DVD: HANNA (2011)

Another one from my Amazon wish list to be bought when it's cheap enough which I'm glad I did finally get round to albeit not as much as RED (see previous post).

In a nutshell, ex-spy Eric Bana raises his daughter(?) Saoirse Ronan in an unspecified tundra region to be a ruthless assassin. His aim: to get her to kill his ex-handler Cate Blanchett. Now adolescent, Bana allows Ronan to decide when she wants to start. Having decided, a signal is sent out, Bana leaves, and Ronan allows herself to be captured. What follows after that is a hunt for both of them across North Africa and Europe during the course of which Ronan begins to learn about being human..

Saoirse Ronan is just bloody amazing, easily as good as flavour of the month Jennifer Laurence in The Hunger Games. Cate Blanchett is superb -I know, who'd have thought?- as the frighteningly scary ruthless enemy. The rest of the cast is great too -the aforementioned Bana, Tom Hollander, Jason Flemyng, and Olivia Williams.

Only problem is, I didn't believe a word of it. There's a massive high-tech underground American spy complex in the Moroccan desert. Blanchett uses a bunch of shaven headed (implicitly Nazi) thugs run by deadly but sexually ambivalent Tom Hollander. An amiable British family with parents (Flemyng & Williams) who are so liberal they'd  take in a girl in early adolescence who's travelling alone rather than dropping her at the door of the nearest appropriate embassy. I just couldn't suspend my disbelief.

I enjoyed it all right because of the quality of the filmmaking, the excellent cast, and the pace of the thing, but there's a whopping great but. One thing I am sure, Ronan is already an extremely accomplished actor who'll be gracing cinema screens for years to come and I wouldn't bet against her winning an Oscar some day.

Just a thought: I bet she'd have been terrific in the lead of The Hunger Games.

DVD: RED (2010)

This have been on my buy when cheap enough list (otherwise known as Amazon wish list) for some time before I finally got round to buying and watching it and wondering why the hell I waited so long because it's great.

Based on a short graphic novel by Warren Ellis and Cully Hammer, the producers (or whoever) had the sense to keep only the idea and the skeleton of the story, flesh it out and hire some of the best actors of a certain age which also includes Brian Cox and Richard Dreyfuss, use a script peppered with great dialogue and lots of action, and let it loose.

Ex-CIA black ops agent Willis regularly phones an office in Kansas City ostensibly to complain about the non-appearance of his retirement cheque but really to flirt with the thirty-something woman (Mary-Louise Parker) who deals with his case. When, following the latest call, a CIA hit team arrive to take him out but get taken by him. He then drives to Kansas City to rescue/kidnap Parker before they get to her and then get in touch with old black ops buddies to find out what the hell has been going on.

Freeman is in an old people's home dying of cancer, Malkovitch is paranoid and living in a swamp, ex-MI6 hitwoman Mirren is living a gentile life in the American countryside. He also consults old Russian enemy Brian Cox who has a history with Mirren. Meanwhile immaculately dressed, ruthless CIA hitman Karl Urban (a fine actor when given the right role) is given the task of dealing with Willis and his team. Urban has only one flaw which is a tendency to independent thinking. I can't tell you Richard Dreyfuss' role in this or I'd have to kill you.

What you get is an action-packed but witty romp where all the cast are on top form and clearly having fun at the same time. There's great chemistry between the five leads -don't forget Parker, and Cox's part is more than a cameo. The action sequences are done well and watch out for John Malkovitch versus... but that would be telling. Sure it's a mindless piece of fluff but it also happens to be great entertainment and a sequel would be welcomed by me at least.

DVD: BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR (2003)

Anyone who knows me at all knows I'm a big fan of over the top horror movies with the original Re-Animator and its sequel Bride of Re-Animator high up on the list (which I've never actually sat down and worked out). This, the third in the series, came out about 13 years after Bride and was made in Spain with a mostly Spanish cast and Yuzna in the director's chair. Everyone familiar with the series pretty much accepts that it's the weakest but that doesn't mean it doesn't have anything to offer. For a start it's got the wonderful Jeffrey Combs a cult horror figure on a par with Bruce Campbell.

Unfortunately I couldn't find any more striking images like the bisected man swinging along bars chasing after our anti-hero. Or of the fight between the rat and the re-animated severed penis. 

It opens with one of Dr Herbert West's failed experiments (no lower jaw but he still tries to drink from a carton of milk with messy results) killing a young woman and watched her younger brother who picks up a syringe of the glowing green re-animator serum dropped by West as he's hauled away by the police.

Fifteen years later a young doctor (the grown up younger brother and played by Jason Barry) arrives at a seedy prison to be the new doctor but actually to work with doctor prisoner West (the inimitable Jeffrey Combs) to refine the re-animator serum and help the world. The inmates are a bunch of psychos and the warden -an authoritarian lecherous sadist- is far worse than any of them -and a fine vile performance indeed from Simon Andreu  who sensibly sails over the top at every opportunity. Also on the scene is Laura Olney (Elsa Pataky) a young journalist trying to do a piece on the prison. She starts out relatively mousy and ends up, well, see the picture above. In between, she and the young doctor become close. (Surprise fact: she's married to the younger Chris Hemsworth aka Thor.)

Needless to say, anything involving the purely self-serving Herbert West goes disastrously, comically, violently, and gorily wrong. Just about everyone in the prison ends up injected with the re-animator serum and the serum which was designed to, but doesn't, stop the side-effects. Blood and body parts litter the screen. Our heroine develops a secondary psychopathic personality and if you wondered how the re-animated penis ended up on its own with only a hungry rat for company I think you make a good guess. The warden, partly infused with a rat, roams around alternately beating people to death and trying to screw the heroine and if you wondered whose penis it was.... And everyone gets their deserts, both just and unjust except, for guess who who wanders off into the night in search of another sequel.

So you can see why I enjoyed it.

The recent DVD from Arrow comes with a 50 minute interview with Brian Yuzna about the series, a booklet which features an interview Jeffrey Combs, and other bits of stuff. Nice package.

SOCIETY: CONFESSIONS OF A WHITE VAN DRIVER

Or: How £30.00 of diesel fuel cost me £262.40.

As many of you know, I drive a white van for Animal Krackers, the local animal rescue charity, mainly running around after cats but also other sundry jobs like taking stuff to the council tip. I probably do most (say 60%, it's difficult to estimate) of the driving and inevitably this means filling up with diesel for which I get reimbursed by the treasurer.

This morning I went to fill up the van, something I'd meant to do yesterday as it was getting seriously low but forgot. So, just before nine in the morning, I went along the road to the Spar garage, put £35.00 in (half a tank), went to pay and said automatically, "£35.00 diesel, VAT receipt, please." 

"You mean unleaded," came the reply. 

"No, I... Ah, shit!"

I had looked at the first pump which said diesel something (but translated as 'more expensive than regular') and then at the next pump which said 'regular'. I didn't notice that it said 'regular unleaded'.

Two guys (one of them staff) kindly pushed my van into a spare parking bay and I phoned the AA (Automobile Association) as I'm a member courtesy of going with Saga Insurance. Draining and cleaning the tank isn't, however, included in the services and would cost £220.00. When I mentioned casually that the van was owned by Animal Krackers registered charity (explaining what that was), they knocked £25.00 off which was unexpected. The wait would be 60-90 minutes and would take about an hour to do.

Expecting a short trip, I didn't have a book with me and my Ipod, which I'd recently updated with several CDs I'd bought, sat snugly on my computer desk. Plus the radio/cassette in the van didn't work because I kept forgetting to get the key-code from the treasurer who has all the documents. I went back into Spar (which is also a mini supermarket), bought a copy of The Independent and a black coffee, sat back in the cab and began to wait.

I did, naturally, phone she who warms the cockles of my heart and makes my life worth living and received the expected and well-deserved vilification of my stupidity, and also my friend Denise to explain why I was sitting having a cup of coffee in the van and not with her and another couple of ex-work colleagues in Starbucks in the city centre as I usually do on a Wednesday morning.

So I sat and read the Independent slowly (lots about a government committee vilifying Rupert Murdoch, except for the Tory members), sipped my coffee slowly while trying not to think of my bladder (I confess I ended up emptying it behind the building where I could only be seen if someone was actively looking), and waited. And waited. Until the 90 plus minutes were up whereupon the AA man arrived and did the job in a further 30 minutes. He also helpfully pointed out that I had a flat tire which I managed to inflate before I left. He was cheerful and helpful. I introduced myself by saying, "Hi, I'm the idiot who can't tell the difference between and diesel and an unleaded pump". He laughed and told me I was his fourth call out for the same reason that morning and the van was specifically designed with this problem in mind.

He left, I filled up with diesel, and went home.

Cost:

£35.00 unleaded petrol

£195.00 drain, clean, and add some diesel

£30.00 diesel

£1.20 coffee

£1.20 newspaper

Total: £262.40 of which I only expect  £30.00 back. Hell, it was my stupid fault in the first place and can't expect the charity to pay for that.

I suppose I should finish this with something pithy or witty but all I can think of is this advice:

Don't put unleaded petrol into a van that runs on diesel.