sci-fi
The Hunger Games: Catching FireThursday, 21 November 2013
The Hunger Games franchise is blessed with Jennifer Lawrence as its heroically defiant protagonist Katniss Everdeen. No matter how much darker, more drastic and deranged developments get in the world of these Games, Lawrence is a touching, authentic... Read more... |
Ratchet & Clank: NexusFriday, 15 November 2013
The Ratchet & Clank series has, largely, been a brilliant reminder of how much fun videogames can be. It neither had lofty ambitions of narrative and thematic depth, nor the headache-inducing sturm und drang of the current crop of action games.... Read more... |
GravityWednesday, 06 November 2013
As a director, Alfonso Cuarón is a stickler. In his renowned Children of Men, he sought to dismantle cinema, to break down the glass wall between audience and content by making the film more like a live event. To a great extent, he succeeded,... Read more... |
Device 6/The Stanley ParableFriday, 25 October 2013
Games provide the illusion of choice, they pretend you interact with them. Really, most videogames simply wait for you to press the right button before advancing one step to the next point where you have to press the next right button. Both The... Read more... |
DVD: The Final ProgrammeTuesday, 22 October 2013
Amsterdam is in ashes. The Vatican City has been wiped off the map. Abandoned cars litter Trafalgar Square. The National Gallery has become the base camp for an arms-dealing Major. It’s a bad time alright, yet a group of people aren’t fussed about... Read more... |
Beyond: Two SoulsFriday, 11 October 2013
Stunningly good entertainment, interesting art, rubbish game. Beyond: Two Souls does more than any other videogame around to further the cause of interactive narrative fiction – sadly, by jettisoning most of the "interactive" bit.Beyond: Two Souls... Read more... |
LFF 2013: GravityThursday, 10 October 2013
As good as many films are, few have the “wow” factor that leaves you elated, high as a kite. Gravity is one of those. Alfonso Cuarón’s space drama is a cinematic tour-de-force, after which it takes quite a while to come back to Earth.A team of US... Read more... |
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Channel 4Saturday, 28 September 2013
There are two schools of critical thought when it comes to stories set in fantastical worlds. The first implies that it’s difficult to argue for realism and consistency in something that’s supposed to be a bit of fluff, where not only have aliens... Read more... |
DVD: Ikarie XB 1Friday, 27 September 2013
Czech director Jindřich Polák’s 1963 science fiction epic Ikarie XB 1 was known in the West for many years only in a recut dubbed version. Happily, Second Run’s restored print looks and sounds marvellous. There is a slowly unfolding narrative,... Read more... |
CD: Janelle Monáe - The Electric LadyWednesday, 04 September 2013
Janelle Monáe’s much-awaited second album doesn’t disappoint. She navigates the ever-renewing waters of African-American pop invention, drawing on R & B, funk, gospel, rock and dinner jazz, with a sense of fun and a great deal of talent. She is... Read more... |
Lost Planet 3Friday, 30 August 2013
A planet ravaged by snowstorms, home to a load of angry reptilian aliens, with human colonies surviving on a mix of giant "mech" walking vehicles and hoarding thermal energy – Lost Planet's setting has always been fairly interesting. It's a shame... Read more... |
Saints Row IVFriday, 23 August 2013
The Saints Row series has always been something of a magpie, stealing liberally from other games. It started out as a cheap second-tier Grand Theft Auto clone. But here, it transforms into a very silly, but great fun knockabout superhero game - the... Read more... |
