sci-fi
The Vast of Night review - perfectly paranoidSaturday, 30 May 2020
The Vast of Night’s premise scarcely guarantees originality. Non-science-fiction buffs scoping Amazon’s film listings will probably move on quickly when they learn it’s about two late-'50s teenagers discovering that an alien space craft is... Read more... |
Album: Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - The Mosaic of TransformationThursday, 14 May 2020
A singer-songwriter of somewhat mystical bent, originally from a forested island in the US Pacific Northwest, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith really came into her own when she discovered vintage synthesizers. In particular, her masterpiece, 2016's EARS,... Read more... |
Westworld, Season 3 Finale, Sky Atlantic review - Dolores’s plans come to fruitionTuesday, 05 May 2020
After a season that sought to redefine what Westworld could become, the finale exposed the confused arc, before limping towards an emotionally weak ending. This season began by recoding itself into something schlockier, more high-octane,... Read more... |
Westworld, Season 3, Sky Atlantic review – a cyberpunk triumphMonday, 27 April 2020
In the time since the show’s inception four years ago, arguments have raged as to whether Westworld is a dud or a cult classic. For every dedicated fan, there’s someone out there crying, "The Matrix did it first!" and complaining that the plot didn’... Read more... |
Sea Fever review - more ooze than aahsFriday, 24 April 2020
When Sea Fever premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, no one could have guessed its story about an Irish fishing trawler attacked by a giant jellyfish would in one respect prove prophetic. Toward the end of writer-... Read more... |
DVD: The Year of the Sex OlympicsTuesday, 21 April 2020
Originally aired in BBC2’s “Theatre 625” slot in July 1968, Nigel Kneale’s The Year of the Sex Olympics has gathered a reputation as a groundbreaking piece of TV drama which uncannily anticipated the broadcasting future. Its depiction of a society... Read more... |
Gators, Tramp Productions online review - the glittering darkThursday, 09 April 2020
She’s an ordinary young woman, and she really doesn’t know what to think. After all, things are way out of control. She knows that the natural world is pretty fucked, and that nothing grows in the earth any more — well, at least not on her patch.... Read more... |
CD: Grimes - Miss AnthropoceneSunday, 23 February 2020
Grimes is hilarious. For all the grandiose conceptualism, apocalyptic visions, high tech sonic manipulation, outré costumes, modish witchery, multiple personas, arch media baiting with her billionaire boyfriend and all the rest, she is still... Read more... |
Little Joe - trouble in the greenhouseFriday, 21 February 2020
Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner’s disquieting fifth feature, and her first English language one, Little Joe is a sci-fi drama that ponders the tangled choices faced by many modern women – Kubrickian though it is in its immaculate... Read more... |
Birds of Prey review - the DCU is back on trackThursday, 06 February 2020
Back in 2016, David Ayer’s infantile Suicide Squad burst upon us in a wash of lurid greens and purples. Ayer’s film had a myriad of problems, not least the hyper-sexualisation of Harley Quinn, played by Margot Robbie. While controversy abounded,... Read more... |
Faustus: That Damned Woman, Lyric Hammersmith review - gender swap yields muddled resultsWednesday, 29 January 2020
Changing the gender of the title character “highlights the way in which women still operate in a world designed by and for men,” argues Chris Bush, whose reimagining of Marlowe’s play premieres at the Lyric ahead of a UK tour. It’s certainly a... Read more... |
Crazy Delicious, Channel 4 review - the most ridiculous cooking programme on TV ?Wednesday, 22 January 2020
The race continues to create the most ridiculous cooking programme on TV. Channel 4’s new brainchild, Crazy Delicious, finds the culinary nutty professor Heston Blumenthal teaming up with fellow-judges Carla Hall and Niklas Ekstedt to become the “... Read more... |
