Reviews and thoughts about movies, books, pop culture, and Doctor Who
Author: Peter Kanelis
I was born in Portland, Oregon and currently reside in Texas. I am an avid reader and movie watcher. I also am a long-time Doctor Who fan and collect the audio dramas as well as watch the television series. I have been writing reviews of this nature on social media for a few years now and want to expand on that practice.
A Working Man is the standard Jason Statham action film directed by David Ayer. Ayer co-wrote the script with a certain Sylvester Stallone. The film also stars Michael Pena, David Harbour, Arianna Rivas, Andrej Kaminsky, and others.
Levon Cade is a hard-working construction foreman who also happens to be a former special operations commando. He also happens to be pretty close to his boss and his family. When the daughter gets kidnapped to be trafficked into some kind of sex slavery operation, Cade reluctantly decides to dust off his old lethal skills and begins the bunt. He also has to contend with a custody issue concerning his daughter. It seems that his late wife’s father has some issue with Cade’s former occupation and is drastically limiting his time with his own kid. Cade will have to put his personal troubles aside and kill his way through the Russian mafia in order to keep a promise to a friend.
This is a by-the -numbers action film without any real depth, but Statham is still kind of fun to watch. Rivas plays the kidnapped girl and is kind of a spunky type, so she was kind of interesting. Statham’s acting range is pretty non-existent, but some of the side characters sort of make up for that.
There are some pretty good fight scenes and Statham performs those quite convincingly even if the choreography itself is somewhat unbelievable. It’s really just standard action film shenanigans.
It’s another film that manages to be entertaining without offering much to stick to the memory. Even if Statham doesn’t display much variety in his performances, he does possess a strange charisma in his stoicism.
The Sea Magician by Kenneth Robeson features an early version of a superhero known as Doc Savage. This series was written for a couple of decades in the mid-twentieth century and is probably one of the earlier versions of a superhero.
Doc Savage is a super genius with super strength and throws himself unhesitatingly into the fight against evildoers. Of course, he has the color of bronze and is immensely powerful. He is one of those protagonists who seems so virtuous and powerful that he runs the risk of being rather boring.
In this little volume, Doc Savage is investigating the disappearance of one of his associates when he learns of an invention that apparently produces gold from seawater. It begins with the hapless assistant looking into tales of a specter resembling King John lurking around a marsh in England known as the Wash. Doc Savage finds a troubling conspiracy is afoot and many people are needing rescue before the end of this caper is in sight.
This was a pretty fun diversion, although I am not sure I am going to be going out of my way to collect this series. I doubt this will be the last Doc Savage adventure I enjoy.
There is some enjoyment to be found in this short novel, but that may be more due to the stirrings of nostalgia it evokes. The author is apparently a pseudonym because it seems a certain Lester Dent was the main writer of the novel series. The series does have a somewhat interesting publication history, which I discovered in Wikipedia.
I didn’t really dislike the novel, but I had some trouble with staying interested due to Doc Savage not really having any interesting quirks or flaws. Sometimes, a hero’s weaknesses can make the story a little more compelling although there is a risk of that indulgence being overdone.
I will say there is a certain richness in the prose that is often missing from more recent works that I appreciated.
In spite of my reservations which I expressed here, I didn’t hate this one or the concept. I may try a few more in the series as I come across them as I peruse the used bookstores.
Before all of that, I have plenty of other unread volumes to go through. The next selection will be Nelson DeMille’s The Gold Coast.
Doctor Who: Dracula! by Paul Magrs is a surprisingly good addition to the BBC novel range, and it features the First Doctor which is kind of exciting.
The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Susan to an English seaside called Whitby, a place where another otherworldly creature arrived from a far-off land and terrorized the citizens. The Doctor and his friends attend a play that depicts the period where Count Dracula hunted among those residents. New murders are occurring around them, and an ancient evil may have returned. Fortunately, the Doctor and his friends have the help of a certain Abraham Van Helsing and his eager nephew. The undead count may have returned or there is another dark threat on the scene.
I found this to be a little better than I expected. Magrs does well with depicting this version of the Doctor in print. I found it an interesting choice to have Dracula encounter the First Doctor.
It’s a nice blend between the traditional story and something new to menace the TARDIS crew.
Magrs has been writing various Doctor Who stories for years and is usually quite interesting as a contributor, and he has not lost his touch.
I am not sure that Magrs has ever written anything with the earlier Doctors, but he did a pretty good job here. His prose was easy to read without feeling too elementary even though the target audience is for younger readers.
There were some unexpected plot twists that were pretty well orchestrated.
I could also almost imagine the late William Hartnell uttering some of the dialogue as well.
Obviously, this isn’t going to be considered a great literary feat, but it is a fun read and one of the better Doctor Who novels I have read in a while.
I am staying in the realm of fantasy or science fiction with another long-time series. I have heard of Doc Savage, a very early template for a superhero. I happened to have a novel written by Kenneth Robeson, which is actually a pseudonym according to some research I have done. Anyway, the Man of Bronze uncovers the mystery of The Sea Magician.
The Housemaid is a pretty average adaptation of a bestselling novel by Freida McFadden, directed by Paul Feig. Rebecca Sonnenshine is the screenwriter who came up with the script that was helped by a pretty talented cast.
Sydney Sweeney stars as the seemingly hapless maid, Millie Calloway. Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar, Elizabeth Perkins, and Michele Marrone are also included in the cast.
I had just read the novel a few days ago, so my impressions of the film are probably somewhat influenced. Spoiler alert…the book is better.
Millie Calloway is recently paroled after serving a decade in prison for manslaughter. She has unbelievable luck when she lands a job as a live-in maid at the Winchester household. The luck seems to be a false flag when Mrs. Winchester seems to be quite mentally unstable. Millie seems to have an ally in the husband, but that gets complicated as well. Not only that, Mr. Winchester has his own agenda. Of course, neither knows that Millie is not exactly as mild-mannered as she appears either.
The film is mostly faithful to the source material. It does gloss over some important background information a bit more than necessary. This is another film where I question the editing. Also, certain details were altered a bit that I thought was unnecessary.
I will acknowledge that the cast was well-chosen. Sweeney is a very beautiful woman who also happens to have some talent and charisma. Seyfried does quite well as the seemingly erratic housewife. The two women work well together in their antagonistic roles.
Anyway, the talent of the cast does make it a watchable film, but it still falls short of great cinematic ingenuity.
I guess it’s just the risk I take when I read the novel just a day or so before seeing the movie. At least, it was not a terrible film.
Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles Volume 5: Everywhere and Anywhere is a recent audio boxset from Big Finish Productions with Jacob Dudman reprising his role of the Eleventh Doctor with his uncanny impression of Matt Smith. Safiyya Ingar continues in her role as cyborg companion Valerie Lockwood.
In this set, Nicholas Briggs is back behind the mic as the voice of the Cybermen.
Other guest cast members include Maddison Bulleyment, Sean Connelly, Edward Harrison, Jack Myers, and Brad Shaw.
This collection was directed by Helen Goldwyn, which is often a good choice.
There are three stories featuring the Eleventh Doctor and Valerie Lockwood, and they are pretty solid.
The first story is basically a Christmas story, done Doctor Who style written by Georgia Cook. Spirit of the Season concerns a child who says her name is Clara, and she wants to kill the Doctor and Valerie. They are trapped in a strange house with other people, including Valerie’s strangely resurrected mother, played by Mandi Symonds.
It’s a pretty good start to this collection. Becky Wright plays the malevolent alien claiming the name Clara and is appropriately wicked.
All’s Fair, written by Max Kashevsky, has Valerie on a first date in Chicago during the World’s Fair 1893. A man turns up claiming to be Valerie’s husband, and the TARDIS team find out how merciless Time can be. Valerie is destined to die in this time period, but she has to defeat the monsters stalking the streets of Chicago and ruining her date.
It was an interesting story and well performed. I am not all that familiar with this particular writer, but I thought he presented a decent script. Some of the action scenes were hard to interpret by audio, but that’s not unusual for this medium.
Sins of the Flesh, written by Alfie Shaw, brings this collection to a close. In a society that is trying to eradicate sinful behaviors, they have turned to something called Redemption Suits. The Doctor recognizes this as taking a step into conversion into a Cyberman. He and Valerie are trying to prevent a colony for paying a terrible price in their efforts to remove temptations of the flesh.
I tend to enjoy a good Cyberman story, and this one qualifies. It gets a little preachy though, which is distracting at times, but Shaw still sparks the imagination when he depicts of the horror of cyber-conversion. Briggs hasn’t lost his touch in bringing voice to one of the more iconic Doctor Who adversaries.
Dudman continues to shine in his impression of Matt Smith’s interpretation of the meandering Time Lord. Valerie is a somewhat intriguing companion, and Ingar does well on some of the more emotional moments in this story and the previous ones in this collection.
This is a pretty solid trilogy for the most part. Valerie is a creation of Big Finish and as usual an intriguing addition to the crew. Dudman is a gifted impressionist and does well in representing the Eleventh Doctor era.
It’s an enjoyable release but not really a remarkable one. It’s good enough for me to continue collecting in this range though.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is the unimpressive third film in the franchise that stars Daniel Craig as private detective Benoit Blanc. Rian Johnson wrote and directed this somewhat lackluster sequel. Daniel Craig returns as the enigmatic Benoit Blanc.
More big Hollywood names are in this case. Josh Brolin is the one who gets knifed in the back as Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, a rather fiery and ferocious church leader with a not so holy agenda. Josh O’ Conner, Glenn Close, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Adam Scott, and Jeffrey Wright are also included in the cast. So, there is a lot of talented and prominent names here whose talents are just wasted.
Benoit Blanc is asked to help out in investigating the murder of a monsignor who was stabbed in a storage near the pulpit of a church while services were being done. Blanc finds a peculiar group of suspects and is assisted by a young priest who was once a boxer. Suspicion falls on the young priest, and Blanc is not so sure he will be able to solve the case.
First of all, Johnson lets his political preferences shine throughout here in the writing of his script. He just couldn’t stay neutral on matters of religion or much else. That’s to be expected with most of the sludge coming out of Hollywood these days.
The story was not that interesting, and the film ran too long for the genre. Only a few of the cast members had interesting roles. Benoit Blanc had nothing new to show his audience. Daniel Craig was fine in the role, I suppose, but he was not as compelling as usual.
Adam Scott, who is best known as Jim Moriarty in Sherlock, was sort of fun to watch. A few other cast members had enough talent to sometimes be interesting.
Overall, the mystery itself was not that interesting. I didn’t really care about the murder of this monsignor. The film was obviously just a venting session against religion or any conservative viewpoint, which is to be expected these days from Hollywood, but Johnson just failed when it came to clever subtlety in the writing.
The movie still isn’t what I call terrible because the cast is just good enough to keep it within the range of mediocre. There was enough to represent basically my genre where I can’t say that I absolutely hate this film, but there were facets that were just annoying and unnecessary.
I will acknowledge there was some redeeming qualities toward the end. Johnson didn’t quite veer off into some overly heretical road, but he did enough limit my enjoyment of what could have been a compelling murder mystery.
Unfortunately, aspects of my personality will likely compel me to keep an eye out to see if another installment is forthcoming, and I do find the lead character Benoit Blanc to still be somewhat interesting. Better luck next time, guys!
The Housemaid is the thriller that seems to have put Freida McFadden on the chart of literary prominence currently, and it’s actually pretty good.
Wilhelmina Calloway, who thankfully goes by Millie, is desperate for a job after a long stint in prison, and a position as a live-in maid with the Winchester family seems to be her ticket to a better situation. Nina Winchester appears to be at least a reasonable boss until she starts exhibiting signs that suggest that she is flat-out crazy. Millie’s options are limited, so she tries to make an increasingly puzzling and alarming situation somewhat bearable. What Nina and her seemingly dreamy husband do not know is that Millie does have a breaking point, and she may be more dangerous than they could ever imagine..
McFadden does know how to ratchet up the suspense and keep a reader engaged. Her prose is actually quite engaging, and it’s fun to see what twists she has coming.
Sometimes, the revelations rely a bit more on coincidence than I would like. I will try to avoid any real spoilers in this blog for the seeming few that have yet to read the novel. Also, it felt that the reader has to wait quite a while for some new nugget of useful information as to why some of these behaviors are occurring.
McFadden switches first person perspectives in this one, which actually works here. Fortunately, she does it by sections so one is not constantly having to adjust mentally to these shifts.
There are times when the story seems to drag a little, but I enjoyed the experience overall. I have read other McFadden novels before and have yet to be truly disappointed. Sometimes, the resolutions to her plots stretch my credulity a little more than I would like in this genre, but it’s not too distracting. In fact, I find these moments more amusing than maddening, so I guess McFadden can stay in the game as far as I am concerned.
Anyway, I have been aware of the popularity of this book for some time, and I did find it enjoyable enough to likely do add more McFadden novels to my shelves.
Well, as customary to this blog, I will give a brief glimpse at the next reading indulgence. Doctor Who novels are still being produced, so I thought it would be time to return to the doors of the TARDIS with a new one featuring the First Doctor. Paul Magrs has returned to the franchise with his contribution, Doctor Who: Dracula!
Identity Theft is a recent Star Trek novel by Greg Cox that kind of tested my patience at the beginning and got better as my voyage through the pages progressed.
The crew of the Enterprise is sent to the planet Voyzr twenty years after they had helped the denizens end a civil war to attend a celebration of the peace agreement that has lasted. The problem is that a group of exiles have hatched a plot to assassinate the current leader of Voyzr since not everyone felt they received fair treatment. This group has gotten hold of a mind transference device and are able to abduct one Commander Pavel Chekov to have him replaced with a disgruntled and determined imposter. Chekov, now in the body of an alien, must escape his captors, catch up to the Enterprise, which has been sidetracked by another rescue mission, and stop an insidious plot to reignite a war.
I experienced a moment of exasperation when I realized that this was a mind-swap story, which is a pretty common plot in science fiction or fantasy. The novels tend to spend a little too much with somewhat nostalgic plots. Of course, the television episode, Turnabout Intruder, was heavily referenced.
As the story unfolded, I found myself more compelled by the idea of Chekov being the focus of the story. This takes place sometime just before The Undiscovered Country. The crew have already experienced the death and subsequent rebirth of Spock, the voyage to the twentieth century to find whales in order to save Earth and facing down a being who was impersonating God.
This novel focused on an older Chekov, who was able to use his Starfleet experience and the examples left by Captain Kirk to overcome the various obstacles to reclaim his body and foil the assassination plot.
Cox has written several Star Trek novels and is usually quite reliable. I should have had a bit more faith in his ability to make this somewhat overdone science fiction trope into something a bit more compelling.
He also delves into the mind of the would-be assassin named Ryjo, who finds himself experiencing the special comradery Chekov has experienced serving with his friends for a couple of decades. Ryjo ends up being instrumental in saving the lives of several of his crewmates when their unexpected rescue mission goes seriously awry.
This novel turned into a nice surprise in that I enjoyed more than I expected when I first started out. I always have fun revisiting the Enterprise under the command of James T. Kirk, and Cox helped make sure that I will return when the next installment hits the shelves.
Next up, I am going to see what all the hype is about concerning Freida McFadden’s The Housemaid.
Doctor Who: Time War Uncharted 1: Reflections is a recent Doctor Who audio boxset from Big Finish Productions and takes the Eighth Doctor, played by Paul McGann, into some intriguing depths of the Time War in four episodes. Emma Campbell-Jones and Sonny McGann reprise their roles of Cass Fermazzi and Alex Campbell, respectively. Alex is the Doctor’s great-grandson who was resurrected by the peculiarities of the Time War that has thrown the universe into an upheaval. Cass has been lost between dimensions and struggles to find her way back to her friends, who may nor remember her.
Some familiar faces or voices are part of the guest cast. Familiar to Big Finish listeners anyway. The guest cast is comprised of Dempsey Bovell, Helen Goodwyn, Holly Jackson Walters, Amara Karan, Nicholas Khan, Hattie Morahan, Jon-Paul Rowden, Dan Starkey, and Conrad Westmaas.
The first of the four episodes contained in this collection is Nowhere, Never by Katharine Armitage. Cass finds herself living as a housewife in a place where air raids are being conducted on her community. The Doctor and Alex are trapped in a peculiar hospital ruled by an even more peculiar Matron. No one seems to remember much about their pasts, but the Doctor will soon start to understand how fractured the universe has become.
This is a bit of a confusing mess to be done on audio, but the performances more than make up for it. It’s also setting the stage for the Doctor’s participation in the Time War. The character of Cass is starting to grow on me, and the banter that has developed between her and Alex is quite well written. Paul McGann’s performance continues to flourish as well.
Although I called this particular story a confusing mess, I still enjoyed it. The nature of the underlying story concerning a Time War is just going to cause all kinds of mental gymnastics in understanding the sequence of events.
Tim Foley follows up with The Road Untravelled in which the Doctor, Alex, and Cass find themselves aboard a strange spaceship. The Captain of the vessel is an old, unreliable adversary, who is played by Conrad Westmaas. They are trapped in the Void, however another presence has followed them, and the Time War rages even there.
The second story by Foley is pretty good as well. It’s one of those awkward episodes which continues the set-up to the big reveal that is going to occur in a future episode. Westmaas was better known in the franchise as C’rizz, a companion of McGann’s Doctor many years before. He does get to stretch a bit more in this role as Hiernonyma Friend.
Foley is a reliable writer and will hopefully be commissioned many more times. He also gets to wrap up this set, but I will get to that in a couple of paragraphs.
James Moran delivers what I think is the most compelling episode in the set entitled Cass-Cade. Cass is trapped in a space station is falling into a sun, and she keeps encountering the Doctor and Alex in different moments of the adventure out of sequence. Unfortunately, they don’t remember her beyond some vague sense of familiarity. Anyway, this sounds more confusing and muddled than the first episode, but it actually holds up and makes a little more sense. Campbell-Jones gets a plethora of one-liners throughout, and she delivers them sublimely.
Anyway, I enjoyed that one the most, but the set is pretty good overall.’
Finally, Tim Foley gets to return with Borrow or Rob which has the Doctor and his companions losing their grip on reality, leading to a shocking betrayal.
I like this particular TARDIS team. The Eighth Doctor’s struggles within the Time War are to continue, and I am ready to continue that ride as well.
The Queen’s Jewels is a novel that is part of the Murder, She Wrote range and is an adequate literary diversion. Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain are credited as co-writers. Since Jessica Fletcher is a fictional character, I think we can trust that Bain deserves full credit on this one.
Jessica Fletcher is invited to lecture on a cruise ship, the Queen Mary 2, which is making a transatlantic voyage from London to New York. She has been aware of a jewel theft that has occurred in Europe in which the owner was murdered. The mystery seems to have followed her aboard the ship, and she encounters old friends who were former intelligence officers and an insurance investigator. Although Jessica is reluctant to get involved in another mystery while on a working holiday, another murder onboard compels her to use her gifts of observation and deductive to piece this particular puzzle together.
Nothing too spectacular in this one. There is a bit more depth in some of the characters than we would see in the television show. It does seem to be a good choice to write this in first person perspective from Jessica’s viewpoint. Sometimes I struggle with imagining Angela Lansbury saying some of the dialogue, but the effort is valiant enough.
There were probably more recurring characters than I would have liked. We had Michael Haggerty, Inspector George Sutherland, and Dennis Stanton all in one book, which sort of felt a little too gimmicky.
It is another cruise ship murder trope, but it was still a fun read. It did manage a few interesting twists and surprises at the end.
The effort to write a blog on this novel is probably not all that relevant, but I hope it’s a fun read as well.
Now, I am going to move on to more serious literary contributions such as the latest Star Trek novel from Greg Cox entitled Identity Theft.
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