“A Lonely Place To Die” is a thriller released in 2011 written by Will and Julien Gilbey about a group of hikers and mountaineers who find a young girl buried alive in some box in a remote region of the Scottish Highlands.  The young Croatian is being held for ransom and the two heavily armed culprits are none too pleased to not find her they left her.

The film stars nobody I have ever heard of.  Melissa George, Alex Newman, and Karel Roden are included in the cast.  Melissa George has been in some fairly well-known films such as “The Limey” and “Mulholland Drive” and apparently was once nominated for the Golden Globe.  She just isn’t someone who was immediately recognizable to me.

Julien Gilbey directed this piece which he apparently co-wrote with his brother, Will. It wasn’t a terrible effort.  It’s not a great one either, but I have seen much worse than this.

There is quite an impressive body count as the two ruthless kidnappers chase our intrepid nature lovers through the Highlands.  Lots of people die spectacularly.  There is a Serbian mobster accompanied by a couple of mercenaries coming in to negotiate the release of the little girl on behalf of her father, who happens to be some sort of war criminal.  I thought Karel Roden put in a pretty compelling performance as the enigmatic Darko.

There is some beautiful shots of the Highlands throughout the film.  The stunts were pretty convincing.  Lots of blood splatter to satisfy those with a taste for that sort of thing.  The performances managed to avoid being too off-putting for what still seemed to be a B movie.

There is quite a significant reliance on implausible consequences which induced an eyeroll or two, but there was much in this film that still worked fairly well.

I would recommend this movie for a very slow weekend when all of the other cinematic preferences have been viewed.  There is nothing truly great or unique about this film, but it was a little better than I expected.

“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” is an animated film that has various iterations of the superhero crossing dimensions and facing the machinations of the Kingpin who is trying to alter reality and dimensions to bring back his lost wife and son.  Miles Morales serves as the central Spider-Man in this one, although there is plenty for Peter Parker to do as well.  Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman directed their script alongside Bob Persichetti with Shameik Moore providing the voice for young Miles.  There are two versions of Peter Parker voiced by Chris Pine and later Jake Johnson.  Gwen Stacy, or Spider-Woman, is voiced by Hailee Steinfeld.  Some kind of noir version of Spider-Man and the even more absurd, cartoonish Spider-Ham join in the fray being voiced by one Nicholas Cage and John Mulaney, respectively. Oh yes, there is also Kimiko Glenn rounding out the heroic cast as Peni Parker whose biomechanical suit is powered by the radioactive spider in some anime version of the series.

There is a lot to keep track of in this one, however it’s actually really enjoyable in spite of my unfamiliarity with Spider-Noir and Anime Spider-Whatever.  I had heard of the Ultimate Spider-Man range with Miles Morales but never read any of the comics.  Although I am a bit of a purist snob and ferociously loyal to the original Peter Parker, I did find Miles to be quite likable.  There was quite an effort to flesh out the characters in spite of the more absurd and slapstick moments.  The script was witty enough for me to enjoy the presence of Spider-Ham and Noir Spider-Man as well.  The Spider-Gwen doesn’t quite make a lot of sense to me either, but she was also utilized well.

Miles’ relationship with his family was played quite well.  The age-old tensions between father and son was not new ground, but it was written quite well.

The animation and visual effects were very well presented.  I liked the style of the drawings. The climactic battle scenes were busy and chaotic but still not hard to follow.

The Kingpin was voiced by Liev Schreiber and was drawn a bit strangely in that his head looked like it was coming out of some wall of a body.  It’s a little hard to describe, but he definitely looked massive and dangerous to just crush people with his hammer fist blows, which does happen in  this film.

The acclaim for this movie has been pretty enthusiastic, and I found little to no reason to disagree.  The Stan Lee appearance is quite brief yet profound in this one.

This is a film where you have to leave your disbelief at the door and just roll with it.  If there is a sequel in this particular Spider-Man universe, I hope the quality of the humor and action this film displayed can be captured just as effectively.

“The Whispering Room” is the follow-up to the novel “The Silent Corner” in which the prolific Dean Koontz introduced Jane Hawk, a former FBI agent whose husband’s inexplicable suicide sent her a quest that introduced her to nanotechnology that is used to brainwash people into compliance or self-destruction.

In many ways, this is typical Koontz with his usual penchant for fanciful vast conspiracies and somewhat unlikely heroes and heroines. Yes, it can be a bit repetitive, however I was a bit more drawn into this one than I was in the first book.  I think the various changes in locations were helpful.  Jane’s unexpected alliance with a Minnesota sheriff who is investigating the motivation for a suicide bombing committed by a cheerful and trusted schoolteacher is rather intriguing.

The series basically started Jane Hawk finding a pattern of suicides throughout the US that were more unexpected and perplexing than usual and learning of experiments into mind control with the assistance of nanotechnology. She has been forced to send her into hiding and has been following one lead after another to unravel this nest of malevolence.

Koontz still manages to display an impressive array of descriptions and imagery in his prose.  I am probably one of those readers who will always be willing to enjoy a Koontz novel regardless of the repetition.  This particular leg of Jane Hawk’s search for answers was actually pretty well delivered.  I also liked the character of Luther Tillman, the sheriff, who is drawn into Jane’s search.  There were quite a few other charming encounters to help offset the more intense confrontations.

Jane Hawk is a pretty implausible protagonist but a likeable one.  She is certainly likeable enough for me to eventually get to the next installment in this series as she either ascends or descends “The Crooked Staircase”

However, I don’t like to read two books in a row from the same series or author, so I will next see if the Thirteenth Doctor can do better to engage my interest in print with Juno Dawson’s latest Doctor Who novel. “The Good Doctor”.

“Men of War” is a Doctor Who audiobook released by BBC Audio with Peter Purves presenting this First Doctor tale penned by Justin Richards.  The Doctor is accompanied by Sara Kingdom and Steven as the TARDIS brings them to France at the height of World War I where the Battle of the Somme should have happened.  They meet Captain Mark Steadman who has just had the rather shocking experience of witnessing one of his fellow soldiers being pulled underground by some frightening entity.  This story is related from his perspective, which took quite a bit of mental adjustment since Purves is known as donning the role of Steven.  I had to make myself remember that Steven was not the character telling the story.

Richards is usually a contributor I would follow closely because he tends to have some interesting plots when he writes Doctor Who, however this one did not quite grab me as intently as his other works.  Purves does help considerably with his delivery though. He has done quite a number of Big Finish performances and is just a gifted narrator.

This is the first of a trilogy from BBC Audio with earlier incarnations of the Doctor, so I will still be interested enough to see how the whole thing is resolved, but it seems some force is making alterations to Earth’s known history of conflicts that could have devastating consequences to the Timeline itself.  The Doctor and his two companions are in the middle of eluding the Daleks as this is supposed to have fit somewhere among the television serial “The Daleks’ Master Plan” which was initially aired by BBC from November 1965 until January 1966.

It’s one of those releases where I am glad that new First Doctor stories are being presented and Peter Purves stays in good voice, but this particular story just wasn’t all that memorable as a first impression.

“The Ultimate Adventure” is a Doctor Who audio play from Big Finish Productions which was adapted from a stage play that was initially performed in 1989 throughout England. Terrance Dicks wrote the initial play and helped adapt it to audio format.  This has an interesting history in spite of a flawed script.  Jon Pertwee initially starred in the play, reprising his role as the Third Doctor.  After about eight weeks or so, the Sixth Doctor, Colin Baker, took over and finished out the remaining eight weeks.  Big Finish was able to adapt this one and release it as an audio play in 2008 with Colin Baker accompanied by two new companions played by Noel Sullivan and Claire Huckle.

Terrance Dicks was a long-time script editor for the classic television series and novelized many of the earlier serials.  He was known for a rather simplistic style of prose. but he displayed some talent sometimes in his more original works.  I’m not sure this particular script really showcases those talents.

The Doctor is traveling with a 18th century French aristocrat when he is summoned by the British Prime Minister known as Mrs. T and is addressed by the Time Lord as Maggie. It seems that Mrs. T was based on someone of recent historical significance, but I could wrong about that.  There apparently is some fear of some extraterrestrial inference with an important world conference.  The Doctor agrees to help out if something goes down, and of course it does because this is an ultimate adventure.  Anyway, the Daleks and the Cybermen have joined forces and hire mercenaries to kidnap an American Envoy from a nightclub.  The Doctor and the Frenchman, who goes by the thankfully shorter name of Jason.  I can’t remember the guy’s full name.  The Doctor and Jason are then joined by a nightclub named Crystal where they cross the universe or galaxy or whatever to trace the mercenaries to some Galactic Bar.

Other notable cast members are David Banks, Nadine Cox, and Nicholas Briggs. Banks is best known as playing the Cyberleader in the classic television series throughout the 1980’s.  In this episode, he gets to dispense with the voice modulator and plays the mercenary leader known as Karl. Nadine Cox plays the mysteriously familiar Mrs. T and Galactic Bar proprietor Delilah.  Nicholas Briggs, as usual, provides the voices of the Daleks and Cyberman.

This was pretty amusing more due to the history of it than the actual writing.  There was a lot of clumsy descriptions in the dialogue that Big Finish usually tries to avoid.  There was no narration, but the dialogue had some pretty heavy handed delivery as to what was happening.  I guess it works  well enough, but Big Finish is usually a bit more subtle and clever in depicting the action.  I guess because it was more necessary to do that since this was initially a play, but it just seemed rather odd.

Colin Baker did well, as he usually does.  Jason and Crystal were not terrible as companions.  I actually found myself enjoying the few musical numbers peppered throughout this episode.  I wouldn’t want singing to be a regular feature of Doctor Who audio plays, but it seemed to work here.

There is some entertainment to be found here.  Colin Baker’s performance does a lot to help me find some appreciation here, however I am not sure I would have enjoyed the actual stage production all that much.  I didn’t hate this episode, but I was generally underwhelmed by it.

“The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos” completes the first season of Doctor Who with Jodie Whittaker in the lead role.  She is accompanied by Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole, and Mandip Gill.  Mark Addy and Phyllis Logan guest star in this episode which is penned by showrunner, Chris Chibnall.

The Doctor and her companions answer a distress call and find a planet littered with crashed spaceships where they encounter a long amnesiac survivor played by Mark Addy.  They also find the Stenza warrior Tzim-Sha has been waiting for her since their first encounter in “The Woman Who Fell to Earth”.

This episode seems to be pretty low-key for a season finale. Low-key works sometimes and I was hoping that the new producers would resist the temptation to have some galactic menace every week.  A season finale needs to have a story where the stakes are higher.  Tzim-Sha did have some plans to destroy Earth, but the threat did not seem that urgent since everyone was on a distant planet.

Once again, it is Walsh and Cole who get the more compelling personal material.  Walsh’s Graham O’Brien has an opportunity to settle a score over the tragic death of his wife which could be laid at Tzim-Sha’s feet.  The two of them work well together, and it was kind of moving when Ryan Sinclair called Graham granddad and admitted his love for him.  Graham had been married to Ryan’s grandmother and had yearned to be acknowledged as family by the younger man.  Yasmin Khan, played by Mandip Gill, still isn’t all that germane to the story.  Chibnall’s team of writers could stand to take some cues from the original writers of 1963 since the initial three companions each were able to contribute to the momentum of the story.

Whittaker had a few interesting moments, but she still lacks that moment where she really grabs me.  The Doctor’s little pep talk about traveling with hope at the very end of the episode was kind of cool.  Some fans feel that this year has been a disaster for the show.  I haven’t quite gotten to that point, but I can understand where some of the harsher critics are coming from.

The title is somewhat misleading because there really isn’t much of a battle.  Some battle is alluded to that took place in the past, however the title still doesn’t seem to have been really justified.

This particular addition once again had a few moments that worked well enough, however the overall story still doesn’t really make an impact.  The only real triumph was how Graham and Ryan finally connected and acknowledged that they were family.

I thought there has been some minor improvement in Whittaker’s take on the Doctor although she still seems to be channeling her more recent predecessors.  Her reaction to Graham’s stated intent to avenge his wife’s death rang with a certain familiarity.  Some critics claim that her acting is just atrocious.  She’s not going to be a favorite Doctor of mine, but I don’t think her actual acting ability is that bad.  I think Chibnall makes some terrible decisions in his plotting, so I lay the bulk of the weaknesses in this series at his door.

So, there is going to be a special New Year’s Day episode and no new Doctor Who episode until 2020.  I will have more to say about that in an upcoming blog as well as some pontification about the direction the series has taken this past season.

“The Quantum Possibility Engine” is a Doctor Who audio play released by Big Finish Productions and is written by Guy Adams. Sylvester McCoy stars as the Seventh Doctor with Sophie Aldred and Bonnie Langford reprising their respective roles as Ace and Mel.

Mel has betrayed her two friends and delivered the TARDIS to the corrupt President of the Solar System, Josiah W Dogbolter, played by Toby Longworth. It seems that Mel had accrued some kind of debt which she had kept concealed from the Doctor and Ace. Dogbolter is a rather unusual sort of president since he comes from a race resembling humanoid toads and has the demeanor of a cosmic gangster. He has a psychotic robotic servant known as Hob, portrayed by Wayne Forester.

Mel’s betrayal and theft of the TARDIS attracts the attention of a Time Lord known as Narvin, who is on assignment from the covert Celestial Intervention Agency, to straighten the matter out before a paradox beyond repair manifests itself. Narvin is a recurring character in the Big Finish world played by Sean Carlsen. The caustic banter between Narvin and the Doctor is worth the price of admission on its own.

There was a lot that worked quite well for me here. Dogbolter is a somewhat cliché villain, but he’s a pretty amusing one. Mel was actually utilized quite well in the story, especially when she is trying to correct her error in judgment throughout the story. McCoy was really good in this one, but that is not unexpected considering how long he has been at this between his television era and these audio releases. I wouldn’t want to see or hear Narvin with too much frequency, however he certainly need to keep turning up for a while and could still conceivably pester various Doctors for years to come.

The Doctor, Narvin, and Ace are transported into the Possibility Engine where they are living in roles created by whatever. I am not quite sure how to describe the Possibility Engine or its function. That may take another listen for me to grasp more fully.

Rounding out the cast is Jules De Jongh as Captain Regent of the Krasi. who wants to muscle in on Dogbolter’s territory and has designs on the Possibility Engine herself. The Captain Regent and Dogbolter have a pretty good double act going as well.

I did find the ending to be somewhat rushed and inadequate in some ways. Most of the adventure comes off pretty well, but I was not terribly satisfied with the resolution. For the most part, I appreciated the somewhat unexpected comedic turn this story took at times. It had some clever ideas throughout. Pretty much all of the supporting characters were pretty compelling and eccentric. The main cast performs well together as they usually do. In fact, they always do well even if the writing sometimes falters.

Even though not everything worked for me, most of it was pretty enjoyable.

“Schindler’s List” is a Steven Spielberg cinematic masterpiece that was initially released in 1993.  Liam Neeson stars in the title role.  Ben Kingsley was cast as Itzhak Stern, who assisted Oskar Schindler in  his efforts to save the lives of Jews who were targeted by the Holocaust during the World war II.  Ralph Fiennes plays the brutal SS commandant Amon Goth who was quite the enthusiast when it came to killing Jews.

There is not a single bad note in any of the performances.  Fiennes plays a truly loathsome creature who manages to convey some complexity to his cruelty.  There is nothing to make Goth really sympathetic, but he was certainly played with more depth than I have seen in many other Nazi roles in various films about this era.  Neeson certainly delivers in his role as well.  Schindler comes off as quite the party animal and womanizer, however that hides a certain craftiness that is exhibited when he really commits to aiding those Jewish refugees he can reach by having them work in his factory where they are protected from the brutal attention of the SS.  Kingsley excels in his role as well, but he usually puts forth a compelling performance.

There really is not much about this film that falls short of being amazing.  I did find the end to be a little more protracted than was necessary, but the very end where cast members and real life survivors who were rescued by Schindler’s efforts paid tribute to him at his gravesite was quite moving.

It is very easy to see how this film was a labor of love without having to hear Spielberg’s explanation.  It’s a hard film to say that one enjoys seeing considering the subject matter and the brutality depicted, however it is not hard to express appreciation for the presentation of a painful yet important part of world history.  There is no perfect way to describe or discuss the horrors of the Holocaust since our language can seem so inadequate.  Spielberg seems to strike a perfect balance between displaying that horror yet not quite going so far as to make it unwatchable.  Of course, I have a stronger stomach than most people.

The movie manages to be strangely heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time.  It took me twenty-five years to sit through this film.  No question that it’s a long one, however the critical acclaim from professional critics and friends who encouraged me to see it were absolutely right.  Although I have no real reason to have taken this long to see it, I am glad to have finally taken the time.

“Shada” is a Doctor Who serial that was supposed to have aired on the BBC in the seventeenth season of the original run of the series in 1979.  Tom Baker was the Doctor during that time and was accompanied by Lalla Ward as the second incarnation of Romana.  David Brierley provided the voice of K9.  Production was halted by a strike so there was not enough material on film to have been broadcast at that time.  BBC Video released what material they could in 1992 with Baker providing narration to explain the missing scenes.  Big Finish Productions teamed up with BBCi and retold the story with animation but with Paul McGann filling in as the Eighth Doctor, which was not a bad effort.

Just last year, BBC got together the surviving actors and recorded the dialogue that would been done in 1979 and animated the unfinished scenes.  The final product is a rather strange mixture of the original live action footage flowing into animated scenes.

The iconic Douglas Adams wrote this screenplay which was originally directed by Pennant Roberts.  Really, this particular serial carries some significant and complicated notoriety among the fandom.

Now that some of the overly simplified background explanation is out of the way, I will now share my humble opinions and thoughts about this latest effort to relay this incomplete tale.

The overall plot is a bit of a mess, however the performances from Baker, Ward, and the supporting cast are strong enough to find considerable forgiveness.  It seems to embrace the absurdity just a bit more enthusiastically for some reason.  Of course, this trait is a hallmark of Douglas Adams’ writing.

The Doctor and Romana arrive in Cambridge answering a summons from the absent-minded Professor Chronotis.  Chronotis is soon revealed to be a retired Time Lord who has taken on the guise of a harmless, befuddled university professor, however he has taken some books from Gallifrey and one very important and powerful one has gotten away from him.  This book contains the way to Shada, which houses a powerful, corrupt Time Lord named Salyavin. The now deceased Denis Carey in this role can almost steal the moment from Tom Baker sometimes, which isn’t an easy feat.

Christopher Neame plays an alien scientist by the name of Skagra who is also searching for the missing Gallifeyan artifact to learn the location of a forgotten prison planet called Shada.  Neame goes a bit over the top in his performances but still manages to make that seem fitting in this story.  Skagra works fine as the villain in this story, but it’s still a relief he did not become a recurring adversary of the Doctor’s.

The story is a little longer and more convoluted than necessary, but the charm and wit of Tom Baker’s version of the Doctor pretty much removes any resentment of that.  Lalla Ward is also great in this one.  Sorry, Brierley, but I prefer John Leeson’s version of K9.

The style of animation isn’t really that impressive, but it still works.  The actors who performed the new dialogue sounded pretty good.  The voices have  aged fairly noticeably, but not bad enough to pull me out of the story.

The story was meant to be told in six twenty-five minute episodes originally, however the producers of this particular release chose a more cinematic format, much like the old days when Americans would watch the show on PBS affiliates.

There is a very cool epilogue scene which makes no sense but is still profoundly amusing.  May Tom Baker have more years than he thinks to continue his performance in the Big Finish audio plays!

“Shada” is a pretty flawed effort initially, but there is plenty to enjoy regardless.  As an obnoxiously avid Doctor Who fan, I applaud the efforts to complete this story almost as originally intended.  Adams knows how to have fun in his writings, and this story demonstrates that just as effectively as “Hitchhiker’s Guide”.

“Shada” has a unique place in Doctor Who’s long history and in the hearts’ of the fans. It was long past time an effort like this was made.

“The Shell Collector” is a collection of eight short stories written by Anthony Doerr and was published in 2002.  There is quite a bit of variety of characters of settings throughout, but there seems to be a theme of people traveling and coming together outside of their usual surroundings.  The various stories take place throughout the world.

I am not going to review each and every story, but I would say the ones that engaged me the most started off with the first story “The Shell Collector” in which the title character has his island beleaguered with desperate people who come to believe he has amazing abilities of healing.  I also liked “The Hunter’s Wife” where a reunion is about to take place between a couple who have not seen each other in twenty years.  It dips in and out of the past where the reader learns about their meeting and eventual separation.  “The Caretaker” and the final story, “Mkondo” are also two of the strongest entries in this anthology.

“The Caretaker” is a about a refugee from Liberia which seems to also echo the controversies in today’s reality.

This really isn’t my usual choice for reading entertainment, but I was glad to have tried it out.  Doerr does have the somewhat exasperating practice of not using many quotation marks when depicting dialogue, but he is an interesting writer overall.  Some stories grabbed me more than others, as what usually happens with anthologies.  I would still recommend for my fellow readers to give this one a try.  I may also peruse some of Doerr’s other works since my curiosity is sparked.

I think I will next check in on the exploits of Jane Hawk with “The Whispering Room” by Dean Koontz.