Bloodshot is a superhero film based on a character from Valiant Comics.  The main character was created by Kevin VanHook, Don Perlin, and Bob Layton.  The film was written by Jeff Wadlow and Eric Heisserer with directing credit belonging to none other than David S.F. Wilson.  The film stars include Vin Diesel, Eiza Gonzalez, and Guy Pearce.

So we have seen Diesel in this kind of role before.  He plays a military special forces guy who ends up getting killed just after witnessing his wife’s execution.  Guy Pearce plays the scientist who spearheaded his resurrection with the aid of nanotechnology.  Diesel, who plays this Ray Garrison or Bloodshot, leaves the nest and goes on a rampage to find those responsible for his wife’s death, however this is really some dastardly manipulation of his memories.  It’s gory, senseless, and kind of fun.

Lamorne Morris plays a likable super computer genius named Wilfred Wigans.  He was pretty cool.  This Eiza Gonzalez is phenomenally gorgeous as KT.  She looks great in her fight scenes and pretty much whenever she is onscreen.  She probably looks pretty good off screen too.

I struggled a little bit in the beginning of this due to some repetitive scenes that kind of sets up the rest of the movie.  I did end up enjoying the second half quite a bit more when some of the answers start getting revealed to Bloodshot.

The action scenes are impressive as expected in a film of this sort.  The fight scenes were implausibility fun, also as expected in a film of this sort.  Diesel actually puts in a fairly compelling performance….for him anyway.  There is nothing terrible about the performances that stood out, although it’s a comic book film so some grace is somewhat automatic here.

It’s not the greatest comic book film, but it’s a serviceable distraction from the chaos going on in the world at the moment.  It’s amusingly forgettable.

The Narrow Margin is a thriller released in 1952 and stars Charles McGraw, Marie Windsor, and Jacqueline White.  David Clarke and Paul Maxey are also part of the cast.  Richard Fleischer directed this film which was written by Earl Felton.  Felton apparently got the idea from a story conceived by Martin Goldsmith and Jack Leonard.

McGraw plays a tough, cynical Los Angeles detective who has to escort the widow of a mob boss from Chicago in order to testify in California.  The assignment gets a bit more messy when Sgt. Brown’s partner is gunned down just as they are picking up the woman to take to the train depot.  Brown and the widow are able to get aboard the train but still have to share the close quarters with the hit men sent to eliminate them.

Windsor plays the widow, whose cynicism and mistrust is a match for Brown’s.  White plays a fellow passenger who may be more than she seems, although she quite understandably catches Brown’s eye.

There are some aspects to this film that seem a little cliche by today’s standards, however I rather liked this film.  I liked McGraw’s performance.  Sgt. Brown is rather surly and abrasive but somehow likable. Well, I liked him anyway.  He connects with a young boy with a rather overactive imagination, so there is a balance between his single minded toughness and a more compassionate streak.  McGraw and Windsor had a pretty believable antagonistic chemistry.  The story did have some interesting twists if somewhat implausible twists.  Not everyone aboard the train was just an innocent bystander.  I also was impressed with a pretty convincing fight scene between Brown and one of his would-be killers. Who doesn’t appreciate some decent close quarter fisticuffs?

There are plenty of thrillers that take place in confined areas such as trains, but this particular film was one of the better ones.  It seems like the kind of film that would have some two dimensional characters, however there was a surprising amount of complexity in the leads.

For any  movie lover who is wanting to see some more of the classics such as myself, I would recommend to catch this one.  It’s not a very long movie, but there was plenty to enjoy.

 

 

The Home Guard is a Doctor Who audio play written by Simon Guerrier and directed by Lisa Bowerman.  It is an episode from the range known as The Early Adventures.  Frazer Hines returns with his rendition of the Second Doctor, which continues to honor his late friend, Patrick Troughton.  Hines also return to the role of Jamie McCrimmon.  Anneke Wills reprises her role of Polly and serves as the sole narrator.  Elliot Chapman takes on the role initially played by the late Michael Craze, Able Seaman Ben Jackson.  It’s a small guest cast on this one which is comprised of James Dreyfus, Molly Hanson, and Brian Murphy.

Ben Jackson calls on his old friends, Polly and Jamie, who are now married in the midst of the Second World War.  They are all in service under the command of the mysterious Doctor.  Except, that’s not right.  Something has gone wrong with reality, and someone else emerges from the shadows.  He calls himself the Master and he will be obeyed.

Dreyfus is cast as an earlier incarnation of the Master.  I guess it was a matter of time before Big Finish Productions decided to take the leap and cast a Master who would be before the version as played by the late Roger Delgado.  I think he did fine job with it, but there wasn’t much that really grabbed me about his performance.  I believe he has done one or two other episodes, so I will likely get to hear more soon enough.

Hines continues to do well with his impression of the late Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor.  Wills also has done enough of these recordings that it’s a given she will also do well.

The script was interesting.  Guerrier is a reliable contributor and has a pretty engaging premise with this episode.  The appearance of the Master that would have taken place before the television series first introduced him in Jon Pertwee’s era actually seemed to fit rather nicely.

Chapman also does well with his version of Ben Jackson.  Michael Craze is still the best Ben, but Chapman does right by him.

In spite of the chances taken with a new Master and a bit of a upheaval with the relationship of the companions, I don’t really see this one as a standout.  The episode was enjoyable enough, however I felt that it should have made more of an impression with of these supposedly daring developments.  It does work pretty well though.  The performances are pretty strong.  The sound effects are pretty convincing, but Big Finish almost always comes through there.  The musical score was appropriate to the era.

I liked this episode, but I didn’t really love it.  I do still love the Second Doctor though and want Hines back behind the mic very soon.

 

Doctor Who and the Robots of Death is a novelization by Terrance Dicks of the classic Doctor Who episode that was aired in 1977 during Tom Baker’s era as the Doctor.  The original script was written by Chris Boucher, who also created the character of Leela, played by Louise Jameson.

The Doctor and Leela arrive on a desert planet aboard a giant vehicle known as a Sandminer.  A small crew of humans is charge of mining for minerals and ores.  Most of the more mundane duties are performed by robots.  The Doctor and Leela arrive just in time to be accused of murder.  They are also just in time to get caught up in a revolution that is turning the robot servants into lethal weapons.

I used to collect the Target novelizations as a youngster and still procure one every now and then.  This one surprisingly got by me for years, but I have it now.  Terrance Dicks was the most prolific contributor to this range.  Although Dicks was no master wordsmith, his impact on the series is still profound.  Dicks has a very simplistic, straight forward prose style, however there is still something distinctive about it.

This particular episode is actually a favorite as it is for many fans of the series, and Dicks doesn’t add a whole lot of anything new.  Saying that, it was still fun to visit this particular story in print for the first time.

Now, time for something a little more weighty as my next literary indulgence.  I am going with Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens.

Spenser Confidential is a Netflix original film supposedly based the characters originally created Robert B. Parker and a novel written by Ace Atkins.  Atkins has been writing new Spenser novels since Parker’s death in 2010.  The film is directed by Peter Berg, who I usually like.  It took two screenwriters to come up with his drivel, Sean O’Keefe and Brian Helgeland.  Mark Wahlberg plays the title role with Winston Duke playing Hawk.  Alan Arkin and Iliza Shlesinger are also part of the cast alongside Bokeem Woodbine and Michael Gaston.

It’s based on one of Ace Atkins’ novels entitled Wonderland supposedly.  I read that book and recognized very little of it in the movie. I can’t believe that Atkins and Parker estate went along with this without any objection.

First of all, the background of the characters has been changed drastically.  In this film, Spenser is a former cop who got sent to prison for giving his corrupt captain a thrashing.  He serves his time and is released.  He wants to move to Arizona and become a long haul trucker, however he gets drawn back into the fray when the captain is murdered and another cop is framed for it.  Arkin plays Spenser’s former boxing trainer who puts him up for the time being.  This is where Spenser meets Hawk, an aspiring UFC fighter or something.  Spenser is also having to contend with an irate ex-girlfriend, who is definitely not Dr. Susan Silverman of the novels.  Shlesinger takes on that role and sometimes stumbles into an amusing moment.  Her gorgeousness and talent is so wasted here, although there was a certain sassiness I found somewhat appealing.  She is better known as a stand-up comedian, which I appreciate a lot more.

In the novels, Spenser was just private eye who was often backed up by Hawk, a freelance mob enforcer at times.  He was known for his wry view on life and justified bravado when taking on a challenging case.  He was a pretty accomplished cook and well-read which was in contradiction to his intimidating size and somewhat thuggish features.  The only thing this movie got right was Spenser being a former cop and boxer. Wahlberg is an actor I usually appreciate when he is onscreen, but he just didn’t hit anything on how Spenser is depicted in the novels.

If this thing didn’t purport to be based on the world created by Robert B. Parker, it may be an adequate film to watch, but still not  much more than that.  Although Alan Arkin had a few good moments sometimes.

I knew about some of the changes before I saw this movie as I knew that Hollywood studios tended to do this, but as a fan of the original Spenser novels, I was still pretty outraged that this went as far as it did. What a shame!

The Way Back is a sports drama written by Brad Ingelsby and directed by Gavin O’Conner.  Ben Affleck stars here with a cast that includes Al Madrigal, Janina Gavankar, and Michaela Watkins.

Affleck plays a construction worker who can put out away a terrifying or enviable amount of booze, depending on your sense of priorities.  Anyway, he is a former high school basketball hotshot who walked away from a full scholarship in his youth.  He is presented with the opportunity coach a team at the Catholic school where he attended and reluctantly takes it on.

I will start off and say that the film is actually pretty good for the most part.  There are some aspects that fall short on realism, such as the lack of research the school puts in when it comes to their selection of a coach.  I would have thought that someone would have checked out how Jack Cunningham is really doing in his life before handing him the keys to the coach’s office.  It’s actually a fairy complicated and interesting part for Affleck.

Affleck has had some personal struggles that are quite similar to what his character is going through, and he makes good use of them for this film.  This is certainly one of his better performances.  I do not know if this is worthy of an Oscar nod or anything like that, but he was convincing enough to hold my attention and root for his redemption moment.

The movie has some pretty cliche moments and characters, however they didn’t dampen my enjoyment of it too much.  The cast was pretty well chosen.  Actually, Affleck was the only cast member that I recognized right away, and I didn’t mind that at all.

There is not a lot of new ground broken here, but it ended up still being a pretty good show.

The Manifestations of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of new short stories written by James Lovegrove featuring the most celebrated of fictional detectives, Sherlock Holmes, who was originally created by one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  It is one one of the recent publications from Titan Books.

I have often expressed some exasperation at a great number of pastiche writers to keep having Holmes and Watson face supernatural threats or hoaxes or whatever as if they are doing something unique or original.  I still hold to that view and maintain my preference for stories to be written more in the manner Doyle depicted.  Saying that, this particular anthology is not bad.  Lovegrove does have a genuine affection for the world Doyle created centered around the lodgings of 221 B Baker Street in London that does come through in his works.

Many of the stories had already appeared in other collections in recent years, but there were a few new ones that were written for this particular volume.

Doyle’s other well-known creation, Professor Challenger from The Lost World  even makes an appearance in The Adventure of the Challenging Professor.

Toby, the dog that was enlisted in the novel The Sign of Four, gets to share his own story in The Adventure of the Noble Burglar.  That one was a bit self-indulgent and silly but not without some merit.

The Adventure of the Botanist’s Glove is probably one that I can more easily imagine Doyle writing himself.

Anyway, there are twelve stories to peruse in this collection, and the level of enjoyment and quality varies a bit, however I am pleased to note that none of the efforts I found uniquely terrible.

Lovegrove is a talented enough writer with some interesting ideas that occasionally veer way off the what I would recognize as something Doyle would pen, but he also does manage to at times capture some of the more essences of the original canon.

I like seeing what other writers come up with Holmes and Watson, even if I occasionally object to the direction they are often steered, but I think Lovegrove is one of the better contributors to the series, Manifestations is pretty solid evidence of that.

The next reading indulgence is going to be a brief reliving of my childhood when I first started getting into the vast universe of Doctor Who.  There are still some holes in my collection of Target novelizations of the earlier serials, and I recently procured Doctor Who and the Robots of Death by Terrance Dicks to help fill those in.

Dark Universe is a Doctor Who audio play from Big Finish Productions and is written by Guy Adams.  Ken Bentley serves as director once again.  Sylvester McCoy makes a welcome return as the Seventh Doctor alongside Sophie Aldred as Ace.  Mark Bonnar returns as the Eleven, the Time Lord who does not entirely shed his previous selves when he regenerates.  Carolyn Pickles, Damian Lynch, and Glen McCready are part of the guest cast as well.

The Eleven was first introduced as an adversary for the Eighth Doctor in the saga known as Doom Coalition, however there was a prequel scene that alluded him to being captured by Seventh Doctor. This episode chronicles that encounter between them.

Also, Ace has not seen the Doctor for twenty years and is CEO of some organization known as A Charitable Earth.  The Doctor has turned up to enlist her help with his latest caper involving the Eleven, who has cooked up another scheme to take over the universe, in keeping with one or two other maniacal renegade Time Lords.

There are some interesting elements such as Aldred playing an Ace who is closer to her own age.  She has lost none of her spirit or scrap in her more mature years.  Aldred and McCoy continue to demonstrate their affection and chemistry in their performance, even if their characters are seemingly at odds.

Bonnar’s performance seems to be reminiscent of the Joker at times.  He has gotten better at making the various personalities of the Eleven more distinct.  I am actually learning to appreciate him more as a somewhat unpredictable foe for the Doctor.  It’s an intriguing idea to have a Time Lord who has to live with all of his previous incarnations rattling around in his head and emerging at times from the current body.

I found the episode to be reasonably enjoyable, although some of the action scenes weren’t always that clearly presented.  It’s not really a comedic installment, but McCoy gets to act out some of his more clownish tendencies.  I actually have come to enjoy McCoy quite a bit in the Big Finish contributions.

The full story of how the Seventh Doctor captured the Eleven was inevitably going to be revealed before they clash again in Doom Coalition, and Adams provides a solid story.  I do not see this as being regarded as any sort of classic among us Big Finish listeners, but I found plenty to enjoy.

The Timeless Children concludes the twelfth series of the revived Doctor Who era with Jodie Whittaker in the lead role.  Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole, and Mandip Gill are still the companions.  Chris Chibnall, the head writer and producer, wrote this one with Jamie Magnus Stone directing.  Sacha Dwahan returns as the current version of the Master.  This one concludes the story started in Ascension of the Cybermen.

The Master takes the Doctor on a tour of her own past within in the Matrix on a once again destroyed Gallifrey. The problem here is that there are large swaths of the Doctor’s history it suddenly turns out she cannot remember.  Meanwhile, the companions and their latest allies are having to contend with the Cybermen under the command of the one known as Ashad, played by Patrick O’Kane.  There’s a cool old guy played by Ian McElhinney with a neat craggy, bearded face that I can’t help but envy a little.  He’s also not a bad actor.

There are some pretty cool visual effects, and the how the companions contend with Cybermen bearing down on them isn’t too bad.’

I am also beginning to enjoy the mania of Dwahan’s version of the Master.  Roger Delgado, the first one to take on the role all the way back in the 1970’s, will remain my favorite, however Dwahan puts in a compelling performance.  Too bad some of his motivations and dialogue aren’t better written.

So there is a big reveal about the Doctor’s history that is supposed to challenge and break the canon and history known by the fans.  It’s a mess.  It makes no real sense, which is saying something even for Doctor Who.  Doctor Who stopped making sense sometimes ago, but it was still fairly enjoyable.  Some fans are going to say that this opens some new doors of exploring the Doctor’s mysterious past or whatever.  I am for the notion of the Doctor not having new mysteries to explore within his or her own past and just explore the mysteries in the universe…like the old days.  Just have her meet some new friends and some new foes.  Sure, the Daleks, Cybermen, or Sontarans can still show up occasionally, but do we need to rely on them so much.  I know the previous season attempted o not have them as a crutch, but I don’t think Chibnall is creative enough to manage it convincingly.  He seems much more interested in making diversity and social justice more of a priority than just solid storytelling.  I don’t necessarily mind diversity in entertainment as long as it can be presented without it feeling like some writer is checking off a box or something.

This doesn’t make me throw in the towel with this program just yet, so I will watch until the bitter end and hope that Doctor Who continues on in other media such Big Finish audios, novels, or something.  Hopefully, another head writer will have the courage and creativity to unravel this unnecessary nonsense that Chibnall has chosen to inflict upon the fans who appreciate the history and canon already created by better writers of the past.  Even if I make the choice to stay with this and watch the next series, the BBC heads do need to pay attention to the decreasing ratings if they have any interest in seeing this show survive.  It’s going to say something if Doctor Who gets cancelled just after Chibnall cast a woman in the lead role and then decided to add his own version of the Doctor’s past merely for the sake of diversity or his sense of equality.

Can You Hear Me? is the seventh episode in the current Doctor Who series starring Jodie Whittaker in the company of Bradley Walsh, Mandip Gill, and Tosin Gill.  I ended up watching this one out of order.  Charlene James and Chris Chibnall co-wrote this episode which had Emma Sullivan in the director’s seat.  Guest stars included Ian Gelder, Claire-Hope Ashitey, and Aruhan Galieva.

The companions are dropped off in their own time and place in Sheffield while the Doctor is drawn to investigate signal from Aleppo, Syria in 1390.  There she finds an abandoned mental hospital with only one survivor being stalked by a horrific creature.  Meanwhile, Graham, Yasmin, and Ryan are being troubled by a menacing figure in their dreams.  The Doctor realizes that this matter is connected to her little problem and returns.  It seems that immortal and immoral beings are at that root of these strange occurrences, and the Doctor may be outmatched.  Or is she?

It has an interesting set up.  Gelder does make a rather disturbing presence in people’s dreams.  His fingers detach and fly into people’s ears where he can feed on their nightmares or something.  There’s a woman trapped in a pod between two planets about to collide.

There was quite a bit of imagination and creativity that was attempted, however it still didn’t make it to anything that would be memorable.  There were some mention of old adversaries such the Celestial Toymaker and the Eternals.  That was kind of cool but mot much more than that.

Whittaker is beginning to show a little more range with her version of the Doctor, although I doubt I will put her among any of my personal favorites anytime soon.

I also had some trouble buying into the casting of Ashitey as some immortal beauty with a cruel streak.  She and Gelder just didn’t have a believable chemistry as eternal partners in destruction.

It’s another exercise in mediocrity for the Whittaker era of Doctor Who.