“The Illustrated Man” is a 1969 science fiction film based on the works of one Ray Bradbury.  It stars Rod Steiger, Claire Bloom, and Robert Drivas and was directed by Jack Smight.  Howard B. Kreitsek came up with the screenplay as well as co-produced the film.

This is basically an anthology with three stories presented through the artwork from the body of Steiger’s character of Carl, who encounters a young, pleasant drifter named Willie, played by Robert Drivas.  Carl is obsessed with finding the woman who inked the skin illustrations all over him.  What makes this body art more unusual is that one looking too deeply into them get some disturbing glimpses in the future.

The film has a somewhat engaging beginning when the two principle characters first meet, however my interest was not sustained very easily. Steiger has some interesting characters and performances in his filmography, however I would not count this one as among is more profound.  I suspect that the problem is more in the direction of this particular work.

It’s a shame I did not like this one more considering the iconic esteem in which Bradbury is held in the science fiction genre.

“Aquaman” finally premiered with Jason Momoa in the title role.  James Wan is the director who brought life to the screenplay written David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Will Beall.  Momoa is joined with a plethora of talented castmates that includes Willem Dafoe, Patrick Wilson, Amber Heard, and Nicole Kidman.

Momoa’s version of Aquaman has already been seen in “Justice League”.  He looks quite different from the comic book iteration, however since I didn’t really get into the comic book, I didn’t take issue with it.  Momoa does not appear to have the most impressive of acting ranges, but he is a good fit for this part.  He does have a significant amount of charisma and timing.  DC may have learned that humor in these kinds of film does go a long way. and Momoa delivers the more comedic lines well enough.  He also looks great in the action sequences.  I don’t remember Aquaman being all that brutal, but this film version doesn’t mind getting rough at all.

Patrick Wilson portrays Aquaman’s misguided half-brother who wants to remain sole ruler of Atlantis and is not too pleased when Aquaman is compelled to claim the throne. Yahya Abdul-Manteen II is cast as the former modern-day pirate who becomes Black Manta.  Dolph Lundgren is even in this one as one of the Atlantean rulers.

The film has some lapses in coherences in the storyline, however it still manages to be quite entertaining in spite of the cracks.  I thought the depiction of Aquaman’s origin was a little rushed and clumsy.  Aquaman is joined in his reluctant bid to claim the Atlantean throne by a princess known as Mera, played by Amber Beard.

The visual effects are quite stunning.  The movie looks great for the most part.  Although sometimes the overwhelming effects makes it a little hard to follow some the specific moments in the climactic battle sequence.

No one stood out as putting in a bad performance.  As mentioned, Momoa isn’t likely to be known  as the finest of actors, but he does well enough carrying the film.

DCEU films have had some misfires lately, however this one doesn’t appear to be one of those.  Not everything in the film comes off great, however a lot more of it works than doesn’t.

It could be good enough to encourage and galvanize the studio execs to continue with making movies in this franchise.

It’s a film with some hiccups but one where I didn’t have to work that hard to enjoy.  If DCEU can actually make some overall improvements with their other films, I would not mind at all seeing Momoa again in this role.

“The Good Doctor” is a Doctor Who novel by Juno Dawson and is one of the first set of volumes to feature the Thirteenth Doctor and her three companions currently seen on the television series.

The beginning of the novel has the Doctor negotiate a treaty between the native inhabitants of the planet Lobos and the human colonists.  She and her companions leave thinking they have brokered a peaceful co-existence until Ryan realizes he left his cell phone behind.  Of course, the TARDIS has a hiccup which causes a detour of several centuries into the future.  The Loba have been enslaved by the humans, and the humans worship a deity known as the Good Doctor, who bears an uncanny resemblance to one Graham O’Brien.  Yasmin is taken prisoner and later rescued by the standard rebel outfit.

This is another cautionary tale about religion being abused, and a race being enslaved over a misinterpretation of holy texts. The Doctor is appropriately outraged by her previous well-intentioned intervention being unraveled.

I was hoping that this version of the Doctor would come off better in print, and you know what?  She does but not by much.  Dawson does provide her with some amusing witticisms and reactions along the way.  I did find it a nice touch for the Doctor to sometimes reflect on her past turbulent relationship with her people, the Time Lords. She even considered that her interventions could sometimes get out of hand.  Although it would be boring if the Doctor stopped meddling and intervening, I think it does add some appropriate gravitas her to consider the consequences if things go south such as depicted in this story.

Dawson is a competent enough author but nothing particularly unique about her style of prose stood out to me. I guess not causing me further exasperation with the current direction of the series will have to be accomplishment enough for this one.

The next selection for my reading indulgence is a book I found in a used bookstore in Denver, Colorado a few months ago.  Howard Lieberman is going to welcome this humble reader aboard “The Green Train”.

 

“Green Book” is a film which chronicles the friendship between touring piano great Don Shirley and his driver Tony Vallelonga.  The two main roles are played by Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen, respectively.  Peter Farrelly directed this script which he also co-wrote with Nick Vallelonga and Brian Hayes Currie.

This is another movie about an unlikely friendship crossing racial boundaries during the early 1960’s.  Don Shirley as a black pianist who decides to include the Deep South on his tour with the Don Shirley Trio.  He hires a nightclub bouncer known as Tony Lip to be his driver on an eight week trek as he plays in various venues where segregation was still the norm and his gift only went so far when it came to impressing the wealthy white denizens of states such as Kentucky and Alabama.

Both Ali and Mortensen were on top of their game when it came to the performances. Mortensen played his part with just the right mix of charm and crassness.  Ali was also compelling as the intellectual outcast from both his own culture and the society elites.  I am not sure if the real life men depicted actually became the friends shown here in this film, but it was still pretty fascinating to watch the relationship unfold onscreen.

There were some moments that were easily predicted, but the overall films still comes together very nicely.  There is likely quite a bit of creative license taken here, but the overall result makes those instances somewhat easy to shrug off. It could be interesting to read a more detailed biography of Dr. Shirley to see how close he actually had gotten to Vallelonga, if that is mentioned at all.

There is plenty of some great location shots.  This is also a road trip film where the two main character face many obstacles in their endeavor to complete the tour.

It was fun to see Sebastian Maniscalco in a supporting role where he actually had more to do than I expected.  The supporting cast playing Vallelonga’s family were expectedly loud, obnoxious, and still reasonably charming.  It was pretty sweet how much Vallelonga would demonstrate his love for his wife in the letters he was trying to compose chronicling his trip with Shirley.

It’s a pretty moving film and reminds the audience of the injustice of “Jim Crow” laws quite effectively.  It also often defies expectations as to how the relationship is going to develop between Vallelonga and Dr. Shirley.  Vallelonga may lack some polish, but he does well in a crisis.

In case anyone is wondering, the title refers to a publication that was designed to help traveling black people find motels and restaurants that would welcome them.

I had heard this was a good movie, and it turns out the mysterious they were right.  This is definitely one of the better movies of this year.

“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.