Tag: reviews

Book Review: No One Swings The Hammer Like Spillane

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

Vengeance is Mine by Mickey Spillane has Mike Hammer in a dangerous predicament from the first line of this classic crime novel from one of the acclaimed masters of the genre.

New York gumshoe Mike Hammer starts off the story with a nasty hangover and a corpse in a hotel room with police already scrutinizing him. The victim is a friend of Hammer’s named Chester Wheeler. The police determine that Wheeler committed suicide with Hammer’s gun after the two of them went out drinking. The district attorney does use the mess to pull Hammer’s private investigation license and gun permit. Hammer has reason to believe that his friend was actually murdered and is motivated to start his own investigation that takes him to a suspicious modeling agency and a blackmail scheme. Wheeler is not the only one to lose his life, and the subsequent murders seem to confirm that Hammer’s instincts are dead right.

The novel was first published in 1950, so there is a bit of adjustment to the writing style of the time. Of course, Spillane’s works was seen as quite raw for that time. This period was the height of noir crime fiction, and Spillane has earned his crown quite legitimately here.

Hammer is one of the more brutal protagonists in the genre. He is also a bit conflicted when it comes to matters of love. He has women who want something more from him than he feels he has. There are some fictional detectives that are a bit more compelling, but Spillane does a pretty good job. I can see why he is so popular among the crime fiction enthusiasts.

This novel was an enjoyable literary diversion, but I don’t know if this is one of the masterpieces in Spillane’s bibliography. It’s a fun read but not for the squeamish.

Next up, murder has struck Ireland in the 1950’s, and the matter falls on Detective Inspector St. John Strafford to resolve in John Banville’s Snow.

Big Finish Audio Review: Jago And Litefoot Get A Little Help

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

Jago & Litefoot Series Three is a pretty decent addition to the audio series reuniting the two Victorian investigators of infernal incidents with an old friend in the shape of Leela, portrayed by Louise Jameson. Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter reprise their celebrated roles of Henry Gordon Jago and Professor George Litefoot in this new collection of episodes released by Big Finish Productions. Lisa Bowerman returns as Ellie, their favorite barmaid. Conrad Asquith reprises his role as Sergeant Quick. There are four episodes to discuss briefly here.

Just to review, the Jago & Litefoot series is a spinoff of Doctor Who. They met during the television serial entitled The Talons of Weng-Chiang during Tom Baker’s era in the role of the Doctor. Louise Jameson returns to lend a hand in this series as Leela. Leela has been sent from Gallifrey to help close some time breaches which have been plaguing Victorian London. It’s fun to hear them banter back and forth once again.

The first story to discuss is Dead Men’s Tales by Justin Richards. Beings known as Wet Men have been lurking around the streets and alleys of London. They have risen from the Thames looking for a lost member of their crew. The idea of ghosts from the future are first explored here.’

Leela gets to go undercover as a barmaid under the tutelage of Ellie Higson, portrayed by Lisa Bowerman, and the moments is hilarious. Jameson is quite an experienced actress and handles the moment quite deftly.

Anyway, it’s a fairly interesting story, but Richards has done better in the past.

The Man at the End of the Garden by Matthew Sweet explores the idea of a fairy tale coming alive. It was an okay script, but it was not that memorable. I did like that Big Finish actually cast a child for the role of a little girl at the center of the problem. They do not always do that. Eden Monteath is the name of the young actress, and she did a good job. The cast interviews at the end revealed that she took the part seriously but likely had fun as everyone attests to happening when recording at the studio.

Jago and Litefoot get a taste of the future in John Dorney’s Swan Song. More ghosts from the future haunt the New Regency Theater, which was recently bequeathed to Henry Gordon Jago. In the future, a lab will be built where time experiments are being conducted. This was a much more engaging story than its predecessors, but that’s not surprising considering it’s from Dorney.

Finally, another long time Doctor Who contributor, Andy Lane wraps up this set with Chronoclasm where the mastermind behind the disturbances is revealed. Philip Bretherton steps from the shadows as Elliot Payne. Jago, Litefoot, and Leela get some unexpected help from another Henry Gordon Jago.

It’s another competent script from a talented writer, but Lane has also done better in previous works.

Overall, it was an enjoyable listening experience, but the inclusion of Leela just seems like such an obvious move. Still, Louise Jameson does that part so well, so it was still nice to have her join in the hijinks.

The set serves the purpose of being enjoyment accompaniment in the car, but there is not much that I found to stand out other than the guest appearances.

Doctor Who Audio Review: The Battles Keep Coming

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

The War Doctor Begins: Battlegrounds is a decent but unspectacular addition to range of War Doctor audio adventures from Big Finish Productions. Doctor Who has a myriad of ranges, and this one does remain fascinating overall, but this particular set struck me as being pretty average. Jonathon Carley continues his portrayal as the War Doctor, which was originated by the late John Hurt. Louise Jameson is the director of this set, and she does a good job.

The War Doctor was an incarnation who was denied by his other selves because of some of his actions taken during the Time War. He has denied himself his usual name, which makes introductions a little awkward to new characters. The War Doctor is not really evil, but he is a bit more ruthless than his other iterations.

As expected in this range, there are three episodes.

The Keeper of Light by Phil Mulryne begins where the War Doctor has a new companion and appears to be investigating strange signals that come from a lighthouse. It seems like a familiar type of adventure for this Time Lord, and he is only too happy to look into it. The problem is that he finds that his sense of reality may not be as reliable as he hopes.

The performances are great as usual. Carley continues to improve on the development of this character, and his impression of Hurt’s unique voice is impressive.

Rossa McPhillips continues the battle with the Daleks with his story entitled Temmosus in which the War Doctor has to convince a group of Thals that they are actually on the same side. A battleship the War Doctor has constructed has been stolen, and a Thal commander is trying to negotiate with the Daleks, which is not going to work out the way he hopes.

This is an interesting story as well. It seems overdue to bring in the Thals in this Time War saga since they shared the planet Skaro with the Daleks.

Finally, Timothy X Atack closes out this set with Rewind, which is actually the best out of this three.

The planet Lacuna is reliving the same day under an attack from the Daleks. Ignis Abel finds a lone man in a castle who may be the architect of their situation, but he was trying to save their lives. The War Doctor wants to break the population from the time loop he constructed, but doing so may leave them at the mercy of the Daleks.

Sarah Moss plays the optimistic and curious Ignis and is kind of the lead in this story. Her scenes with the War Doctor are well written.

The unique take on the repeating day is that the population is aware of the predicament and remember each time when the cycle ended with the Daleks slaughtering everyone.

The set is pretty good for the most part. I love that Louise Jameson has been expanding her role at Big Finish Productions beyond just playing Leela.

Carley is quite the find with his ability to emulate John Hurt’s distinctive voice.

Even if I didn’t find much that stood out, it’s still not a bad collection. Carley’s performance is quite astonishing. I wasn’t initially enthusiastic about the introduction of the War Doctor, but I am enjoying the heck out of this range of Big Finish audios even if that enjoyment comes at different levels.

Doctor Who Audio Review: Doctors, Daleks, And Temporal Leakage

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

The Four Doctors is a Doctor Who audio drama from Big Finish Productions and is a pretty decent multi-Doctor episode, although there have been better. It is written by Peter Anghelides and directed by Nicholas Briggs and Ken Bentley. Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, and Paul McGann all star as the Doctor. Nicholas Briggs also returns to voice the Daleks. The other members of the guest cast are David Bamber, Ellie Burrow, Nogel Lambert, andAlex Mallinson.

There is a vault with a dangerous secret, and the Fifth Doctor has discovered something called temporal leakage at this station run by biomechanoids known as the Jariden. A Dalek attack force is on the way, and a Jariden finds himself swept up in the Doctor’s timeline where he encounters several different versions of the Time Lord.

There are some interesting directions this story takes that differ from other multi-Doctor stories. The Doctors don’t really spend much time together other than kind of a tacked on final scene, which I am sorry to give that much of a spoiler. Most of the story deals with this Jariden military officer who is accompanied by a wrecked Special Weapons Dalek and pursued by the Dalek Prime. He encounters the Doctor in different incarnations as he gets swept up by some breaches in Time.

The main plot idea is solid enough, and the performances are more than acceptable. I guess I was a little let down that Anghelides felt the need to have the Doctors interact with each other without actually working together to solve a crisis. I just believe that one must have a multi-Doctor adventure, let him argue with himself and deal with the threat. If Anghelides wanted to have the Doctor work on some piece of the problem from various points in his timeline, that would be just fine because it would be something not really experienced by the audience all that much.

Doctor Who has a lot of silliness imbedded into its DNA anyway, but generally the multi-Doctor episodes tended to stretch that absurdity to the limit. They just are not usually written that well. Big Finish does do a better job with this type of episode than the television series could manage

Still, most of the major elements in this episode work quite well. Even if I feel the Daleks are a little overused, I didn’t mind their appearance here. The Doctors were still great. The main story had some creativity, and there were even a few profound moments that were kind of moving.

Even if I would have preferred a different final scene, it’s still an enjoyable episode on the whole.

Doctor Who Audio Review: The Time Lord And The Ghost Hunter

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

The Seventh Doctor shares a trilogy of audio adventures with an investigator of the supernatural known as Thomas Carnacki in the set entitled Doctor Who: The Doctor and Carnacki. Sylvester McCoy makes a welcome return to Big Finish Productions studio in a trio of macabre episodes. Joe Jameson and Dan Starkey share the role of Carnacki, who is presented in various stages of his lifetime. Samuel Clemens.is the director of this release.

Thomas Carnacki is the fictional creation of William Hope Hodgson, who was killed in 1918 during World War I. Carnacki is probably better known among the more dedicated readers of supernatural fiction. As mentioned before, there are three stories to discuss, so I will get on with it.

The Haunter of the Shore by AK Benedict starts this series off. Joe Jameson plays the younger version of Carnacki with Caitlin Joseph and Shogo Miyakita also lending their vocal talents.

Carnacki is called in to investigate the appearance of skeletons on a lakeshore near an estate inhabited by a recent widow and possibly strange spirits lurking in the shadows. A hermit is also discovered. He has a distinctive Scottish accent and surprising ideas about Time and where the spirits may originate. The Doctor and Carnacki meet for the first time.

Benedict gives the listener a pretty good start to this collection. McCoy still sounds great. Age has had little effect on McCoy’s vocal abilities and performance so far. It’s a pretty solid haunted house story; however, the Doctor discovers a more extraterrestrial origin to the troubles. There’s nothing too spectacular in this one, but it’s pretty good. The performances hold up, and now that I have read up a little on Carnacki, it’s a pretty good idea to have the Time Lord meet this guy.

The House by Georgia Cook has a rather unimaginative title, but the story itself is quite a bit better that it would suggest. Harry Hart plays a friend of Carnacki’s named Arkwright, who is haunted by a house in a most unusual way. His affliction goes back to his and Carnacki’s childhood, and the Doctor has arrived to help find the answers.

Starkey has taken over the role as an older Carnacki and is just as solid a performer as ever. It’s a unique take on a haunted house story since Arkwright is becoming the house or something.

Anyway, it’s a pretty good contribution to the set

Finally, Jonathan Barnes concludes this set with The Institute of Lost Souls. Rebecca Crinnion, Ewan Thomson, and Alan Cox are included in the guest cast with Dan Starkey continuing on as Carnacki.

Carnacki has a story to tell about a refuge for wounded soldiers that comes under attack by strange and savage creatures. The Doctor arrives again, but he is burdened with a terrible secret regarding Canacki’s fate.

The collection is quite enjoyable, largely because I appreciate a good ghost story even if there is an alien malevolence involved. Starkey is always a treat when he performs. He also is a compelling narrator. The last story is framed with a scene of Carnacki recounting his latest encounter with the Doctor to a group of close friends, which apparently was a common literary device used by Hodgson.

There is some real imagination at work in all three of the writers. McCoy remains in top form as the Doctor. The sound effects are great.

I appreciated the introduction to a fictional character of whom I know so little. The Seventh Doctor is a good foil for Carnacki, but I suspect I would have enjoyed it regardless of the Doctor’s incarnation.

Anyway, it’s a fun addition to the series and worth the time to sit back and listen.

Doctor Who Audio Review: Death And Three Doctors

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

Deathworld is a pretty decent Doctor Who audio drama from Big Finish Productions which would have starred William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, and Jon Pertwee if they were not deceased. Instead, we have Stephen Noonan, Michael Troughton, and Tim Treloar lending their formidable vocal talents to sound like the original actors. This episode has an interesting background. It was apparently a precursor to what became the television serial known as The Three Doctors. The original plot for Deathworld was proposed by Dave Martin and Bob Baker but was adapted for this audio format by John Dorney. David O’Mahoney serves as director and takes on some other minor roles within the episode.

Jon Culshaw returns to voice the role of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, who was originally portrayed by the late Nicholas Courtney. Katy Manning reprises her role of Jo Grant with Frazer Hines returning to his part of Jamie McCrimmon. Ther rest of guest cast includes Joe Shire and Dianne Pilkington.

The story starts off with the President of the Time Lords having a not-so-friendly chess match with Death. It’s an unusual game that brings the first three incarnations of the Doctor into another reality ruled by Death and manifestations of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Jo Grant, Jamie, and the Brigadier are caught up in the abduction as well. The Doctors have to work together again and protect their friends from their most powerful adversary.

I ended up enjoying this one. I actually think I prefer this version over the television iteration.

For one thing, the First Doctor is much more engaged and is teamed up with the Brigadier for much of the story. The Brigadier knew the Doctor in his second incarnation and was present not long after his forced regeneration and subsequent exile to Earth.

The three actors voicing the first three Doctors continue to do well in their efforts to represent those characters. Culshaw, who is known as a talented impressionist, does well with representing the Brigadier.

Some of the scenes portrayed were a little hard to visualize in the mind’s eye, but it was an interesting story. Shire does a great job as Death, War, Pestilence, and Famine. Pilkington plays the Gallifreyan President. and is fine.

Overall, it was a little bit of a confusing story, but I was able to find some enjoyment. Of course, I have found much to enjoy when new stories crop up featuring the earlier Doctors.

Dorney doesn’t always hit it out of the park for me, but he is consistently interesting and manages to not deliver a complete clunker of a story.

Deathworld still had some unique moments such as seeing the First Doctor get more involved with the action, which was lacking in The Three Doctors. Also, it was fun to hear the banter between him and the Brigadier as they complained about their mutual tendency toward gruffness. Michael Troughton taking on the role originated by his father is understandable and poignant, but I still think the better impression is done by Frazer Hines. Treloar is still doing quite well as the Third Doctor.

Once again, the performances are solid enough to make any flaws in the story quite forgivable, and this episode doesn’t even come close to be deserving of being overlooked.

Doctor Who Audio Review: Time Lords And Vampires Still Don’t Mix

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

Goth Opera is the latest Doctor Who audio drama adapted from a pretty good novel by Big Finish Productions. Lizbeth Myles is the scriptwriter who adapted this episode from the highly regarded novel written by Paul Cornell. David O’Mahoney serves as director as Peter Davison, Janet Davison, and Sarah Sutton reprise their usual roles as the Doctor, Tegan Jovanka, and Nyssa, respectively. Natalie Gumede, Micah Balfour, Ewan Goddard, and John Schwab are included in the guest cast.

The Doctor is indulging in a game of cricket while another Gallifreyan named Ruath is arranging for the vampires on Earth to encounter their messiah named Yarven. Ruath also has a bone to pick with the Doctor, and Yarven is well aware of the Doctor’s encounters with his species as well. Nyssa is attacked and bitten by a vampire, prompting the Doctor and Tegan to frantically save her from a full transformation. The Doctor finds himself the target of another vendetta for events that reach back to his academy days. Ruath also wants to create a hybrid comprised of Time Lord and Vampire DNA, and the Doctor will have quite a lot to say about that.

The plot is actually kind of interesting because Ruath’s motivations and her resentment of the Doctor’s decision to leave Gallifrey are a bit complicated. The nature of their past relationship is left a little murky, which I liked. The performances from the main cast members are as on par as a long-time listener of this series would expect. Davison still doesn’t sound like he did forty years ago, but it’s still great to listen to him. There is quite a bit of exasperated banter between him and Janet Fielding’s Tegan Jovanka that has yet to get old. Sutton has quite a sizeable part in the story and handles it more than capably.

The story was kind of interesting, but the original novel is a little overrated in my estimation. It took me a bit to warm up to Balfour’s performance as Yarven, but I got there. Schwab plays a Southern evangelist, and his accent is somewhat distracting because of the exaggeration of it.

I am curious of there is a plan for Big Finish to adapt the sequel novel Blood Harvest which would feature Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor. I think that would be a good, if somewhat predictable, decision for the company to make. I would listen to that one too.

I don’t usually comment on the music score on these things, but this release did have a rather distinctive composition which I rather enjoyed throughout the adventure.

The episode is an enjoyable addition to the range but necessarily a standout.

Film Review: There’s Something In The Woods…Or Not

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

Never Let Go is a horror survival film that is pretty interesting for something with such a confined setting. The film is written by Kevin Coughlin and Ryan Grassby with Alexandre Aja serving as director. Halle Berry is in the lead role as a mother of two young twin boys living out in the woods in a somewhat delipidated house in fear of some nameless evil that could be just in her head. Her co-stars include Percy Daggs IV, Anthony B. Jenkins, and Stephanie Lavigne.

Halle Berry plays a mother who is uniquely paranoid enough and construct some kind of rope contraption to keep her and her children tethered to the house as they scour the woods for food. She has told them of some evil that led to the deaths of her parents and husband. She has concocted a number of strange rituals for her children. Then, one of the boys starts questioning the purpose of all of this and wonders if his beloved mother could be making a peculiar and dangerous mistake. There are horrific zombie-like figures in the woods which could be the mother’s hallucinations. The world that she has created for her and her sons is starting to unravel, and it’s not immediately clear if it’s because she is going even more insane or there is something truly evil lurking in the trees.

This film actually has some real suspenseful moments. Berry is a pretty good actress and delivers a pretty compelling performance here. The two young actors, Daggs and Jenkins, held their own alongside the Oscar-winning beauty. There were a few moments that were suitably creepy.

There seemed to be a few loose threads left that nagged a little, but the film was engaging enough for me to just go with it. The history of this family was not all that clear, but that could have been intentional. Hopefully, there is not going to be a sequel. The film is solid enough for me to live with any lingering mystery in the story.

Film Review: Matt Walsh Does The Work

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

Am I Racist? is an effectively satirical documentary starring Matt Walsh as he goes on a journey to see if the DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) teachers have a point. The film is produced by The Daily Wire and directed by Justin Folk. Walsh and Folk writing credit with Brian Hoffman and Dallas Sonnier.

Walsh is a popular conservative commentator who had some success with a previous documentary entitled What is a Woman? which dealt with the topic of transgenderism.

After being ousted from a support group that discussed “white guilt”, Walsh dons a hilariously flimsy disguise and becomes certified to teach DEI himself. He encounters some rather notorious figures on this topic such as Kate Slater and Robin DiAngelo as he attempts to implement what he is learning during various sessions and interviews. He also interviews regular people of various races to get their reactions to these ideas.

One of Walsh’s gifts is his deadpan stoicism as he subjects himself to some of most absurd group situations and tries to relay these ideas to others. The interview with DiAngelo is awkward and hysterically funny as reported.

The film is careful enough to attack an ideology and not necessarily a race of people. Another fascinating interview is with Wilfred Reilly, author of Hate Crime Hoax. Walsh and Reilly would likely be in more agreement if Walsh still wasn’t in character as a DEI guy.

There are a couple of scenes that sort of fell flat for me. The film’s effort to ridicule the Jussie Smollett hoax could have been handled differently. I don’t disagree with mocking Smollett at every opportunity, but the method employed in this film could have taken a bit more consideration.

There are some scenes that seem to go on a little too long, but that was likely to help drive home the point the film was really trying to make.

Most of the major production decisions made in this film work rather well. There were a couple of moments where Walsh actually did some acting that would be convincing if one didn’t know the premise.

This film is not without a few flaws, but it is entertaining and educational.

Doctor Who Audio Review: The Doctor Goes The Distance

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

All of Time and Space is a pretty compelling trilogy of Doctor Who audio plays that features the Eleventh Doctor. Big Finish Productions has successfully found an actor who can imitate Matt Smith’s distinctive voice and have embarked on a new series of adventures with a new companion. Jacob Dudman continues to portray this version of the Doctor as if Matt Smith was behind the mic. Safiyya Ingar has recently boarded the TARDIS as Valarie Lockwood, a human with some cybernetic enhancements. Nicholas Briggs has returned to the director’s seat.

The first episode of the set is All of Time and Space in which the writer is billed as Ellery Quest. Apparently, Tim Foley is the true author since Ellery Quest is actually featured in the story as a writer pitching a show idea about a mysterious traveler in time and space. However, he finds that the agent he is pitching the idea to has an extraterrestrial history as well. The Doctor and Valarie are trapped in a dimension, and the stories may be their only way to escape.

This is one of those surreal stories that blur the fourth wall a little. It’s confusing and amusing at the same time, but that sort of sums up the whole series.

The Yearn is written by Angus Dunican and has the Doctor meet a group of colonists trapped underground and being hunted by a peculiar entity. People are taken by the Yearn and then reappear. Something appears to be interfering with the Yearn’s efforts to feed, and it may resemble a blue police box.

This second story had a pretty compelling climax. There was a great guest cast. The sudden romance seemed to blossom between Valarie and Mia Tomlinson’s character was a little improbable but handled better than similar moments in the series. Ingar is actually a pretty interesting actor, and Valarie is kind of growing on me.

Finally, James Goss brings this set to a close with Curiosity Shop. Valarie has lost the Doctor and is able to see the TARDIS, which is in the possession of a junkyard proprietor named Mr. Foreman. An alien war is about to break out, and the Doctor has forgotten who he is and what he does.

This actually was a great close. Valarie is losing pieces of herself literally as she hopes that the Doctor remembers her and returns to put things right. There are some great performances, and Dudman’s vocal talents are put to the test. Goss also finds a way to sort honor the legacy of the series as well.

Overall, this set takes the series in some interesting directions. The banter between the Doctor and Valarie is quite compelling. Dudman’s impersonation of Matt Smith seems to improve.

I think the final story is my favorite, but all of the set comes out quite well. I look forward to this particular TARDIS crew continuing their travels.