Babylon 5: Season 3 (1996)

Point of No Return (1996)

22 episodes, approx 44 mins each.

"The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace. It failed. But, in the Year of the Shadow War, it became something greater: our last, best hope… for victory. The year is 2260."

Season 3 is bursting at the seams with story. I can only summarise, or the spoilers will be huge. The Shadow War continues to strike a cold tendril into the heart of the Alliance. Some of the major races exchange powerful blows. Capt. Sheridan is forced to take matters into his own hands. There's a second threat to the station that must be dealt with in a more subtle and secretive manner. A thread that was first introduced a year ago has a crippling effect on station procedure. Franklin has problems. A number of old faces return. Established relationships are put to the test and favours are called in. Something from Season 1 gets resolved… kind of. And more…

Buffalo '66 (1998)

Buffalo '66 (1998)

Dir. Vincent Gallo

We know that films use images to help tell a story, but for some directors the more subtle art of using the imagery as a language with its own semantic and contextual layers is an art form equally important to the process. In the best films a single image is more polysemous than even the most versatile word. Buffalo ‘66 epitomises the notion.

It was Gallo's début feature-length and he wrote, directed, scored and starred in it. He plays Billy Brown, recently released from prison into a cold world. Billy finds a peculiar kind of warmth in Christina Ricci’s reactive performance, but he’s not equipped to deal with the kind of salvation she offers. His neurotic tendencies and masking of nervous weaknesses with frequent angry outbursts keep him safe and distant.

The Scarlet Gospels (2015)

The Scarlet Gospels (2015)

Author: Clive Barker  |  Page Count: 368

'...[T]he weight of his age sat on his countenance, carving it into something that could never be manufactured, only chiselled by the agonies of loss and time.'

I've always leaned more towards the belief that the ‘Hell’ part of The Hellbound Heart (1986) title was in reference to a private hell, a reversal or distortion of the individual seeker's own desires, not the place invented by the Christian Church in which sinners suffer.

Consequently, affiliating the Pinhead character directly with the religious Hell diminishes him in my eyes. Surely having him and his like-minded cohorts exist outside of accepted notions of good and evil — in a realm behind or parallel our own, accessible by the living — makes the Cenobites much more terrifying creations?

I preferred thinking that they weren't acting under instruction of any kind of heretical higher power, but were instead a collective come together because of a shared understanding that pleasure and pain were inextricably linked, and were acting out of will and purpose.

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's... (2014)

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau (2014)

Dir. David Gregory

Cult director Richard Stanley had a vision for an adaptation of an H.G. Wells story that he loved dearly. New Line Cinema had cold feet, a sharp knife and a clear view of Stanley’s back. Like frightened animals they struck.

The usurped writer/director is surprisingly calm about the whole affair, perhaps due to time having scabbed over the wounds.

He gives viewers access to the amazing pre-production art and storyboards he’d commissioned, on-set photos of the brief time he’d had in the director’s chair and airs his view on some of the disasters that befall the production.

Dennis Potter's Blackeyes (1989)

Blackeyes (1989)

Dir. Dennis Potter | 4 episodes, approx 50 minutes each.

Apologies for the blurry picture, but in some ways it emphasises a point about the availability of Dennis Potter’s 'Blackeyes' miniseries: no proper box art exists because it's been denied a commercial release. It's been hidden away in the BBC vaults for twenty-six years. An image search returns precious little other than a bootleg dvd and the covers of Potter’s original novel (1987) to work with, hence my crude cut-n-paste job from an old VHS copy.

The story's typical of the author's work, which is to say it's a complex arrangement of layers presented in an unconventional, creative manner; a non-linear narrative that ebbs and flows; a sensual tide that takes as much as it gives.

The titular character is a representation of a writer’s fascination with his niece’s past profession, unattainable except in fiction. He takes parts from her time as a fashion model and creates a tragic, self-reflective, male fantasy that walks off the page. She's a sullied depiction of reality whose very existence taunts.

Hellraiser Films: I-IV (1987-96)

Hellraiser (1987)

Dir. Clive Barker

Barker's first feature-length film is an adaptation of his own novella, The Hellbound Heart (1986). It's without a doubt his finest work to date as a director, and introduced to film audiences one of the most iconic horror villains of all time, one who could easily share space with Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers on a horror podium.

There are a few minor changes in names and relationships. Frank is still Frank, with all his vices intact, but his brother Rory is renamed Larry. Kirsty, who was Larry's 'friend' in the text is made his daughter. (That makes Julia a kind of wicked step-mom, which is an amusing thought.)

The main story is almost identical to the novella, but with some extra content to make it fit a feature film length. The new additions don't add much to what was already in place, except for one notable instance: for a short time it improves upon the ending as written in the book, but then it doesn't and ultimately takes a one-way ticket to Stupid Town. Nevertheless, everything prior to that is as good today as it was back in 1987.

ICO: Video Game (2001)

ICO (2001)

Genre: Adventure / Puzzle / 3D Platformer  |  Players: 1  |  Developer: Team Ico

An adventure game unlike any that the PS2 had seen before. You play as the titular character (pronounced Eee-co), a young lad with horns on his head. His adventure begins in a large room inside a larger castle. You'll have a fair idea why he's there, but you won't know why he was chosen. Was it because of the horns or some other reason?

We also don't know why there's a second individual, a caged female, taller and perhaps a little older than Ico, who doesn't speak the same language as the boy.

If the two strangers are to escape before whatever it is they've been offered up to comes for them, they must somehow overcome barriers and work together.