Mad Max: Video Game (2015)

Mad Max (2015)

Genre: Action / Adventure / Sandbox | Players: 1 | Developer: Avalanche Studios

An open-world sandbox game with a lot of actual (er... virtual) sand to futz around in. The setting is a similar post-apocalyptic wasteland landscape to that of the Mad Max films; it isn't based on any one feature, instead taking ideas from them all, but draws most heavily from MM: Fury Road (2015).

You play as the titular anti-hero, Max. Again, it's a new but familiar version, not rendered in the likeness of either Mel Gibson or Tom Hardy, but he's just as taciturn and gruff.

He's a standard video game tough guy, the kind that can survive getting hit by a speeding car but can't manage to jump over a foot-high fence that's blocking his way or manage to even walk while aiming his gun/projectile.

Jonathan Creek: The Judas Tree (2010)

Jonathan Creek: The Judas Tree (2010)

Dir. David Renwick | Approx 93 minutes

The Judas Tree had Jonathan's spirited opposite, Joey Ross, return for another of the feature-length outings that kept the series sporadically alive for years after the regular weekly format ended. The unlikely duo investigate a macabre mystery involving a ghostly apparition and an unexplained death.

The Adam Klaus character is once again shoehorned into the story but it's less forced this time.

However, I did get the feeling more than once that creator/writer/director David Renwick was overcompensating for something by filling the story with multiple twists and turns, some of which ask the viewer to make some sizeable leaps of faith and logic. Perhaps the BBC's decision to chop the budget had him worried? To his credit, though, he managed to not let that aspect visibly weaken the production; it looks just as good as what he had delivered previously.

Death Note: Films (2006-08)

Death Note (2006)

Dir. Shûsuke Kaneko

The Death Note is a notebook that causes the death of anyone whose name is written on one of its pages. Any fool can use it, but it takes a sharp mind to exploit it fully; such a mind belongs to college student Light Yagami.

The film isn't as good as the original manga or the 37-episode anime series that preceded it, but for a TV production it does okay.

The shorter running time means it lacks the depth or complexity inherent in the source, but the biggest problem is with the Shinigami (Death God). Ryuk could've been amazing, but he's rendered in a cartoonish CGI that doesn't fit with the realistic aesthetic of the rest of the film. The argument that he's supposed to appear otherworldly won’t change my mind about that.

The first film is the first half of the story only, ending with a cliff-hanger that gets resolved in its sequel, The Last Name (see below).

Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986)

Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986)

Dir. Hayao Miyazaki

Opportunities don't often just fall from the sky, but sometimes inexplicable events do happen. For Pazu, resident of an elaborately constructed mining town, Sheeta is that event – a young girl with a destiny that he helps to uncover, while trying to keep her safe from a gang of pursuing sky pirates.

Outwardly, Pazu is a typical plucky anime kid, the kind we've seen dozens of times before. Beneath that, however, giving him depth, is a deep-rooted issue relating to a remarkable discovery that his father once made.

Sheeta is quieter, mysterious and harder to read; i.e. a more interesting character. I'd like to have seen more of her past revealed, but in truth the film was lengthy enough as it is.

It's a slow-moving story for a long time, and may even test the patience of some viewers, but the last thirty minutes have a pace that makes everything prior fall nicely into perspective.

Mad Max Trilogy (1979-85)

Mad Max (1979)

Dir. George Miller

As enjoyable as the first Mad Max film is on its own, in hindsight it works better if you look upon it as an extended prologue to the more entertaining sequel, The Road Warrior (1981), where the world is no longer on the verge of going to shit, as it is here, but has actually tipped over and fell face-first into it.

It has the feel of a B-Movie, but the on-the-road carnage is much better than what you'd normally get in that kind of commercial venture, and it's not without some black humour to keep it from sinking under the weight of its own gloomy subject matter.

The crew is to be applauded for making the scenario believable. Max (Mel Gibson), however, is kind of boring as a family man/highway interceptor. It's not until he gets his 'mad' on that he becomes interesting.

George's Marvellous Medicine (1981)

George's Marvellous Medicine (1981)

Author: Roald Dahl  |  Illustrator: Quentin Blake  |  Page Count: 96

'She had pale brown teeth and a small puckered-up mouth like a dog's bottom.'

More than two decades of insomnia has hammered my brain so much that some days I can barely remember what I did the previous afternoon, which makes it all the more amazing that I can still recall easily the first time I read about George Kranky's Marvellous Medicine; Roald Dahl's storytelling has that kind of power.

It was a long time ago. I was aged ten. Four separate classes in the school that I attended (and loved) were gathered together in one room for an important presentation. As usual, I positioned myself next to the bookcase. It was there that I spied the book. After checking to make sure that I wasn't under scrutiny by anyone important, I borrowed it from the shelf.

Star Trek: Fan Collectives (2006-09)

Star Trek: Fan Collective: Borg (2006)

Dirs. Various  |  Number of episodes: 12 + 2 feature-length (FL) movies

The Fan Collective box sets are a collection of various themed episodes culled from each of the live action Star Trek TV series and packaged together in shiny new boxes. The cynic in me thinks it's nothing more than a lazy cash-grab from Paramount, once again exploiting fans who'll buy anything with a Trek logo on it. The optimist in me is forced to agree.

So, with Paramount's shameless tactics established, what do we actually get in each Collective box?

First up, the Borg ("Sounds Swedish") collection contains every episode from both TNG and ENT in which the semi-mechanical, drone-like menaces appeared, which amounts to six TNG and one ENT.

The remainder of the four-disc box is VOY episodes. The Borg played a major role in the VOY series, but it was too much of a good thing. The overuse turned them from a mysterious threat into a collective of chumps. Although it did give us Seven of Nine, who turned out to be one of the best characters in the entire VOY series, in my opinion.