Lucifer: Volume 03 (2002)

A Dalliance With the Damned (2002)

Author: Mike Carey | Illustrators: Peter Gross / Ryan Kelly / Dean Ormston | Page Count: 160

"I think you should stop talking to the snake. These things he tells you are making you unhappy."

Volume 03 of 11 in the Eisner award winning Lucifer series. Things unfold at a more leisurely pace this time as writer Mike Carey shifts the focus away from the charismatic anti-hero. Instead, he explores the virtues and vices of some of the other inhabitants of the realm.

In the first half of the book are three shorter episodes that have a self-contained beginning / middle / end structure but are themselves interconnected and still manage to tie in with the series arc.

Story number one offers readers a chance to sympathise with Mazikeen as she embarks on a personal mission that'll have consequences for more than just herself.

Judge Dredd (1995)

Judge Dredd (1995)

Dir. Danny Cannon

Stallone appears with jutting chin and less than nine minutes later the helmet comes off. It ceases to be a Judge Dredd film and instead becomes a Sly film with a comedy sidekick. There's a decent amount of plot squeezed into the running time (96 mins), but it's full of inconsistencies and stupid one-liners.

To be fair, it's not all bad. Mega-City One was interesting, some of the Council of Chief Judges were good (especially McGruder) and the addition of Hershey was a nice touch, or it would've been if she'd not been there simply to hang some hurried plot advancements on.

If you somehow make it to the end of the movie you'll witness the worst part. Even Walter the Wobot would be appalled.

A Scene at the Sea (1991)

A Scene at the Sea (1991)

Dir. Takeshi Kitano

Garbage collector Shigeru finds a damaged surfboard by the side of the road. He takes it home and thereafter a story develops slowly over a short but magical summer in which simplicity is beauty and the mundane is remodelled as something deadpan hilarious.

Both Shigeru (Claude Maki) and his girlfriend Takako (Hiroko Ôshima) are deaf, so there's not much spoken dialogue in the film, but the silence in no way diminishes the relationship or our understanding of it because the 'voice' of the piece is very much Kitano's and he orchestrates it masterfully; the bond between the couple has a rhythm that can be heard over the sound of wind and waves.

It was the first of many times that the director had composer Joe Hisaishi provide the score. The music and image are so seamlessly matched emotionally that it's as if the pair had been working together for decades.

Stargate SG-1: Season 03 (1999-00)

SG-1: Season 03 (1999-00)

Dirs. Various | 22 episodes, approx 44 minutes each.

The Season 02 finale didn't have an actual 'To be Continued...' ending, but the first episode of Season 03 continues the story as if it had done, and it almost manages to make up for the first half being a disappointing clips-show.

Thereafter things progress steadily, with the search for new alliances and technology that can be used and/or adapted to combat the diabolical Goa'uld System Lords being the primary driving force for most of the Tau'ri (humans from Earth).

Well, that's true for the higher-ups. But for Egyptologist Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks), the non-military member of SG-1, the member that typically serves as conscience and compass in times of moral conflict, his primary goal is to find his wife Sha're (Vaitiare Bandera), who was taken by Apophis in the Season 01 Pilot episode.