Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence: After the Long Goodbye (2007)

GitS 2: Innocence: After the Long Goodbye (2007)

Author: Masaki Yamada | Translators: Yuji Oniki + Carl Gustav Horn / Page Count: 197 

"I'm not all that popular. At the same time, I hardly ever meet someone I like. In that sense, my life is balanced out."

A prequel to the second Ghost in the Shell feature film, Innocence (2004). Unlike most TV and film tie-in novels, this one is actually good - damn good.

It creates a singular narrative that doesn't rely heavily on the film, but it remains referential and respectful to it. Knowledge of the characters is obviously necessary to fully appreciate the small intricacies, but the text also manages to stand on its own two feet, admirably.

It's told first person, from the cyborg Batou's perspective. Batou isn't the most intelligent or passionate of individuals, so it may come as a surprise to find that his sensitive side, a secretive part of himself that he reserves for mostly one person in the films, could be so well-developed without compromising the integrity of the character. It gets deep into the mind of the man, the only part of him that's still human, to explore the themes of self that René Descartes popularised. That self-analysis is the novel's greatest strength, and what Ghost in the Shell is perfectly suited to.

Torchwood: TV Series (2006-11)

Torchwood (2006-11)

Dirs: various | 4 Seasons | 41 episodes, approx 44-57 mins each.

A Doctor Who offshoot that was targeted at a more mature audience than its parent series. In theory that's an interesting prospect, but in reality the definition of 'mature' seems to have been derived from a yobbish, vulgar, and sex-obsessed teenager's personal diary.

Season 01 is particularly bad in that regard, as if the show's writers believed that profanity and multiple references to casual sex were compensation for a well-written script. [1]

Consequently, most of its episodes are a dismal and joyless slog through predominantly bland storytelling, populated with unlikable characters whose traits are more often than not reprehensible and shameful.

I suspect it's more due to blind luck than any kind of skilful plan that it managed not to turn the group's leader, Doctor Who's Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), into the same. [2]

Eastern Promises (2007)

Eastern Promises (2007)

Dir. David Cronenberg

Ordinarily, I prefer it when an actor is of the same nationality as the character they're playing onscreen; e.g., if a protagonist is supposed to be Scottish, then hire an actual Scot. It's especially beneficial in biopics, or when the character isn't a native English speaker in an English language setting.

Casting someone who understands on a fundamental level the culture that they're portraying allows an actor to tap into the unconscious influence that thinking in one's native language brings. If successful, it can permeate the performance and even accentuate or enrich any traits, nuances, etc, that can be consciously observed in specific nationalities. It's basic common sense.

But sometimes an actor can be so good in a role that such concerns are almost forgotten about when viewing. Viggo as a fictional Russian mobster in Cronenberg's Eastern Promises is on that list. It's his second collaboration with the director and it tops their first in every way.

Rebuild of Evangelion: 1.11 (2007)

Evangelion: 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone (2007)

Dirs. Hideaki Anno / Masayuki / Kazuya Tsurumaki

A cinematic 'Rebuild' of the 'classic' Neon Genesis Evangelion TV Series. The first film (of four) covers episodes 1-6. It's overseen by the same director as the series, Hideaki Anno, so is faithful to his original vision - at least for now, but that's for a future post.

Newcomers to the world of NGE may find it difficult to assimilate everything on first viewing, but in truth even the series didn't make complete sense to a large percentage of its audience until the second sitting, so in a way being perplexed is par for the course.

Nevertheless, for the benefit of anyone that's wholly unfamiliar with the basics, a quick intro: fourteen-year-old Shinji Ikari arrives in Tokyo-III, having been summoned there by a father he's not seen in three years.

God Save the Queen (2007)

God Save the Queen (2007)

Author: Mike Carey | Illustrator: John Bolton | Page Count: 96

"Okay, these are the rules. We run fast, we dance like animals — and we say yes to everything."

An adult tale filled with visceral imagery and harsh realities that merge the aesthetic of British Punk with the magical but equally fearful nature of the cautionary tale / fairy story. Those two things on the surface would seem to have nothing in common, but author Mike Carey somehow makes the pairing work.

You'll meet characters from other well-known DC Vertigo titles, namely The Sandman, The Dreaming, and The Books of Magic, but the book exists on the fringes of all three titles, so you don't need to have read any of them prior to settling down with God Save the Queen.

The story revolves around Linda, a bored, alienated, self-absorbed and self-destructive young adult. If trouble doesn't find her, then she'll actively seek out and embrace it. The rebellion of the individual against society and family is concurrent with the catastrophic repercussions that follow when Titania, the Queen of Faerie, receives an unwelcome visitor to her realm.

Lucifer: Volume 11 (2007)

Evensong (2007)

Author: Mike Carey | Illustrators: Peter Gross / Ryan Kelly / Dean Ormston / John J. Muth / Zander Cannon / Aaron Alexovich | Page Count: 216

"If mercy's your aim, be relentless in your mercy. Be absolute. Be yourself, until you bleed."

The final volume. It's time for Lucifer to put his affairs in order before taking what he feels is the best course of action. Carey wraps up the series with some single issue stories that pick up the pieces and suggest potential futures of many of the main characters and a few of the more memorable secondary ones.

In many ways the women of the series made the toughest choices and underwent the greatest change. Their growth is explored beautifully. In a perfect world that story would never end. It's a bitter-sweet experience; particularly for my favourite character.

On first reading it surprised me to find that I'd miss the Lucifer cast just as much (and in some cases even more) than I had missed the Sandman cast, but having gone through both series more than once now, I think I favour Lucifer, even if it's not as ground-breaking as its predecessor, objectively speaking.

Stargate SG-1: Season 10 (2006-07)

Stargate SG-1: Season 10 (2006-07)

Dirs. Various | 20 episodes, approx 44 minutes each.

Ten years is a heck of a long time to be watching a weekly TV show. Luckily, with shiny disc media (or stream or DL) it can take just a fraction of that to watch it at home from beginning to end.

I scheduled one post per month for ten months, but I finished the series in about half of that time. Binge-watching is a double-edged activity, but ultimately it allows one to better evaluate how a show changed over time; having to wait a decade between the first and last episodes would make that difficult. For my purposes, the binge-watch positives outweighed the negatives.

Stargate changed quite a bit over the years, in scope and in cast, but its greatest strength was always in its team dynamic, which is something that it remained largely true to throughout.

The individual members would clash often in their beliefs, particularly Jack (Richard Dean Anderson) and Daniel (Michael Shanks), but at the end of the day each of them was elevated and heartened by having the other at their side.

Jeffrey Lewis: 12 Crass Songs (2007)

Jeffrey Lewis: 12 Crass Songs (2007)

Anarchic British punk band CRASS covered by an American in a mostly acoustic indie (anti)folk style. It's an odd paring but it works well, probably in part because punk is a feeling as much as a genre of music. Acoustic guitar, vocals, bongo drums and piano married to punk sensibilities and scathing lyrics make it one of the more unique albums in my collection.

There are times when it reminds me of primary school sing-a-longs, but that just adds to the experience - picturing the songs in an educational setting makes a kind of sense, and suggests an extra layer of unity.

The songs are the same, you'll recognise them instantly if you're at all familiar with the originals. There's an occasional lyric change but nothing disrespectful.

Life on Mars: The Complete Collection (2006–07)

Life on Mars: The Complete Collection (2006–07)

Dirs: Various | Seasons: 2 (16 episodes, approx 60 mins each)

While it does fit comfortably into the wider science fiction genre, Life on Mars isn't set on the red planet. It's set in Manchester, North West England in the years 2006 and 1973.

Present in both times is DCI Sam Tyler (John Simm). Sam gets injured in the line of duty, knocked unconscious while chasing a suspect in 2006, he wakes up in 1973, discombobulated and dressed in period clothes, but with his instincts intact - he's still a detective.

There's a level of ambiguity, so we're never really sure if Sam has jumped back in time thirty-three years or if his consciousness is inventing the scenario, perhaps as a means to work though some personal issues or trauma while his real self lies unconscious in 2006.

Nine Inch Nails: Year Zero (2007)

Nine Inch Nails: Year Zero (2007)

Year Zero is dark, like peering through a smoky looking glass. It's also dense and overly-layered, but not always in a beneficial way.

Interestingly, it lacks the introspective musings that NIN usually offer up. Instead, it's a concept album… religious / political nonsense… America…year 2022, etc. Boring.

It's noisy and frustrating; you could argue that so was Broken (1992) and I'd 100% agree with you, but Broken was more focussed and knew when to stop. Whereas Year Zero feels like it goes on too long, dragging me down into a state of sensory ennui.

The Mighty Boosh: TV Series (2004-07)

The Mighty Boosh: TV Series (2004-07)

Three Series | 20 episodes, approx 28 minutes each.

TMB is an alternative British comedy series that's just plain weird. I can't even think of an easy comparison to make this review go any quicker.

The show revolves primarily around two main characters, namely Howard Moon (Julian Barratt) and Vince Noir (Noel Fielding), both of whom in Series One are zookeepers at England's shittiest Zoo, The Zooniverse, a dilapidated and mostly empty crappy little hovel with bored animals.

Howard resembles the guy from your local supermarket who hovers in the bread aisle. He agonises over every decision, loves jazz funk, and wants desperately to sleep with Mrs Gideon (Victoria Wicks), the Reptile House lady.

Vince resembles a Dr Doolittle and Rod Stewart love child. He has perfect hair, a love of electro-pop, and a laid back attitude to life. The less he tries the more he succeeds. Mrs Gideon, the Reptile House lady, wants to sleep with him.

Species: Films (1995-2007)

Species (1995)

Dir. Roger Donaldson

The premise of Species is the kind that's simple but exciting and full of potential.

A transmission from an unknown source originating somewhere in the deep, dark corners of space contains DNA information for creating an alien/human hybrid. Scientists, unsurprisingly, carry out the process. Hands up who thinks that's going to end well...

The film itself could've been really amazing. It's a sci-fi with horror elements and a creature design by artist extraordinaire HR Giger, whose mind gave birth to the terrifying creation that provided Alien (1979) with much of its dark allure. The creature in Species is reminiscent of the xenomorph, but with the added sexy/deadly aesthetic provided by actress Natasha Henstridge.

Chacun son Cinéma (2007)

Chacun son Cinéma (2007)

English Translation: To Each His Own Cinema

An anthology that contains over thirty short films by as many different directors, commissioned to celebrate six decades of the Cannes Film Festival. Each work is approximately three minutes in length and was supposed to represent the director's "state of mind [...] as inspired by the motion picture theatre." I'll put the full list of contributors below the cut for anyone that wants to view them all.

My 'Admit One' was for Takeshi Kitano and David Cronenberg, neither of which turned out to be essential. The ones that moved me most were Alejandro Iñárritu's 'Anna' and Abbas Kiarostami's 'Where is my Romeo?', both of which had more emotion than the others combined. Also, I really liked Chen Kaige's 'Zhanxiou Village'.

A lot of them take place inside a theatre with crucial scenes from actual films being projected onscreen, so be prepared for some spoilers.

Grindhouse (2007)

Grindhouse (2007)

Dirs. Robert Rodriguez + Quentin Tarantino

If you're aware of what the Grindhouse pairing was and just want to read thoughts on the films themselves, then you can skip direct to the text below the cut. For anyone else, I'll attempt to give some background on the genre and project.

The term 'grindhouse' is believed to have been coined in America to describe a movie theatre that screened mainly trashy B-Movies and exploitation flicks, a no frills venue that might have less than stellar hygiene practices. It was the hooker-and-motel for 'cult' film lovers, or even the equivalent of a quick grope behind the diner with the local skank. But sometimes that skank was all you really needed from life.

Directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino each made a film in the spirit of those cheap exploitation flicks and screened them as a double feature back-to-back. Well, in the US they did. In Britain they were split up and to see both we had to buy separate tickets. It sucks, but in reality I don't consider either film worth seeing. The real downside of the split is that we were denied the fake trailers for nonexistent films that were shown between the two flicks.

Now and Forever (2007)

Now and Forever (2007)

Author: Ray Bradbury  |  Page Count: 240

'For even the thundering rocket, which rips the soul on Earth, walks silently some few miles high, treads the stars without footfall, as if in awe of the great cathedral of space.'

The book contains two previously unpublished Ray Bradbury novellas, both of which are preceded by a short introduction from the author, just a few pages in length, giving a brief but welcome insight into some of the circumstances, people, or locations that influenced each story's genesis and evolution. Thereafter the stories themselves do the work, split into perfectly structured chapters, not too short and not too long.

The first novella is titled Somewhere a Band is Playing, a bittersweet story set in a small town in Arizona. The second is Leviathan '99, set far above any town, aboard a ship in deep space. They're really quite different from each other, but both are thoroughly entertaining.

Supernatural: Season 02 (2007)

Supernatural: Season 02 (2007)

22 episodes, approx 42 mins each

It starts at the exact point that Season 01 ended, putting the brothers in a real world, relatable problem but with a freaky twist.

Some weighty decisions that will have consequences further down the line are made, adding a layer of hurried danger that continues in the majority of what follows.

There are still plenty of standalone episodes included, but the Yellow Eyes story arc is in the spotlight more, even though there's technically less episodes in which it takes actual centre stage. What I mean is that the Yellow Eyes influence is better integrated into the season as a whole, in a more unified manner, whereas previously it felt like a revolving door schedule whereby it was Yellow in one week and then out the next.

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.

The Misanthrope (2007)

The Misanthrope (2007)

Dir. Ted Skjellum

Ted Skjellum is best known as Nocturno Culto, vocalist and lead guitarist of the band Darkthrone. His first release as a filmmaker is something that's part video diary and part documentary. It shows via imagery, without narration, just what it is about the architecture and environment of Norway that was instrumental in creating an atmosphere for Black Metal to emerge and subsequently thrive in.

It's honest, hypnotic, insightful and occasionally inspired. At heart it captures the cold, ancient aspect of the beauty of nature that is, for me at least, what the music is really all about.

You should know within the first few minutes if it's something you can engage with or if it'll leave you as cold as a Norwegian graveyard.

I Am Legend: Filmed Versions (1964-2007)

The Last Man on Earth (1964)

Dirs: Sidney Salkow / Ubaldo Ragona

The first filmed adaptation of Richard Matheson's celebrated I Am Legend (1954) novel is more faithful to the book in comparison to what followed. It even has the pit.

Vincent plays the titular man. He walks as if the weight of what's left of the world is on his shoulders, a visible sign that he's a man for whom routine has become a kind of prison.

There's a lengthy flashback to a happier time that could've and should've been emotionally powerful, but some painfully bad dubbing issues leave the scenes feeling cheap and insincere.

Had they been rectified it would've been a better film, because the sense of isolation the story requires is captured well-enough.

Babylon 5: The Movies (1993-2007)

The Gathering (1993)

Dir. Richard Compton

A feature–length pilot that's notable mostly for setting up large chunks of the story arc that would help make Babylon 5 one of TV's best ever sci-fi series in subsequent years, although no one but series creator J. Michael Straczynski and the producers really knew back then because such long-running continuity wasn't the norm at the time.

Some of the acting is weak, but a few of the cast were replaced when the series went into production.

If you know B5 already, then The Gathering is worth hunting down, despite its flaws.

If you're new to the station, however, or not sure if a plot-heavy sci-fi show is really for you, it might be better to start with Season 1 of the TV series instead, even though it means missing out on some crucial back-story for certain characters. You can fill in the gaps later, but be aware that there are a number of notable differences between what was planned and what eventually came to pass.