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(Warning: cut-text discussion contains spoilers up to the end of S4 of Person of Interest)

This was a Christmas present to myself, so S and I sat down to watch it last night. I've long been aware of C:TFP but had never actually seen it; my interest was reignited by seeing a comment from Jonathan Nolan that it had been one of his inspirations for ( Read more... )

Yes, 2016. Strictly speaking, Bujold's new Vorkosigan novel, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, won't be published until February next year. However, Baen has made an e-book advanced reading copy available for $15 and other than the odd punctuation error I spotted it seems to be the final text.

( Spoilers for previous books in the sequence and a plot point set out early on. )

Doctor Who: City of Death, James Goss (2015)

City of Death is often picked as one of the better Classic Who stories, thanks to the (at the time unusual) location shooting in Paris, the quality of the script as heavily - and frantically - rewritten by Douglas Adams, and the performance of Julian Glover as Count Scarlioni, alias Scaroth, self- ( Read more... )

Meh.

This film really didn't grab me. Pacific Rim didn't take itself at all seriously, and had a huge sense of fun despite what was actually a very dark scenario. Godzilla is ponderously serious - or rather it tries to have a air of ponderous seriousness, without actually getting any gravitas or serious emotional investment out of its cast, ( Read more... )

Following Iain Banks's untimely death I resolved to push my unread book pile to one side and re-read (or in some cases read), in order of publication, his Culture books. For reference, these are:

Consider Phlebas (1987)
The Player of Games (1988)
Use of Weapons (1990)
The State of the Art (1991) - short stories, three Culture-related.
Excession ( ( Read more... )

Is Skyfall the best Bond film ever? I wouldn't say that, as it's too dependent on what your definition of a really good Bond film is. But it's certainly one of the best, and completes the task begun by Casino Royale of both rebooting Bond and the same time coming full circle back towards the tone of the best of the Connery-era films.

( Aspects I particularly liked )