20. Night at the Museum 3: Secret of the Tomb (2014), dir. Shawn LevyI watched this on DVD from Lovefilm in August while writing my half of a co-authored chapter on Augustus on screen, so that I could check a) whether this latest entry in the franchise cast any further light on whether Octavius (Steve Coogan's character) is meant to have anything ( Read more... )

So! A new season of Doctor Who, then! I missed the first episode because I was in Bournemouth for Lib Dem Conference, and although I did catch up with it last Saturday (effectively watching both as a two-parter that evening), I haven't had time to write about them until now because I wanted to get conference written up first, and have then had a ( Read more... )

It's taken me a few days to get round to writing this up, but I did think it was a great episode - easily the best of season five so far, even though it was only one half of a two-parter. As in The Beast Below, it was absolutely bursting with fantastic ideas (albeit including a few recycled ones), and I still feel like I could do with seeing a ( Read more... )

Yes, that was an episode on top of its game, all right. I know it had some things in it that people are tired of by now - like the Doctor-as-Christ references in the white light spilling around him as he saves the Caecilius family, and the shot of him reaching out for Caecilius' hand like God and Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. But even those ( Read more... )

It's taken me a fair old while to finish this book: in fact, I interrupted it for The Merlin Conspiracy for a while, as it seemed a bit much back in late February, and I was in need of something lighter. Bulwer-Lytton's prose style is so famously overblown that there is an annual bad fiction contest named in his honour; and as for the florid ( Read more... )

OK, officially at the moment I am Too Busy To Post (but busy with exciting cutting-edge teaching that I shall write all about later, so that's OK). But I just had to drop by and share the love about a very exciting episode that's just been filmed for the next season of Doctor Who.

I can't really say much about why I'm so excited without spoiling ( Read more... )

I've been filling in the latest two icon slots that LJ has bestowed on permanent users. Now at last I have an icon about time - and it manages to combine Apollo, Pompeii and a line from one of my favourite Siouxsie and the Banshees tracks as well, all in one big cross-overy love-fest! Hooray ( Read more... )