By Roy Mathur, on 2026-05-19, at 23:32:02 to 00:46:30 GMT, for Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show
2025. Quirky, disgraced scientist (Ryan Gosling) is recruited by world effort to stop the stars being eaten by alien bugs and killing the universe. Press-ganged by near sociopathic project director, distinctively portrayed by Sandra Huller, he is the sole survivor of a one-way suicide mission to avert the destruction. He does so with the help of the cute, spider-like rock-alien, tasked with the same mission, with whom he makes he makes first contact.
I liked it, but here we are again as another white American man saves the universe. The project is even called "Hail Mary"; a properly American phrase that would hardly have been chosen by an international organisation. Half the equipment too, including the suits, are plastered with NASA logos. Our hero may not be the overused American jaw jutting alpha, but he is still the stereotypical American maverick individualist. Irritating, braindead primary casting and cliches aside, it's enjoyable, light in tone, but proper hard science fiction. There are realistic space scenes and refreshingly unusual aliens. For me, that harks back to Larry Niven in it's quirk and scope.
2024. Dying hard labour prisoner and his replacement, exiled for life to a distant penal planet for murderers, terrorists, and traitors, are set against each other by the native sentient evil purple mist.
Elias Koteas is weird, funny, and sad, as usual, in this extremely Canadian (accents, landscapes, horizontal mines, etc.) low budget SF horror film. A metaphor for the cruelty of the West's treatment of asylum seekers, it also reminded me of a stripped down Robert Silverberg's Hawksbill Station's prehistoric exile.
I rewatched the more family friendly Indiana Jones from 2004, with Nicolas Cage and friends protecting the Declaration of Independence by stealing it and tomb-raiding for a secret treasure hidden by the founding fathers.
I also rewatched the 2007 sequel, in which Cage has to clear his family name, when they are framed for the plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln by a man intent on looting a native American lost city of gold.
1978, the one with the incredibly iconic 70s poster art by Tom Jung. This and the next are films I forgot to talk about in out last micro review episode. The first is Ralph Bakshi's rotoscoped Fellowship of the Ring.
I have rewacthed this beautiful film many times. I like it more than Jackson's and I like this Strider more than Mortenson's.
I rewatched this rotoscoped animation from 2021 (reviewed briefly in pod 501 in 2023). It's holds up to a rewatch. A much better and complex and grimdark a story than Frank's Ice and Fire (pod 301 2020).
2025. Oh my god, see this film. It's a loving and lavish homage to 60s--70s Italian Giallo super criminal/super spy books, photonovels, comics (there are even cut-in montages from comics) and, of course, the film adaptations. Specifically, this references Mario Bava's Danger: Diabolik (1968) based on the Giussani sisters' comics, particularly in the black masked faces with expressive eyes, but also Kriminal, and Satanik, with nods to proper hardcore, Giallo slasher exploitation horror. There is a even a scene in which the protagonist, out of bullets, dons the classic giallo black gloves to stalk a victim from a first person POV.
The story is twisted and difficult to comprehend until quite far in, but I don't want to spoil it too much. Very loosely, the protagonist is a super spy, more of William Goldman's Scylla from Marathon Man and Brothers than James Bond, though he does carry a Walther PPK like Bond. In simple terms, he's Sean Connery at his worse and most cruel and brutal, then amped up to a million. He and his partner/lover are tasked with disposing of dastardly supervillains and their crazy, violent hench men. When the main man John's partner dies, he goes off the rails in more ways than I can explain without giving the whole plot away. We flash backwards and forwards, between the older retired spy and his younger vital self, as a hyperkinetic bloodbath ensues.
I watched it to unwind after taping the last pod. I did not unwind. It is a scintillating, beautiful, stylish, jarring, psychotic, manic, cruel, violent kaleidoscope of an Ian Fleming-type James Bond plot bathed in LSD. It stars Italian Fabio Testi (old John), Belgian Yannick Renier (young John), French Celine Camara as his partner, and the amazing Thi Mai Nguyen, also French, as the masked fiendish femme fatale masked assassin Serpentik. Thank you, French creators Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani, for making this amazing multi-lingual brainstorm. You should ignore the mixed ratings. It did poorly on IMDB and well on rotten Tomatoes. Just see this lovely deadly thing.
Back in March, Tom Baker shared a message, thanking fans and celebrating his last episode in Logopolis. The surprisingly non-cynical and sweet video can be seen on Baker's YouTube channel, Tom Baker Official.
Just last month Baker was spotted outside Sid's Emporium (a secondhand shop), Tenterden, Kent and was invited in my the owers. There's photos of him larking about and pearing from behind a set of Tardis doors. I think it safe to safe he's somewhat mellowed. See sidsemporium on Instagram.
Last time we talked about 20 Years of David Tennant, but didn;t mention it's also 30 years of Paul McGann, celebrated by a special edition of BBC Doctor Who Magazine. This coincides the upcoming Doctor Who: The Movie in 4K and Big Finish audio releases. Disgusting scalpers have already snapped up the magazine and are selling them at double the cover price on eBay.
Like Tennant's NewWho Doctor, I liked MaGann's gentle, mysterious, and arguably last, version of the OldWho Doctor. But I'm sick of the BBC celebrating trivial milestones to distrtact us from the fact that there is no TV series on the horizon.
I'm planning to randomly re-revisit classic Doctor who, after of the end of my twelve year official podcast revisit, purely for entertainment. It will be relaxing not having to take review notes. Even if there was no New Who hiatus, that is what I was planning.
Regarding New Who, I have already watched all the episodes multiple times. In fact, I have talked about the 2005-- series since 2012, but I have no intention of chronologically revisiting each story of New Who like I did with Old Who.
I may read some of the Target and Virgin books and report back on them.
I said I might revisit Blake's 7, another series that I frequent wax nostalgic about, but again, not to the same extent as I did with the classic revisit.
I want one, I deserve one, I'm buying myself one to commemorate my years long revisit.
I'm again divesting myself of a number of podcast and YouTube subscriptions because I've found that I've mostly lost interest in them, particularly if they are shows too close to home, that is, concerned with TV or film SFFH or Doctor Who. Given that I am literally subscribed to hundreds, it can only be for the best.
My use of Twitter has mostly fizzled out, though I still post pods. I'm even using Mastodon less too, neither am I emailing, and even my journaling has reduced.
My RL social life disappeared almost completely since the pandemic. Before anyone weighs in, it's not through my lack of trying to make new connections either, though limping about like a broken puppet doesn't help. The only events I look forward to are my club in London and the upcoming MK Collectormania.
I've been a few times over the holiday weekend and it is delightful not having to wear cold weather layers. One of the many extra insects about in the heat exploded on my glasses a couple of days ago, so I'll be be sure to drop the visor above 30 mph.
I rode nearby twisty lanes as far as Winslow earlier yesterday.