Review: The Missy Chronicles

Missy is the Doctor's arch enemy and played something of a trojan horse in laying the groundwork for a female Doctor. The Missy Chronicles catalogues the continuing adventures of the rogue Timelord covering the full range of the incarnation's existence.

As an on-screen character, Missy was often polarising - and the adventures detailed here while not quite as divisive are certainly varied in success. On paper, Missy is rather more violent than on screen and sometimes the book dipped into the 15+ territory for gore.

My favourite of the stories here are by Goss (a darkly relevant tale of revenge by a recently regenerated Missy), Scott (Missy is asked to do Gallifrey's dirty work with grim results) and Rayner (Missy tries to mobilise women of history for her own reasons).

Verdict: Mixed bag for the Doctor's favourite frenemy.

Review: Collateral Beauty

Smith's career seems to have bifurcated in recent years so dividing his time between comedy action movies and more thoughtful personal pieces.  Collateral Beauty is an example of the latter: a modern variation on A Christmas Carol. 

It's by no-means a perfect film, but as a meditation on grief (especially those who have lost children or are facing death themselves) its heart is very much in the right place.  Add in a stellar cast with a number of affecting performances - Smith and Peña especially.

In a defter script writer's hands this would more satisfactorily tied up all of the various strands and story loops. Instead, after some great work by an excellent cast early on - the pay off, especially for Smith's character, felt slightly contrived.  Some logic only makes sense in movies - and then only if you are willing to roll with the shared fantasy. I almost was, but choked at both the amnesia and the mean trick at the heart of it all.

Overall, it worked for me because while I don't have direct experience of them - some of the character's situations were very recognisable to me.

Verdict: Hit the spot for me, but YMMV. 

Review: Non-stop

Another Neeson actioner which this time sees the big fella striding around the confines of a passenger plane and muscling his way through an intriguing premise.  Yet again, he's a world weary everyman with issues.

The rest of the cast provides good support - with Dockery and Moore being particularly fine foils.

What a shame then that the final act goes completely to pot with the villain's motivations being left at best poorly explained and at worst utterly baffling.  It really needed a Mr Big style conspiracy to anchor it all, but that would required Neeson's character to take them down in an extended coda.

Verdict: Intense thriller on a plane that fails to land. 

Review: Venom

A refreshingly different entry to the Marvel cinematic universe, Venom features a character I'd never heard of before.  It's an origin story, of course, and follows the familiar beats showing how TV reporter Eddie Brock acquires his superpowers and tackles his first foe.

As is increasingly the case, the film has more of a nod to international audiences - especially south east asian ones. The missus was cheered to see Borneo featured, for example.

The core idea is a fascinating one and there's some great chemistry between Eddie Brock and Venom (Hardy as both).  Venom turns out to be surprisingly witty and has an intriguing honour code.  I'd definitely like to see more made of this relationship in future films.

Verdict: Goofy, campy fun. 

Review: Gold

I was pleasantly surprised by Gold. Against the odds, rags to riches stories have been told many times before but this has a good sense of location, fine acting and a forehead smacking twist a good chunk of the way through.

McConaughey does a good job appearance transformation wise - especially with the passing of time.

Verdict: A satisfying Saturday afternoon matinee.

Review: The Door into Summer

Heinlein is a guy who knows his cats - in terms of their behaviour, their likes, dislikes and even vocalisations. It's therefore fitting that this book's central conceit is based on a cat looking for a door into summer during wintertime.

I rather liked Davis, the engineer, an individualistic everyman with multiple talents and lots of drive.

I enjoyed the interplay of themes of slow and fast time-travel (and there's enough hints early on that will enable you to figure it out early on and feel like a genius).

As with most science fiction of this period, there's plenty Heinlein gets wrong in his forecasting - but he also gives some very credible descriptions of current household appliances.

More problematic is the central romance. The age gap and ages of the protagonists is rather large although somewhat dealt with.

Verdict: Not quite top notch Heinlein, but still very enjoyable.

Review: Man Hacks: Handy Hints to Make Life Easier

Having spotted this on HotUKDeals, I resolved to check it out of my local library as part of my half-promised New Year's resolution to avoid buying so many books.

The hacks, which range from the commonsensical to the uniquely useful someday are lightly sprinkled across half a dozen or so categories.  The one that stands out - even though I'm unlikely to use it myself is that of using a UK plug to pop the cap on a beer bottle.

It's an undemanding read and lifted by some tongue in cheek illustrations.

Verdict: Fun and short. 

Review: To Catch a Thief

Grant is his usual suave self and well-matched to the serenely witty Kelly in this gentle-paced rom-crime thriller.  Even the car chases around the French Rivera and climatic action sequence feel relaxed. 

Add in two good looking actors with obvious chemistry and amusing interplay against a beautiful backdrop and it completely hit the mark for me. I found myself smiling throughout.

Verdict: Perfect Sunday evening fare. 

Review: Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

In light of the Cambridge analytics scandal, fake news, pervasive click bait etc tech guru Lanier's book feels, if anything, a little too late. But despite the polemic sounding title, he largely manages to stay out of rant mode.

Having OD'd on twitter experiments around 2009, I am no longer a heavy user of social media. Twitter, I post on once in a blue moon, and almost never check it. Linked-In might be a weekly check.  Ah, but Facebook - I rarely post on my own page - but I probably do like/comment on others multiple times a day. I'm also a recovering user of various forums.  Oh, and a growing YouTube habit as well.  Damn, they have me.

But I also run with various ad-blockers, time limiters, don't have any of the apps on my phone and my Facebook feed has various modifiers so don't see it.  The last of these was because I realised I was liking and commenting on posts I rarely saw anymore as well as being drawn moth-like to uncannily relevant ads.

Many of Lanier's arguments were familiar to me, but he writes in an engaging style and calls out the big social media companies for what they are - all pervasive surveillance and highly persuasive behavioural modification engines that are changing us for the worse.  I was struck by the chapter covering kindness and empathy and how social media tends to amplify grumpiness and general assholery.  I've also noticed a mild tension if I have too much screen time before I meditate each day.

Will I be deleting my social media accounts? Probably not, but I think I'm going to take more breaks - likely starting with one or two days a week.

Verdict: Illuminating call to arms. 

Review: Fast and Furious 8

My first Fast and Furious film nearly swore me of the series for good - and even after viewing this rather better entry in the series, I'm still baffled at the appeal. The B-list cast are all looking their ages now, the plot has a few decent sized holes and the stakes never feel particularly high.  For a massive franchise such as this, it all feels rather cheap.

But it doesn't take itself too seriously - and there's a few comedic interludes, especially from Statham and Gibson which suggest the script has been tuned since the last one I watched. It also benefits from Theron, Russell and Mirren providing grounding and credibility in supporting roles.

Lastly, the pictured submarine sequence makes it almost worth the entrance fee - providing you have suitably invested in the characters.

Verdict: Worth breaking my previous fast for.

Review: Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards

Animals are funny, aren't they? I've watched countless cat videos (and the occasional dog one too), many of which show cats jumping out of their lives at the sight of a cucumber or tentatively giving another cat a cuff so they end up falling downstairs.  Cats are funny because they are familiar and don't seem to have given up their essential selves - they do as they please.

And wild animals? Joynson-Hicks and Sullam set out to prove that wild animals can be comedic too. And they are only partly successful.

Many of the pictures in this book are simply not even grin inducing, even with the addition of explanatory captions eg a zebra showing its teeth simply looks like normal behaviour to me as does a bird standing by a tree.  The cover picture is perhaps one of the best, but many, perhaps most, are not able to stand alone.  In defter caption writer hands, perhaps more could have been made of this - I'd have loved to see Larson of Farside Gallery's take on some of these images.

Verdict:  A silly stroll on the wild side. 

Review: Factfulness

In a world of competing ideologies, social media based manipulation and fake news, it is refreshing to read a book that attempts to challenge our thinking through verifiable facts and acknowledge that while things are still bad, they aren't quite as bad as we think and are getting better. So much so, that much of what we treat as truth may not be.

Along the way, Rosling uses anecdotes and facts to illustrate key principles most of which will be familiar to but perhaps slightly forgotten by any science graduate eg be careful about curve interpretation.

As with many others, I suspect the developing v developed world myth is perhaps the most eye-opening.  Rosling contends that much of what we think we know about the world and its peoples is rooted in a 1960s snapshot - and that nearly all countries are middle income ones now and still rapidly improving. I do wonder if what his views would have been on relative poverty though.

I was also pleasantly surprised there is good news on both contraception adoption and birth rates - regardless of beliefs - and that it looks like world population will top out sometime this century.

Lastly, I admired his vision of a world where the economic action will shift towards Asia and Africa over the coming decades.

If the book has a weakness, it is in the focus on public health and wealth related case studies. That's not surprising given the author's profession. I'll also forgive his perhaps justifiably didactic tone.


Verdict: A book for our times. 

Review: The Atlas of Happiness

Russell's cutely illustrated book expands on her previous scandi-happiness books to examine what tickles people's joy, warmth etc around the world.

Each chapter explains what one form of localised happiness means through an anecdote as well as providing a guide to how achieve the same blissful state. Finns it turns out enjoy nothing more than sitting in their pants drinking beer (sauna optional). Tellingly, the Chinese are content if they have enough food, shelter and no-one is trying to persecute them.  For Brazilians, there's a sweet sensation of melancholia, nostalgia and loneliness wrapped up in Saudade.

I don't know there's anything particularly applicable to be found here, but it was interesting to reflect on different ways of experiencing happiness.

Verdict: A dipper into.