People of the Book

Iris Murdoch's The Bell examines the foibles and frustrations of the inhabitants of a lay religious community that's still in it's infancy but hopes to make a splash with the presentation of a new bell to the nearby Nunnery. There's a swath of unusual, nicely drawn characters but the novel focuses in the main on two very different characters: Dora, an immature young bride who after a brief separation from her possessive academic husband reconciles with him but finds the community's pious atmosphere stultifying and restrictive and Michael, the group's "leader" who struggles with the interpersonal relationships and conflicts involved in the communal effort as well as his own repressed homosexuality. Murdoch's impeccable writing slowly, inevitably, marches these nuanced characters towards a bittersweet end that's maybe a little telegraphed, a little too predictable. It's a good read but it's dated a fair bit - written in 1958, the portrayal and development of Michael seems clumsy and a little simplistic by today's standards.

Michel Faber's The Fire Gospel is one of Canongate's somewhat patchy series The Myths and Faber chooses to use, vaguely, the tale of Prometheus to satirize the world of publishing and biblical scholarship. A consulting academic finds a lost, heretical Gospel while visiting a Iraqi museum and his subsequent translation propels him into wealth, celebrity and jeopardy as the impact of this new retelling of Christ's life reverberates around the world. I dunno, Faber, like Murdoch, is an exceptional writer, with a clear, clean prose but this novella was a quite disappointing; the main character is crudely drawn and mostly unlikeable, there's a tenuous similarity to the myth it's supposed to reflect and the interspersion of Malchus' revelatory testimony is a little underwhelming. Though it has it's moments and is occasionally quite funny this feels unfinished and seriously underdeveloped - a shame and quite surprising given the complexity and careful plotting of Under The Skin and Crimson Petal.

Shadow Lives

Ganja & Hess is an arty vampire-ish thriller directed and starring Bill Gunn. Presumably the producers had expected something along the lines of Blacula but instead they got a moody, dreamlike fable about an affluent anthropology Professor stabbed by his assistant with an ancient dagger who awakes with thirst for blood and is seemingly immortal. Though it struggles with it's low budget and patchy improvised script this is an ambitious, intelligent horror about power, money and social roles. I could grumble on about the sound design, some sequences are barely tolerable, but they're offset by the choice gospel music peppered throughout. There's plenty of chin stroking analyses online and I could argue against the most prevalent one but I'd rather not waste your time. Just watch it if you can and enjoy a stunning, atmospheric feature that's a sorely neglected keystone in black film history.
Guillermo Del Toro produced and scripted the remake of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark which fleshes out the spartan 1973 TV movie into something more contemporary with predictably mixed results. While renovating an old house with a new Mrs and his kid, Guy Pearce uncovers a secret basement with a curious locked grate that, unbeknownst to him, holds some child hungry critters at bay. The acting is alright I suppose, there's a few mild scares along the way and the little devils are nicely designed but it's far too brightly shot for a film about things lurking in the dark and never really conjures even the modest gloom of the original. Meh.

The Great Antidote

This isn't some scifi critter from a pulpy novel but an actual insect, the Brazillian Treehopper. DarkRoasted.

Is Alzheimer's transmissible? ScienceDaily.

Unravelling the myth of the male mid-life crisis. ScientificAmerican

Amazing 3D printer that constructs glass objects using only sand and the power of the Sun. Popsci.

The discovery of a quasicrystalline structure has won an Israeli scientist the Nobel prize for Chemistry.

We're a step closer to detecting gravitational waves apparently. Impactlab.


The Bolshoi simulation of dark matter in our universe took one of the world's largest supercomputer 6 million CPU hours to create. APOD.

Photographic evidence of the triple rainbows. ScienceDaily.

The molecular interaction between air and water is finally being explained. ScienceDaily.

Nikon's annual Small World contest coughs up some amazing snaps, my favourite but not the winner, below, is of a blade of grass.

Orbital Surveys

Speaker Business

Heritage Homicides

Ira Lewin's taut novel A Kiss Before Dying got a technicolour adaptation in '56 and in the main follows the plot quite closely - man gets girl preggers, shoves her off a rooftop and moves onto find another rich girl to get his teeth into. The acting is fine and it's beautifully shot but the lurid colouring & ill judged soundtrack soften the tension all too often, combine that with the excision of the final murder and the books brutal denouement and it's fails to even generate a fraction of the intensity or darkness of Lewin's novel. Maybe it was a conscious effort to make proceedings a little more palatable to the audience of the day? dunno, anyways its still a good watch and no doubt better than the 1991 version.

Despite turning up almost half way through Green for Danger Alistair Sim shines brightly in this WW2 whodunit. A couple of murders in a small country hospital harried by German bombs prompt the appearance of Sim's sarcastic detective who ambles into town intent on poking at the pre existing tensions of the small group of suspects in an effort to uncover the truth. It's a thoroughly enjoyable, beautifully constructed, scripted and shot and featuring some excellent performances especially by Sim who perforates the seriousness of proceedings with his whimsical, light hearted portrayal of the no nonsense investigator.

Happy Horrors

Something Slippery & Buggy Jitters

Polish director Andrzej Zulawski's Possession is deeply disturbing movie. Sam Neil quits his job and returns to Berlin in an effort to save his marriage only to discover his wife is losing her mind and her frequent unexplained absences, violence and apparent infidelities stretch Neil to breaking point but he's still unaware of the true nature of her paramour. With two wide eyed, manic performances from the leads and some brilliantly staged, excruciating scenes of marital disintegration this film is soaked in a troubling atmosphere that only accentuates the Cronenberg-esque body horror of the second half. A fascinating, multi layered horror film that's well worth digging around for.

Dario Argento's Phenomena stars a very young Jennifer Connelly as an actor's daughter sent to a Swiss boarding school only to discover it's besieged by a serial killer who has a penchant for the young ladies, oh and she has a peculiar psychic link with insects. Connelly's unusual ability soon attracts the attention of her classmates & teachers and before the can ship her off to the loony bin she escapes to home of an amiable Scottish entomologist played by Donald Pleasance who thinks it's a good idea for her to use her abilities to track the killer down. It's a strange mismash of ideas that's hamstrung with some ropey acting and a really crappy soundtrack but there's some nice touches along the way and Argento has enough style and skill to make a decent fist of it. I'd recommend Suspira or Profondo Rosso before you tackle this curious little flick.