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Them!, a review by GSyren

Title	Them! (8-717774-231128)
Director	Gordon Douglas
Actors	James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon, James Arness, Onslow Stevens
Produced	1954 in United States
Runtime	89 minutes
Audio	English Dolby Digital Mono
Subtitles	None
Overview	Nuclear tests in the desert result in the growth of gigantic mutant ants who menace cities in the American south-west as a team of investigators and the army search for a way to control their spread in this Cold War-era monster film.
My thoughts	If you want to enjoy any giant bug movie (or in fact any giant anything), you have to be able to overlook the scientific impossibility of the thing. You can't scale up an ant 100 times and have it work. There's a reason why elephants are built like elephants and not like ants. But if you accept that it's just fantasy, it can still be quite exciting. Them! is in fact one of the best of the mutated bug movies. It has a good script, good cinematography, good acting. The big ant puppets look a little bit dodgy and move a little to awkwardly to be really scary, but I've seen a lot worse monsters. This year marks the 60th anniversary for this movie. It would be nice if Warner would release it on blu-ray with some interesting special features, but I guess that's just a pipe dream. I like this film a lot. Highly recommended!
My rating

(From Reviews and ramblings by Gunnar on February 11th, 2014)

The Man with the Golden Gun, a review by GSyren

Title	The Man with the Golden Gun (Disc ID: 7654-3EAA-D664-374B)
Director	Guy Hamilton
Actors
Produced	1974 in United Kingdom
Runtime	125 minutes
Audio	English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, German DTS 5.1, French DTS 5.1, Czech Dolby Digital 5.1, Commentary Dolby Digital 2-Channel Stereo, Commentary Dolby Digital 2-Channel Stereo
Subtitles	Commentary, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Norwegian, Swedish
Overview	James Bond has been marked for death, and he'll need all his lethal instincts and seductive charm to survive in this action-packed adventure! Roger Moore returns as Agent 007 and faces off in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with assassin Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee). Featuring a wild automobile chase though Bangkok and Bond's stunning confrontation with an entire martial-arts school. The Man with the Golden Gun delivers nonstop excitement!
My thoughts	Bond marathon #9 I've never been a fan of the Bond films with Roger Moore. It's not that Moore is a bad actor, far from it. But he doesn't fit my image of Bond. But more than that, the scripts he was given doesn't fit my image of Bond either. There's just too much silliness in most of them. And this one is no exception. You might think that having two Swedish Bond girls would please me. Well, I do like Maud Adams, and I wish her character hadn't been bumped off so soon. Britt Ekland is another matter, though. Not only has she never been much of an actress, but her character is so silly and incompetent that you wonder how she ever got recruited to MI6 in the first place. Then there is Sheriff J. W. Pepper. Why? It was bad enough to have him in Live and Let Die. Reprising him here is just adding insult to injury. Sorry, Clifton James, I'm sure you're really better than this. This is one role you should have turned down. The car jump was spectacular, only they ruined it with that silly slide whistle sound. On the positive side we have Christopher Lee. He is excellent as usual. Along with the excellent production values, he is the saving grace in the film. Still, Bond is always Bond, so a mediocre Bond film is still entertaining.
My rating

(From Reviews and ramblings by Gunnar on August 22nd, 2014)

Babylon 5: Marathon, a review by DJ Doena

Synopsis: With the arrival of the aides to the Minbari ambassador Delenn, Lennier and to the Narn ambassador G'Kar, Na'Toth the main cast for the first season and - by and large - the entire show is complete. The Earth administration has planned that each of the alien cultures and Earth show in a festival the ceremonies of their largest believe system. Meanwhile G'Kar gets a death threat against him from an enemy who has currently died.

My opinion: It's an interesting fact to notice that alien cultures in TV shows - especially the alien of the week in most shows - seem to be somewhat uniform. Look at the Klingons or the Romulans of Star Trek for example. Except of course the story is about two rivaling parties on the same planet. But more than two? Seldom. But Earth is always depicted as a diversed culture. And coming back to my point, I simply adored the scene when Sinclair presented all these people with their different believe systems, it was a great ending of that show.


Synopsis: For over a hundred years there have been telepaths ("teep") among the human population. Every teep who whishes to use his/her abilities has to join the Psi Corps. And the Psi Corps has its own police: The Psi Cops. And two of them arrive at the station to look for a renegade and former lover of the stations teep Talia Winters. But that renegade has developed abilities even the Psi Corps couldn't have imagined. Meanwhile, Sinclairs lover tries to examine a planet for its minerals and nearly gets killed.

My option: A Bester show is always a good one. Bester is a Psi Cop portrayed by Walter Koenig (ST: Chekov) and the mutual loathing between the stations personell and Bester is build up and continues throughout the show. We see for the first time that Psi Corps is experimenting on their own people to enhance them beyond their given abilities.

Quote of the episode:
G'Kar: "Let me pass on to you the one thing I've learned about this place. No one here is exactly what he appears. Not Mollari. Not Delenn. Not Sinclair. And not me."


Synopsis: Enmity and hatred is shown from humans to any form of alien. A good friend of Delenn's is struck down and branded. There is an organisation that tries to bring Earth back to its "rightful place in the universe". And meanwhile Londo has to deal with a young Centauri couple who fell in love but both are promised to other people.

My opinion: We see the first glimpse of hatred between humans and aliens based on simple racism and the fear of "alien influence". It's a sad episode because of that story but a good one.


Synopsis: Two men arrive at the station and capture Sinclair to find out what happend in the 24 hours he can't remember when the war ended.

My opinion: They shed some light onto the events happened at the Battle of the Line. But when I say some I mean some. It's more a form of grey than really white light. We don't get all the facts at once and that's what makes the show so interesting. From now on we can wonder what exactly Delenn had to do with the ending of the war.


(From Babylon 5: Marathon on August 4th, 2007)