Summer Ends - My Favourite Season Begins!

So as of tomorrow, it's the end of Summer.  Autumn right around the corner (well, it will be if climate change hasn't gotten that bad yet!).  Which means it's time for me to dust this off again; cue the music!

"TWO MORE MONTHS TILL HALLOWEEN!
"HALLOWEEN!
"HALLOWEEN!
"TWO MORE MONTHS TILL HALLOWEEN!

"SILVER SHAMROCK!"

A New Cause - Nice for the 2023 Worldcon

So as I mentioned last week, the 77th World Science Fiction Convention, Worldcon, was held in Dublin, and a grand time was had.  As usual after conventions, I now have an excess number of new books to read, a big recommendation list of things to catch up on (the Hugo Awards alone will do that), and a tonne of ideas for new panels I'd like to try running or contributing to at future events.  In fact, I've already started researching a few of the panel ideas, and am beginning to realise just how deep a rabbit hole some of these ideas are.  The good thing is that I do have a while before I need them, as Worldcon isn't going to back in Europe for a while.  Now next year's Worldcon is in New Zealand, which is a teeny bit out of reach for me, barring a sudden windfall.  2021 was formally confirmed as being Washington D.C., which I am toying with going for, if certain changes are made to who is residing in that large pale home there by the time of the con.  Currently there is only one bid for 2022, Chicago, and that's unlikely to change by the time of next year's vote.  Which makes 2023 the interesting one, as it's the first one in a while to now be a four horse race.

Just One More Thing - Killing Jerks

Decided to dust off an old title for here; Just One More Thing is the title I'm going to use for commenting on things that are happening, where I get to flex my inner Charlie Brooker.  For this week, I thought I'd talk about the Joker.  That trailer for the new R-rated Joker dropped this week, and I'm really not liking the look of it.  Not that it looks badly made, or poorly acted, or anything like that, and let's face it, you'd have to work hard to present a worse Joker than Jared Fucking Leto.  But the subject matter is bothering me; it's another story of a white guy getting treated a bit badly, told he can't have a thing he wants, deciding to take it out on everyone in a disproportionate way, and we the audience are asked to sympathise with them.  In the age of mass shootings every fucking week in America, it's very poor timing for this kind of thing, and in general I've never liked that sentiment.  The closest I ever came to really liking that sort of thing was Falling Down, only because at the end the film makes damn clear "Michael Douglas is the bad guy here", though only by literally saying it out loud.  But it's not really the film itself I have an issue with; it's some of the fans reacting to the premise, and how it links to the film's most likely source material.

A Look at the London Film Festival 2019 Line-Up!

It's that time again!  No, not for that, the other time.  No no, one along, next shelf down, by the bag of Quavers- yeah THAT time again!  October will be time for the annual BFI London Film Festival (LFF), now in it's 63rd year.  I have been going along to stuff there regularly since 2014, there are always some real treats to be found in store.  Also, in keeping on brand with my regular October Horror Movie Challenge (yeah, we're doing that on this blog again too), I always try to check out as much of their genre content as I can, and there's usually a fair amount of that to be found, especially since they started having a regular "cult" strand.  So with this in mind, the full line up has been announced today, let's have a look at some of what's in store this year?  Now this isn't necessarily going to be everything I see there (I'm not made of money and free time you know!), but they are things of my interest.

Yes, this is a real promo from back in the day!

Canary Duty - FrightFest Weekend Special

Yeah, trying something new out this time!  I saw a bunch of new horror films this weekend, two on general release, three at Arrow Video FrightFest, so I thought I'd do one big blog post of all five in one go.  Forcing myself to cut down on the waffling by just having one big paragraph per film.  Let's see how that works out after the page break.

Trailer of the Week - Train to Busan

So D23 has been going on this weekend, the latest boasting session from the juggernaut dominating global entertainment at the moment.  One big thing was showing off the cast of Marvel Studios' The Eternals.  Now that one is going to be interesting, as that property started off as Jack Kirby at his most... Kirby, a lot like his earlier Inhumans and New Gods stuff.  I'm really hoping though that Marvel learned from how the Inhumans series went down like a lead balloon  The cast was on stage for the presentation, including big names like Angelina Jolie, Gemma Chan, Kit Harrington, and Salma Hayek.  There was also at least one other person there who's not nearly so much a household name, at least in in US and UK; Ma Dong-seok (aka Don Lee), a Korean actor making his English language debut in the Eternals, playing Gilgamesh.  I've seen him before, in terms of physical presence and charisma, he's an excellent choice.  If you'd like to see a good example of him in action before seeing The Eternals, then that's one of many, many reasons to seek out today's trailed film; the 2016 horror disaster blockbuster Train to Busan.

Canary Duty - The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Episode 1)

Ah, I knew I kept that BFI Membership for something!  Last night myself and a friend got to attend at the BFI Southbank a special preview event for one of Netflix's most anticipated productions of the year; the prequel series to 80s fantasy classic The Dark Crystal.  I have had a fondness for that film since I first saw glimpses of it on an old Palace Video promo reel, and I have quite a few good friends for whom it means a lot to them, so I have had big "pleasedon'tsuckpleasedon'tsuckpleasedon'tsuck" feelings about this one?  So were my concerns valid?