If you are expecting something conclusive with definitive answers, prepare to be disappointed, because that’s not what this drama is about.

Sundance is furthering its exploration into scripted dramas with Rectify, premiering 22 April. The drama revolves around Daniel Holden (Aden Young), a prisoner released from death row after spending almost 20 years in solitary confinement. He’s exonerated after irregularities in his case force the judge to vacate his sentence, suddenly dropping him into the chaotic reality of the outside world.

“Only human beings can know what it means to strip a human being of being human”

Jeanette Winterson, The Daylight Gate. London: Arrow, 2012.

Acclaimed English novelist Jeanette Winterson’s latest book is something of a curiousity.
The book has been published by Arrow in partnership with famed British horror film studio Hammer, who have commissioned a series of horror novellas which according to the back cover spiel “will span the literary and the market, the esoteric and the commercial, by some of today’s most celebrated authors.”

I find myself oddly mermerised by ABC’s 666 Park Avenue, something I really wasn’t expecting when I first started watching the series. The pilot suggested a run of the mill horror drama that might have a few interesting elements, but [...]

I find myself oddly mermerised by ABC’s 666 Park Avenue, something I really wasn’t expecting when I first started watching the series. The pilot suggested a run of the mill horror drama that might have a few interesting elements, but ultimately wouldn’t hold my interest very long; this kind of television is not really what I look for, usually. I tend to prefer complex, slow dramas that rely more on subtle shifts of tone and plot to develop the story and the characters while keeping me engaged as a viewer, rather than more showy productions.

666 Park Avenue is not going for subtlety. It’s creepy and in your face from the very start.

Sleepy Sundays no more; starting with Once Upon A Time, following with Revenge, and ending with 666 Park Avenue, ABC aims to keep viewers up past their bedtime this fall. 666 Park Avenue is the network’s venture into horror, and it’s nice to see it slotted into something other than the Friday night death slot. ABC seems genuinely determined to give the show a shot, and it makes a good pairing with the supernatural and fantastical Once Upon A Time and the chillingly pragmatic Revenge.

After “28 Days Later” “Sunshine” and “Never Let Me Go,” Alex Garland is now master of the science fiction genre, an allegorical titan and action giant. With Dredd, he has modernised a British comic phenomenon and nailed him up on the screen for all to see.

Mega City One is widescreen for 800 million people. Its streets are legion. 12 serious crimes every minute. 17,000 crimes a day. The law can only respond to 6% of them. Rotting unnoticed in a back alley are the corpses of the Avengers piled high next to the slumped bodies of Batman and Spiderman. This blockbuster bloodbath was shocking and unexpected performed execution style. Lycra costumes just don’t cut it in this dystopian future. To take on this city you need judge, jury and executioner. You need Dredd.

“Asylum of the Daleks” was a fascinating insight into how Moffat views women. Or it would have been, if Moffat hadn’t made the point a thousand times already.

The weekend brought us the return of Steven Moffat’s fixation on mothers in ‘Aslyum of the Daleks.’ The Doctor Who creator cannot seem to tear himself away from this theme, circling around it over and over again in a variety of ways. One wonders how he finds new territory to explore when he’s already gone over it so thoroughly.

Austria’s annual body painting festival in Portschach am Worthersee is a unique festival for an art that is distinctly under-appreciated.

Body painting has such an artistic romantic and dreamy ring to it that when I was invited to sing at the world body painting festival, I couldn’t say no.  One of the world’s most unusual festivals, the event is held at a beautiful town called Portschach am Worthersee in southern Austria, where Austria, Italy and Slovenia come together. The surrounding area is absolutely stunning, a picturesque town on a beautiful lake, with beautiful cycle paths and the weather is unbelievable at 30 degrees.

Nolan’s movie lumbers from set-piece to set-piece like a blinded Cyclops enraged by its inability to cling on to past glories.

“When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer.” Hans Gruber may have misquoted Plutarch but his lament seems perfectly suited for Christopher Nolan. If “Inception” was his Battle of Issus grinding the might of the old Hollywood blockbuster beneath his heel then “The Dark Knight Rises” is Nolan’s Hydaspes and the mutiny of his army in its bloody aftermath.

With its nuanced depictions of politics, spirituality, diversity and solidarity, its rich characterisations and inspiration from ‘Eastern’, Avatar: TLAB presents a vision for an alternative I didn’t know I was looking for.

The first season of Legend of Korra, the follow-up to the ground-breaking animated show Avatar: the Last Airbender (2005-2008), ended just last month. Episodes were aired on TV in the U.S. and webcast on the Nickelodeon website for U.S. viewers, but you could also not be one and still get to keep up if you had a reasonably fast internet connection.

Prometheus is Scott’s 2001–the philosophical quest for the meaning of life. Rather than just a prequel or reboot of the Alien franchise, Prometheus is far more arresting when read as a voyage of discovery into the frail mortality of a rich and powerful filmmaker like Scott.

The familiar unfamiliar. Stem cells of a universe encoded in our DNA over 30-year period are about to grow in a new direction. A biomechanical mutation in 3 dimensions groans and cracks under the pressure of human anticipation. Slime and mucus coarse through our veins as ancient myth is appropriated to give weight to a modern one.

Prometheus stole fire from the gods but will this digital Titan steal the flames of our memory? That close up of the dead pilot’s eye in “Alien” was so haunting, so unexplained that it left a Stygian darkness clawing at our subconscious. Does “Prometheus” have the right to prise open some of these dark doors and cast light on the unknown or is Ridley Scott a spiteful father ruining our childhood fantasies and terrors?