Exclusive in More than One Way

Forbidden Planet International, who are seriously inviting a visit from the Trades Description Act chaps have announced yet another Character Options Exclusive Doctor Who set. It looks great, but if you're releasing exclusives all the ruddy time, don't they feel less exclusive? Oh wait, exclusive means you can't buy them overseas, despite the 'International' bit, so it's excluding me from getting my hands on them. Now I see. Anyway, retailing at just shy of 34 quid, they'll be selling the Sontaran Experiment Set from the end of February. It contains a puzzled looking Tom Baker sculpt, minus the poorly concealed sling, Styre, and a Sontaran ship. Marvellous, if only I could buy one without being shafted on Ebay.

Burn Rubber

Earlier in the week Silva Screen announced that they'd be releasing Roy Budd's fantastic score for 'Fear is the Key' on March 7th. If memory serves me, this has been out of print for a long time, and has been missing from my collection as a result. This soundtrack is another of those which effortlessly eclipse what's going on onscreen, and I have far less love for the movie than I do for the score. If you're a Budd virgin, then a) shame on you, and b) pencil this into your diary and get collecting what else is available from the late great man.

Snakes on an Astral Plain

This is more like it. Head to Doctor Who Online for details of the March 2|Entertain release of the 'Mara Tales' boxset. If last year was a disappointing one for releases from the Who back catalogue, this year is making up for it with some good looking titles.

Hold Your Horses

It comes to something when a rummage around the internet for release schedule news throws up one solitary tidbit. 'Throw up' is probably quite accurate too. Anchor Bay are announcing that on April 26th, the kind of film that Blu-ray was invented for will be released. Yes, that's right, how did you know it was more fodder from the abysmal ScyFy Channel's movie production wing? Anyway, the film is 'Dinoshark' and I can say with no small amount of shame that I have watched that epic from end to end in one of those ill-judged "It'll be so bad it'll be hilarious" moments. Admittedly there were moments of hysterically funny action, but on the whole it was mind numbingly tedious, and prompted me to wonder when exploitation cinema got so boring. I know it's from a mainstream production company really, but it's crass and cheap enough to be considered exploitation, except with none of the vicarious thrills that previous decades have taught us should come with a feature such as this. The film couldn't even be bothered to suggest that atomic power had created the shark, but on the flip side, a couple who had been 'making-out' got eaten. They just weren't smoking pot, or in the back seat of a convertible.

Try and contain your excitement until April.

False Start Number 4007

Got a load more illustrations to add to the site, with a handful of new Who stuff, and some horror pieces too. Of more note is the fact that I've cobbled together a review. Yeah, no-one is more shocked than I am. A little late, but I've offered my rambly, ranty thoughts on the DVD release of the Doctor Who Season 18 potboiler 'Meglos'. No-one gets out with their dignity intact!

Stumbled Upon

I wish I could unsee things. I was rummaging around Amazon.co.uk, to see if Straw Dogs had finally been released on Blu-ray after being delayed constantly, and me losing interest. Sure enough it had, and as much as I'd like to take an Amazon reviewer's (in the same class as IMDB.com user comments - "This film was totally gay!!!!") word for it, I preferred to find a more reliable review source to see what the disc was actually like. Hammered away at Google to see what would turn up, and was thrilled to see a remake lined up for production in 2011. Oh good.

There are a few reasons for cautious optimism, Alexander Skarsgard and James Wood appear in the cast list, while the director Rod Lurie has a reasonably good looking pedigree, and doesn't have any films with the words 'Alien vs' or 'Predator' in his work history. Unsurprisingly the synopsis has the movie being relocated to the deep south, which is where my interest wains and pessimism starts to mount again. Oh well, we shall see. Worryingly the 'Long Good Friday' remake has reappeared on schedules for 2011 too.

Blimey. I've been kinda busy, and so for a while nothing has been going on here. Expect that to change over the next few weeks, and today has already been a hive of activity with the uploading of all my latest Doctor Who art. I'm really going to try and get my teeth into Dadmancult.com and start filling up the reviews sections in the coming weeks and months.

The week has already got off to a good start with the weekend announcement (who announces things on a Saturday?) by 2Entertain that we can expect 'Day of the Daleks' sometime in 2011 with new CGI effects and revoiced Daleks. Bit of a shame, I kinda liked the drunk / stoned / asthmatic Daleks in the original, but I'm sure it'll be an optional extra and we can enjoy the serial as it was first broadcast...3 battered wobbly Daleks struggling to traverse a lawn in order to destroy a peace conference...after they get past the lawn, obviously.

Out on Blu-ray October 12th in the US is 'Magic', a rather forgotten and underrated Anthony Hopkins starring chiller from 1978. Helmed by Richard Attenborough it's an effective and creepy tale about a ventriloquist / magician losing his marbles in a Dead of Night kinda way. I've always retained a soft spot for it, and even if you find the film somewhat heavy going, Jerry Goldsmith provides a neat score. Not much else of note hitting the shelves that week, unless you're looking to add to your 'Lost Boys' movie collection. There are some rubbery Japanese shenanigans available in the form of Gamera, or was Gamera Korean? I'm not very well up on my Asian atomic mutation creature flicks.