E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

Only ten minutes in, a young girl, followed by her mother, ran out of the screening room. “I’m too scared!” She declared. Perhaps she was a bit too young for the vague 12A rating, but it certainly suggested the tone of the book had been captured. Unfortunately this suggestion was quickly shattered.             The novel, Ender’s Game , was released in 1985 and provided author Orson Scott Card with both the Nebula and Hugo awards, prestigious awards given to the best science fiction novels of the year. A strong following later, and we have around fourteen stories in the “Ender Saga”. While Ender’s Game is often cited in many a top ten of sci-fi reading lists, it has always seemed one of the more easily filmable novels when compared to the likes of Isaac Asimov , Arthur C. Clarke , Robert A. Heinlein and Philip K. Dick ; authors like this have only had successful film adaptions from masters like Stanley Kubrick and Ridley Scott ...

Today is the feast of St John the Baptist , one of only three days in the Catholic calendar given over to celebrating the birth of someone.  It also marks the occasion of the national day in Quebec.  St John the Baptist, the last prophet, bridged the Old and New Testaments with his preaching of the coming of Christ, and the full immersion in the river Jordan.  I last night saw Prometheus , a well-made, often terrifying, and sometimes thoughtful, prequel to Alien , directed by Ridley Scott , with enough theology and myth in its subtext to raise Joseph Campbell from the dead.  I note the grim humour in the naming of the infertile Christian heroine, Elizabeth, who is subject to an unwanted and horrific precursor pregnancy.  Of course, the Baptist's mother's name was Elizabeth and she too was barren, until God made her pregnant.  In the inverted, fallen world of the film, where men and robots play god to the destruction of many, the tentacular ur- creature tha...

Sad news.   Dana Wynter , pictured, who starred in the classic B-movie, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers , one of the greatest of all films to explore Cold War ideologies, has died.  She appeared in many other films, and on TV, notably in Sink The Bismark , from which this still comes.

Sad news.  One of the amazing actresses of the Fifties, Anne Francis , has died.  Her key films include Bad Day At Black Rock and Blackboard Jungle (both 1955), and of course Forbidden Planet , one of the greatest sci-fi films of all time, and still the most canonical, with its marriage of Freud and Prospero.  In the Sixties she entered a whirlwind of TV guest appearances in all the great shows, Dr. Kildare, Mission:Impossible, The Invaders, Columbo, Cannon, Banacek , - but no Star Trek , sadly.

Sad news to start 2011.  Major British actor and activist, Pete Postlethwaite , has died.  Although a TV and stage actor beforehand, he became world famous 18 years ago, in 1993, when he appeared in In The Name of the Father , the role which got him Oscar-nominated for a profoundly-moving part.  He then cemented his position as one of the most astonishing and refreshing new onscreen faces of the Nineties, with great parts in big crowd-pleasers The Usual Suspects and Romeo + Juliet .  He also marched against the war in Iraq.  He also appeared in several big-budget sci-fi/horror flicks, like The Lost World (a Spielberg sequel), The Omen (remake), and a top film of 2010, Inception .  He could pull off any role and make any movie he was in cooler and yet more authentic by his presence, which screamed nonchalant-gritty integrity.  No one looked or acted like Postlethwaite - he was a great original and will be much missed.

This week (December 3rd) marked the 50th birthday of actor Darryl Hannah , who among many other roles played the replicant Pris in Ridley Scott 's 1982 future noir movie, Blade Runner. Pris is a "basic pleasure model", designed as, essentially, a robot prostitute for the Off-World colonies. Cursed with a four year lifespan, and born on Valentine's Day, just a few years before the movie takes place. Memorably, she disguises herself as a doll - spraying raccoon make-up markings across her eyes, veiling her face and sitting very, very still - before launching herself at Harrison Ford 's replicant-hunter and clamping her thighs around his neck.  This photo is from a series of portraits by Dr Will Brooker , as a tribute to Pris' 2019 style. The model is Laura-Jade .  Happy birthday, Ms Hannah.

Sad news.  The great character actor Kevin McCarthy , best-known for his role in the original sci-fi poli-sci film classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers , recently died. In an odd coincidence, the film was seen as a commentary on McCarthyism; Joe McCarthy was no relation. His ultimately-paranoid performance has become a benchmark for the genre, and the movie introduced the idea of "pod people" into the imaginative lexicon of North American suburbia - where unthinking ideological "mind absorption" seemed to have struck all those zombified by the Eisonhower-era.  "They're here already!  You're next!" could be the rallying cry for any concerned citizen though - afraid of either immigrants or the Tea Party.  Several times remade, never bettered. 59 years later, it remains one of the must-sees of the period.

The Monsters Under The Bed: Doctor Who Series Five So Far by Patrick Chapman According to Steven Moffat , its new showrunner, Doctor Who isn’t set in outer space, it’s set under your bed. That’s where the monsters are. At least it is if you’re eight. And that age group has always been the show’s core audience. The difference is now that the core audience includes girls. Moffat’s earlier episodes for the show always had a young girl at the heart of the mystery, except Blink, which was adapted from a short story which had. Back in the mists of time, one reviewer called Doctor Who ‘the children’s own programme which adults adore.’ There’s probably never been a truer description of the show, and never has that description been truer than today, as the series, now established in its fifth run of the revival, or the thirty-first overall, shows itself to be a true modern fairytale. In Moffat, it has a lead writer who knows about children and how to deliver the safe scares for which the...

This was billed as the "first classic episode" of the new Doctor Who series.  It wasn't quite.  I am not sure the jazzed up logo and modified theme make the show more, or less, contemporary - something about the colours and tone sound too of the moment.  Sometimes retro is actually cooler, and more classic.  The new Doctor is an improvement on the last one, frankly, who I found a little insufferable.  This time around his manic eccentricity has an edge of uncertainty, bordering on insanity, that is fun.  The new assistant is even odder.  Unfeasibly tall, with a curious open face and big eyes, this pale Scottish lass is quirky, spaced out, and sometimes compellingly smart, all at once, while also looking like she's just bonked for an hour (or is that wishful thinking?).  I think she's a good character twist. Tonight's episode was classic BBC twaddle, that convinces itself it is genius - remember the hype when they put Titanic in space?  So,...

Space. The New Frontier. JJ Abrams’s new Star Trek film opened recently to spectacular business and critical acclaim. It’s the first time Trek has intersected with the mainstream since the movie First Contact in 1996 but to do so, it had to reinvent itself. This is not the first time that Star Trek has become new. Over the decades, it’s started again several times, to varying degrees of commercial and artistic success. Often, its creative rebirth has been at the hands of outsiders, fresh perspectives bringing new ideas. Let’s go back to the beginning of the final frontier and have a look at those incarnations, bearing in mind that every generation gets the Star Trek it deserves. Or, to put it more positively, Trek does well not just when it’s in touch with the times, but also when it coincides with moments of optimism. Forty-five years ago a former motorcycle cop and fighter pilot, Gene Roddenberry , tried to sell NBC on a show he described as ‘Wagon Train to the Stars.’ As pitch...

Patrick Chapman considers the 11th "official" Doctor In Bruce Robinson’s 1986 film, Withnail & I , Uncle Monty says to his nephew, “It is the most shattering experience of a young man's life when one morning he awakes and quite reasonably says to himself: ‘I will never play the Dane!’ When that moment comes one’s ambition ceases.” These days, you could justifiably exchange the word ‘Dane’ for ‘Doctor’ and not many people would bat an eyelid. Well, maybe Uncle Monty would. Richard Griffiths , who played Monty, was considered for the role of the Doctor when Tom Baker departed it in 1981. The actors who played Withnail and ‘I’, both went on to actually essay the role. Paul McGann was the dashing, Byronic, Eighth Doctor in the 1996 BBC/Fox telemovie pilot that, despite excellent ratings in the UK, didn’t go to series. In 2003, Richard E. Grant played the Ninth Doctor as a sort of jaded, Holmesian figure in Paul Cornell’s BBC webcast animation, Scream of the Shalka . ...

Who? Doctor Who fans must be scrubbing their heads. Matt Smith , hardly a household name despite his sub- Twilight neck, jaw and hair -line, has jumped past hopefuls such as women, black actors, and thespians of note, to become the next Doctor in the British classic series. I hope the next Poet Laureate is not some equally inauspicious and undeserving whipper-snapper. Smith was good in those Pullman TV shows, but not stellar. The BBC should have done more.

Sad news. The major popular, controversial novelist and entertainment writer Michael Crichton has died - at the young age of 66. He was astonishingly prolific and succesful in tapping in to the zeitgeist, creating the TV series ER , and the Jurassic Park franchise. This alone would make him a key cultural figure of the 90s. His greatest novels were The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man - icily-procedural and strangely prescient thrillers about the collision between humanity and science, or the unknown aspects connected to science (bacteria, brain surgery). I still think the original The Andromeda Strain one of the most disturbing films ever made, and can still recall the underground labs, monkey autopsies and the epileptic fit as if it was yesterday. Crichton lost many fans (including me) when he became a sort of Dawkins of the anti-global warming set, though. His finger usually on the pulse, this pro-Bush perspective was oddly out of step with the times, and his death, timed...

70 years ago today, America's greatest 20th century media-genius, Orson Welles , boy prankster, terrified parts of New Jersey, and beyond, with The Mercury Theatre on the Air's infamous radio broadcast of War of the Worlds . Last night, a very different genius of American reinvention, and media expression, Barack Obama , presented the glossiest, and most expensive, political broadcast in American history . Much has changed in 70 years, in terms of credulity among the masses - and much remains the same. One thing does seem strikingly similar: America's dependence on the media, for information, and entertainment. The dangers in the time of Orson are the same as in the time of Obama - when the twain meet too closely (as in some slurs that repeat and multiply over the blogosphere). For the world now, Eyewear hopes Mr. Obama can win next week; but fears, as much as any Martian invasion, the menace of Alaska's own monster, so close to the lip of power.

The actor who played Sulu in the Star Trek films and TV series is currently having a spat with the actor who played Kirk, in same. Takei and Shatner , according to the great eccentric Canadian thespian on his blog, have been at odds for maybe 40 years or more. Shatner has been lashing out at his friends and foes lately, using the Internet, set to stun, as his weapon of choice. According to Entertainment Weekly , he even complained about not being given a part in 2009's much-anticipated new Star Trek film, starring the guy who plays Sylar on Heroes as the guy with the pointy ears (from Sylar to Spock being a small stretch for man). Meanwhile, the real Spock was given a walk-on. Shatner has been weird science for a while - his poetry and song recordings are notoriously bad, and so is much else in his life. But he's also lived through personal tragedy, and being lampooned for years. His bread and butter has also been his body-hugging hairshirt. My father went to school with Sha...

Ever notice how some things just suddenly become part of the zeitgeist? Like Palin , of late, Helium 3 has been making the news - expect more in future. India has just started its own space race to the moon. It turns out the rare isotope Helium 3 (scientists, correct me if I am wrong) is less rare on the moon than here on terra firm, and can be used in sec-gen fusion reactions to generate extraordinary amounts of energy. Moon-mining may soon leap back into our lives, and off the ragged pages of Asimov 's mouldering paperbacks.

Sad news. The German science fiction icon, Eva Pflug , has died. Her ultra-modern TV series, Space Patrol , which began the year of my birth, 1966, was the Star Trek of Germany, with all that entails. I didn't know of the show at the time, of course, but came across it 30 years later, in 1996, when I was working for a TV production company in Montreal, Canada, that had been hired to translate the series into English, for possible broadcast on a dedicated science fiction channel in the US. I did some work on the show, and got to know her work then. This retro-memory, like most kitsch, leaves a bitter-sweet taste. Now, 12 years later, 30 seems as far away as some interstellar planetoid - and as likely. Time bends, indeed.