Johnny Depp is often looked on as the Tim Burton’s muse, the actor who has inspired many of his works and allowed himself to be moulded into the embodiment of Burton’s imaginings: Edward Scissorhands, his interpretation of the life and career of Ed Wood, his conception of Ichabod Crane and the Hatter from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Yet on this occasion the roles are reversed, and it is Depp, acting as producer and instigator, who has brought Burton to his own dream project, an update of the gothic American show Dark Shadows.
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Zombies have been a theme in horror movies since the 1930’s, from White Zombie through I Walked with a Zombie to Plan 9 From Outer Space, but it wasn’t until 1968 that George Romero made the subgenre relevant with Night of the Living Dead and its sequels, Dawn, Day and Land, using the mindless hordes to comment on racism, consumerism and modern war, pushing deeper than any other director had. In recent years, perhaps reflecting the overwhelming population pressure and demands from the media to conform, zombies have enjoyed a resurgence; The Walking Dead in comics and on television, the infected of [REC] and 28 Days Later, the forthcoming World War Z. So how does a director find something new to say? Simple. Say it in Spanish.
In 2011, Glen Duncan introduced us to Jacob Marlowe, who believed himself to be the last werewolf. Through diaries he shared wisdom accumulated over two centuries of walking the earth as a man always possessed by beast, driving and guiding him even outwith its monthly manifestation, his perspective on life skewed by his compulsion to bloody violence and the inherited memories of the consumed dead within him. 
The quality of a film can be gauged from how well the director, or in this case directors, care for their audience. Do they pay attention to details, or do they hope that any production and narrative corners they have cut can be hidden if the fill the screen with explosions and lens flare? Is it clear that they have made something they wish to be proud of, pushing for the best from themselves and their collaborators, or does it feel rushed and permeated with indifference? Unfortunately, it is too often the case that as long as the lowest common denominator of the audience is satisfied, there is no desire to achieve anything further.
Best know for presenting the shows Atom, Science and Islam and Shock and Awe: The History of Electricity, Professor Jim Al-Khalili, OBE, has been awarded the Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize for science communication and is an Honorary Fellow of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. On Thursday 12th April he was kind enough to spend some time with us after the Edinburgh International Science Festival event Paradox: The Nine Greatest Enigmas in Science where he was launching his book of the same name.
As premises go, it would be easy to look on this as final proof that Hollywood is creatively bankrupt: a movie based upon a children’s board game. Yet behind the camera is Peter Berg, a man with extensive experience as writer, actor and director, and here the cast is strong, led by Taylor Kitsch, most recently seen as John Carter, Alexander Skarsgård, True Blood’s Eric Northman, Liam Neeson, the Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn himself, and… Rihanna? Hope has not yet abandoned ship.
Considering the controversy sparked by the novel The Monk upon publication in 1796 by Matthew Gregory Lewis, newly appointed to the House of Commons at that time, this latest adaptation has arrived with little brouhaha; perhaps times have changed such that the themes of corruption, cruelty and abuse within the church are no longer shocking, or perhaps those of us who watch foreign language films are already considered irredeemable.
Back in 2008, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) got home after his first bout of super-heroics and outing himself as Iron Man to find Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) in his house talking about something called The Avenger Initiative. And fans went justifiably wild. Four years and five films later and here we are with the highly anticipated release of Marvel Avengers Assemble.
Launched at Eastercon 2012, Rocket Science is not a traditional science fiction anthology. None of the featured writers are well known, but all are previously published and many have worked in space science or related fields, but the oddity in this collection, focused on the immediate past, present and future of space travel within our own solar system and staying within the limits of possibility, is that there are also a handful of essays written to the same specification.
Director Tarsem Singh has a history of reinterpreting the work of others, from the great works of art that inspired the music video of Losing My Religion and the sets of the Jennifer Lopez/Vince Vaughn thriller The Cell to the Greek myths of Immortals, even the obscure Bulgarian film Yo Ho Ho which he adapted into his masterpiece The Fall. Here he creates a skewed version of a more familiar tale, that of the exiled princess Snow White, banished into the woods by her wicked stepmother, where she finds safety and shelter with seven dwarves.
