The Snarky Cats of Ulthar

The Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix (1-4) follows X-Men Scott Summers, aka Cyclops, and Jean Grey, aka Phoenix, as they’re sent by the Askani Sanctity to 19th century London to stop Apocalypse from taking over the world with the help of the newly created Mister Sinister. Mister Sinister’s origin story is basically a cross between Faust and Frankenstein: his theories on evolution and terrible experiments in pursuit of science lead him to Apocalypse who offers him freedom from mortality and morality so he can take his work to its full consequences. At first, Nathaniel Essex rejects the offer, but after his wife dies in childbirth along with their child, he changes his mind. However, Apocalypse’s plan to rush evolution by eliminating the weak with a genetically engineered virus clashes with Sinister’s more scientific approach. This leads him to change the virus so that it only affects his new master, who is forced to go back into hibernation, thus buying Sinister some time to st

Hello, there! This is the first of two posts about X-Men villain En Sabah Nur, aka Apocalypse. This is a review of X-Men: Apocalypse and will be followed by another review of The Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix . What do these stories have in common? Well, they both show Apocalypse attempting to fulfil his plans to cleanse the world of the weak and failing spectacularly. Aw, poor genocidal baby... I know people in general hate this movie, and while I’d never call it good, I have to admit it annoyed me a lot less than X-Men: First Class . That’s probably because I don’t care much about Apocalypse as a character, but the rich assholes from the Hellfire Club are some of my favourite X-Men villains. All I know about Apocalypse is that he created Mister Sinister, has the power to make Angel scary, and has four minions known as the Four Horsemen. Oh, and that he’s grey, but for some reason they decided to make him blue in the movie. Anyway, most of it checks out. It also helps tha

The end of the world according to H P Lovecraft naturally involves death, chaos, eldritch cosmic monstrosities, and tentacles. We’ll be focusing on two harbingers of doom for Humankind: Cthulhu + the Old Ones and Nyarlathotep. CTHULHU & THE OLD ONES This is what the dreaded Necronomicon says about the Old Ones and their ultimate goal: 'The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, the Old Ones shall be. (...) Man rules now where They ruled once; They shall soon rule where man rules now. After summer is winter, after winter summer. They wait patient and potent, for here shall They reign again'   The Dunwich Horror This clearly does not bode well for Humankind. Cthulhu is the Great Old Ones’ High Priest, and they’ve all been on Earth for millions of years. Travelling from the dark cosmos, they arrived on our world well before the first humans were born. Their being and abilities are dependent on specific star alignments, which haven’t been right in a very long time. To make matters w

Thor: Ragnarok was nearly universally praised, not just as the best of the Thor movies (which, let’s face it, wasn’t much of a challenge), but also as a great movie in general. Of course, if I agreed, I wouldn’t be writing this review. Warning: SPOILERS . I like What We Do in The Shadows , both the movie and the TV series, and also JoJo Rabbit , but Taika Waititi would never be my first choice to direct what should be a tragedy. That he turns everything into comedy is one of the problems with this movie. The other is that most of it isn’t even set on Asgard. For those of you who don’t know, the Ragnarök is the end of the world in Northern mythology. It’s basically the Viking apocalypse. Loki and his allies attack the other gods, and everyone dies in the war. It’s all very tragic and bloody. Of course, Marvel comics are different than the original myths, but it’s still about the destruction of Asgard and the Asgardians. Since the movies haven’t shown us that many Asgardians, you’d thin

British productions have managed to attain an aura of superior quality and intelligence in the eyes of TV audiences around the world. It’s why many shows that would be derided as dull and downright ridiculous end up being considered quality TV. Well, as people who had the misfortune of seeing several of ITV's Agatha Christie adaptations ( Agatha Christie's Poirot and Agatha Christie's Marple ), we’d like to put forth the notion that a British accent and crappy TV aren’t mutually exclusive. Like in any adaptation, changes must be made, but it’s clear some were only made in a misguided attempt to appeal to modern viewers. Action sequences were added to some of the stories, like in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (2000) presumably to make things more exciting. Stories were also sexed up for no apparent reason, like The Mystery of the Blue Train (2006), which changed the thieving and murdering duo into a couple of perverts who get off on murder. Sexual orientations are a lot mor

Bedtime Wishes (2019) was the last one of the Sleepless Society: The Series miniseries I watched, and definitely the least. I was shocked to find out it had been the second one to be released, right after Nyctophobia . Considering what a complete mess it is, I expected it to have been either the first one, when the series was still trying to find its footing, or the last one, when everyone had run out of ideas. Needless to say, there will be SPOILERS . Nara becomes involved with her friend May’s new boss, Rain, after he invites her to stay at his resort. At first, he seems perfect, but soon he begins to show signs of two very different personalities, one of which is disturbed and violent. Nara also befriends Dao, a resort employee dealing with a violent ex-boyfriend, John. This brings her into conflict with John’s father, Sompot, who’s the right-hand man of both Rain and Rain’s controlling father. Could it be him who’s trying to scare Nara away from the resort? And whose skeleton was

Two Pillows & A Lost Soul (2020) was the third one of the Sleepless Society: The Series miniseries I watched, but it was the fourth to be released. The quality decline was noticeable, but there were still things to like, and everything came together in an explosive finale. This is a clear case of diminishing returns. Needless to say: there will be  SPOILERS . Kate is an actress turned motivational speaker trapped in an abusive marriage to an up-and-coming politician, Chad. She has a recurring dream of killing him that’s becoming more and more intense. She’s getting closer to finally filing for divorce, when a friend, Ploy, throws her a party and hires two male prostitutes. Kate sleeps with one, Top, and wakes up next to the other’s dead body. The victim was killed exactly the same way she’d been dreaming of killing her husband, but Top confesses to the murder. His younger brother, Tew, doesn’t believe he’s guilty and goes to work for Kate in the hopes of finding enough evidence t

Nyctophobia (2019) was the second of the Sleepless Society: The Series miniseries I watched, but it was the first to be released. It has twists, but thankfully it’s a lot less complicated than Insomnia . Meena is still grieving the death of her young son, Arm, when a boy who looks like him shows up at the hospital where she works and claims to be Arm’s reincarnation. Meena tries to remain sceptic, but slowly begins to accept the idea that it’s possible the boy is telling the truth thanks to the influence of Sita, a spiritual leader. Meena’s friends, Karn, who’s been infatuated with her for years, and Wan, a therapist, remain suspicious. However, the new Arm proves to be both resourceful and dangerous. Karn asks his cop friend, John, to investigate, but the truth matters less and less to Meena, whose bond to the boy keeps getting stronger until she begins actively fighting against anything that can take away her “son”. For me, the biggest problem with this show is the screentime taken

Insomnia (2019) was the first one of the Sleepless Society: The Series miniseries that I watched. In fact, I binge-watched it. As someone who sometimes suffers from insomnia and occasionally has vivid nightmares, this sounded like a very interesting premise.  This isn’t going to be an episode-by-episode review, and I’m not going to go over every little detail. However, there will be SPOILERS . Iya suffers from insomnia, which makes it difficult for her to distinguish between dreams and reality. She also has a recurring dream of her mother killing someone, which may be a real memory. Years ago, Iya’s father was murdered along with one of Iya’s teachers, Toon, and her mother disappeared. Everyone believes Iya’s mother killed her husband after she found out he was having an affair with Toon, and then escaped to the mainland. Iya doesn’t remember what happened that night. At the advice of her therapist, she returns to the island where it all took place. People aren’t happy that Iya is bac

Sleepless Society: The Series is a Thai drama and suspense series on Netflix consisting of four independent miniseries made between 2019 and 2020. They are, in order of release, Nyctophobia , Bedtime Wishes , Insomnia , and Two Pillows & A Lost Soul . I’m going to begin with an overview of the series as a whole, which I’ll keep spoiler-free, and then post separate reviews of each of the miniseries with spoilers. Most of the miniseries have things in common: a lead female character, plot twists, complex morality, no tidy endings, interesting characters, uneven acting, some hammy dialogue, and satisfying resolutions. Each has thirteen episodes and there’s a midpoint for all of them where things begin to drag a little as the writers stretch the plot to delay the ending. Insomnia is the one in which this is less noticeable, Two Pillows & A Lost Soul is the one in which this is the most obvious. Still, the ending always, or almost always, makes up for it. I know Netflix has a bad