John Carter (12)
Disney's adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Mars-set sci-fi series didn't exactly tank at the box office, but it won't be remembered as a big earner either. Still, it has its fans and may yet find more in this DVD/Blu-Ray debut. Director Andrew Stanton was also the man behind WALL-E and the cast includes Samantha Morton, Ciaran Hinds, Dominic West and Willem Dafoe. Can't be all bad, then.
Hit & Miss (18)
Paul Abbott's dark revenge drama has just finished its run on Sky Atlantic where it gave us the unlikely pairing of England's rainy north-west and up-for-anything US indie queen Chloe Sevigny. Sevigny plays Mia, a pre-op male-to-female transsexual who becomes guardian to a son she didn't know she had, as well as to his half-siblings. Adding to what is already a fairly dysfunctional family unit is the fact that her main source of income is contract killings in the Manchester underworld -
The Message (PG)
Moustapha Akkad's 1976 film about Muhammad comes to Blu-Ray. Akkad made two version of the film – in Arabic and English – and used two different casts. In keeping with Islamic rules about depiction of the prophet, Muhammad is neither seen nor heard, so this English language version is led by Anthony Quinn as Muhammad's uncle, Hamza. Irene Papas and Alain Delon also star and the film was part-financed by Muammar Gaddafi. As a postscript, the Syrian-born Akkad was killed by a suicide bomber in Jordan in 2005. An epic, in every sense.
Falling Skies:
Season One (15)
This highly-regarded US science fiction series was produced by Steven Spielberg and screened on the TNT channel in the US. ER's Noah Wyle stars alongside Drew Roy and Moon Bloodgood (the spunky resistance pilot in Terminator Salvation), and the action takes place in Boston six months after an apocalyptic invasion by insect-like aliens known colloquially as "skitters". If you like the sound of it, season two premieres on the UK's FX channel on Tuesday.
Barry Didcock
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article