[rating=3]
144 pages • Dark Horse • September 9th, 2009 [PB]

A collection of issues 21-25 from the Season Eight comic books. But does it translate to the medium, asks Christopher Bryant?

In Predators and Prey there are five stories and five different authors. They range from the dramatic and emotional depths synonymous with the series to the esoteric geek-fest moments that were restrained by the medium of television.

[rating=5]
Released on November 16, 2009

A seasonal album that captures all the magic and resists the sentimentality.

Hot on the heels of the uncompromising Abnormally Attracted To Sin, the luminous Midwinter Graces forms a cleansing antithesis to the former’s disenchantment.

American Idol’s Adam Lambert branded “Tasteless” and “vulgar”.

And all because he kissed a man on stage. Really? Get over it.

Indignation is a useful smokescreen for homophobia.

Clementine, Sweet Bird of Youth.

The one and only Living Fashion Doll sings about the joys of Youth!

Old Father Time will never harm you if your charms remain!

[rating=3]
Fr: 165 min • Peccadillo Pictures • DVD

Young director Aleem Khan has a mixed reaction to Born in ’68.

The film is fortunate to have a strong cast, with Laetitia Casta giving a particularly good performance as Catherine. Despite the poor makeup, which more than fails in transforming her into an aged women, Casta still manages to pull off her older years gracefully and with conviction.

[rating=2]
212 pages • Ward, Lock, and Company • 1891

This classic book starts out well enough but Wilde looses control of the plot as it meanders toward its conclusion.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is an acknowledged classic in the canon of English literature. Reading it through one has to wonder why. It is not so much the book itself but the associations with the book’s author, his history.

What it means to be in the gay subculture.

The implications of the gay subculture, both politically and socially.

One battle won certainly does not mean that the fighting is done, and until there is an understanding that there are as many acceptable ways to live as there are people in the world, our war is not over.

[rating=4]
US: 99 min • TLA Releasing • DVD

Starting out in 1984, Edge of Seventeen is a coming-out story set against a time of social and political change.

The film captures the possibility of youth, and the edginess of that conservative decade the 1980s. The tracks by Yazoo, Thompson Twins, and Bronski Beat are for anyone who lived through the era a reminder of how conflicted a time it was.

[rating=4]
261 pages • Fourth Estate • July 23rd, 2009 [PB]

A captivating novel about the nature of truth and identity set in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Hamilton exhibits a genuine warmth and sympathy for his characters, for all their flaws and failings, which is very life-affirming. He understands how difficult it is for adults ever to be truly ‘grown-up’; however capable and stable they may appear on the surface, a lost, frightened child cowers not far beneath.

[rating=4]
256 pages • Bloomsbury • July 6th, 2009 [PB]

The author of Snow Falling on Cedars is the story of the life and death of reclusive John William Barry, as told by his loyal friend and confidant, Neil Countryman.

Their story forms a meditation on modern urban life in the West – hamburger world as John William scathingly describes it – with its loss of contact with, and profit-driven destruction of, the natural world.