mcnpauls

Nick Cook is a leading aerospace journalist with a particular interest in secret military "black projects". He brings a lucid eye to the subject of UFos and concentrates on the view that they may well be man-made flying craft with a history stretching back to the famous "Foo Fighters" of World war 2.

During the course of the show, he also visits the Weceslas Mine in Poland with its discoverer, Igor Witkowski. Cook's best-selling non-fiction book "The Hunt for Zero Point" contains a fascinating chapter on Witkowski's claims that this mine hosted an ultra-top secret SS research project during the second world war that was looking into anti-gravity and exotic physics.

My one criticism of this documentary is that it crams in so many fascinating ideas that deserve to be covered in greater depth. Cook definitely has the material for a whole series, and I'd love to see him do a whole episode on Foo Fighters, another on the Nazi Bell project, etc.

My wife and I finally got around to watching this R1 purchase we made a couple of years back of an ambitious film that sank without trace in both cinemas and on DVD.

Has anyone seen it? It really is worth seeking out. My better half thought it was excellent, and while I'm just too much of a fan of Conrad in general and this novel in particular to share her view, I definitely enjoyed it.

Willem Dafoe and Irene Jacob are actors who always leave me cold, but Sam Neill and Rufus Sewell (whom I cannot abide normally) are both great as the villains. The production detail is flawless in conveying Indonesia just before the First World War, and the scenery and photography is beautiful. particularly effective is the island where Dafoe's character lives as a recluse with its tropical villa and abandoned wharf and coal mine. The score, too, is very strong.

There's rather too much narration (from the always excellent Bill Paterson, though) and Simon Callow gives a performance that is hammy even by his standards, but, mercifully, is hardly in it.

Richard Lester and Harold Pinter were developing a version of this in the 1980s, which was never made.