The second Avatar trailer is out now. Refreshingly, if this trailer is anything to go by, Avatar appears to have a strong character driven plot, as well as the best special effects we've seen. Few directors of big budget effects films seem to bother with decent stories lately. Just think Independence Day or Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Watch the trailer below and tell us what you think. Director James Cameron may have produced just the right mix. We'll soon see. Avatar is out December 18.

The actors behind two of Star Trek's most recognisable characters, Leonard Nimoy as "Spock" and William Shatner as "James T. Kirk", have come together to reveal a life long friendship in a new 75 minute documentary, Mind Meld: Secrets Behind the Voyage of a Lifetime. The original Star Trek television show featuring the two actors ran from 1966 to 1969 and then evolved into a series of highly successful feature films in the 70s and 80s. Nimoy recently reprised his role as Spock in the recent J.J. Abram’s Star Trek feature film series relaunch.

Watching Science fiction and fantasy films is a fantastic way to experience the end of everything without the hassle of you or your friends dying horribly at the same time. Luckily for those in love with depictions of death and destruction, Hollywood appears fixated lately. Apocalyptic scenarios are all the rage. Chaos is in. Nuclear Armageddon, natural calamities, zombies, alien invasions, there are numerous ways the human race could be wiped from the face of the earth and films and TV shows appear to be adopting them as creative premises in a frantic rush of entertainment.

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Early reviews of Michael J. Bassett's Solomon Kane, which had its first public screening at the Toronto International Film Festival last week (and reportedly one of the largest midnight turnouts ever), have generally been positive. Fans, as you might expect, are considerably more enthusiastic than some in the "official" press, but that is only to be expected.

Based on Robert E. Howard's pulp fiction about a sombre and no-nonsense 16^th Century Puritan Soldier, both Howard's stories and I suspect Bassett's movie are an acquired taste: a seriously grim and grimly serious tale about one man's blood soaked and gore-splattered quest for redemption. Better known perhaps as the creator of Conan, Robert E. Howard wrote the Solomon Kane stories for Weird Tales in the late 1920s and early 1930s, setting them in a brutal and violent period in which the ascent of reason was in conflict with superstition (not unlike today when you come to think about it).