I was going to try and come up with a clever title or gimmick for this, like Sue’s Top 12 of 2012, or something. But I didn’t want to restrict myself with a number, and the fact is, one of the reasons we started the Mind Reels was because we felt that things we loved…
Month: December 2012
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – Stanley Kubrick
As we stand on the cusp of a New Year (2013! Wow, does that sound futuristic!) I thought I would end the year with this classic from the 101 Sci-Fi Movies list. Made in 1968, this stunning visual achievement, which took home the Academy Award that year for Best Effects, it still stands a…
Firewalker (1986) – J. Lee Thompson
The goofy 80s adventure movies continue with this goofy, campy clunker starring Chuck Norris, Louis Gossett Jr. and Melody Anderson. Stealing from the vein of Raiders of the Lost Ark (right down th an appearance by John Rhys-Davies) and Romancing the Stone, the film pairs up Chuck as Max Donigan and Louis as Leo Porter, a pair of adventurers who…
Planet of the Apes (1968) – Franklin J. Schaffner
The further I get into the 101 Sci-Fi Movies list, the more films I know, and am enjoying the chance to revisit. It’s been a number of years since I’ve seen this classic film, based on a novel by Pierre Boulle and a script by Michael Wilson and The Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling. Schlocky fun, it…
Les Miserables (2012) – Tom Hooper
So after you win an Academy Award for the King’s Speech, what do you do? If you’re Tom Hooper apparently you take on the world’s most beloved musical Les Miserables. The stage version, with music and lyrics by Claude-Michel Schonberg, Alain Boublil, Jean-Marc Natel and Herbert Kretzmer seems to have run for time immemorial, based on the…
On the Set – Bomb Girls
If the fire of excitement were to be transmuted into light, then Sue and I would be as stars in the firmament, turning night into day… We’d been invited for a visit to the Bomb Girls set, and Sue and I were over the moon! Bomb Girls burst on the scene in January of this year,…
Doctor Who Christmas Special 2012 – The Snowmen
So Steven Moffat brings us our annual dose of Who Christmas, as well as adding something else to the once-normal-but-now-to-be-feared list, and while the adventure itself is fun and features Richard E. Grant and the voice of Ian McKellen, its most enjoyable in its continuing quest to discover who is Clara Oswin Oswald?!? This…
Happy Holidays 2012 From Tim and Sue!
So here it is the morning of the day… of new Doctor Who!! Or Les Miserables! (Or both!) Well for me anyway. Sue and I wanted to take a brief moment, while everyone flits about fullfilling their holiday obligations, eating and drinking more than they should and greeting friends and family into the warm hearth…
Noises Off… (1992) – Peter Bogdanovich
Stage comedy is wonderfully adapted in this all-star adaptation of Michael Frayn’s gut-busting play. If you’ve never seen this film, have a look at this cast… Michael Caine, Carol Burnett, Denholm Elliott, Julie Hagerty, Marilu Henner, Mark Linn-Baker, Christopher Reeve, and Nicollette Sheridan, who spends most of the film in her undergarments. With a cast…
Quatermass And The Pit (1967) – Roy Ward Baker
Release in North America as Five Million Years To Earth, the 101 Sci-Fi Movies brings a chilling, unnerving tale to me with this Hammer adaptation of a classic BBC serial. Quatermass and the Pit has it all, the devil, ghosts, psychic abilities, aliens and a UFO long-buried, all of these items are in service to…
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