The Toronto After Dark Film Festival unveils its International Shorts programme today. With an all virtual format this year, the Festival is not presenting a short before each feature, but is bundling them into two separate viewing packages, the International and the Canadian Shorts. Both collections feature a wealth of talent, and storytelling styles, and…
Author: TD Rideout
TAD 2021: Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It dir. Yernar Nurgaliyev
Kazakhstan delivers Toronto After Dark’s Opening Night Gala Film, Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It, and it sets up perfectly what to expect from TAD if this is your first time. There is going to be blood, wild on-screen deaths, laugh out loud moments, uncomfortable humour, and a lot of cross genre entertainment. Datsan (Daniar Alshinov)…
Mission: Impossible (1969) – The Glass Cage, and Doomsday
There’s a lot going on in The Glass Cage, the first episode up this week as I continue my journey through Mission Impossible: The Complete Series. Written by Paul Playdon from a story by Alf Harris, the episode first debuted on 2 February, 1969. I was absolutely delighted to see that it also featued Larry…
Foundation and Empire (1952) – Isaac Asimov
The second book in the foundation series ups the stakes for humanity a bit, as we get a glimpse inside the still crumbling Empire, and the reclusive Foundation and the traders that have sprung from it. We learn that the Foundation is in someways becoming corrupt as well, as some despotism is occuring, and it…
Alien 3: The Unproduced First-Draft Screenplay by William Gibson (2021) – Pat Cadigan
Author Pat Cadigan takes William Gibson’s original script for Alien 3 and transforms it into a white knuckle thriller ride of a novel that gives us a glimpse at what could have been in the Alien film series. Fans know the convoluted story of how Alien 3 came to the screen, and that were countless…
The X-Files (2000) – All Things, and Brand X
Gillian Anderson writes and directs the first episode up this week (it’s also the first episode directed by a woman, that’s a little sad), All Things, which first aired on 9 April, 2000. So she pulls a triple threat in this story, because she’s not only behind the camera, but Scully is almost in every…
Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix (2007) – David Yates
Director David Yates takes over the big chair for the next instalment in the Warner Brothers’ adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s magical novels, and he’d best get comfortable, because he’s going to see Harry Potter through the rest of his cinematic trip, over the course of the next four films. Much like Goblet of Fire, the…
Willow (1988) – Ron Howard
I remember the first time I saw Willow. I know where I was, and I remember how it swept me up in its narrative. I knew I had to see it the moment it told me it was from the imagination of George Lucas. I knew who Ron Howard was, but I was a teenager…
M*A*S*H (1977) – Change Day, Images, and The M*A*S*H Olympics
Laurence Marks delivers Change Day, which first aired on 8 November, 1977. It’s announced that the militaty will be changing its scrip to keep the counterfeiters and black marketeers at bay. Charles (David Ogden Stiers) comes up with a money-making scheme to buy up the locals’ scrip at a reduced rate, and then exchange it,…
Dagon (2001) – Stuart Gordon
So I figured I would take a look at another Lovecraft adaptation, and despite the title of the film, the story is more in line with The Shadow Over Innsmouth, with a slight lean towards Dagon. And while I appreciate what Gordon set out to do, he’s hampered by horrible lighting and photography, and terrible…
The Mind Reels 