A fiesta for the heart, and the souls. Coco is another proud feather for Pixar, and the House of Mouse. Pixar, since its first full length feature, Toy Story in 1995, has made some of my all time pieces of not only family entertainment, but heart-touching tales filled with humour, amazing art, brilliant stories and…
Author: TD Rideout
Acceptance (2014) – Jeff VanderMeer
The final book in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy is on the book shelf this week, and like its predecessors is immensely enjoyable with its ominous overtones even as it hints at something stunning, amazing and beyond human comprehension. We are taken back into Area X, and the government institution investigating the geographical anomaly, the…
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1990) – Transfigurations, and The Best of Both Worlds Part I
Captain’s log: stardate 43957.2 Rene Echevarria penned the penultimate episode of Season 3, which first aired on 4 June, 1990. A wounded survivor is located on a planet, during the medical emergency, Geordi (LeVar Burton) is connected with the being, referred to as John Doe (Mark La Mura) and an energy discharge has a bit…
Return to Oz (1985) – Walter Murch
It’s time to go back to Oz, with Disney’s 1985 film Return to Oz, which serves to combine two of the original Frank L. Baum novels, The Marvellous Land of Oz, and of Ozma of Oz. And that magical land is the next stop in the DK Canada’s tome, The Movie Book. They recommend the…
The Wild Bunch (1969) – Sam Peckinpah
The next big stop in the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book as I return to the Historical chapter, is Peckinpah’s ultra-violent, wonderfully bloody take on the Hollywood Western. A group of professional outlaws out of step and out of time looking for one last score find themselves fatally wandering the line between…
Doctor Who (Matt Smith) – The Rebel Flesh, and The Almost People
This week’s journey in the TARDIS brings us a two-parter written by Matthew Graham that aired on 21 and 28 May, 2011. The Doctor (Smith), Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill) find themselves on 22nd century Earth, after getting caught in a solar tsunami. There, on a remote island, a factory and its employees…
Goodfellas (1990) – Martin Scorsese
Goodfellas is the final recommendation from the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book following my screening of The Godfather. Here’s the thing, the gangster genre has never been my favourite, or even high on my list of films I enjoy. But, I remember reading the original non-fiction book written by Nicholas Pileggi back…
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1990) – Sarek, and Menage a Troi
Captain’s log: stardate 43917.4 Airing on 14 May, 1990, Star Trek: The Next Generation began formal relations with the Original Series when it debuted the episode Sarek. Written by Peter S. Beagle based on an unpublished story by Marc Cushman and Jake Jacobs. Sarek (Mark Lenard returning to the role) at the age of 202,…
The Twilight Zone (1963) – The Old Man in the Cave, Uncle Simon, and Probe 7, Over and Out
My journey through the iconic television series, The Twilight Zone, continues this week as I delve into another three episodes of The Complete Series on blu-ray, available now from Paramount Pictures. First up is The Old Man in the Cave. This episode had a broadcast date of 8 November, 1963, and was written by series…
Star Trek: Chain of Attack (1987) – Gene DeWeese
Don’t be fooled by the depiction of the Enterprise on the cover, this story is set just after the Original Series, so very definitely still within the setting of the Five Year Mission. It also does something that would later be revisited as a television series, as a Federation starship (in this case the U.S.S….
