Picture a Stephen King novel directed by Steven Spielberg, with a score by John Carpenter, and a beautifully balanced touch of nostalgia and you have the wondrous, scary, funny, and exciting ride that is Netflix’s latest winner, Stranger Things. Created by Matt and Ross Duffer, the series is set in Indiana in the year,…
Category: Caught In The Net(flix)
The Mind Reels Chats: TIFF15 – Les Revenants Showrunner Fabrice Gobert
If you missed the amazing French series, Les Revenants (The Returned) when it aired on the CBC, you can chain-watch all 8 episodes of season 1 now on Netflix. That’s what I did as soon as Sue and I were offered the chance to chat with showrunner Fabrice Gobert during TIFF. We chatted about the…
Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of D. Moreau (2014) – David Gregory
It’s odd. While I was reviewing the 1996 version of The Island of Dr. Moreau a couple of months ago, I was made aware of this fantastic documentary. I missed seeing it when it screened her in Toronto. It just seemed so strange, I was literally watching the film when my Facebook feed notified me…
Broadchurch – Season 1
Yes, I’m behind on coming across this series, but being able to watch the entire first season in two sittings, made for a beautiful, heart- wrenching and stunning experience. Doctor Who favourites David Tennant, and Arthur Darvill alongside Olivia Colman, Jodie Whitaker, David Bradley and Charlotte Rampling take us to a remote small town in…
Alien Abduction (2014) – Matty Beckerman
The found footage genre is packed full of material at this point, and it’s probably not going anywhere for a while, just like ‘reality’ television, I think we’ll be stuck with it. So when this one popped up on my Netflix recommendations, I knew, at some point, I’d get around to watching it. For the most…
Red State (2011) – Kevin Smith
When a writer/director takes on a genre that aren’t often associated with, people are going to get antsy, and some people are just going to hate it no matter what. I found myself looking forward to seeing what Kevin Smith did with a different genre, and took a look at his film Red State, currently…
The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012) – Peter Lord
Great sight gags, brilliant animation, a fun story and a talented voice cast make this one a treasure trove. I love the work of Aardman Studios, and this one did not fail to entertain. Based on his book, Gideon Defoe wrote the screenplay that brings this fun-filled story to life. The film features a captain and…
Mirage Men (2013) – John Lundberg, Roland Denning & Kypros Kyprianou
This was an interesting documentary, based on the book by Mark Pilkington, no matter where you come down on the subject of UFOs. I like to stride the middle of the road, I really want to believe that they are out there, and they may very well have been here before. But there is so…
Pumpkinhead (1988) – Stan Winston
The always so cool Lance Henriksen stars in this creature-feature, cabin-in-the-woods horror film that was the directorial debut of the late, and much-missed Stan Winston. In a film packed with people I recognize, two of them from my favorite television show ever, Quantum Leap, the film plays within the typical B-movie tropes, but with a…
Moneyball (2011) – Bennett Miller
I finally got around to seeing this one. Based on the true story, and book by Michael Lewis with a script by Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane the General Manager of the Oakland A’s, who with the help of statistical whiz kid, Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), uses statistics and computer…
Space Pirate Captain Harlock (2013) – Shinji Aramaki
I never saw the original Harlock series growing up, I was all about Battle of the Planets and Starblazers (when I could find it), but every now and again I would come across an image of this pirate captain, scarred face, patch on his right eye, black cloak billowing, with an enormous skull and crossbones…
The Book Thief (2013) – Brian Percival
I read the book for this one some time ago, and had forgotten enough of it so that I was coming in to the story fresh, and wow did I enjoy this one. Great performances, a stirring score, thank you John Williams and an emotional and human tale from a script by Michael Petroni, based…
