Face/Off (1997) – John Woo

  Hong Kong action meets big budget Hollywood in this entry on the 101 Action Movies list as John Woo fills the screens with stand-offs, explosions, and his signature balletic gunplay. John Travolta and Nicolas Cage play interchangeable roles as FBI agent Sean Archer and terrorist Castor Troy. Travolta as Archer is desperate, and obsessed…

Gattaca (1997) – Andrew Niccol

  The 101 Sci-Fi Movies brings us a tale that could be a possible future, where we can improve ourselves genetically before birth, and that defines who we are and what we can do with our lives. A decidedly future-noir film, this one features a stand out cast, Ethan Hawke, Jude Law, Uma Thurman, Alan Arkin,…

Air Force One (1997) – Wolfgang Petersen

  Wolfgang Petersen is back on the 101 Action Movies list, and this time he’s joined forces with Harrison Ford, who portrays U.S. President James Marshall. It’s a fun film, with a few plot holes but with a standout cast including Gary Oldman, Glenn Close, Dean Stockwell, Xander Berkeley, William H. Macy, and Wendy Crewson….

The Rock (1996) – Michael Bay

Michael Bay finds his way back onto the 101 Action Movies to see before you die, and brings an impressive cast with him, in this, my favorite of his films. With his usual pacing and editing, Bay makes a full-out action movies with a surprisingly sympathetic villain. Ed Harris plays General Hummel, who has lost…

Mission: Impossible (1996) – Brian De Palma

  “You’re mission Mr. Phelps, should you choose to accept it, is to continue working your way through the 101 Action Movies list, by watching Brian De Palma’s big screen remake of the Bruce Geller created, beloved, television series…. this message will self-destruct in 5 seconds.” Tom Cruise plays Ethan Hunt, he and his team, under…

The Gold Rush (1925) – Charlie Chaplin

  Welcome to a new book for me to work my way through , this time it’s Great Movies, 100 Years of Film. The book itself is broken into genres and each genre has about 10 films, but with each recommendation (many of which I’ve seen), there are 5 or more additional titles that tie-in…

The Newsroom S02E09 – Election Night Part II

  And just like that Season 2 comes to a close. Sigh. Clocking in with 9 episodes this season, the season finale of Aaron Sorkin’s fantastic show, comes to a close by really telling relationship stories this time around as the jobs of everyone at News Night hangs in the balance. As November 8, 2012…

GoldenEye (1995) – Martin Campbell

  Welcome back to the 101 Action Movies list 007. After a number of years that had Pierce Brosnan’s name bandied about for taking over the role of James Bond, he finally takes on the coveted role and makes it his own. It also features one of my favorite pre-credit sequences in the Bond saga,…

Da Vinci’s Demons Season 1 – Blu-Ray

  Anchor Bay Canada was kind enough to send me a copy of the first season of Da Vinci’s Demons, which was released on September 3. I was a little behind, even with our peripheral coverage of TIFF. But no sooner did I start this series when I was completely hooked. From David S. Goyer,…

TIFF 2013: Gerontophilia – Bruce La Bruce

  I wanted to see this one primarily because the lovely and talented Katie Boland is in it, and additionally because there really aren’t many films out there which examine the gerontophilia fetish – certainly not from such an intimate and beautiful standpoint, at any rate. As director Bruce La Bruce stated during the Q&A…