I was delighted to come home from TIFF and be able to unplug and unwind with a tropical getaway. Okay, I didn’t really get away, but thanks to Jay Hernandez, Perdita Weeks, Zachary Knighton, Stephen Hill, Amy Hill and Tim Kang, I got to spend some time in Hawaii alongside the new take on Magnum…
X (2022) – Ti West
I’ve quite enjoyed Ti West’s film to date, so was eager to see his latest effort X. Set in 1979, it looks a little too glossy and well-shot to be the grindhouse film it feels like its meant to mimic, but it plays really well, and tells an interesting story about sex, growing old, love,…
Always (1989) – Steven Spielberg
The second film Spielberg released in 1989 was an update of the classic film A Guy Named Joe starring Holly Hunter, Richard Dreyfuss, John Goodman, Brad Johnson, and Audrey Hepburn. I was in a completely different place for this film than I was for Last Crusade, I was worlds away from where I was with…
TIFF ’22: The Fabelmans
I have been a Spielberg fan for as long as I can remember. The first film he saw was The Greatest Show On Earth, which affected him. Mine was Jaws, and I can say the same thing. Over the decades I have followed him on his storytelling journey, embracing each new film that came along,…
Hill Street Blues (1981) – Fecund Hand Rose, and Rites of Spring
Alan Rachins wrote Fecund Hand Rose which first aired on 25 March, 1981. The creepy Esterhaus (Michael Conrad) storyline about dating a newly turned eighteen-year-old gets pulled a little into the light. It doesn’t get treated for what it is, he’s been grooming her through high school. They were dating before he turned eighteen! They…
Inferno (2016) – Ron Howard
Tom Hanks returns for a final outing as Dan Brown’s brilliant symbologist Robert Langdon in Inferno. This time out, Langdon is operating on the back foot from the beginning when he awakes in a hospital and is told by Dr. Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones) that he was grazed by a bullet, and has suffered a…
TIFF ’22: A Man of Reason
Korean film star Jung Woo-sung makes his directorial debut with the crime thriller, A Man of Reason. The story is a familiar one, but Jung’s style and performance make this entry exceptional, if a little off. Su-hyuk (Jung) has spent the past decade in jail for his boss, he kept his head down, kept quiet,…
TIFF ’22: While We Watched
Vinay Shukla takes us behind the scenes of Indian news media and journalism as he follows the story of Ravish Kumar of NDTV. He’s dedicated to being an objective news reporter, but in the flare of nationalism and populism being touted by the rest of the news channels, anyone willing to speak out against the…
Fringe (2011) – Neither Here Nor There, and One Night in October
Season four of Fringe, Neither Here Nor There, debuted on 23 September, 2011 and was written by J.H. Wyman and Jeff Pinkner from a story they developed alongside Akiva Goldsman. Watch for a glimpse of guest actor Joe Flannigan of Stargate: Atlantis fame! An uneasy alliance exists between the two universes, but Peter (Joshua Jackson)…
TIFf ’22: Patrick and the Whale
I have been enchanted by cetaceans from the first time I heard whale song in my early teens. They fascinate me. And while our history with our fellow mammals is violent and bloody at best, we’ve slowly begun to put that behind us as we work to learn more about these amazing beings we share…
The Mind Reels 