There’s always that moment when I find the soul of a specific convention, we look into one another’s eyes, recognize one another, and embrace. This year, it was slipping into the comfortable shoes of beloved fandoms, and seeing shared passions bringing people together. Set against the backdrop of the Metro Toronto Convention Center’s South Building,…
Das Boot (1981) – Wolfgang Petersen
The next big title in DK Canada’s highly enjoyable The Movie Book is the Oscar winning German film Das Boot from prolific director Wolfgang Petersen. This has always been a great film, and I love that I got to settle in and watch this film play out on my screen (again). Set during World War…
The Color of Pomegranates (1969) – Sergei Parajanov
The former Soviet Union brings me the next title to watch from DK Canada’s The Movie Book. It recommended the brilliant science fiction film Stalker, and then suggest this one in the What Else to Watch list. The film is a super-stylized retelling of the life of the Armenian poet, Sayat Nova, using lines from…
V – The Series (1985) – War of Illusions, The Secret Underground, and The Return
This week, we come to the conclusion of the ill-conceived weekly series of V. It could have been a lot better than it was, and even the reimagined series was stronger, but still not quite where it needed to be (though it is exponentially more enjoyable than this incarnation). First up is War of Illusions….
Dog Soldiers (2002) – Neil Marshall
Cult favorite director Neil Marshall takes on werewolves with his engaging take on them, in the action horror, Dog Soldiers, the next stop on the Monsters in the Movies book from DK Canada. The cast features Liam Cunningham, Kevin McKidd and Sean Pertwee as the film takes us to the highlands of Scotland, and into…
Star Trek: Voyager (1997) – Coda, and Blood Fever
Captain’s log: stardate 50518.6 Jeri Taylor pens this episode that first hit screens on 29 January, 1997. Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and Chakotay (Robert Beltran) are on a relaxing away mission, when something goes wrong, and the captain is killed. Janeway is guided into the afterlife by her father (Len Cariou), and the Starfleet captain is…
Miami Vice (1987) – God’s Work, and Missing Hours
Castillo (Edward James Olmos) gets a bit of the limelight in this episode written by Edward Tivnan, which first aired on 6 November, 1987. When the son, Felipe (Esai Morales) of a drug dealer, Jorge (Juan Cejas – who will always be a Joan Wilder fan to me) returns to town, the team is trying…
NOS4A2 (2013) – Joe Hill
So I wanted something spooky and creepy, but needed a quick respite from revisting King’s work. I kept it in the family and dug into his son’s novel, NOS4A2. This one feels almost epic in size as we follow the horrors committed by Charlie Talent Manx and the life of a woman, Victoria McQueen who…
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1997) -For the Uniform, and In Purgatory’s Shadow
Station log: stardate 50485.2 Peter Allen Fields pens this episode that first screened on 3 February, 1997. When Eddington (Kenneth Marshall) resurfaces, Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) sets off in dogged pursuit of his former security officer, not only for the uniform, but for the perceived humiliation he suffered at being out maneuvered by the Maquis…
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) – Blu-Ray Review
The Crimes of Grindelwald, the second installment in the Fantastic Beasts series, and a return to the Harry Potter universe comes home on blu and DVD today. Very much a middle-act film, there is a lot of world building going on in this film, and the sense of fun that permeated the first film, and…
Silver Bullet (1985) – Daniel Attias
The next werewolf title to come along in DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies is an adaptation of Stephen King’s Cycle of the Werewolf starring Corey Haim, Megan Follows and Gary Busey. This one hasn’t stood up well to my nostalgia, but on reflection, if you have someone (a younger viewer) that you want to…
The King of Comedy (1982) – Martin Scorsese
The next title on the What Else to Watch list in DK Canada’s The Movie Book following its recommendation of Taxi Driver is this Scorsese classic starring Robert DeNiro and Jerry Lewis. The film didn’t do well at the time, but I also remember it being marketed as a comedy and for me it was…
