Don’t do drugs kids! That’s the message behind this horror gem from the 50s that is my next stop on DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies by legendary director John Landis. Set in Smalltown, Anywhere USA, single father Paul Beecher (John Beal) is the local sawbones, and when he’s called to a scientist’s home to…
Space: 1999 (1975/1976) – Matter of Life and Death, and Earthbound
Doctor Helena Russell’s (Barbara Bain) presumed dead husband, Lee Russell (Richard Johnson) mysteriously appears on a planet christened Terra Nova in this episode penned by Art Wallace and Johnny Byrne. This one first debuted on 27 November, 1975, and honestly, is a bit of a low point for the first season. It’s obvious that Lee…
The Virgin Spring (1960) – Ingmar Bergman
Taking its inspiration from a centuries old ballad, as well as Kurosawa’s Rashomon and in turn inspiring Wes Craven’s revenge horror thriller, Last House on the Left, Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring comes up on the What Else to Watch list following my screening of The Seventh Seal. Dk Canada’s The Movie Book continues to…
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1994) – Tribunal, and The Jem’Hadar
Station log: stardate 47944.2 Avery Brooks directs this episode from a story by Bill Dial that sees O’Brien (Colm Meaney) stuck in a Kafka-esque nightmare when he seized and arrested by the Cardassians, purportedly for working with The Maquis. Charged with an unknown crime, all we know from past experience is that Cardassians courts, are…
Miami Vice (1985) – Milk Run, and Golden Triangle: Part 1
It’s back to Miami for another flashback to the 80s, as Crockett (Don Johnson) and Tubbs (Philip Micheal Thomas) continue to do their part to stem crime in the seedy world of drugs, arms, prostitution, and vice. Milk run was written by Alison Hock and first aired on 4 January, 1985. Staking out the airport,…
Obsidio: The Illuminae Files Vol. 3 (2018) -Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
The third and final book in the Illuminae Files has found its way to my book shelf and I delightedly dug in for the final adventure as the truth about the BeiTech company is brought to light as we return to Kerenza IV, in a final all-out, win-or lose gambit that sees the heroes, villains,…
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1994) – All Good Things…
Captain’s log: stardate 47988.0 After seven seasons (and just over a year of posts on the blog) Star Trek: The Next Generation came to its series finale with this feature-length episode that was penned by Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga (who were also deep into the writing of the first Next Gen feature film…
Life of the Party (2018) – Blu-Ray Review
With a recycled plot that is straight out of an 80s film, the Melissa McCarthy vehicle, Life of the Party hits blu-ray and DVD this week from Warner Brothers. Despite using all of the university and college tropes that have been in play since National Lampoon’s Animal House, the film arguably takes the story and…
Mark of the Vampire (1935) – Tod Browning
Eight years after the release of London After Midnight, Tod Browning remade the film as Mark of the Vampire with Lionel Barrymore as Professor Zelin, a variation on Chaney’s inspector from the original film. It is also the next film up in John Landis’ Monsters in the Movies, a coffee table tome that I am…
Death Takes a Holiday (1934) – Mitchell Leisen
I continue my exploration of classic cinema with DK Canada’s The Movie Book, as I dive into the What Else to Watch list following my screening of the brilliant, The Seventh Seal. Death Takes a Holiday (remade in 1998 as Meet Joe Black) stars Fredric March as Prince Sirki, a man who comes to visit…
The Mind Reels 