James Garner is at his charming best in Support Your Local Sheriff! Jason (Garner) rides into a small gold rush town, which we see spring up through the opening credits after Prudy (Joan Hackett) and her father, Olly Perkins (Harry Morgan) discover gold partway through a funeral – and that should tell you all you…
Fan Expo 2024 Day 1
It’s that time of year in Toronto again. The summer is winding down, there is the first hint of the crispness of fall in the cooling evening air, which can mean only one thing. No not pumpkin spice lattes, it’s time for the CNE, TIFF, back-to-school prep, and the gathering of geeks from all over…
Stargate SG-1 (1997) – Brief Candle, and Thor’s Hammer
After Emancipation, I think Brief Candle is my least favourite first season episodes (outside of the clip show near season one’s end, of course). It’s not that it’s a bad episode, but it’s just an episode that doesn’t resonate with me. Written by Katharyn Powers from a story by Steven Barnes, this episode was first…
Northern Exposure (1990) – Russian Flu, and Sex, Lies and Ed’s Tapes
Joel (Rob Morrow) is super-excited that his fiancée, Elaine (Jessica Lundy) is coming up to Cicely for a visit. Unfortunately, the pilot he hired, not Maggie (Janine Turner) has come down with a virus and it seems to be spreading around the town quickly. Russian Flu was written by David Assael and debuted on 9…
The Maid (2022) – Nita Prose
The Maid is a fantastic engaging read that introduces the character Molly Gray, a young woman who is on the spectrum and finds herself caught up as the prime suspect in a murder investigation. Molly, who is recovering from the death of her beloved Gran, the only caretaker she has in her life, struggles to…
Stargate SG-1 (1997) – Cold Lazarus, and The Nox
When O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) is replaced by another being, from a crystalline structure on a remote planet, his replacement explores the loss of O’Neill’s son, and talks with his ex-wife, Sara (Harley Jane Kozak). Cold Lazarus was written by Jeff King and first aired on 29 August, 1997. As the replacement O’Neill confronts O’Neill’s…
Enter the Ninja (1981) – Menaham Golan
Enter the Ninja is dangerously bad. Coming on the tail of Chuck Norris’ The Octagon, the two films helped usher the ninja fad into the 80s. Featuring a story dreamed up by stuntman Mike Stone, who was initially cast as the main character until his acting chops didn’t make the cut – and that’s saying…
Kindergarten Cop (1990) – Ivan Reitman
“It’s not a tumour!” It’s a catchphrase that found its way into the pop culture and has resurfaced over and over. And I never saw it originally. I was never interested in watching Arnold Schwarzenegger be funny. It just didn’t sound like a good time to me. So now, some thirty-plus years on, I finally…
Dark Skies (1996) – Dark Days Night, and Dreamland
Its 1964, and the British Invasion is underway, and The Beatles are days away from their iconic appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, and The Hive are planning on using that opportunity to induce mass suicide by the show’s viewers by using hypnotic suggestion, and subliminal messaging in the television image. Dark Days Night was…
Silent Hill (2006) – Christopher Gans
As we’ve seen over the decades there can be good and bad video game adaptations, I would make the argument that Slient Hill falls solidly into the good adaptations. It’s creepy, incredibly eerie and you don’t have to have any real knowledge of the game to enjoy the film. Using the game as its basis,…
The Mind Reels 