Ghostwatch seems like an appropriate film for April Fool’s Day. Seven years before The Blair Witch Project marketed itself as an actual piece of found footage, a documentary, the BBC scarred viewers young and old with their television production of Ghostwatch. Staged like so many other BBC investigative programmes, and despite a brief intro proclaiming…
Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare (1968) – Yoshiyuki Kuroda
As much as I loved 100 Monsters, Spook Warfare almost disappointed me as much. It feels like a bit of a goofy film, and I get that this is the point of the series, the same way Godzilla went from a dark film to ‘who is he fighting this time?’ It starts out promisingly enough,…
Avatar: The Last Airbender – Book 3: Fire (2007) – The Awakening, The Headband, and The Painted Lady
The Earth Kingdom has fallen to the Fire Nation, and things are in a dark place for Team Avatar as Book 3: Fire gets underway. Written by Aron Ehasz, the third and final season began on 21 September, 2007. Aang (Zach Tyler Eisen) has been out of it for a while. He’s grown some hair,…
Yokai Monsters: 100 Monsters (1968) – Kimyoshi Yasuda
Wow, did I have fun with this one. I had never heard of it, but I do love a lot of J-horror, and this one definitely had an interesting sound to it, a Japanese monster movie with practical effects, costumes and a touch of animation, what’s not to like? The monsters are allowed to show…
Magnum P.I. (2019) – Payback for Beginners, and Honor Among Thieves
Season Two of Magnum P.I. opens with another White Knight sequence from a Robin Masters’ novel, which Abby (Brooke Lyons) is reading but it doesn’t take long for Magnum (Jay Hernandez) to take a new case, something he chooses to do while Higgins (Perdita Weeks) decides whether or not she’s going to become his partner…
Family Ties (1987) – Love Me Do, The Visit, and Matchmaker
While Steven (Michael Gross) is planning a surprise birthday party for Elyse (Meredith Baxter) in Love Me Do, Skippy (Marc Price) falls for one of Mallory’s (Justine Bateman) classmates, Amy (Sonia Curtis). Written by Marc Lawrence this episode was first broadcast on 30 April, 1987. It’s fun to see Skippy happy and that the relationship…
Never Dream of Dying (2001) – Raymond Benson
James Bond returns in Raymond Benson’s Never Dream of Dying, and this time around things get emotional for Ian Fleming’s 007 as he goes after Le Gerant, the leader of the notorious Union organization that has been causing him so much trouble over the past few novels. With his adventures taking him across the continent…
Magnum P.I. (2019) – Blood in the Water, and The Day It All Came Together
The penultimate episode of season one of the reimagined Magnum P.I. was written by Gene Hong, and first debuted on 25 March, 2019. While T.C. (Stephen Hill) deals with the imminent arrival (and then non-appearance) by his father, with lots of needling from Rick (Zachary Kingston) and Shammy (Christopher Thornton), Magnum (Jay Hernandez) and Higgins…
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021) – Dean Fleischer Camp
Dean Fleischer Camp directed this faux documentary that follows a tiny shell, named Marcel, as he discovers a measure of internet fame, its upside and down, and a measure of loss and the importance of family and change. Filled with beautiful stop-motion animation blended brilliantly with live action, the story finds Camp playing a version…
Inferno (1980) – Dario Argento
It’s been a while since I watched Argento’s Suspiria, though I remember enjoying it, so when I learned he did two more films set in the same world I knew I had to seek them out. The first follow-up film is 1980’s Inferno. Rose (Irene Miracle) is living in New York (with Italian locations serving…
The Mind Reels 