Darwyn Cooke’s now iconic graphic novel Justice League: The New Frontier gets the DC animation update and brings a cavalcade of stars to the animated incarnations of some of DC’s biggest hitters. Set in the 1950s the animation style perfectly reflects that of the original comic panel art, as it follows a collection of heroes…
Tag: 1950s
The Vast of Night (2019) – Andrew Patterson
The Vast of Night is very much my kind of film, part Twilight Zone, part early Spielberg, there’s a vibe to this film that I just totally dig. A lot of the film feels like an homage to old dramas, encouraging the theatre of the mind, but there is a nice payoff at the end…
Lovecraft Country (2016) -Matt Ruff
This week I dove into Matt Ruff’s brilliantly entertaining Lovecraft Country, which takes all the things you love about a good Lovecraft story; otherworldly horror, science fiction mixed with horror, and some other familiar horror tropes, the creepy doll, the haunted house, and deliver it without Lovecraft’s far too prominent racism. As much as I…
Heavenly Creatures (1994) – Peter Jackson
I’m closing in on the end of DK Canada’s The Movie Book, as I explore its last section, The Director. And it brings me a Peter Jackson film that isn’t set in Middle Earth (it is in New Zealand, however, and I recognise a lot of the names in the credits as those he has…
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1998) – Far Beyond the Stars, and One Little Ship
Station log: stardate unknown Avery Brooks directs this exemplary episode from a script by Ira Steven Behr and Hans Beimler from a story by Marc Scott Zircee. It first aired on 11 February, 1998. The episode sees Benjamin Sisko (Brooks) being given a full sensory vision by The Prophets that allows him to become Benny…
The Vault of Horror (1973) – Roy Ward Baker
Taking its cue from the EC and Horror comics of the 1950s, The Vault of Horror is an anthology film and is the next stop in John Landis’ Monsters in the Movies book, available now from DK Canada. While I’m still in the Vampire section of the book, this film only features one vampire tale,…
Superman: Miracle Monday (1981) – Elliot S. Maggin
Superman has always been a hero of mine, and when Christopher Reeve brought the character to the big screen back in 1978, I was a fan for life. At that age, I was completely enchanted by the first film, and it’s follow up in 1980, Superman II. I had the Superman: The Movie Book, I…
The Shape of Water (2017) – Guillermo del Toro
del Toro’s latest film, The Shape of Water is very much a fairy tale for adults, as well as sharing a kinship with the horror films of the 1950s, specifically, 1954’s The Creature From the Black Lagoon (as well as to Abe Sapien as seen in del Toro’s own Hellboy series). But in this film,…
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989) – Joe Johnston
Before Joe Johnston directed one of my favourite comic book movies, The Rocketeer, he directed this Disney film that took the b-movies of the 1950s into the late Disney-fied 80s. There are nods to films he hasn’t made yet (which is really fun) and dialogue lifts from classic films and a playful sense of fun….
Fences (2016) – Denzel Washington
Paramount Pictures proudly ushers in the release of Denzel Washington’s Fences today on blu-ray. The Academy Award winner directs, working from August Wilson’s adaptation of his own Pulitzer Prize winning play. Set in 1950s Pittsburgh, Washington pulls double duty, serving not only as director, but in the lead role of Troy Maxson a former ball…
The Mind Reels 