End of Watch (2016) – Stephen King

The final novel in the Bill Hodges trilogy, End of Watch, adds a bit of the supernatural flavour that King is known for as Brady Hartsfield, the Mercedes Killer from Mr. Mercedes returns for a final confrontation with retired police detective Hodges, his partner Holly Gibney, and their friend Jerome. The thread of material woven…

Batman: The Killing Joke (2016) – Sam Liu

I remember, not that it was that long ago now when the DC animated movie adaption of the iconic graphic novel The Killing Joke was released. Fans were in an uproar about the addition of a plot frontloaded to the beginning of the film which reveals Batman (wonderfully voiced by Kevin Conroy) had sexual relations…

The BFG (2016) – Steven Spielberg

This one seemed like a surefire winner, you’ve got Spielberg working from a script by Melissa Matheson who wrote E.T. The story is adapted from Roald Dahl’s story, and Mark Rylance brings The Big Friendly Giant to life. But no matter how good, the computer-generated images were, combining the computer characters with live-action ones, specifically,…

The Expanse (2016) – Critical Mass, and Levithan Wakes

The final two episodes of the first season of The Expanse aired together on 2 February, 2016. The first part, Critical Mass was written by Robin Veith, Dan Nowak, and Naren Shankar. Leviathan Wakes, which was the title of the first novel in the series, was penned by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby. We go…

The Expanse (2016) – Windmills, and Salvage

Chrisjen (Shohreh Aghdashloo) heads to the Holden farm in Montana to speak with Holden’s (Steven Strait) family in an attempt to better understand him and his actions, even as the UN prepares to remove him from the playing field. Windmills was written by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (collectively known as James S.A. Corey, the…

The Expanse (2016) – Back to the Butcher, and Rock Bottom

Dan Nowak pens Back to the Butcher. First airing on 5 January, 2016 the story this week moves back and forth in time a bit, taking us to an event that happened at Anderson Station when some of the workers (including the wonderful Billy MacLellan) staged a protest because the corporation that owned the station…

Inferno (2016) – Ron Howard

Tom Hanks returns for a final outing as Dan Brown’s brilliant symbologist Robert Langdon in Inferno. This time out, Langdon is operating on the back foot from the beginning when he awakes in a hospital and is told by Dr. Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones) that he was grazed by a bullet, and has suffered a…

Before I Wake (2016) – Mike Flanagan

Mike Flanagan’s next film, which he co-wrote with Jeff Howard, was Before I Wake. Leaving behind the real-world terrors he visited in Hush, he delves into more supernatural territory and family drama, a realm in which he truly excels. This time out, we are introduced to Jessie (Kate Bosworth) and Mark Hobson (Thomas Jane) a…

Hush (2016) – Mike Flanagan

Home invasion stories are not my jam. I’ve never cared for it, and I’ve yet to be entertained by one. But going through Mike Flanagan’s filmography, his third film plants itself firmly into a territory that usually doesn’t do much for me. Co-witten with his partner, Kate Siegel, who also stars, the film follows Maddie…

Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016) – Mike Flanagan

Mike Flanagan has quickly become one of my favorite writer/directors and I realized that there were still a number of his titles that I hadn’t written about for the blog. So color me happy as I dig into some other examples of his work. Ouija: Origin of Evil is, in fact, a sequel to a…