A Propos de Nice (1930) – Jean Vigo

I’m spending a little more time with French director Jean Vigo as I continue my exploration of the continually enthralling, and informative The Movie Book from DK Canada. The next film of his I take a look at is the short, A Propos de Nice. Shot in 1930, the film seems, at first, to be…

The Conquest of the Pole (1912) – Georges Melies

Using Jules Verne’s Voyages Extraordinaires series as its inspiration, the next stop in DK Books’ The Movie Book is the highly enjoyable The Conquest of the Pole from the brilliant French showman, Georges Melies. The film follows a muktin-national team of explorers, occasionally interferered with by a group of Suffragettes who are planning on exploring…

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) – Steven Spielberg

The next stop for me in the Sci-Fi Chronicles is the dinosaur franchise that began with a novel, Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton and became a blockbuster film by Steven Spielberg. He followed up that first film from 1993, with The Lost World: Jurassic Park in 1997. While it lacks the discovery and the sense…

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984) -Hayao Miyazaki

The next stop in the Sci-Fi Chronicles book is a long overdue check-in with Miyazaki, the famed writer/director who has envisioned so many incredible tales. This time around, it’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. I didn’t have access to a subtitled version, so I went with the English dubbed (subtitle is ALWAYS the…

The Secret Garden (1993) -Agnieszka Holland

Francis Ford Coppola serves as executive producer of this adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic novel, and the next recommendation from the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book. Young Mary Lennox (Kate Maberly), born and raised in India is orphaned when her parents are killed in an earthquake. She is sent to live…

The Great Zoo of China (2014) – Matthew Reilly

  I go long stretches of time without picking up a Matthew Reilly book. In fact, the last time I did, was before I started the weekly Book Shelf update here on the blog. But then when I do pick one up, I race through them, and find myself craving more. More NOW. The downside…

The Jungle Book (2016) – Jon Favreau

  Opening this weekend is Disney’s update of their classic film, which lifts moments and characters from both their original 1967 film, and the source material as penned by Rudyard Kipling. Favreau’s camera moves throughout the jungle, never ceasing for a moment, as we enter a photo-real jungle, filled with the most photo-real computer generated…