In 1972 and 1973 at the Royal Alexandra Theatre here in Toronto, almost everything we know about modern comedy was born. The cast included Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Gilda Radner, Andrea Martin, Victor Garber and Dave Thomas. From the seeds planted by this special group being brought together sprang SCTV and SNL, not to mention…
Tag: animation
The Day the Earth Blew Up (2024) – Peter Browngardt
I’m not sure what is going on with Warner Brothers, making a number of movies, completing them, then canceling their release only to use them as tax write-offs. We can only hope some day we’ll see the release of Batgirl, but happily, Ketchup Entertainment picked up Coyote vs. Acme and The Day the Earth Blew…
Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985) – Tim Burton
I hadn’t seen Pee-wee’s Big Adventure since it first came to home video in 1986. Paul Reubens aka Pee-wee wasn’t on my radar before that, it was all very much Back to the Future and Miami Vice for me. So when I was introduced to it one night, I found myself laughing aloud, hugely enjoying…
Farscape (2001) – Infinite Possibilities: Part 2 – Icarus Abides, and Revenging Angel
Part 2 of Infinite Possibilities first aired on 3 August, 2001. It was written by Carleton Eastlake. With the Scarran Dreadnought drawing closer, the Ancient version of Jack (Kent McCord) and Crichton (Ben Browder)have to come up with a plan to best the dreadnought. But of course, Crichton has been taken over by Scorpius (Wayne…
TIFF24: The Wild Robot dir. Chris Sanders
I closed out my TIFF run this year, with the latest animated effort from Dreamworks. Based on the children’s book by Peter Brown, Sanders not only directed the film, but adapted the story as well, and it’s going to be a family classic to be sure. When a robot, Roz (Lupita Nyong’o) awakes from her…
TIFF24: Flow dir. Gints Zilbalodis
Animated films have taken us to a variety of places and let us encounter all manner of characters, and they make us feel, which says something incredible about the fact that they started out as sketches or lines of code in a computer. Flow does something we don’t often see in animated films, its characters,…
Star Trek: Lower Decks – Season 4 Blu-Ray
The U.S.S. Cerritos returns to the screen with Paramount Canada’s release of Star Trek: Lower Decks – Season 4 on Blu-ray. Filled with great stories, deep cuts of Trek trivia, and lots of laughs as well as answering the decades-old question, does Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) look like Nick Locarno? There are promotions, roommates,…
Avatar: The Last Airbender – Book 3: Fire (2007) – The Runaway, The Puppetmaster, and Nightmares and Daydreams
Toph (Micheala Jill Murphy) and Katara’s (Mae Whitman) relationship becomes even more strained, when Katara disapproves of the group’s way of making some fast cash, scheming local con artists out of their money by using their abilities, and even doing some con work themselves. After much bickering, the pair come up with a way to…
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…
Fire and Ice (1983) – Ralph Bakshi
Ralph Bakshi paired up with his good friend, famed fantasy artist Frank Frazetta and delivered 1983’s Fire & Ice. An animated rotoscoped sword and sorcery adventure, this film feels more in line with the 70s style of animation and storytelling, despite the rise of Dungeons & Dragons at the time. An evil ruler, Nekron (Sean…
The Mind Reels 