The Challenge (1982) – John Frankenheimer

Scott Glenn sports a truly horrific bowl cut in his first leading role, starring alongside Toshiro Mifune in the Frankenheimer-helmed The Challenge. Featuring a score by Jerry Goldsmith and a supporting cast that includes Sab Shimono and Clyde Kusatsu, the film is a pretty solid action entry though it wasn’t the film Glenn and Mifune…

TIFF24: The Last Showgirl dir. Gia Coppola

Pamela Anderson delivers a career-topping performance as Shelley an aging Vegas showgirl, whose show, Razzle Dazzle, is closing, bringing her thirty-year career to a grinding stop. Directed by Gia Coppola whose use of shallow focus lenses keeps the story on Shelley at all times, the tale looks honestly at aging and beauty in not only…

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,…

Fan Expo 2024 Day 2

Friday at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre was laid out before the exploring geek as an adventure of discovery and treasure-hunting. And it also served as a bracer for what was to come on Saturday, large crowds weaving along the pathways between booths, and the walkways that connected the North and South Building. I work…

Toronto Comicon Day 1

It’s March Break, and while the kiddies run around and parents are counting the moments until school is back in session, the geeks, who have inherited the Earth, returned to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre to pay homage to their beloved films, television shows, animes, mangas, comics, and more by attending Toronto Comicon. From the…

Fallen (1998) – Gregory Hoblit

Denzel Washington doesn’t often take on roles in films that have paranormal or supernatural overtones, so when he does make one it’s got to be worth the watch. And Fallen is that. I hadn’t watched this one since it came out on VHS, oh so many years ago, and figured it was time for a…