Some people love the happy joyous type of films at Christmas, and while there is something to be said for all that good-will, happy endings and schmaltz that seem to highlight most of them, that morbid, macabre underside of humor and the holidays seem to be more appealing… As much as I loved Scrooged,…
Tag: billy
The A-Team (1983) – Holiday in the Hills and West Coast Turnaround
The A-Team bounces from one coast to the other again this week… First up is Holiday in the Hills, written by Babs Greyhosky, with an airdate of 22 March, 1983. Hannibal (George Peppard), Face (Dirk Benedict), Murdock (Dwight Schultz) and B.A. (Mr. T) are finishing up a mission in Guatemala, and are flying out…
Easy Rider (1969) – Dennis Hopper
The next drama title for review in the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book is this generation-defining film that not only stars Dennis Hopper, but he directed it, and wrote the script with co-star Peter Fonda and Terry Southern. Fonda plays Wyatt, though he’s referred to through the entire film as Captain…
Pumpkinhead (1988) – Stan Winston
The always so cool Lance Henriksen stars in this creature-feature, cabin-in-the-woods horror film that was the directorial debut of the late, and much-missed Stan Winston. In a film packed with people I recognize, two of them from my favorite television show ever, Quantum Leap, the film plays within the typical B-movie tropes, but with…
Toronto After Dark Shorts Program
On a Saturday afternoon, there’s nothing better than curling up and enjoying some cinematic entertainment, and this afternoon, I let those festival programmers at Toronto After Dark pick my entertainment, with 9 specially selected from over 450 entries and there were some strong choices. The collection started with an odd little two-minute computer generated…
Predator (1987) – John McTiernan
The 101 Sci-Fi Movies currently has me smack-dab in the middle of the 80s and I am loving it, especially when I get to revisit films that send me back down that nostalgia road. Predator does exactly that. I remember watching this John McTiernan film when it came out on the American Naval Base in…
48 Hrs. (1982) – Walter Hill
The 101 Action Movies brings me one of the classic buddy action movies, and despite the fact that it’s really good, it’s really tough to like any of the characters in it. Almost all of them come across as coarse, racist, and unlikable. Nick Nolte plays Jack Cates, a bit of a loose cannon of…
TV You Should Be Watching – Seed
I tend to be very picky about my comedy, so for me sitcoms that I can actually watch are few and far between, and the ones I do watch always get compared to Arrested Development or Brit-coms like The IT Crowd. So I wasn’t necessarily worried about watching the new television series Seed, but…
Maximum Overdrive (1986) – Stephen King
So while I’ve been re-reading a lot of Stephen King, I thought it would be fun to revisit his only directing credit, an adaptation of his short story “Trucks” into the funhouse ride that is Maximum Overdrive. This is a movie you either like or hate, and while it is fun, there are tons of plot holes,…
Silent Night Deadly Night (1984) – Charles E. Sellier, Jr.
Anchor Bay was kind enough to send along copies of this film to me for a look, and I had to admit I was suitably intrigued, never having seen it when I was younger because horror films weren’t quite my thing yet, and of course, the whole furor over trying to get it banned (which…
The Mind Reels 