brother – Page 4 – The Mind Reels

Family Ties (1986/1987) – Paper Lion, My Mother, My Friend, and O’Brother: Part 1

Alex (Micheal J. Fox) is working with his economics professor, Rodes (Mason Adams) on a paper that is planned to be published and may garner Alex some rewards at the Leland Awards Presentation, something he’s MCing. Unfortunately as Alex goes over and over the numbers in the paper, he finds that Rhodes has made a…

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2023) – Charades, and Lost in Translation

Spock (Ethan Peck) and Chapel (Jess Bush) are involved in an accident, and the aliens who caused it repair the shuttle, and the injured Spock, but his mixed DNA causes problems, so they use Chapel as the guideline, and make him human in Charades. Written by Kathryn Lyn and Henry Alonso Myers this episode debuted…

The Lone Ranger (2013) – Gore Verbinski

Gore Verbinski is a vibrant visual director, but the casting of Armie Hammer as John Reid aka The Lone Ranger, doesn’t do the film any good, and the whitewashing of Tonto with the casting of Johnny Depp makes things worse. There are some wonderful sequences, some great images, and some fun comedic moments, as the…

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022) – Strange New Worlds, and Children of the Comet

Akiva Goldsman wrote and directed the series opener for Strange New Worlds, which was first broadcast on 5 May, 2022. It had to tie in with the established canon of The Original Series, and what had happened in Star Trek: Discovery during season two. It also riffs on The Day The Earth Stood Still, which…

Allan Quatermain & The Lost City of Gold (1986) – Gary Nelson

Gary Nelson, who directed my beloved The Black Hole, directed the sequel to 1985’s King Solomon’s Mines, Allan Quatermain & The Lost City of Gold, which was filmed back to back with the first film. In fact, it steals a large portion of Jerry Goldsmith’s score for the first film as a way to save…

The Addams Family (1991) – Barry Sonnenfeld

I remember enjoying The Addams Family from Barry Sonnenfeld when it came out in 1991, as it brought back memories of watching the original show on TBS in the evenings. I loved Raul Julia’s portrayal of Gomez, the family patriarch, and consequently, I figured it was time for a revisit. It’s definitely not aimed at…

Star Trek: Picard (2022) – Hide and Seek, and Farewell

The penultimate episode of season two has some solid action beats, and some nice emotional arcs, and reminds us that these characters are flawed and human, and that is why we relate to them. There’s also a nice line that explains the appearance of Picard’s (Patrick Stewart) mother in The Next Generation episode Where No…

Avatar: The Last Airbender – Book 1: Water (2005) – The Boy in the Iceberg, The Avatar Returns, and The Southern Air Temple

With the live-action series on the horizon, it seemed like an ideal time to take a look at the original animated series, Avatar: The Last Airbender. Throughout three seasons, the story follows Aang (Zach Tyler Eisen), the Avatar, as he learns the skills he’ll need to stop the war with the aggressive Fire Nation and…

Star Trek: Picard (2020) – Remembrance, and Maps and Legends

Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) returned to the screen on 23 January, 2020 with the launch of Star Trek: Picard. Set some twenty years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis, the pilot episode, Remembrance, was written by Akiva Goldsman and James Duff from a story by Goldsman, Micheal Chabon, Kirsten Beyer, Alex Kurtzman and Duff….

Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmicheal Manor (2023) – Stephen Cognetti

While I’m not always the biggest found footage fan, it’s a genre that has really been done to death because everyone thinks they can do it, I quickly became a fan of Stephen Cognetti’s Hell House LLC series. He’s written and directed all the films so far, which makes The Carmicheal Manor the fourth in…