The Equalizer (1986) – Dead Drop, and Wash-Up

When an innocent bystander, flower shop owner Barry (James Murtaugh) gets involved in a smuggling operation that is using mailed packages as a dead drop, he’s targeted for a quick end. But McCall (Edward Woodward) may be up to the task of helping him in Dead Drop. Written by Maurice Hurley and Joel Surnow, this…

TIFF ’22: Pearl

Ti West and Mia Goth shot X, and its prequel film, Pearl back to back. In both Mia plays Pearl. In X she’s a psychotic octogenarian, but in Pearl, we get to see her as she was, when she too dreamed of getting off the farm and chasing dreams of fame to become a star….

Battle Royale II (2003) – Kenta Fukasaku and Kinji Fukasaku

Battle Royale II is very much a different creation from its predecessor. Set three years after the events of the first movie this film moves the film mythology forward. Shuya (Tatsuya Fujiwara) and Noriko (Aki Maeda) have made their escape, and Shuya has now started what the rest of the world calls a terrorist organization,…

Diablo Mesa (2022) – Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Grand Central Publishing was kind enough to send me the latest Preston & Child thriller, Diablo Mesa, which came out in February. It had been a long time since I dug into a Preston & Child book, but back in 2014, I was plowing through their Pendergast series until my pile of To Be Read…

Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire (2019) – Stephen Cognetti

Found footage can be hit or miss. To attempt a trilogy what works solely with that sub-genre is pretty ambitious, and I think, for the most part, writer/director Stephen Cognetti pulls it off. And if you watch all three films in close succession, as I have, they flow a lot better, and he wraps everything…

The Matrix Resurrections (2021) – 4K Review

Warner Brothers has sent me back to The Matrix with a copy of their 4K version of The Matrix Resurrections, which is available today in wonderful physical media form of blu-ray and 4K disc. Like everything after the first film, released back in 1999, this installment is as divisive as Reloaded and Revolutions, but for…

The Lovely Bones (2009) – Peter Jackson

Director Peter Jackson adapted Alice Sebold’s heartbreaking novel, The Lovely Bones, to the big screen alongside his collaborators Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, and while there are a lot of differences from the book to film (the novel definitely has more adult themes, and things were toned down for the teen, twenty-something audiences), and some…

Star Trek: Sarek (1994) – A.C. Crispin

A.C. Crispin, who delivered the wonderful Yesterday’s Son saga early in the Pocket Books series cranked out a giant Trek novel for 1994 that gave us insight into Spock’s father, Sarek. While also continuing the story of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701A. This adventure takes place shortly after the events of The Undiscovered Country, so despite…