Fire and Ash is an experiential popcorn movie. It needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible, and while 3D has some detractors, it is used beautifully in this film. This is a movie-going experience. Having said that, I miss James Cameron’s early work, Aliens, The Abyss, The Terminator, and T2, even True Lies….
Tag: camera
Get Smart (1966) – Double Agent, Kisses for KAOS, and The Dead Spy Scrawls
Maxwell Smart (Don Adams) switches sides and goes to work for KAOS in Double Agent. It was written by Joseph C. Cavella and Carol Cavella. It debuted on 8 January, 1966. The Chief (Edward Platt) is the only one who knows, besides Max, that he’s on a mission, and hasn’t actually switched sides. Max has…
TIFF 25: The Eyes of Ghana dir. Ben Proudfoot
Oscar winner filmmaker Ben Proudfoot turns the objective eye of the camera on the powerful story of Chris Hesse. A man of the cloth, Hesse was once a filmmaker and cinematographer in his home country of Ghana. He was with Ghana’s first president, Kwarme Nkrumah, from his inauguration to the coup that removed him from…
Darkman (1990) – Sam Raimi
I enjoyed Darkman when it first came out. I had it on VHS. But it has been years since I watched it. And I’ll be honest, I liked it much more this time through. I love Raimi as a filmmaker and you can see his always moving camera at work here, as well as his…
Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024) – Brian Taylor
I love the character of Hellboy, both the cinematic and the source material brought to life in the Mike Mignola’s comic books. However, this time out, thanks to budget constraints, which directly impacted actors, effects, camera et. al. what fans are given feels like a fan-film and not a studio one. Set in the early…
Land of Bad (2024) – William Eubank
Land of Bad is a crisp military actioner. With a solid cast that includes two Hemsworth brothers, Liam and Luke, Russell Crowe and Milo Ventimiglia, the film takes us on a high-tension, tightly-crafted mission that sees a Delta Force team, and it’s accompanying drone (and operator) on the run after things go pear-shaped. The Delta…
Northern Exposure (1991) – A Hunting We Will Go, and Get Real
To try to understand the concept, and what drives people to do it, Joel (Rob Morrow) joins Holling (John Cullum) and Chris (John Corbett) on their annual hunting trip. Holling no longer carries a gun, he shoots with a camera, but Chris and Joel, the New York doctor, are armed and ready to go. After…
TIFF24: Saturday Night dr. Jason Reitman
Jason Reitman delivers her sharpest, most well-crafted film today with Saturday Night, a look at that fateful night on 11 October, 1975 when the world was introduced to the Not Quite Ready For Prime Time Players with NBC’s Saturday Night. Lorne Micheals (Gabriel LaBelle) is working to juggle a live to air sketch show that…
Northern Exposure (1990) – A Kodiak Moment, and Aurora Borealis: A Fairy Tale for Big People
Northern Exposure is really finding its groove, and embracing all the eccentric personalities that make up the small town of Cicely, Alaska. Sadly, however, we are coming to the end of the first, incredibly short season. A Kodiak Moment serves as the penultimate episode of the series’ inaugural season. It was written by Steve Wasserman…
Deja Vu (2006) – Tony Scott
I do enjoy a Denzel Washington/Tony Scott team-up and this temporal thriller ends up being a lot more fun than I remember from the first time I saw it. Scott’s constantly moving camera, saturated colours, and tight editing are on full display here as the story follows ATF agent Doug Carlin (Washington) as he investigates…
The Mind Reels 