Drug of Choice (1970) – Micheal Crichton

Micheal Crichton writing as his alter-ego John Lange delivers a fast-paced, odd, and occasionally uneven tale with Drug of Choice. I think the biggest problem with the story is that its too short. A number of the sequences could have been expanded on to unnerve the reader and immerse them into the mystery of what…

Pirate Latitudes (2009) – Micheal Crichton

By the time this post appears on the blog I will have read this book about a month and a half ago while I was on a vacation in the Caribbean. Consequently, surrounded by an environment Crichton’s characters inhabit, the ride was an adventuresome delight. In the year 1665, Captain Charles Hunter is in Port…

TAD 2023: Daniel’s Gotta Die dir. Jeremy LaLonde

I’ve been a fan of Jeremy LaLonde for some time now, and have enjoyed all of his films. He assembles great casts and tends to have very sharp scripts, his latest, Daniel’s Gotta Die, screening tonight at Toronto After Dark is no exception to that. Shot in the Caribbean during lockdown, LaLonde delivers a fun…

Mission: Impossible (1973) – Incarnate, and Boomerang

Phelps (Peter Graves) and his IMF team pursue a criminal to the Caribbean in an attempt to discover the location of the gold bullion that she has hidden away somewhere State-side. She’s a little superstitious, so what better way to get her to crack than to have Barney (Greg Morris) and the rest hint at…

The Man With The Golden Gun (1965) – Ian Fleming

The twelfth James Bond novel, and thirteenth book, The Man With The Golden Gun, was published posthumously in 1965 after Ian Fleming’s death in ’64. The story picks up about a year after the events of You Only Twice. When we were last with 007, he was suffering amnesia and had taken up a quiet…

Live and Let Die (1954) – Ian Fleming

Ian Fleming’s second James Bond book finds its way to my book shelf this week as I delve into the character’s literary history as well as all the 007 films I haven’t covered for the blog. It’s an enjoyable novel, although it is steeped in way too much racist language and descriptions as Bond goes…

Zombie (1979) – Lucio Fulci

The next zombie movie to be featured in DK Canada’s highly enjoyable (and bloody) Monsters in the Movies book has been on the periphery of my life for a long time, though I had never seen it. I remember seeing the poster for Zombie aka Zombie Flesh Eaters aka Zombi 2 on the theater sheet…

The Black Swan (1942) – Henry King

  The next recommendation from the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book for those who enjoyed the Adventures of Robin Hood is this pirate classic from 1942, filled with gorgeous colours, adventure on the high seas, plenty of sword fights, a likeable star in Tyrone Powers and a dastardly villain in George Sanders this one…