Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Watson (Nigel Bruce) are back for their tenth outing together in The House of Fear. Based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Five Orange Pips, this one leans into using the Universal Monsters sets and, consequently has a very gothic feel to it. When a gathering of gentlemen, known as the…
Tag: characters
The Pearl of Death (1944) – Roy William Neill
Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Watson (Nigel Bruce) are deep in it again this week as the take on The Pearl of Death. Using Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Six Napoleons as its basis, this tale ends up being a lot of fun. After Holmes foils Naomi Drake’s (Evelyn Ankers) attempt to steal the famous Borgia…
Huxley (2025) – Ben Mauro
I was very fortunate to chat with Ben Mauro when he appeared at Toronto’s Fan Expo. And I have just finished the first installment in his Huxley saga. Filled with world-building and fantastic art, Mauro takes some familiar science fiction tropes, and incorporates them in a new way. The trade paperback is composed of the…
Clerks (1994) – Kevin Smith
I remember when Clerks came to VHS. I was working at a video store and it resonated with everyone of us. It was like someone had taken our lives and put it on the screen. We as a crew identified so much with the film that we’d printed up labels with our names on it…
TIFF 25: Eagles of the Republic dir. Tarek Salih
Fares Fares plays the Pharaoh of the Screen, George Fahmy. He is Egypt’s most popular actor, but he finds himself maneuvered into making a propaganda film for the country’s government. Soon, he finds himself enmeshed in political intrigue, all conducted under the watchful eye of the secretive and menacing, Dr. Mansour (Amr Waked). Despite disliking…
All Systems Red (2017) – Martha Wells
I absolutely loved Martha Wells’ All Systems Red. I will admit to be a little disappointed when I downloaded from the library to my e-reader and discovered it was only a novella, a preface if you will to the adventures to come. When I dug into the story, however, any doubts I had about it’s…
Farscape (2003) – We’re So Screwed: Part 3 – La Bomba, and Bad Timing
This is it, the final two episodes of the series. And for those of you who weren’t there, all we had were these two episodes. We didn’t know there was a wrap up mini-series coming. We just had everything that happened in these two episodes. So brace yourselves. The third part of We’re So Screwed…
Northern Exposure (1995) – Let’s Dance, and Tranquility Base
Let’s Dance is the penultimate episode of Northern Exposure. It’s almost over, so they must be wrapping up character and narrative arcs. After a fashion, anyway. Written by Sam Egan, this episode was first broadcast on 19 July, 1995. It gets underway with Cal (Simon Templeman), you remember the violinist with mental issues?, who has…
To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) – Harper Lee
Countless people read To Kill a Mockingbird in high school, or couldn’t read it because people fought to get it banned. In high school, for me, it was all about Le Petit Prince and The Catcher in the Rye. I’ve had a huge hole in my literary field. But I was finally glad to fill…
Star Trek: The Next Generation – Metamorphosis (1990) – Jean Lorrah
Jean Lorrah, who had previously penned Survivors for The Next Generation book series delivered the first Giant Novel in the Star Trek line. Once again, it focuses on Data. Sure Data was an interesting character, but the rest of the Enterprise-D crew gets the short-shrift in this story. But that may be a blessing for…
The Mind Reels 