Maxwell Smart (Don Adams) has his hands full this week in It Takes One to Know One. Written by Gary Clarke, this episode first debuted on 7 January, 1967. Max is trying to stop a female KAOS agent, Octavia (Gayle Hunnicut). She’s been taking out the number two man, and the subsequent replacements at CONTROL….
Tag: charming
The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) – Matt Shakman
Marvel brings their first family into the MCU with The Fantastic Four: First Steps. It’s charming, and has some solid casting, but it never really has the impact that this iconic team deserves. And that may be due to superhero fatigue. Marvel and Disney have upped the audience of dosage of superheroes that everything feels…
The Great Train Robbery (1978) – Micheal Crichton
Michael Crichton writes and directs The Great Train Robbery and invites Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland and Lesley-Anne Down along for the ride. Not quite a romp, the film is definitely an entertaining heist film, resting easily on Connery’s charm, and Sutherland turning in a wonderfully goofy performance. It’s England, in the 1850s. Connery plays Pierce,…
White Lightning (1973) – Joseph Sargent
Burt Reynolds stars as Gator McClusky, who feels like he may be a more rough and tumble relative of the Bandit. And speaking of Smokey & the Bandit, Hal Needham, who went on to direct that classic film, served as the second unit director on this film. Gator is in prison, and he’s a model…
TIFF 25: Rental Family dir. Hikari
The Brenaissance continues as Brendan Fraser turns in another fantastic performance, one that leans into his abilities to be both comedic, and deliver great gravitas, often in the same scene. Fraser stars as Phillip, a struggling American actor living in Japan. When he gets a gig as ‘Sad American’ at a funeral, it opens a…
They Call Me Trinity (1970) – Enzo Barboni
They Call Me Trinity is a spaghetti western that riffs slightly on the classic Seven Samurai story, but is filled with lots of comedic moments, and is led by a pair of charming actors, Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer. It gently pokes fun at the tropes of the genre, plays to them, and enjoys them,…
Magnetosphere (2024) – Nicola Rose
Magnetosphere is a delightfully charming family-friendly feature that celebrates the pangs of first loves, the acceptance of one’s self, and living with a beautiful, but sometimes troubling condition, synesthesia, which causes her to see sounds, hear colours, and more. Maggie (Shayelin Martin) is thirteen, and she and her family are settling into Sault Ste. Marie….
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939) – Alfred L. Werker
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is the second Basil Rathbone Holmes film, and I ended up being more into this one than The Hound of the Baskervilles. Rathbone brings Arthur Conan Doyle’s character to wonderful life, making it his own, with Nigel Bruce’s Watson a perfect foil for him. This one feels like a bit…
We’re the Millers (2013) – Rawson Marshall Thurber
It took me a while to finally get this one. I honestly didn’t think I would enjoy it. But I was wrong. It’s charming, has some laugh-out-loud moments and features Jason Sudekis surrounded by an incredibly strong, comedic cast. Sudekis plays David, a man who has spent his entire life dealing pot. He has no…
Northern Exposure (1993) – Altered Egos, and A River Doesn’t Run Through It
Chris (John Corbett) is having problems when an ex-lover reveals that she couldn’t find any differences between he and his brother, Bernard (Richard Cummings Jr.) in bed! Marilyn (Elaine Miles) has decided to go hunting for the perfect man, in Joel’s (Rob Morrow) medical files. And meanwhile, the transplanted doctor is beginning to worry about…
The Mind Reels 