Simon & Schuster delivers a charming new novel by Kaliane Bradley today, one that is wonderfully funny, heartbreakingly romantic, and all wrapped up in time travel. Set in England, a young British-Cambodian civil servant is promoted and recruited into a top-secret project and is shocked to discover that time travel is real. A number of…
Tag: charming
Family Ties (1987) – Love Me Do, The Visit, and Matchmaker
While Steven (Michael Gross) is planning a surprise birthday party for Elyse (Meredith Baxter) in Love Me Do, Skippy (Marc Price) falls for one of Mallory’s (Justine Bateman) classmates, Amy (Sonia Curtis). Written by Marc Lawrence this episode was first broadcast on 30 April, 1987. It’s fun to see Skippy happy and that the relationship…
Being Henry: The Fonz and Beyond (2023) – Henry Winkler
I was lucky enough to meet Henry Winkler once at one of Toronto’s Fan Expo, and he was as friendly and charming as I would have wanted him to be. And I didn’t get to tell him, but when I was a kid, living in CFB North Bay, I would ride my little yellow banana…
Murphy’s Romance (1985) – Martin Ritt
James Garner earned his only Academy Award nomination for his turn as Murphy Jones, a local widower, handyman and pharmacist in the small town of Eunice, where the newly divorced Emma (Sally Field) and her young son, Jake (Corey Haim) arrive in to make an attempt at running a horse ranch. Emma has a tough…
The Mummy (2017) – Alex Kurtzman
I won’t lie, I loved the idea of Universal’s Dark Universe, a multi-cinematic excursion that ties all the classic Universal monsters together in some new dynamic way. But when I heard the reviews beginning to pour in about the first entry, which subsequently killed any plans for continuing the proposed universe I stayed away. Until…
TAD 2021: The Free Fall dir. Adam Stilwell
Toronto After Dark delivers a gaslighting character thriller with The Free Fall, enjoying its Canadian premiere, and comes in as one of my favorite films of the festival. That being said, I saw the truth of what was going on before everything was revealed, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an enjoyable ride. Sara (Andrea…
Hardball (2001) – Blu-Ray Review
Sometimes you just want to sit back and enjoy something light with actors you love and can rely on, say like Keanu Reeves and Diane Lane. Well Paramount Canada has you covered with the blu-release of the 2001 film, Hardball. Based loosely on a true story (and the book about it by Daniel Coyle) the…
Hannibal (2001) – Ridley Scott
Anthony Hopkins returns to his iconic role of the cannibalistic doctor, Hannibal Lector in the sequel to the brilliant The Silence of the Lambs. This film shows up in Ten Bad Dates with De Niro on a list of films that it is painful to like. Jodie Foster and director Jonathan Demme elected not to…
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) – Wes Anderson
The final title in The Directory, marking the end of my time with DK Canada’s exceptional The Movie Book is this fun, quirky film from writer/director Wes Anderson and starring Ralph Fiennes. Anderson packs the film with his favourite actors as he has done throughout his films. Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody,…
Stoker (2013) – Chan-wook Park
The next title on the What Else to Watch list in DK Canada’s highly enjoyable The Movie book, following my screening of Oldboy is another Park film featuring Matthew Goode, Mia Wasikowska, and Nicole Kidman. If I hadn’t already immersed myself in some of Park’s films, as well as some of the other darker films…
The Mind Reels 