Don Adams had a very short summer break between seasons one and two of Get Smart. The first season, with a staggering thirty episodes, came to a close in the first week of May 1966. By 17 September, 1966, Maxwell Smart (Adams) was continuing his spycraft. The first episode of the season, Anatomy of a…
Tag: code
Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942) – Roy William Neill
Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Watson (Nigel Bruce) continue their own efforts against the Third Reich in this 1942 film that is loosely based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Dancing Men story. I say loosely, but it’s really only the code that comes into play. Holmes gets to put his disguises to…
Longlegs (2024) – Osgood Perkins
I really wanted to see this one in the theaters, but I could never make it work with my schedule, so when it finally popped up on a streaming service, I was all in. Immediately. And I loved it. It’s spooky, freaky, and Osgood Perkins masterfully frames his images. He makes use of negative space…
Batman: Hush (2019) – Justin Copeland
The DC Animation adaptation of Hush by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee is a solid piece of work and attempts to walk a balancing act between the established canon of the animated films, and the comics. There are also a lot of layers at work throughout the course of the film, something that doesn’t happen…
The Expanse (2016) – Windmills, and Salvage
Chrisjen (Shohreh Aghdashloo) heads to the Holden farm in Montana to speak with Holden’s (Steven Strait) family in an attempt to better understand him and his actions, even as the UN prepares to remove him from the playing field. Windmills was written by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (collectively known as James S.A. Corey, the…
Mission: Impossible (1969) – The Code, and The Numbers Game
Season Four of Mission: Impossible got underway on 28 September, 1969 with The Code, written by Ken Pettus. Right away, there are changes going on with the series, and the IMF team, there’s a more swinging score, and a new member has joined the team, master of disguise, Paris (Leonard Nimoy, fresh off his three…
Mission: Impossible (1967) – The Council: Part 1, and Part 2
This week’s IMF assignment is a two-parter that takes its time with its storytelling, and sets things up nicely for some great payoffs as I explore more of Mission: Impossible – The Complete Series on blu-ray, now available from Paramount Pictures. Written by William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter, part one debuted on 19 November,…
Heartbreak Ridge (1986) – Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood stars, produces and directs this love letter to the United States Marine Corps. and while fairly engaging, the film embraces stereotypes almost to the extreme at both ends, consequently the characters and tone of the film isn’t as balanced as it could be. Eastwood plays the career marine, Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway. He’s…
Paddington 2 (2017) – Blu-Ray Review
Hitting blu-ray and DVD today from Warner Brothers is the brilliant follow-up to the 2014 hit, Paddington. Ben Whishaw returns to voice the iconic bear in the red hat and the blue duffle coat, as he continues to win hearts around London, and the world. The first film boasted a truckload of recognisable English talent,…
Star Trek: The Animated Series (1974) – The Pirates of Orion, Bem, and The Practical Joker
Captain’s log: stardate 6334.1 Howard Weinstein pens the first episode of the second and final series of the animated Star Trek series. Airing on 7 September, 1974, the story continued to see our crew boldly going. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) has contracted a fatal illness. Things get worse for the Vulcan science officer, when Orion pirates…
The Mind Reels 