Hundreds of Beavers is a gift. It’s brilliantly funny, and pays wonderful homage to the cartoon shorts of yesteryear, including their dark level of violence, the magic of Melies, the creativity of silent films, and the ability of a movie to take you in and captivate you even with its odd trappings. Jean Kayak (Ryland…
Tag: dark
Death Rides a Horse (1967) – Giulio Petroni
Lee Van Cleef stars alongside John Phillip Meceita in this spaghetti western from Giulio Petroni. My knowledge of spaghetti westerns is pretty slim, so it should come as no surprise that I had never heard of this one, but with Lee Van Cleef in it I figured why the hell not? What it is, is…
The Bone Collector (1999) – Phillip Noyce
Denzel Washington brings Jeffrey Deaver’s brilliant detective Lincoln Rhymes to life in Phillip Noyce’s big-screen version of The Bone Collector. Haunted by the moment he became a quadriplegic, Rhymes is an ex-homicide detective who is planning for his final transition, an assisted suicide, much against the wishes of his caregiver, Thelma (Queen Latifah). When one…
King of New York (1990) – Abel Ferrara
Christopher Walken is completely captivating as Frank White, a recently paroled drug dealer who is using violence to get his way on the streets even as he tries to position himself as a possible political force in the city. Filled with now classic rap tunes, the film is gritty, violent and features a stellar cast…
High Plains Drifter (1973) – Clint Eastwood
High Plains Drifter marked the first time Eastwood directed a western. Keeping in line with the work he put in on his spaghetti westerns, the movie is a darker, grittier style western, as opposed to the type of film made prior to them. To illustrate that the Stranger he’s playing is a bad dude, Eastwood…
The Lord of the Rings (1978) – Ralph Bakshi
The summer of ’84 was one of the defining summers of my life. It saw a lot of changes in my life, and was also the first time that I read The Lord of the Rings. I was swept up in the world, and was delighted that I’d read all three books so quickly, and…
The Lone Ranger (2013) – Gore Verbinski
Gore Verbinski is a vibrant visual director, but the casting of Armie Hammer as John Reid aka The Lone Ranger, doesn’t do the film any good, and the whitewashing of Tonto with the casting of Johnny Depp makes things worse. There are some wonderful sequences, some great images, and some fun comedic moments, as the…
Star Trek: Picard (2020) – Stardust City Rag, and The Impossible Box
Jonathan Frakes directs Stardust City Rag, which starts off brutally, and takes us to some dark places with the characters even as Picard (Patrick Stewart) gets to pose as a villain. Written by Kirsten Beyer, this episode first aired on 20 February 2020 and opens with a Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) flashback as we…
The Equalizer (1989) – Heart of Justice, and Race Traitors
McCall (Edward Woodward) finds himself on the hunt for a vigilante after an innocent man is arrested for his crimes. Heart of Justice is a very dark story. Written by Gail Morgan Hickman this episode was first broadcast on 11 May, 1989. Michael Gianelli (John Shepherd) wants revenge on the two serial rapists (including Paul…
The Equalizer (1989) – Lullaby of Darkness, and 17 Zebra
McCall (Edward Woodward) tries to saves the lives of a young girl, Mindy (Ellen Latzen) and her mother, Rebecca (mary-Joan Negro) from her abusive father, Joseph (Stephen Lang!) and her own imagination in Lullaby of Darkness. The episode was written by Coleman Luck and originally aired on 30 March, 1989. McCall is contacted by one…
