Netflix delivered a fantastic animated feature with The Mitchells vs. the Machines. I’ll be honest, when I first heard about it, I wasn’t sure. It looked a little too goofy, or too silly, but settling in for it, you actually realize it has a lot to say about family, technology, and life in general, and…
Tag: dinosaur
Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975) – Ishiro Honda
Director Ishiro Honda returns for the last Godzilla film of the Showa era, and while it still features space aliens intent on taking over the planet, this one feels a little deeper than some of the previous entries, by introducing some interesting characters who seem to really struggle with their natures. I’m talking, specifically about…
Queen Kong (1976) – Frank Agrama
This bizarre, musical number filled send up of the classic film King Kong is the next entry in the Monstrous Apes chapter of DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies. This British film is so incredibly bad that it does actually come around to good again. In fact it rides it like a merry-go-round racing around…
The Giant Behemoth (1959) – Douglas Hickox and Eugene Lourie
The English are in trouble again as I venture into the water to discover another title in the Dragons & Dinosaurs chapter of DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies. This time all of our atomic testing has caused a mass of radioactive waste to wash ashore near a small English village, and that’s only the…
Dragonslayer (1981) – Matthew Robbins
Vermithax Perjorative. Was there ever a better name for a dragon ever? DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies book brings me this classic film from ’81 as I continue my exploration of the dark chapter on dragons and dinosaurs. Boasting some fantastic creature effects, Vermitax may be the best looking dragon to ever be presented…
Jack the Giant Killer (1962) – Nathan Juran
There are dragons and monsters galore in the next film in DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies book as I delve deeper into the chapter called Dragons & Dinosaurs, and while the stop-motion effects aren’t quite up to Harryhausen standards, this fantasy adventure, suitable for family fun, is pretty fun to behold. A farmboy, Jack…
Gertie the Dinosaur (1915) – Winsor McCay
I move into another chapter in DK Canada’s immensely enjoyable Monsters in the Movies book from director John Landis. I leave behind Myths, Legends and Fairy Tales and move on to Dragons & Dinosaurs. And first up is one of the earliest examples of animation, Gertie the Dinosaur. This silent short film was originally created…
Indiana Jones and the Dinosaur Eggs (1996) – Max McCoy
1933 Indiana Jones, the globe-trotting archaeologist, sets out on his tenth novel adventure, and the second one by Max McCoy, and much like its predecessor, the author continues to show that he knows how to tell a fairly solid Indy story, marry it with history, mythology, and legend and tie it in to what has…
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) – Steven Spielberg
The next stop for me in the Sci-Fi Chronicles is the dinosaur franchise that began with a novel, Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton and became a blockbuster film by Steven Spielberg. He followed up that first film from 1993, with The Lost World: Jurassic Park in 1997. While it lacks the discovery and the sense…
Batman: The Animated Series (1998) – Mean Seasons, The Demon Within and Over the Edge
The youth of Gotham are in the target sights in the first episode this week, as we continue the New Batman Adventures. Mean Season aired 25 April, 1998, and sees Batman (Kevin Conroy) and Batgirl (Tara Strong) taking on the mysterious Calendar Girl (Sela Ward), who is attacking youth media events all over the…
The Mind Reels 