Closing out the Toronto After dark film festival tonight at Scotibank Theater is the latest film from the Pierce Brothers as they have the Toronto Premiere of The Wretched. With overtones of 80s classics, like The Evil Dead and Fright Night (and going a little further back to the 70s with Jaws – I may…
Tag: divorce
The Family Plot (2016) – Cherie Priest
Haunted house stories take a fine hand to craft and make them entertaining, believable, and scary. Cherie Priest accomplishes all of that with her superior horror novel, The Family Plot. Music City Salvage is barely staying afloat, and Charles Dutton the owner, risks everything to keep it afloat when he buys the Withrow house for…
Life of the Party (2018) – Blu-Ray Review
With a recycled plot that is straight out of an 80s film, the Melissa McCarthy vehicle, Life of the Party hits blu-ray and DVD this week from Warner Brothers. Despite using all of the university and college tropes that have been in play since National Lampoon’s Animal House, the film arguably takes the story and…
Miami Vice (1984) – Calderone’s Return Part I & II
This two parter sees the threat of the pilot episode come back to wreak revenge on Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) and Ricardo Tubbs (Philip Micheal Thomas). The first episode, originally aired as The Hit List was written by Joel Surnow, and first broadcast on 19 October, 1984. Sonny is due in court for a divorce…
Doctor Who (Matt Smith) – Asylum of the Daleks, and Dinosaurs on a Spaceship
Steven Moffat pens the seventh series opener, Asylum of the Daleks, which first aired on 1 September, 2012. The Doctor, Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill) are travelling together again, and they are about to step into a mystery that is going to be with the Time Lord for a while, the mystery of…
The Twilight Zone (1963) – A Kind of a Stopwatch, The Last Night of a Jockey, and Living Doll
There’s the signpost up ahead, it’s time to take a turn into The Twilight Zone: The Complete Series on blu-ray thanks to Paramount Pictures. Up first is the Rod Serling scripted, A Kind of Stopwatch. The series creator adapted a story by Michael D. Rosenthal and debuted the episode on 18 October, 1963. Patrick Thomas…
Quantum Leap (1990) – The Great Spontini and Rebel Without a Clue
After the heavier subject matter last week, The Great Spontini is a bit lighter fare (partially, though it does deal with a heartbreaking reality for families, divorce and custody battles) for Sam (Scott Bakula). Written by Cristy Dawson and Beverly Bridges, this episode first aired on 16 November, 1990. Sam finds himself as a magician, Harry Spontini,…
Sing Street (2016) – John Carney
Sheer joy. There were no other words to express my experience with John Carney’s latest film. Sometimes a film comes along at just the right time in your life, and serves to reminds you of something you’ve always known but you kind of need that obvious callback. And music does that. It doesn’t matter…
Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) – Chris Columbus
The final recommendation from my screening of Way Out West in the family genre of the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book is this wonderful Chris Columbus film starring Robin Williams, who turns in a wonderfully fantastic performance as Daniel Hillard. Daniel is a fun-loving voice actor, who can rarely take anything…
Anna Karenina (1935) – Clarence Brown
It’s time to return the romance and melodrama section of the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book, and the title under examination time is the 1935 Greta Garbo classic based on the epic novel by Leo Tolstoy. Garbo is the titular Anna in 19th century St. Petersburg. Her husband, Karenin is played…
Airwolf (1984) – Echoes From the Past & Fight Like a Dove
Stingfellow Hawke (Jan-Michael Vincent) and Dominic Santini (Ernest Borgnine) put the supercopter Airwolf through its paces in this week’s installment. First up is Echoes From the Past, which aired 3 March, 1984, and was written by C.R. O’Christopher. When a mercenary claims to have a lead on String’s brother St. John, Hawke finds himself falling…
Possession (1981) – Andrzej Zulawski
A bizarre, and troubling tale was recommended to me by this odd list I came across listing horror movies, the majority of which I’d seen, but this one I’d never heard of… After his turn as Damien Thorn in the Omen III, Sam Neill took on the role of Mark in this haunting and…
