East Side Sushi (2014) – Anthony Lucero

  Starting a theatrical run in select cities State-side, is this perfect little concoction that delighted, entertained, and fired my appetite. Director Anthony Lucreo has whipped up a splendid little offering that is wonderfully cast, doesn’t cheat or talk down to its audience, and makes us feel for all of the characters involved. At the film’s…

Fringe Toronto: Caws and Effect

Being presented at the Factory Theatre is this singularly stunning piece combining music, masks, puppetry and layered projections. Chloe Ziner and Jessica Gabriel, known collectively as Mind of a Snail Puppet Company, from Vancouver, provided one of the most unique and beautiful shows on offer at this year’s festival. Assuming the personalities of two crows,…

Inside Out (2015) – Pete Docter and Ronaldo Del Carmen

  Pixar has a strong track record, and I’m eager to see each of their films as they get released, all I knew about this one before going into it was that it dealt with a young girl’s emotions, we would be inside the character… And what Pixar has given us is a beautiful and…

Tomorrowland (2015) – Brad Bird

  Hope. It’s something in short supply in today’s films, television and books. We as a culture of become cynically and intellectually lazy (not all of us mind, but that can-do spirit seems to have been diminished, flickering like a guttering candle), gone are the heady days of Mercury and Apollo when creativity, dreams and…

Trailer Tracks: Dreamscape (1984) – Joseph Rubin

  Dennis Quaid, Kate Capshaw, Max Von Sydow, Christopher Plummer, George Wendt, Eddie Albert and David Patrick Kelly star in this sci-fi thriller about a young man who can project himself into dreams. But he’s not the only one. Now, he has to face his fears as he tries to avert disaster!

Mr. Jones (2013) – Karl Mueller

Anchor Bay releases the latest effort from Karl Mueller, the writer of The Divide. Getting behind the camera this time, he provides a unique kind of found footage film that will leave some scratching their head once the second half of this short-running film hits. Penny (Sarah Jones from the sadly short-lived Alcatraz) and Scott…

Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) (1997) – Alejandro Amenabar

  Reimagined as Vanilla Sky in North America, the original film is a wonderfully crafted imagining and a welcome addition to the 101 Sci-Fi Movies list. Cesar (Eduardo Noriega) is rich, handsome, and a bit of a womanizer. When he has problems ditching his latest fling Nuria (Najwa Nimri), he chats up Sofia (Penelope Cruz) the potential…

The Navigator (1988) – Vincent Ward

The 101 Sci-Fi Movies list brings me this medieval plague tale, that interweaves dreams and reality, into an odyssey of hope. In the 14th century the Black Plague is sweeping across Europe, and young Griffin (Hamish McFarlane) fears for his tiny village, even while he longs for his brother Connor (Bruce Lyons) to return to…

Brazil (1985) – Terry Gillilam

  In this entry of the 101 Sci-Fi Movies we have illegal air conditioning repair, bureaucracy, vivid dreams, consumerism a keep calm and carry on attitude and mountains of paperwork. Terry Gilliam’s films have always been odd, eccentric, and you either like them or you don’t, there’s usually no two ways about it. Personally I…