Stallone returns to write, direct and star in Rocky Balboa, which sees Stallone’s iconic character return to the boxing ring one last time. Watching all of the films this close together, this entry actually has some nice emotional resonance. Rocky (Stallone) is mourning the death of Adrian (Talia Shire), he’s stepped away from boxing for…
Tag: emotional
Deep Impact (1998) – 4K Review
I remember the summer of the duelling asteroid movies, 1998. There was Michael Bay’s Armageddon and Mimi Leder’s, with Steven Spielberg in her corner, Deep Impact from Paramount Pictures. Deep Impact opened first in May, with Armageddon following up in July, which completely ended up overshadowing Impact, which is unfortunate, because of the two films,…
The Expanse (2020) – Exodus, and Churn
Season five of The Expanse brings the story back into the Sol System even as the mystery of the protomolecule hangs over everything in the system. The season opener, Exodus, was written by Naren Shankar and dropped on Amazon Prime alongside episodes two and three on 16 December, 2020. The crew of the Rocinante are…
The Darjeeling Limited (2007) – Wes Anderson
Wes Anderson’s films are always delightful and quirky, but The Darjeeling Limited is arguably his most emotionally grounded film. Featuring a script he wrote with Roman Coppola, and star Jason Schwartzman the film follows the journey of three brothers are they attempt to find a way to reconnect, and getting over the loss of their…
The Full Monty (1997) – Peter Cattaneo
I remember the first time I saw The Full Monty and how much I laughed and got emotionally involved with the film. I haven’t watched it in the better part of two decades so I was quite happy to sit down and watch it again. Robert Carlyle stars alongside Mark Addy, Tom Wilkinson, Steve Huison,…
TIFF ’22: Empire of Light
Writer/director Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light is a beautiful and emotional achievement, celebrating the beauty of cinema while allowing its star, Olivia Colman to deliver a powerful, layered and nuanced performance as Hillary. She’s a woman of a certain age who suffers from a mental illness, which she has to contend with in her day-to-day…
Empire of the Sun (1987) – Steven Spielberg
Spielberg’s next project was an adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s memoir of his time as a boy growing up in Japanese occupied China during World War II. Christian Bale, in one of his earliest roles, plays young Jamie Graham, an arrogant young English boy who is fascinated by planes, and whose life is upended in the…
M*A*S*H (1982) – Trick or Treatment, Foreign Affairs, and The Joker is Wild
Dennis Koenig pens Trick or Treatment which first aired on 1 November, 1982. While the 4077th attempts to get in on local Halloween parties, a slew of wounded ruin their evening, but doesn’t stop them from sharing ghost stories, and dressing up in costumes. Amongst the wounded are Richard Lineback, George Wendt, and Andrew Clay….
The Lovely Bones (2009) – Peter Jackson
Director Peter Jackson adapted Alice Sebold’s heartbreaking novel, The Lovely Bones, to the big screen alongside his collaborators Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, and while there are a lot of differences from the book to film (the novel definitely has more adult themes, and things were toned down for the teen, twenty-something audiences), and some…
The X-Files (2016) – Mulder & Scully Meet the Were-Monster, and Home Again
Fan favorite writer Darin Morgan returns to The X-Files with Mulder & Scully Meet the Were-Monster. First airing on 1 February, 2016, While Mulder (David Duchovny) questions whether or not he’s wasted his life chasing UFOs, aliens, and monsters, Scully (Gillian Anderson) arrives in the office with another case… a monster. But, of course, with…
The Mind Reels 