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,…

Golden Son (2015) – Pierce Brown

  The second novel in Pierce Brown’s science fiction trilogy that began with Red Rising is on the Book Shelf this week, and if I liked the first one (which I did), I loved this one! The story picks up a couple of years after the events of the first book, and sees Darrow on…

Hot Docs 2016: Beware the Slenderman – Irene Taylor Brodsky

  Having its international premiere last night at the Lightbox,  Irene Taylor Brodsky’s film is a slick looking, unnerving and surprisingly emotional look at the blurring of fiction and reality in the modern age, as two young girls, Anissa and Morgan succumb to the terrors and stories of the internet created character of the Slenderman,…

The Night of the Hunter (1955) – Charles Laughton

  The Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book brings me back to the Thriller genre, with this classic starring Robert Mitchum as twisted evangelist Harry Powell, a man not afraid to commit evil in the name of the lord. He has just served time for a car theft, and had met a prisoner,…

The Birth of a Nation (1915) – D.W. Griffith

  An epic and uncomfortable film (not just the actors in black face either), The Birth of a Nation is the next movie to be recommended by Great Movies – 1oo Years of Film, following my viewing of Intolerance. It starts out fairly well, setting up stories on both sides of the impending American Civil…