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…
Tag: family
The Color Purple (1985) – Steven Spielberg
Was Steven Spielberg the right person to shoot the film adaptation of Alice Walker’s powerful novel? He was an interesting choice for the project, and it definitely wasn’t the dramatic material that he was associated with in the 80s, having delivered a number of blockbusters at that point. And while there were a number of…
Fringe (2010) – The Bishop Revival, and Jacksonville
Glen Whitman and Robert Chiappetta penned The Bishop Revival which first aired on 28 January, 2010. Someone is using a toxin to target specific groups of people and as Olvia (Anna Torv), Peter (Joshua Jackson), and Walter (John Noble) investigate, they realize that it is someone using an old formula. One that was created by…
Insidious (2010) – James Wan
Director James Wan, and writer Leigh Whannell’s Insidious is a fairly solid ghost story, though it took me forever to come around to it. My first experience seeing it was in the theatre, where I couldn’t get over how a couple in front of me was scared by everything that was happening on the screen….
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….
Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986) – Brian Gibson
A number of cast and crew (including composer Jerry Goldsmith and visual effects artist Richard Edlund) return for Poltergeist II: The Other Side and while Julian Beck seems truly terrifying as Kane, the film doesn’t have the Spielberg or Hooper magic that made the first film such a hit. The Freeling family, Diane (JoBeth Williams),…
The Incredible Journey (1963) – Fletcher Markle
Based on the novel by Sheila Burnford, Walt Disney brought The Incredible Journey to audiences in 1963, playing like one of their nature films with the occasional foray into the human characters, the tale follows a trio of household pets, Luath, Bodger, and Tao Cat as they head through the wilderness of Ontario, Canada to…
Gwendy’s Magic Feather (2019) – Richard Chizmar
Richard Chizmar takes us back to Castle Rock with Gwendy Peterson in the follow-up to the novella Gwendy’s Button Box. Fellow author Stephen King doesn’t lend a hand this time but gives the story his endorsement and we join Gwendy, now a Congresswoman for Maine as she returns to Castle Rock to see her parents,…
The McPherson Tape (1989) – Dean Alioto
The idea of alien abduction has always gotten under my skin and made me anxious, and occasionally freaked out. Other corners of the horror genre can freak me, but I can usually deal with it easily, processing it and enjoying it for what it is. But there’s something about the concept of an intelligence so…
The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021) – Michael Rianda and Jeff Rowe
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…
The Mind Reels 