La Belle et la Bete (1946) – Jean Cocteau

The Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book returns me to the Science Fiction and Fantasy genre, and this time, it’s to plunge me into this wonderfully imagined fairy tale. Long before Disney retold the story, first in animated format, then a stage musical, and then in a live action film, French director Cocteau…

Heavy Metal (1981) – Gerald Potterton

I remember seeing issues of Heavy Metal on the magazine rack when I would buy my Starlog and movie magazines growing up on CFB Kingston. I was young, I was there when I was ten and eleven, but I remember being intrigued by the covers I saw. They were appealing, fantastic art, beautiful women, and…

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) – Steven Spielberg

  The Sci-Fi Chronicles brings me another Spielberg film to cover that I previously hadn’t for the blog. A.I. This one proved to be a very divisive film for a lot of viewers, originally planned to be a Stanley Kubrick film a lot of film fans believe that Spielberg over-sentimentalizes it and makes it a…

It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) – Frank Capra

  It’s the middle of summer, so what better time to take a look at a holiday classic as I dive into the Family genre of the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book. Holiday film or not this one is undeniably a classic, and James Stewart is simply perfection as George Bailey, a…

Edward Scissorhands (1990) – Tim Burton

  Tim Burton’s suburban fairy tale is the next recommendation from the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film following my screening of The Wizard of Oz. Perennial Burton favorite Johnny Depp is the titular character, a gentle young man, created by an elderly inventor (Vincent Price) who dies before he can give his creation…

The Killing Circle (2008) – Andrew Pyper

  I dove into another Andrew Pyper book, Lost Girls is still waiting for me, and I was a little unsure about this one to start. I mean, I like the idea, a widower, Patrick Rush, is raising his only son, Sam, his grief over his wife describing a personal pain, not unlike the protagonist in the…

Issues Vol. 8

This week I’ve got four great books, and 1 miss, though that one was my choice and not endorsed by Kirk at West End Comics, so his status remains untarnished. That being said let’s dive in to see what I was reading last night, and allow me the opportunity, once again, to pop into West…

Smoke and Mirrors (1998) – Neil Gaiman

  This collection of short stories by Neil Gaiman was just what I needed. All the tales deal with magic or illusion, whether in the form of creatures, sex, drugs, or life, the power of each is examined under the eye of this brilliant author in this wonderful collection of stories, some of which I…

Belle de Jour (1967) – Luis Bunuel

  The first recommendation from Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown in the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film is this French drama that stars Catherine Deneuve as a housewife, with some intimacy issues, who during the afternoons fills her time by working as a prostitute. Inter-cutting with her daily life, Severine’s…

Trailer Tracks: Conan The Barbarian (1982) – John Milius

My first introduction to Arnold Schwarzenegger was Terminator in 1984, but at that point, I was putting my parents’ video membership to good use, and coming home with 2 to 4 movies every weekend, and I finally got a look at this one. Co-starring James Earl Jones, Max Von Sydow, Mako and Sandahl Bergman, this…