TIFF24: Heretic dir. Scott Beck and Bryan Woods

Scott Beck and Bryan Woods deliver a masterclass in anxiety-inducing tension with Heretic. Shot brilliantly with tight close-ups, Beck and Woods continually ratchet things up even as they present a theology lesson that is as conversation-starting as the film is unnerving. Sister Paxton (Chloe East) and Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) are young Mormons canvassing for…

Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969) – Burt Kennedy

James Garner is at his charming best in Support Your Local Sheriff! Jason (Garner) rides into a small gold rush town, which we see spring up through the opening credits after Prudy (Joan Hackett) and her father, Olly Perkins (Harry Morgan) discover gold partway through a funeral – and that should tell you all you…

Kindergarten Cop (1990) – Ivan Reitman

“It’s not a tumour!” It’s a catchphrase that found its way into the pop culture and has resurfaced over and over. And I never saw it originally. I was never interested in watching Arnold Schwarzenegger be funny. It just didn’t sound like a good time to me. So now, some thirty-plus years on, I finally…

Star Trek: Lower Decks – Season 4 Blu-Ray

The U.S.S. Cerritos returns to the screen with Paramount Canada’s release of Star Trek: Lower Decks – Season 4 on Blu-ray. Filled with great stories, deep cuts of Trek trivia, and lots of laughs as well as answering the decades-old question, does Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) look like Nick Locarno? There are promotions, roommates,…

Deadpool 2 (2018) – David Leitch

Ryan Reynolds returns as the merc with a mouth in Deadpool 2. As funny and as engaging as the first film, this one also throws in a bit of a message, as it’s main villain is the Headmaster (Eddie Marsan) for a reform school for mutants, where they are beaten and abused to drive the…

Deadpool (2016) – Tim Miller

Ryan Reynolds was made for the role of Deadpool, the Marvel meta-merc. His appearance as the character in Wolverine: Origins was horrible, and this is nothing but redeeming, and insanely funny. While the film is an origin story, showing how Wade Wilson (Reynolds) became Deadpool, it also knows to make fun of itself and origin…

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967) – 4K Review

Stanley Kramer’s funny, provocative, and poignant Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner from 1967 has been a hole in my viewing history for far too long. With the arrival of Sony’s release of Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection Volume 4, I was able to remedy that, and I was finally able to settle in and…

Being Henry: The Fonz and Beyond (2023) – Henry Winkler

I was lucky enough to meet Henry Winkler once at one of Toronto’s Fan Expo, and he was as friendly and charming as I would have wanted him to be. And I didn’t get to tell him, but when I was a kid, living in CFB North Bay, I would ride my little yellow banana…