John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019) – Chad Stahelski

I have served. I will be of service. I love these films so much. Each one has taken what we have learned in the previous film and builds on it. And John Wick (Keanu Reeves) gets pulled back, completely into the underworld of assassination that he left for five years. When the film opens, he…

Northern Exposure (1994) – Up River, and Sons of the Tundra

Up River was written by Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, and it first aired on 14 November, 1994. Maurice (Barry Corbin) sends Ed (Darren E. Burrows) up river to find Joel (Rob Morrow) after Maggie (Janine Turner) asked him to move out. And that’s sad, because they seemed on the edge of some serious potential…

Guns Akimbo (2019) – Jason Howden

Frenetic. Kinetic. and often hilarious, Guns Akimbo is an ultra-violent, gory action comedy starring Daniel Radcliffe and Samara Weaving. Radcliffe, trotting out an American accent for the role, plays Miles. He professionally baits online trolls but when he finds an online fight club that has thousands of viewers across the web, he may have stumbled…

Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991) – Simon Wincer

I saw Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man the summer it opened in ’91, while I was working in Toronto. Something about it just clicked for me. I like the sense of history to the characters and the world they live in. Set five years down the road in 1996, the world is going to…

TIFF 2021: Hold Your Fire dir. Stefan Forbes

New York. 1973. While it looks like a different time on film, not everything has changed, and consequently, Forbes documentary, which looks at a hostage situation that featured around the clock coverage at the time is just as relevant today as it was then. There’s errors on both sides, accusations, instituionalised racism, redemption for some,…

The Enforcer (1976) – James Fargo

Clint Eastwood returns as ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan for a third time in The Enforcer, the only film in the series not to have music by Lalo Schifrin (Jerry Fielding takes over giving us a jazzy sounding film score) and for the only time, pairs Callahan with a female homicide detective, Kate Moore, played by Tyne…

The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three (1987) – Stephen King

This week I continue my journey with Roland, the gunslinger, introduced to us in the first volume of The Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger. Roland is in trouble from the off when he wakes on an expansive miles-long beach that is the shoreline of the Western Sea, and immediately runs afoul of some of the…

The 15:17 to Paris (2018): Blu-Ray Review

Clint Eastwood’s latest directorial effort hits blu-ray today from Warner Brothers, and is based on the true story of three Americans, friends, who stopped a planned terrorist attack on a Paris bound train on 21 August, 2015. As much as I love Eastwood’s body of work, both as a director and as an actor, this…

The Long Walk (1979) – Stephen King as Richard Bachman

King’s first novel, written, not published, is a gripping thriller that terrifies and captivates, from the first page to it’s haunting conclusion. Writing under his pseudonym of Richard Bachman, the story follows Ray Garraty a young teen in an alternate timeline where a totalitarian government has assumed control, and all of it is overseen by…