The Great War still rages around young Indiana Jones (Sean Patrick Flanery) serving in the Belgian army as Henri Defense, and this film, cobbled together from two episodes first debuted on 31 October, 1999. Verdun, September 1916 Written by Jonathan Hensleigh, from a story by series creator George Lucas, this portion of the film originally…
Tag: horror
The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones (1992) – Trenches of Hell
Indiana Jones (Sean Patrick Flanery) finds himself immersed in the Great War, and at the battle of the Somme in this week’s instalment of the young hero’s adventures. It was put together from two episodes as a film and released on 24 October, 1999. Somme, Early August 1916 Originally airing on 28 September, 1992 this…
At The Mountains of Madness (1931) – H.P. Lovecraft
Lovecraft’s unnerving novella, At the Mountains of Madness was my next read, and I can’t believe how much I enjoyed it. It’s dark, frightening, and immensely enjoyable. An Antarctic expedition finds something they don’t expect, and from there the tale descends into horror and madness. I feel that the story influenced the short story of…
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) – Gore Verbinski
Who would have thought that Disney could turn one of their oldest theme park attractions into a tentpole franchise back in 2003? Sure the series has floundered, and perhaps overstayed its welcome since, but that first film, directed ably by Verbinski, with a definitive score by Klaus Badelt, and featuring an A-list cast delighted audiences…
Platoon (1986) – Oliver Stone
Walking away with Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Editing, and Best Sound, Platoon is the next recommendation from the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film following my screening of Apocalypse Now. The film serves as a commentary on the horrors of war, even as two sergeants seem to be fighting for the…
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1991) – Data’s Day, and The Wounded
Captain’s log: stardate 44390.1 Airing on 7 January, 1991, this Data (Brent Spiner)- centric episode did something that hadn’t been done in Star Trek before. It gave us a ‘day in the life’ episode. It also further cemented Miles O’Brien (Colm Meaney) in the Trek Universe. Written by Harold Apter and Ronald D. Moore, the…
Acceptance (2014) – Jeff VanderMeer
The final book in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy is on the book shelf this week, and like its predecessors is immensely enjoyable with its ominous overtones even as it hints at something stunning, amazing and beyond human comprehension. We are taken back into Area X, and the government institution investigating the geographical anomaly, the…
Authority (2014) – Jeff VanderMeer
The second book in the Southern Reach Trilogy finds its way to the Book Shelf this week as I dive further into the strange realm of Area X first introduced in the book Annihilation, which also serves as the title of the upcoming film adaptation. This sequel, released within months of the first book takes…
Annihilation (2014) – Jeff VanderMeer
Full disclosure: I had never heard of this book until I saw the trailer for this movie from the writer and director of Ex Machina, the visuals looked amazing, and the ambiguity and mystery conveyed by the short teaser drove me out to find a copy of the Southern Reach trilogy right away. Annihilation is…
The Mummy (1932) – Karl Freund
Somehow in my exposure to the Universal Monsters, and classic films I had missed this Boris Karloff classic that allowed the Mummy (Karloff) to join the ranks of such classic monsters as Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Invisible Man and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Now, thanks to DK Canada’s The Movie Book,…
The Mind Reels 