I’m not crying. You’re crying! Is there anything more Canadian to children who grew up in the 70s/80s/and early90s than Mr. Dressup? I can’t remember a time in my own life when I didn’t know about him, Casey, Finnegan and the Tickle Trunk. In fact I’m sure that at some point I had a stuffed…
Tag: interact
Topper (1937) -Norman Z. McLeod
Cary Grant headlines the first film I dive into as I hit the chapter on ghosts in DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies. Played as a bit of a romantic comedy, the film is one I had never heard of, and I always enjoy settling in for a Grant picture. The suave leading man plays…
Star Trek: Voyager (1997) – Fair Trade, and Alter Ego
Captain’s log: stardate unknown Andre Bormanis pens the teleplay for this episode from a story by Ronald Wilkerson and Jean Louis Matthias. This Neelix (Ethan Phillips) heavy episode first debuted on 8 January, 1997. As the Voyager begins to close on a region of space that Neelix is unfamiliar with, he turns to the aid…
Murder, My Sweet (1944) – Edward Dmytryk
Dick Powell doesn’t quite have the narration patter down of a hard-boiled private investigator, especially not for the one he’s playing, Philip Marlowe, still, this is a great little film-noir bringing another incarnation of Raymond Chandler’s iconic character to the silver screen. And he handles the actual dialogue with his co-stars well, it’s just the…
Taxi Driver (1976) – Martin Scorsese
Out of all of Scorsese’s work, I think Taxi Driver, the next stop on the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book as I return to the Thriller genre, is my favourite. It also features one of my top performances by Robert De Niro. Much has been said and written about Taxi Driver since…
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1990) – Hollow Pursuits, and The Most Toys
Captain’s log: stardate 43801.4 First airing on 30 April, 1990, this episode, written by Sally Caves introduced fan favourite Reginald Barclay (Dwight Schultz) to the Trek Universe. Barclay is smart, but shy, suffers from some anxieties, and releases them through escapes to the holodeck. In fact, he slips away every chance he gets, as, within…
People On Sunday (1930) – Robert Slodmak & Edgar G. Ulmar
People On Sunday is the next big stop in DK Canada’s The Movie Book. Called a film without actors, the film is fluid and natural, following five people on a Sunday. Erwin, a taxi driver, Brigitte, a retail, clerk, Wolfgang, a wine trader, Christl, a film extra, Annie, a model, are the film’s subjects, as…
Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973/1974) – The Slaver Weapon, The Eye of the Beholder, and The Jihad
Captain’s log: stardate 4187.3 Larry Niven adapts his story The Soft Weapon to become a Star Trek episode in this tale that first aired 15 December 1973. The race is on when Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) and Sulu (George Takei) discover an ancient weapon. The come up against the cat-like Kzinti who want…
Arrival (2016) – Denis Villeneuve
First contact. The interpretation of words. How we communicate both person to person, and mass media. The very perception of our existence. These are all at work in Canadian director Villeneuve’s latest film. A hard science fiction tale that eschews lasers and space battles for deeper concepts like the way we interact and understand one…
Conversations with Dolphins (2016) – Jerome Julienne and John Jackson
“They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains the hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent.” – Whales Weep Not! D. H. Lawrece Airing as part of the CBC’s Nature of Things tonight, is this fascinating documentary about one of my favourite mammals on the planet, dolphins. From endurance swimmer Adam…
The Mind Reels 