Escape From L.A. (1996) – John Carpenter

I love me some John Carpenter, and his work with Kurt Russell is always enjoyable, but this next stop in the Sci-Fi Chronicles book isn’t as good as it could have been, but I still enjoy parts of it, I mean there’s Kurt as Snake Plissken, again. This time the year is 2013, L.A. has…

Black Moon Rising (1986) – Harley Cokeliss

My time with John Carpenter continues as I delve further into the Sci-Fi Chronicles book. This time around it’s an action thriller that Carpenter penned and sees Tommy Lee Jones, Linda Hamilton and Robert Vaughn caught up in the action. Jones is Quint, a professional thief, who is hired by the FBI to gather evidence…

The Philadelphia Experiment (1984) -Stewart Raffill

  The Sci-Fi Chronicles continues to bring me a lot of fun films, and flashbacks to my youth. And now, I get to dive into some John Carpenter films, that’s the good news. The bad news is I’ve previously covered almost all the ones the book lists, so I had to leap forward to 1984, when…

Stranger Things (2016) – Season 1

  Picture a Stephen King novel directed by Steven Spielberg, with a score by John Carpenter, and a beautifully balanced touch of nostalgia and you have the wondrous, scary, funny, and exciting ride that is Netflix’s latest winner, Stranger Things. Created by Matt and Ross Duffer, the series is set in Indiana in the year,…

Midnight Special (2016) – Jeff Nichols

  Owing its pedigree to films of the 80s like John Carpenter’s Starman and Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Nichols writes and directs this science fiction road movie that is best viewed with little to no plot knowledge. So suffice to say, I won’t be saying much about story points in my review….

Toronto Comic Con 2016

  Convention season is upon us once again, and Sue and I were delighted to be given press passes to cover the first big one of the year, here in the Big Smoke, the Toronto Comic Con. Stretching wonderfully over three days, beginning on Friday last, and running to the end of Sunday the 20th,…

The Great Digital Film Festival 2016

  I love when this time of year rolls around, because every February, Cineplex puts on their Great Digital Film Festival which tends to showcase some wonderful films from my childhood projected on the big screen in wonderful digital clarity, often mixed with some newer popular titles. This year is no different, running from February…

Issues Vol. 14

A bit of a quiet week for my pull-list at West End Comics, but Kirk keeps me informed of what’s coming my way, and there is plenty of good stuff on the horizon… like the new Star Wars title, Shattered Empire!! (SO CLOSE NOW!!) but until then, here’s what I was reading this week… Hank…

The Thing (2011) – Matthijs van Heijningen jr.

  The Sci-Fi Chronicles book brings me to the remake/reboot/prequel to one of my all time favorite John Carpenter films, The Thing. I love both previous cinematic incarnations of this film, the paranoia and isolation that permeates the story and characters of Carpenter’s film, and the crackling dialogue and pacing of the 50s version, The Thing From Another World. So…