Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020) – Dean Parisot

Bill & Ted came along at just the right time in my life. In 1989, I was a senior in high school, and the characters, their speech, and their general attitudes resonated with me. I joined them on their Excellent Adventure a couple of times in theaters, and in 1991 when they went on a…

Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024) – Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah

Mike (Will Smith) and Marcus (Martin Lawrence) return for a fourth time in Bad Boys: Ride or Die,. While I like the franchise, and I like the characters and the way the series has expanded, this one felt a little slower and not exactly top heavy but not as engaging as it should have been….

Starman (1986) – One for the Road, and Peregrine

Paul (Robert Hays) and Scott (Christopher Daniel Barnes) have been on the road for a while, we’re seven episodes in (!) and they’ve grown tired of it and may enjoy one place for a while in One for the Road. Written by Michael Marks this episode was first broadcast on 7 November, 1986. Scott is…

The Book of the Dead (2007) – Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Pendergast is back! Picking up where the previous novel Dance of Death ended, Preston and Child plunge us back into the world of Aloysius, D’Agosta, Smithback, Kelly, Hayward, Constance and Pendergast’s villainous and genius brother, Diogenes. This novel serves as a climax of the previous two books, wrapping up the storyline of the two brothers,…

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) – Steven Spielberg

The next stop for me in the Sci-Fi Chronicles is the dinosaur franchise that began with a novel, Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton and became a blockbuster film by Steven Spielberg. He followed up that first film from 1993, with The Lost World: Jurassic Park in 1997. While it lacks the discovery and the sense…

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007) – Colin and Greg Strause

Picking up where the first film left off – with the strange Predalien bursting into existence, this ill-advised sequel continues to pair up two of the greatest movie monster creations against one another, with humanity stuck between them, and because of the terrible way it’s handled, no one can be bothered to care. Unfortunately, for…

Willow Creek (2013) – Bobcat Goldthwait

  Hitting DVD and Blu-Ray last week was this found footage film that I missed at Toronto After Dark last year. As a slow-burning, low-budget horror film, this one works, and is wonderfully creepy and troubling. Don’t go in expecting big budget thrills, think Blair Witch, but replaced, possibly, by Bigfoot. Jim (Bryce Johnson) is…

TIFF – The Dick Knost Show (2013) – Bruce Sweeney

  Bruce Sweeney`s latest character piece, you`ll recall I highly enjoyed The Crimes of Mike Recket, is a look at the world of sports radio, specifically the acid-tongued, quick-witted, numbers-driven Dick Knost (a hilarious turn by Thomas Scholte). He is controversial, and after he sends a number of inflammatory tweets, his network higher-ups finally have the…