Word On The Street, here in Toronto is a wonderful book festival that highlights authors, publishing companies, and smaller book stores, and when it took over the Harbour Front for its event last weekend, I was eager to see what they had in store for me this year. Amongst the young adult readers I found a…
Tag: locations
The Star Trek Book (2016) – Paul Ruditis, Sandford Galden-Stone and Simon Hugo
DK Canada has another winner on its hands. This book is going to get a lot of use by me as I start, with my very next post, a journey through all of Star Trek’s incarnations. When I was a kid I was introduced to space opera first, and it changed my life. That was…
The Tournament (2013) – Matthew Reilly
Matthew Reilly brings his thrill-a-minute style of writing back to the 16th century as he populates his novel with historical figures caught up in intrigue, lust and a legendary chess tournament in the heart of the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople. A young English princess, Elizabeth Tudor, Bess, all of thirteen years old, accompanies her teacher Roger…
Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) – Jonathan Frakes
The journeys with the U.S.S. Enterprise continue in the Sci-Fi Chronicles book as Picard (Patrick Stewart), Riker (Frakes), Data (Brent Spiner) and the rest render their version, more or less, of The Magnificent Seven. The story behind this film, covered on the blog previously here, shows that it could have been something different than…
Rio Conchos (1964) – Gordon Douglas
Richard Boone and Jim Brown lead the cast in the first recommendation following my screening of The Red Badge of Courage for the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book. Boone stars as James Lassiter, and he, Franklyn (Brown), Haven (Stuart Whitman), Rodriguez (Anthony Franciosa), and an Apache woman (Wende Wagner) are trailing…
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) – Ted Post
The next stop in the Sci-Fi Chronicles book is the long-running Planet of the Apes series, I’d previously reviewed the first film for the blog, so leapt forward into the first sequel, which sees Earth Astronaut, Brent (James Franciscus) travelling through some kind of space anomaly in his search for Taylor (Charlton Heston), who…
Vikings Season 1 & Season 2
A couple of weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to be sent a copy of Season 3 of Vikings, and loved what I watched. Even though it was slightly difficult coming into a series that has already established itself. Still, it was well worth the watch, and when the other two seasons were presented…
Spectre (2015) – Sam Mendes
The new James Bond film opens today, with Daniel Craig’s fourth outing as Ian Fleming’s special agent, 007. And as an avid Bond fan, I had to be there. So what did I think? Gorgeous locations… check. Beautiful women… check (though Monica Bellucci is extremely under-used, as well as Naomi Harris’ Moneypenny). Style… check….
Theeb (2014) – Naji Abu Nowar
Opening today at the Lightbox here in Toronto, as well as Vancouver and Calgary, with additional locations to follow on December 18, is the latest work from award-winning director Naji Abu Nowar. Shot in Jordan, and being submitted as their official Oscar Entry for Best Foreign Language Film for the 2016 Academy Awards, comes this…
The Martian (2015) – Ridley Scott
A fantastic book, a top-notch actor, and one of the best technical directors working, what wasn’t to like about The Martian? Clocking in at 141 minutes, my only real issue with the film was that despite the fact that it gave you the number of sols Mark Watney (Matt Damon) spent alone on Mars…
The Mind Reels 