Poor Jennifer (Tina Yothers) gets more than she wanted or bargained for when she asks Alex (Michael J. Fox) to help her with her oral presentation in The Disciple. Written by Rich Reinhart, this episode was first broadcast on 9 January, 1986. Jennifer has to present a report on how a bill becomes a law,…
Tag: love
Scrooged (1988) – 4K
The endlessly quotable (‘The night the reindeer died’ stays with me!) Bill Murray holiday film, Scrooged hits 4K from Paramount Pictures just in time for the holidays. A riff on the classic Dickens’ tale, A Christmas Carol, Bill Murray brings the laughs in this delightful film helmed by the legendary Richard Donner. Murray plays Frank…
Death on the Nile (2022) – Kenneth Branagh
Kenneth Branagh continues his exploration of the Agatha Christie creation, the world’s greatest detective, Hercule Poirot and his little grey cells with Death on the Nile. It follows on the tail of Murder on the Orient Express, which Branagh also directed and starred in. I do like the fact that Branagh seems to have taken…
Family Ties (1984) – Diary of a Young Girl, Working at It, and The Gambler
Jennifer (Tina Yothers) is in the hospital to have her tonsils removed, and she’s a little stressed and worried about what will happen in Diary of a Young Girl. The penultimate episode of season two of Family Ties was written by Ruth Bennett and it aired on 3 May, 1984. Jennifer hasn’t been super lucky…
Scratch One (1967) – Micheal Crichton
Michael Crichton’s second novel, which he wrote under his pseudonym of John Lange, is a fast-paced thriller that plays on the familiar trope of mistaken identity. This time out an American lawyer, Roger Carr, finds himself mistaken for a high-profile hitman and finds himself stuck between opposing sides in an arms deal which has its…
TIFF ’23: Chuck Chuck Baby
Chuck Chuck Bay is an ebullient experience. A delightful film about love, life, loss and music which brushes against deeper and heavier themes of community, hurt and acceptance but never loses track of the joy of falling in love and how every song seems to be about you. While not quite a jukebox musical, the…
TIFF ’23: The Dead Don’t Hurt
Viggo Mortensen wrote and directed this Western drama that is filled with recognizable Western tropes but Moternsen neither completely rejects them nor subverts them, he simply uses them to fill out his story about an immigrant couple that finds themselves living and loving on the edge of a corrupt Nevada town in the 1860s. The…
TIFF ’23: Summer Qamp
My first documentary of this year’s TIFF was the joyous celebration that is Summer Qamp. The film crew led by director Jennifer Markowitz heads to Camp fYrefly located in, of all places, Alberta. A week-long summer camp for queer, non-binary and trans teens, fYrefly is a safe space for everyone who goes there and allows…
TIFF ’23: The Boy and the Heron
If anyone has ever said that animation isn’t an art form, they’ve never seen a Hayao Miyazaki film. Beloved by fans and critics alike, his films take viewers on journeys through strange lands populated with unusual characters and they always have an emotional core that connects to the audience. And you know you’re watching it…
Family Ties (1983) – The Harder They Fall, This Year’s Model, and Not an Affair to Remember
Steven (Micheal Gross) and Elyse (Meredith Baxter) have a tough go of it with parent-teacher conferences when Elyse has a run-in with an incredibly rude teacher, Mr. Tedesco (Edward Edwards). Written by Rich Reinhart, The Harder They Fall, debuted on 19 October, 1983. Elyse has an interaction with Tedesco that leaves her less than thrilled….
The Mind Reels 