Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Watson (Nigel Bruce) are back for their tenth outing together in The House of Fear. Based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Five Orange Pips, this one leans into using the Universal Monsters sets and, consequently has a very gothic feel to it. When a gathering of gentlemen, known as the…
Tag: moments
Blood Fever (2006) – Charlie Higson
The end of James Bond’s first year at Eton is almost here, and the young boy, still thirteen, is working to figure out what to do with his summer holidays. His Aunt Charmain endorses his choice to go on a school trip to Sardinia, with the caveat that if it gets too dull, he can…
Farscape (2002) – A Prefect Murder, and Coup by Clam
Moya has entered into Tormented Space and they are going to find trouble right away in A Prefect Murder. Written by Mark Saraceni, this episode was first broadcast on 9 August, 2002. They’ve arrived on a rather xenophobic planet divided by clan wars, and Aeryn (Claudia Black) is about to be caught in the middle…
Stargate SG-1 (2005) – Reckoning: Part 2, and Threads
Anubis (Rik Kiviaho) and the Replicators are posing a giant threat to Earth, and O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) as the head of Stargate Command is sending his teams out to do their thing. Reckoning: Part 2 first aired on 4 March, 2005 and was written by Damian Kindler, with excerpts written by Robert C. Cooper….
Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024) – Brian Taylor
I love the character of Hellboy, both the cinematic and the source material brought to life in the Mike Mignola’s comic books. However, this time out, thanks to budget constraints, which directly impacted actors, effects, camera et. al. what fans are given feels like a fan-film and not a studio one. Set in the early…
Code of Silence (1985) – Andrew Davis
Chuck Norris stars in this 1985 actioner which is arguably some of his best work. Honestly, having just gotten through it, and without sounding too harsh, that’s not saying much. He may be a great athlete and martial artist, but his acting skills still aren’t great. Originally tooled as one of the many Dirty Harry…
Stir of Echoes (1999) – David Koepp
Stir of Echoes got lost in the theatres when it went up against the ghost story The Sixth Sense. Based on the novel by Richard Matheson and adapted by Koepp who settled into the director’s chair as well, the film lets Kevin Bacon just shine, and features some well-executed visuals including the hypnotism sequence featuring…
TIFF ’23: Poolman
Chris Pine stars, directs and co-wrote Poolman, a sun-baked film noir that never quite finds its tone in spite of its best efforts, and feels like the love child of Chinatown and The Big Lewbowski. A pastiche of the eccentricities and lifestyles of LA, Pine populates his film with characters you could only find in…
Barbarian (2022) – Zach Cregger
Wow. Writer/director Zach Cregger blew me away with this one, completely subverting my expectations while playing with the traditional horror rules in this fantastic thriller of a film. From his framing to camera movement to casting to the way he doles out the story, Cregger plays with an increasingly film-savvy and educated horror audience and…
Almost Famous (2000) – 4K Review
I don’t know why I am constantly stunned by how sharp and beautiful a 4K picture is, but everytime I throw on a 4K disc I am completely gobsmacked, and Paramount Picture’s new release of Cameron Crowe’s brilliant, and partly autobiographical film, Almost Famous, left me absolutely gobsmacked. When I put it on, with the…
The Mind Reels 