The Cannonball Run (1981) – Hal Needham

They don’t make cast-packed comedies like The Cannonball Run anymore. That doesn’t mean it’s all good, but it is damned enjoyable. Hal Needham and Burt Reynolds were coming off Smokey and the Bandit and Hooper, and this road movie was a fun next step. Originally designed as an action film for Steve McQueen, when the…

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) – 4K

Tom Cruise returns as IMF agent Ethan Hunt in his seventh Mission: Impossible outing Dead Reckoning Part One which comes home on 4K and physical media today from Paramount Canada. It’s epic and brings in a number of story and character threads from the entire franchise and, of course, looks absolutely stunning in 4K. This…

Hard Target (1993) – John Woo

John Woo movies are great to watch, though some are tougher to get through than others. His first North American effort, Hard Target, with Sam Raimi at his side to help if needed, could have been something really special if the film had a lead who could act. Jean-Claude Van Damme stars in the film,…

Ghost Rider (2007) – Mark Steven Johnson

Ghost Rider has always been a cool character to me. Someone stuck in a horrific world filled with supernatural beings and violence, demons and angels, not to mention your common criminal, all coming from one man making a choice based on keeping those he loved safe. As a kid, I thought the character just looked…

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019) – David Leitch

It’s incredibly wild to me that a movie that played like the Point Break version of illegal street car racing spawned a successful, and highly entertaining film franchise. And on top of that, it delivered its first spinoff film in 2019 that launched some of the characters into full blown comic book mode. Fan favourites…

The Lost Boys (1987) – Joel Schumacher

My trio of favorite vampire films is now complete with the viewing of 1987’s The Lost Boys. If Fright Night got me into horror movies, and Near Dark showed me how violent and bloody vampires could be, then The Lost Boys showed me how cool vampires could be (and how awesome the occasional vampire hunters…

Toronto After Dark 2017: The Villainess – Byung-gil Jung

The hyper-kinetic assassin thriller The Villainess, has it’s Toronto premiere this evening at Toronto After Dark, screening exclusively at Scotiabank Theatre. This South Korean film is nothing short of a high-octane thriller that recalls Besson’s La Femme Nikita with overtones of Tarantino’s Kill Bill. Ok-bin Kim stars as Sook-hee, a violent woman with a violent…

Sherlock Jr. (1924) – Buster Keaton

The Movie Book from DK Canada continues to provide laughs and entertainment as I take in another Buster Keaton film, Sherlock Jr. as I work through their What Else to Watch list following my screening of Steamboat Bill, Jr. Running at a brisk 45 minutes, this iconic film is everything you would expect from a…