Smallville (2001) – Hothead, and X-Ray

Hothead takes onto the Smallville Crows, the highschool football team overseen by the arrogant Coach Arnold (Dan Lauria). And Arnold is going to be our freak of the week. Written by Greg Walker this episode, which is helping to continue setting the pace and style for the series, first aired on 30 October, 2001. Arnold…

TIFF 25: EPiC – Elvis Presley in Concert dir. Baz Luhrmann

Acclaimed director brings Elvis Presley to the big screen (or the biggest screen if you can see it in IMAX) in a way you’ve never seen before. A look at his Vegas residency concerts, by putting you in a front row seat for the show. With a quick recap of his career the concert film…

Pirate Radio (2009) – Richard Curtis

Based loosely on a true story, Richard Curtis brings his talent for blending comedy and drama to a classic tale of rock and roll! In the early 60s when British Rock was at its height, England only played rock’n’roll for perhaps an hour all day on air. But just off the coast in the North…

Pitch Perfect (2012) – Jason Moore

I adore Anna Kendrick. And I know I’m definitely not the only one. So throwing her in a comedy like Pitch Perfect simply rang all my bells. Kendrick plays Beca who is a freshman at Barden University, where her father teaches. She doesn’t want to be there, but she has a deal with her dad….

Beat Street (1984) – Stan Lathan

I remember seeing the poster and soundtrack for Beat Street everywhere in the mid-80s, and I remember some of the songs popping up in my life. I didn’t recall much of the film itself, just the breakdancing and I figured maybe I should revisit it. It’s definitely worth the watch. There’s a grittiness to the…

I Come in Peace (1990) – Craig R. Baxley

Is I Come in Peace considered a Christmas movie? It’s set at Christmas. That seems to be the only requisite for some films. I mean John McClane got invited to a Christmas party so that covers off Die Hard, but what about Dolph Lundgren as Detective Jack Caine caught up in a drug war in…

The Church (1989) – Michele Soavi

Lamberto Bava stepped out of the director’s chair for Michele Soavi, but remained heavily involved in the production alongside Dario Argento. It was originally supposed to be a third entry in the Demons series, but Soavi wanted to make a slightly more elevated picture, and Demons 3 was forgotten to tell a different kind of…

The Exorcist: Believer (2023) – David Gordon Green

For the first few minutes of The Exorcist: Believer I thought that maybe the reviews were wrong, that they had been too harsh, or maybe didn’t understand what the film was trying to do. It’s opening felt, to me, very much in line with the original film, until the earthquake hit, and from that moment…