Christopher Walken stars as Johnny Smith, a school teacher who ends up in an accident that gives him second sight, allowing him glimpses into the past, present and future in the Jeffrey Boam scripted adaptation of Stephen King’s classic novel. Directed by famed director David Cronenberg, the film is packed with recognisable names in front…
Tag: novel
The Exorcist III (1990) – William Peter Blatty
It’s been a long time since I watched William Peter Blatty’s direct his adaptation of his own novel, Legion. After a reshot ending to include an exorcism that didn’t exist in the original novel or screenplay, we are left with an uneven film that does a poor job to illustrate Blatty’s nature as a storyteller….
Congo (1995) – Frank Marshall
A script based on a Micheal Crichton novel, creature effects by Stan Winston, directed by Frank Marshall who has a long association with Spielberg and Amblin, an all-star cast including Laura Linney, Ernie Hudson, Tim Curry, Bruce Campbell, Dylan Walsh and Adewale Akkinuoye-Agbaje. Seems like a sure-fire win right? I hadn’t watched this one since…
Go Tell It On The Mountain (1953) – James Baldwin
This week sees me reading something a little different from my usual escapist fare. Recently LeVar Burton began a reading club on Fable, and while I can’t access it in Canada, they did list the first three books he was recommending, and Go Tell It on the Mountain was at the top of his list….
In the Mouth of Madness (1994) – John Carpenter
I got to rewatch on of my favourite John Carpenter films for the blog this week, In the Mouth of Madness, which brings Lovecraftian horror to the screen in a way that hadn’t been done before, and honestly helped introduce me to his writing, which albeit is racist, but also incredibly unnerving and frightening, happily…
The Keep (1983) – Michael Mann
(Re) Watching Michael Mann’s disjointed supernatural film, The Keep I realised I wanted one thing from it – Mann’s original cut. Apparently clocking in at 3 1/2 hours it was trimmed down to 2 by Paramount Pictures, who then cut another half hour out of it after some rough previews. It’s not like now. If…
M*A*S*H (1973) – The Ringbanger, Sometimes You Hear the Bullet, and Dear Dad, Again
Leslie Nielsen guest stars as Colonel Buzz Brighton in The Ringbanger, which was written by Jerry Mayer, and first aired on 21 January, 1973. Hawkeye (Alan Alda) and Trapper (Wayne Rogers) click with one of their patients, Brighton, but are soon troubled to learn that his unit suffers the highest casualty rate, with the least…
Dances with Wolves (1990) – Kevin Costner
It’s been a long time since I watched Dances With Wolves, it definitely hasn’t happened since the turn of the century. But I remember when this one came out. Actually I remember before that, because I read the original novel by Micheal Blake (who wrote the screenplay) as well. There was just something about this…
M*A*S*H (1972) – Pilot, To Market, to Market, and Requiem for a Lightweight
On 17 April, 1972, the television landscape changed with the premiere of a show that would run for eleven seasons, and ably walk the line between comedy and drama as it explored life on a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War. Developed for television by Larry Gelbart from the Academy Award winning film…
Magic (1978) – Richard Attenborough
Somehow this title has slipped through the cracks of my viewing, and I had never seen it before I threw it on for the next misadventure with Killer Dolls as featured in DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies book. Its directed by Richard Attenborough, written by William Goldman, based on his own novel, stars Anthony…
The Mind Reels 