Hill Street Blues (1986) – Amazing Grace, and Falling From Grace

The character of Grace (Barbara Babcock) returns this week, and she’d been gone so long that I didn’t even make the connection with the episode’s title! She returns with a bit of a shocking change of character, she’s become a nun! Amazing Grace was written by Robert Ward from a story by Ward and David…

TIFF ’22: The Wonder

With an opening, and an ending that reminds us that how we see stories is all perspective, The Wonder explores the line between fact and faith, science and religion. Based on the book by Emma Donoghue, The Wonder is beguiling, introspective, and moody. In the mid-19th century, an English nurse, Lib Wright (Florence Pugh) who…

The Conjuring 2 (2016) – James Wan

The second film in the Conjuring series once again focuses on a case investigated by Ed and Lorraine Warren (portrayed in the film by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) and unlike the Annabelle stories, these films lean towards the smarter, filled with a well-crafted story, and some legitimate jump scares and actual terror. The film…

Indiana Jones and the Dinosaur Eggs (1996) – Max McCoy

1933 Indiana Jones, the globe-trotting archaeologist, sets out on his tenth novel adventure, and the second one by Max McCoy, and much like its predecessor, the author continues to show that he knows how to tell a fairly solid Indy story, marry it with history, mythology, and legend and tie it in to what has…

The Sound of Music (1965) – Robert Wise

My return to the Musical chapter of the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book sees me settling into Robert Wise’s multi-Oscar winning (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Sound, Best Editing and Best Music) adaptation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, The Sound of Music. Starring Julie Andrews (in an Oscar nominated performance) and…

Annabelle: Creation (2017) – David F. Sandberg

Over the course of four films, Warner Brothers has created a cinematic universe that imbued studio horror movies with a sense of fun. And now, the fourth film in the Conjuring Cinematic Universe comes home with the release of Annabelle: Creation to blu-ray and DVD. Serving as a prequel to the previous film, the first…