Deathstalker is pure 80s sword and sorcery, and while I’m all for gratuitous nudity, there is a lot of it, I don’t need all the rape, I don’t care what the thought process is behind it. It’s repugnant and doesn’t serve to tell us anything about the characters we didn’t already know. Setting that aside,…
Tag: quest
Avatar: The Last Airbender- Book 1: Water (2005) – The Spirit World (Winter Solstice, Part 1), Avatar Roku (Winter Solstice, Part 2), and The Waterbending Scroll
The Spirit World is the first part in the Winter Solstice tale. It was written by Aaron Ehasz and was first broadcast on 8 April, 2005. Aang (Zach Tyler Eisen), Katara (Mae Whitman) and Sokka (Jack De Sena) arrive in a small village that is being attacked nightly by a Hei Bai, a forest spirit,…
One Piece: Season 1 – East Blue, Part 1
It’s hard to know where to start with anime, and with it all laid out before you on a streaming service like Crunchyroll, even with suggestions, it can be a little intimidating. But at Fan Expo this year, an anime called One Piece seemed to be everywhere, so that looked like a good place to…
TIFF ’23: Riddle of Fire
I started my TIFF experience this year with a title that will be featured at this year’s Midnight Madness, the popular venue that explores unique genre titles. Riddle of Fire definitely falls into that category, in conversations with other critics I ended up describing this film in the following manner: it was as if someone…
The Green Knight (2021) – David Lowery
The Green Knight is a stunning and lyrical film that completely blew me away with its storytelling and visuals. Using the 14th-century poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as its launching basis, Lowery’s tale is fantastical and beautiful, telling the tale of a young Gawain (Dev Patel) looking to make his way in the…
TIFF ’22: The Lost King
Director Stephen Frears guides Sally Hawkins’ quest for the burial place of Richard III. She takes on the real-life role of Philippa Langley, an amateur historian, who turned away from the established historical ‘facts’ of Richard III as a usurper and began a hunt for his final resting place. Based on Langley’s own book, which…
Willow (1988) – Ron Howard
I remember the first time I saw Willow. I know where I was, and I remember how it swept me up in its narrative. I knew I had to see it the moment it told me it was from the imagination of George Lucas. I knew who Ron Howard was, but I was a teenager…
Ready Player Two (2020) – Ernest Cline
Reading like a pop culture infused take on The Bride of Frankenstein, author Ernest Cline takes us back to the virtual realm of the OASIS in his follow-up to the bestselling novel, Ready Player One which delighted geeks planetwide with its quest story wrapped up in movie and culture references that shaped some of our…
Star Wars: Splinter of the Mind’s Eye (1978) – Alan Dean Foster
Back in 1978, we had just one movie, and a handful of toys available from Kenner, not taking into account a ton of tees, trading cards, and almost anything else they could plaster the name Star Wars on. People were clamouring for more adventures from Luke Skywalker and the rest of the rebel alliance, but…
Star Trek: Sanctuary (1992) – John Vornholt
Set during The Original Series, this week’s Trek book is fairly run of the mill and doesn’t do anything exceptional with our characters, but it makes for what would feel like a fairly solid two-part episode. The Enterprise is pursuing a pirate through uncharted space, and when it enters the atmosphere of a planet known,…
The Mind Reels 