I don’t know who gave the okay to adapt The Long Patrol to a novel, and let it be a standalone tale. Despite the fact that Starbuck is the story’s central character, I hated it when it originally aired, I hate it every time I rewatch the series, and I hated reading an adaptation of…
Tag: raiders
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) – Blu-Ray Review
Alden Ehrenreich takes on the iconic role of scoundrel and smuggler Han Solo, as Lawrence Kasdan, and his son Jonathan Kasdan pen the script for the Ron Howard directed film which comes home on blu-ray and DVD today from Disney and Lucasfilm. While it stumbled a bit at the box office, coming to close on…
Saving Private Ryan (1998) – Steven Spielberg
I was stunned when I first saw Saving Private Ryan on opening day, 24 July, 1998. I had never seen war depicted so realistically, so heart-breaking, graphic, and impactful. I held onto the names of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks like a mantra through the film, to guide me through it, to make everything be…
Quantum Leap (1990) – Animal Frat and Another Mother
Sam (Scott Bakula) is back in school, when he leaps into Knut ‘Wild Thing’ Wileton, in Animal Frat. This Animal House-like episode was penned by Chris Ruppenthal and aired 3 January, 1990. It’s 19 October, 1967, and Sam seems to be Big Man On Campus, but as always, he’s there to put something right,…
A Boy and His Dog (1975) – L.Q. Jones
Harlan Ellison’s classic novella comes to life in this adaptation that is my next stop on the Sci-Fi Chronicles book. Vic (a very young Don Johnson) is wandering the post-apocalyptic world, accompanied by his dog, Blood (voiced by Tim McIntire), with whom he can communicate telepathically. Together they navigate the barbarity, the cruelty and…
Hot Docs 2015: Raiders! – Jeremy Coon & Tim Skousen
Screening today at the Hart House theatre at 9:30 is a documentary that completely encapsulated my youth and filled me with awe, and a fire to create. Back in 1981, a film came along that changed many a young viewer, myself included, Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark. It affected a number of…
King Solomon’s Mines (1985) – J. Lee Thompson
Cheesy lines, poor pacing, editing and uninspired action sequences that are poorly shot, and some even lifted from Raiders and the serials of the 30s weigh this film down that not even a score by Jerry Goldsmith can save. Shot back to back with its sequel Allan Quartermain and the Lost City of Gold, the…
Battlestar Galactica (1978) – Saga of a Star World
It struck me that I wanted to revisit some television shows, and while I thought about it, I realized there were a couple more names that could stand alongside Spielberg, Lucas and Roddenberry as entertaining me and shaping me as I grew up… Donald P. Bellisario and Stephen J. Cannell. The tv series that…
The Mind Reels 