Wes Anderson transposes his quirky family dramas and characters, and that wonderful eye for details into an undersea adventure that pays homage to, and pokes fun at, the ocean adventure films that rose to popularity with the works of Jacques Cousteau. Bill Murray stars as the titular Steve Zissou, a Cousteau wannabe who, aboard his…
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The Equalizer (1986) – Prelude, and Nocturne
The second season opener of The Equalizer brings up some personal and professional history for Robert McCall (Edward Woodward). Prelude was written by Carleton Eastlake and launched the season on 8 October, 1986. McCall discovers that his son, Scott (William Zabka) is in town after the latest school term has started because he’s been ousted…
The Equalizer (1986) – Unpunished Crimes, and Pretenders
John Cullum is the baddie in the penultimate episode of season one of The Equalizer. Unpunished Crimes was written by John Burke and Grenville Case, first airing on 1 April, 1986. Cullum is Stuart Cane, a brutal CEO with ties to a terrorist organization, and is set on ruining Frank Donahue (Dan Hedaya) and his…
V/H/S/ 94 (2021) – Simon Barrett, Steven Kostanski, Chloe Okuno, Ryan Prows, Jennifer Reeder, and Timo Tjahjanto
The V/H/S/ series is a fairly reliable found-footage anthology franchise that has its hits and misses, and this time out is no different. A wrap-around narrative loosely connects four other stories that show up on video throughout the main plot line. The wrap-around story I found really interesting (tracking issues and all) until its final…
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…
Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992) – Anthony Hickox
Despite having his name listed as Executive Producer, I don’t think horrormeister Clive Barker had much to do with the third installment of the Hellraiser series. After the bloody and brilliantly constructed first two films, this one feels like it went right off the rails and didn’t quite understand why the first two films worked…
WNUF Halloween Special (2013) – Chris LaMartina
Reporter Frank Stewart (Paul Fahrenkopf) is about to have a bad night. It’s Halloween, 1987, and he’s on camera hosting the WNUF Halloween Special that is going to investigate the local murder house during a live broadcast. The film plays like a recorded videotape, has tolls, tracking problems, and plays more to nostalgia of the…
Scream 2 (1997) – Wes Craven
In 1996, Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson delivered the game-changing Scream, a meta horror movie that was a hit with audiences and critics alike. And it seemed before the opening weekend was over, that a second film was already being lined up for the cameras. Looking back, I think if they had made us wait…
Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire (2019) – Stephen Cognetti
Found footage can be hit or miss. To attempt a trilogy what works solely with that sub-genre is pretty ambitious, and I think, for the most part, writer/director Stephen Cognetti pulls it off. And if you watch all three films in close succession, as I have, they flow a lot better, and he wraps everything…
Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster (1964) – Ishiro Honda
UFOs, political assassinations, alien possession, the Shobijin (Emi and Yumi Ito) and alien monsters see the known kaiju on Earth, all located around Japan, unite for the first time to combat King Ghidorah, a three-headed space beast which destroyed an alien civilization on Venus centuries ago, and has now arrived on Earth via meteor. This…
The Mind Reels 