Midnight Madness at TIFF is always a lot of fun, and some great genre films get scheduled that are designed to deliver to the late-night audience. Sleep hopes to do that this week. A Korean entry to the film festival from writer/director Jason Yu. It’s his first feature film, and Yu creates a tense, moody…
Tag: reveals
TIFF ’23: Hell of a Summer
Long-time friends Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk share directing, producing, writing and starring credits in their enjoyable and goofy riff on camp slasher films. It’s summer, and Camp Pineaway is gearing up for another round of campers and counsellors. In fact, the counsellors gather the weekend before camp opens to prepare, get reacquainted, drunk, high,…
A House with Good Bones (2023) – T. Kingfisher
T. Kingfisher aka Ursula Vernon has entertained and creeped me out with each of the books I’ve read by her; three to date, with A House with Good Bones being the latest. Once again she introduces us to a relatable character, in this case entomologist Samantha who, when her summer dig is cancelled, decides to…
Dead Again (1991) – Kenneth Branagh
It’s been a couple of decades since I watched Branagh’s Hitchcockian romantic thriller, Dead Again. In fact, it had been so long that I completely forgot about the uncredited appearance by Robin Williams! But from its opening shots, and it’s driving and powerful score by Patrick Doyle, I was taken into the sweeping narrative. In…
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015) – Guy Ritchie
Guy Ritchie’s adaptation of the classic 60s series The Man From U.N.C.L.E., which serves as a bit of an origin story for the series characters is uneven at best. What could have launched a fun franchise, that wouldn’t equal Mission: Impossible, but could have been a delightful theatrical tentpole fumbles as it proves unable to…
The Witch: Part 2 – The Other One (2022) – Park Hoon-jung
The Korean actioner, The Witch: Part 1 – The Subversion was very engaging and I loved how it built a world and introduced the viewer to genetic manipulation, enhancing the human state, the variety of parties involved and a hint of the plan at its heart. The first film ended with some interesting reveals about…
I See You (2019) – Adam Randall
The thriller I See You explores some familiar territory but does it in an interesting way, as we watch the lives of the Harper family as they deal with their internal problems while the town they live in is rocked by a series of child abductions. Jackie Harper (Helen Hunt) is a doctor who is…
The Expanse (2022) – Why We Fight, and Babylon’s Ashes
Here we go, the last two episodes of the epic series, The Expanse, and it’s not going to let up until the last second. Why We Fight was written by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, known collectively as James S.A. Corey, the authors of The Expanse novel series. It first dropped on Prime on 7…
The Equalizer (1989) – Endgame, and Suicide Squad
Endgame is a tale of manipulation, and revenge, and seems to almost sneak up on the fringes of Saw territory, as the episode finds two sisters pitted against one another. Written by Coleman Luck, the penultimate episode of The Equalizer aired on 10 August, 1989, well after the season should have finished in May. McCall…
Screamers (1995) – Christian Duguay
Screamers is a bit of a mess. It has a solid pedigree but somewhere between its origin and its filming, I imagine a number of things went wrong, culminating in the disappointing movie it became. The film stars Peter Weller and is originally based on a story by Philip K. Dick and Dan O’Bannon had…
The Mind Reels 