Tag: set design

The Last of the Mohicans (1992) – Michael Mann

People will rave about Heat, or Collateral Damage, cult fans will cite The Keep, but Mann’s adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper’s classic novel, The Last of the Mohicans, is my favorite of his films. Taking home the Oscar for Best Sound, Mann’s film is lush, detailed, and an epic retelling of a beloved novel. Daniel…

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Predestination (2014) – Michael & Peter Spierig

Somehow this little sci-fi, time travel, paradox embracing film never hit my radar when it first came out. It would occasionally pop up in my recommended lists, and I would think yeah, I should check that out, and then promptly forget about it. But the wait was worth it, because when I finally did settle…

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Saturn 3 (1980) – Stanley Donen, and John Barry

Gorgeous set and production design can’t save a film with a number of top drawer stars (Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett, and Harvey Keitel) thanks to a heavily edited final cut, and flawed story. Not to mention some miniature and model work that may have worked in the 50s but looks incredibly bad in the 80s,…

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Star Trek: Picard (2020) – Blu-Ray Review

The latest iteration of the long enduring Star Trek franchise, Picard, comes to blu-ray this week from Paramount Canada, and it’s gorgeous. While the series could be construed as a sequel to Star Trek: The Next Generation and the The Next Generation films as it focuses on the show’s lead character, Jean-Luc Picard played by…

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Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) – Robert Florey

Bela Lugosi, with the horrible addition of a unibrow, terrorises unsuspecting Paris in the next stop in the Monstrous Apes chapter of DK Canada’s brilliant Monsters in the Movies book. Based on the classic short story by Edgar Allen Poe, the tale focuses on an evolution obsessed mad scientist, Dr. Mirakle (Lugosi)  and the object…

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Toronto After Dark 2019: The Assent (2019) – Pearry Teo

There’s a Barker/Lovecraftian feel to the gritty dirtiness of this entry in the Toronto After Dark film festival. Couched in a house covered in unnerving art, and filled with troubling apparitions and visions there is an aggressive edge to The Assent in the way it is shot, and the way the story unfolds. Mostly. Halfway…

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Ju Dou (1990) – Yimou Zhang and Fengliang Yang

The beautiful, romantic and tragic Ju Dou is the next title on the What Else to Watch list as I continue to work my way through the immensely enjoyable The Movie Book from DK Canada. Following my screening of Raise the Red Lantern, this was one of the book’s recommendations. Starring Li Gong as the…

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Dumbo (2019) – Tim Burton

I’m not sure how I feel yet about Disney’s apparent need to revisit their classic animated films and turn them into live-action films with computer-generated animation. Are they worried that the relevance of their classic films has reached an end and want to revitalize what they see as diminishing returns on them? I’m not sure….

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Space: 1999 (1977) – The Immunity Syndrome, and The Dorcons

This is it, the last week of Space: 1999, and while some of it has been very good, and a number of stories showed some promise, the series, as a whole, has not weathered the decades as well as it could have. The penultimate episode is The Immunity Syndrome (not to be confused with the…

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