Walking away with Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Editing, and Best Sound, Platoon is the next recommendation from the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film following my screening of Apocalypse Now. The film serves as a commentary on the horrors of war, even as two sergeants seem to be fighting for the…
Tag: stunning
12 Years a Slave (2013) – Steve McQueen
What kind of species are we that we can enslave our fellows? There are two scenes in McQueen’s masterpiece 12 Years a Slave, that shook me to my core. The first was a scene in which Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Solomon Northup is left to hang, while life goes on around him, and another when Solomon is…
Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series
Debuting on blu-ray from Paramount Pictures this week is the incredible follow-up to the cult television program, Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series. When I first heard of the possibility of a new series, set twenty five years after the first, just like Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) said would happen I was ecstatic. When I…
Doctor Who (Matt Smith) – A Good Man Goes To War, and Let’s Kill Hitler
Things get serious for the Doctor (Smith) and Rory (Arthur Darvill) as they go to rescue Amy (Karen Gillan) in A Good Man Goes to War! Written by Steven Moffatt, this episode aired on 4 June, 2011. We learned at the conclusion of last week’s episode that Amy hasn’t been in the TARDIS for quite…
Acceptance (2014) – Jeff VanderMeer
The final book in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy is on the book shelf this week, and like its predecessors is immensely enjoyable with its ominous overtones even as it hints at something stunning, amazing and beyond human comprehension. We are taken back into Area X, and the government institution investigating the geographical anomaly, the…
Zulu (1964) – Cy Endfield
The next stop in the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book following my screening of Lawrence of Arabia is the epic, Zulu starring Michael Caine and Stanley Baker. Now, while one could make arguments about themes of British Imperialism and Colonialism running through the film, I saw more fit to see the film…
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) – David Lean
The next stop in the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book is David Lean’s classic film that made a star out of Peter O’Toole. Grabbing seven Oscars at the 1963 Academy Awards, the film walked away with Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Sound, Best Film Editing and Best…
Fences (2016) – Denzel Washington
Paramount Pictures proudly ushers in the release of Denzel Washington’s Fences today on blu-ray. The Academy Award winner directs, working from August Wilson’s adaptation of his own Pulitzer Prize winning play. Set in 1950s Pittsburgh, Washington pulls double duty, serving not only as director, but in the lead role of Troy Maxson a former ball…
Tron: Legacy (2010) -Joseph Kosinski
Tron was a big part of my childhood. I remember seeing it in the theatre, and I remember my father falling asleep next to my sister while I was enraptured by the film. The use of computer technology, and the blossoming game world that seemed to fascinate every 80s kid was up there on the…
Star Wars: Rogue One – The Ultimate Visual Guide (2016) – Pablo Hidalgo
Can you believe that we get a Star Wars movie every year now for the next foreseeable future? That time between Star Wars and Empire, and then Jedi, seemed interminable growing up. The wait between Jedi and Menace was even longer, and soured many a viewer, and while Awakens was a fun ride, not everyone…
The Mind Reels 