Villeneuve’s stunningly beautiful sequel to the seminal, and iconic, 1982 Ridley Scott film is released to blu-ray and DVD today from Warner Brothers. With Scott serving as executive producer, and a story by original film scribe Hampton Fancher (joined by Michael Green), Villeneuve working with cinematographer Roger Deakins brings us another tale set in the…
Tag: themes
South Park: The Complete Fourth Season
Boy bands, a haphazard adaptation of Great Expectations that takes a really strange left turn, fat camps, racism, more religion, moving onto the fourth grade – which necessitates new opening credits, and of course some new characters that become just as central to the small mountain town as Stan, Kyle Cartman and Kenny. In a…
The Wild Bunch (1969) – Sam Peckinpah
The next big stop in the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book as I return to the Historical chapter, is Peckinpah’s ultra-violent, wonderfully bloody take on the Hollywood Western. A group of professional outlaws out of step and out of time looking for one last score find themselves fatally wandering the line between…
The Godfather (1972) – Francis Ford Coppola
A cinematic classic. A masterpiece. A gold standard in film. All of these descriptions suit Coppola’s adaptation of Mario Puzo’s epic novel, The Godfather, perfectly, and it is my next stop in the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book as I return to the Thriller genre. Having said all of the above it…
West Side Story (1961) – Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins
Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins direct the film that brings me back to the musical genre in the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book. Stephen Sondheim pens the lyrics for this Academy Award winning musical (including Best Picture) that is an updated retelling of Shakespeare’s beautiful tragedy Romeo & Juliet with Richard Beymer…
The Manchurian Candidate (1962) – John Frankenheimer
The next recommendation from the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book following my screening of Dr. Strangelove is Frankenheimer’s incredible thriller that still has the power to chill to this very day. In fact, it seems even more relevant today than when it was released. It’s 1952, during the Korean War. An American…
Ghost in the Shell (2017) – Rupert Sanders
Paramount Pictures’ live action adaptation of the classic anime, Ghost in the Shell, hits blu-ray and DVD today. I am going to eschew any discussion of the white-washing controversy surrounding the film’s production, and just focus on the movie itself. I love the original anime, and constantly saw it as kin to the cinematic version…
Star Trek: Crisis On Centaurus (1986) – Brad Ferguson
Well, except for the product placement, the implication that the Earth isn’t under a one government rule, and that the economics of the future are a little different (according to Picard) which is not followed here, most of this tale is fairly enjoyable. In fact, of it had been rewritten and edited a little more…
Alien: Covenant (2017) – Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott returns to the science fiction genre again and retreads things that have gone before in Alien: Covenant. The latest film in the seemingly indefatigable series connects the previous film, the divisive Prometheus with the first film in the series, 1979 Alien, both directed by Scott. And while I didn’t hate it, the film…
The Twilight Zone (1960) – A Thing About Machines, The Howling Man and Eye of the Beholder
Buckle up because there’s the signpost up ahead! It’s time for more eerie tales from The Twilight Zone as I continue to explore The Complete Series on blu-ray from Paramount Pictures. Up first is A Thing About Machines. Penned by Rod Serling, with an original airdate of 28 October, 1960, the story follows Barlett Finchley’s…
The Mind Reels 