Red Beard is the next recommendation from the What Else to Watch list in DK Canada’s The Movie Book, following my screening of Rashomon. This film marks the last collaboration between Kurosawa, and iconic Japanese actor, Toshiro Mifune. Over a sprawling, and engaging three hours, Kurosawa explores humanism and existentialism through this adaption of a…
Tag: themes
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) – Ron Howard
Punch it, Chewie! Ron Howard, a reliable journeyman director takes us back to a galaxy far, far away this week when Solo: A Star Wars Story hits theatres. Penned by one of the most reliable of the Lucasfilm scribes, Lawrence Kasdan, and his son, Jonathan Kasdan, the film introduces Alden Ehrenreich in the role made…
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1992) – The Outcast, and Cause and Effect
Captain’s log: stardate 45614.6 I love that The Next Generation did this episode. I just wish it had been better written. Penned by Jeri Taylor, this episode debuted on 16 March, 1992. Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) finds himself involved with an androgynous life form, Soren (Melinda Culea), during their visit to the planet J’Nai. The…
South Park: The Complete Eighth Season
Almost nothing is sacred as South Park unleashes its eighth season on blu-ray from Paramount Pictures. Over the course of fourteen episodes, we get another look at the unique Colorado mountain town and the characters who populate it. From a bloody and satanic Christmas episode to a commentary on violence as well as animes, the…
Blade Runner 2049 (2017) – Denis Villeneuve
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…
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…
The Mind Reels 