Avast ye maties, it’s The Curse of the Black Spot. This pirate-themed romp let the TARDIS bunch, have a bit of fun after the darker events of the previous pair of episodes. Written by Stephen Thompson this episode first debuted on 7 May, 2011 and featured Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville and model turned actress Lily…
Tag: tropes
The Great Silence (1968) – Sergio Corbucci
The recommendation from the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book following my screening of Once Upon a Time in the West have all been previously covered, except for The Great Silence. Loco (Klaus Kinski) is stirring up lots of trouble in the Utah mountains. He and his band of bounty killers are cruel,…
Doctor Who (David Tennant) – The Unicorn and The Wasp, and Silence in the Library
Gareth Roberts writes the script for The Unicorn and The Wasp which first aired on 17 May, 2008, and sees the Doctor (Tennant) and Donna (Catherine Tate) arriving in 1926 England. They invite themselves along to a party and find amongst the guests, one Agatha Christie (Fenella Woolgar). When a guest ends up dead, the…
Stagecoach (1939) – John Ford
The first recommendation from the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film is the 1939 John Ford/John Wayne classic, Stagecoach. Wayne plays the Ringo Kid, and he and a number of fellow travellers including Dallas (Claire Trevor) and Lucy Mallory (Louise Platt), a drunk doctor Josiah Boone (Thomas Mitchell), and a dangerous gambler, Hatfield (John…
La La Land (2016) – Damien Chazelle
From its opening, marrying classical screen musical tropes and modern times, Chazelle’s film proves that not only is the big screen musical still alive, it is in fact a vibrant event. Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling star as two Hollywood dreamers, Mia and Sebastian. She’s an aspiring actress, he’s a jazz pianist who dreams of…
Queen of Spades: The Dark Rite (2015) -Svyatoslav Podgayevskly
It’s always interesting to see what genre films look like from other countries, and this Friday at select cities across the country, and on VOD on the 19th, we can have a look at Russia’s Queen of Spades. A riff on the Bloody Mary urban legend that is seemingly as old as mankind, the…
Lost In Space (1998) – Stephen Hopkins
The next big adventure in the Sci-Fi Chronicles book is the big-screen reboot of the classic 60s television series, Lost in Space. Boasting an all-star cast, William Hurt, Gary Oldman, Mimi Rogers, Heather Graham, Lacy Chabert, and Matt LeBlanc, the film follows the family Robinson as they leave the dying earth to prepare the…
Doctor Who (Tom Baker) – State of Decay
The second tale in what is known as the E-Space trilogy finds the Doctor (Baker), Romana (Lalla Ward), Adric (Matthew Waterhouse) – though they don’t know he’s stowed away on the TARDIS yet – and K9 taking on vampires! This four part story was penned by Terrance Dicks, and originally ran from 22 November…
Toronto After Dark: Tales of Halloween (2015) – Various
The opening night film for the 10th Annual Toronto After Dark Film Festival was the anthology film, Tales of Halloween, featuring familiar names behind and in front of the camera, the collection which slowly won over the audience, is amusing, bloody and reminds the viewer that Halloween is supposed to be fun. Boasting names like…
The Mind Reels 