The western and science fiction genres share several similar themes, particularly when the subject of the latter is exploration into the unknown, essentially transporting the frontier from the American West to the edges of outer space. It can be exciting and fascinating and introspective when done right. Unfortunately, writer and director Wyatt Rockefeller’s film “Settlers” […]
There’s a twisted part of me that considers Fargo (1996) to be a comedy. I don’t think the Coen Brothers would contest this. In fact, I think they were going for comedy all along. A coworker and friend of mine introduced me to the movie experience collection app, Letterboxd. If you are an avid movie […]
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 8.5 out of 10. Sometimes, it’s simply just hard to put things into words. Which, I know, is silly, as I clack-clackity-clack away here at my computer. But sometimes, things are really too brilliant to try and justify – it feels disrespectful to do so to the Sistine Chapel ceiling, say. So forgive […]
The Conversation: The Dangers Of Playing God
Old is a thriller from M. Night Shyamalan, the mind that brought us The Sixth Sense. Because it is Shyamalan, Old follows his formula – a a simple story + a twist = good film. The simple story in Old – a family on vacation ends up on the secluded beach with a group of […]
Truffle hunters will camp out on their porches at night, shotgun in hand, to fend off competing hunters trying to steal their valuable pigs and dogs. What? That was one of those facts that felt otherworldly yet immediately relatable to me, and that’s where PIG started. Michael Sarnoski – director, PIG Prior to watching PIG, […]
Spoiler alert: I’m pretty sure the milkshake’s actually just vanilla. Public safety notice: Don’t eat gunpowder. It’s not delicious and it also might set your toots on fire. Friendly piece of advice: Chocolate beats vanilla. Peanut-butter-brownie’s even better. Salted-caramel-pretzel is the best. Movie premise: Sam (Karen Gillan) is abandoned as a child by her assassin […]
”Forget it Jake. It’s Chinatown.” Those immortal words have been parodied to death over the years and if you haven’t seen Chinatown, you would have heard those lines spoofed in another film or TV show. Once you see what has just occurred and those five words are uttered by Joe Mantell who played Jake Gittes’s […]
The crew of three dock with their starship to Mars, pop the hatch on their shiny, white, aluminum alloy and glass space ship and busy themselves with firing it up to make another trip to the Red Planet, and overcoming motion sickness. It’s a complex “cycler” craft, generating artificial gravity by tethering and rotating the […]
Netflixable? A “Stowaway” on a space ship? Who isn’t an Alien? Or a Predator?
The year is 1981 and Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, of course!) have just screwed up another exorcism. Only Ed hears as Arne Johnson (Ruairi O’Connor) begs the demon that has possessed 8 year-old David Glatzel (Julian Hilliard) to enter him instead. Unfortunately, Ed also has a heart attack and passes […]
Film Review: The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (dir by Michael Chaves)
Title – The Wages of Fear (1953) Director – Henri-Georges Clouzot (Manon) Cast – Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Folco Lulli, Peter van Eyck Plot – When an oil well ignites in flames deep in a remote section of South American wilderness, a group of four men are enticed via significant financial incentives to transport a […]
Classic Review – The Wages of Fear (1953)
The new trailer for “Till Death” may leave you a little uneasy about taking a romantic getaway with your significant other. The new thriller from first-time director S.K. Dale and screenwriter Jason Carvey sees Megan Fox leading a small cast working in a snowy single location. The trailer sets up the premise nicely and if […]
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 8 out of 10. Klute was the first of the Pakula paranoid trilogy – The Parallax View came three years later, and All The Presidents Men five. So why have I done it in this perverse order? I’ll be asking the questions, young padawan! Really, it should be called Bree (Jane Fonda), because […]
Klute: Character Study Or Detective Thriller?
Two white South African men are for fighting for equal civil rights. However, whilst trying to spread their message using leaflet bombs they are arrested and charged to 10 years in one of the countries most notorious prisons, Pretoria. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.5 out of 5. Daniel Radcliffe stars Tim Jenkin in this one of a […]
Escape From Pretoria – MOVIE REVIEW
This recently restored film is an interesting look at George Romero and a controversial subject. The Amusement Park (1973) was a discarded film, originally created by Romero as a commission work for the Lutheran Service Society in Pittsburg, but not widely used and thought lost. The original 16mm reels were sitting in Romero’s basement aka […]
One Day YOU will be old – The Amusement Park review #georgeromero
Title – Dreamland (2019) Director – Miles Joris-Peyrafitte (As You Are) Cast – Margot Robbie, Finn Cole, Garrett Hedlund, Travis Fimmel Plot – During the heat of the Great Depression, lonely Texan teenager Eugene Evans (Cole) strikes up a friendship with on the run bank robber Allison Wells (Robbie) as the two hatch a plan […]
Film Review – Dreamland (2019)
It’s been a minute since Angelina Jolie has starred in a proper adult action movie- in fact, her last one was “The Tourist” in 2010 (god, remember “The Tourist“?). But Jolie is back at it, soon to appear in Marvel’s “The Eternals,” and currently starring in writer/director Taylor Sheridan’s “Those Who Wish Me Dead.” But […]
Review: “Those Who Wish Me Dead”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 8 out of 10. When I first started this blog, one of my main aims was to complete what many believe to be the Big Three: The Silence of the Lambs, Psycho and The Shining. So far, it’s two out of three. But only three psychological horrors really fails to whet the appetite, […]
Misery: A Love Letter To Annie Wilkes
Emmy-winning production designer Elisabeth Williams got more dynamic with location work, including an Ontario town standing in for the Chicago war zone.
‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Season 4: Recreating the Chicago War Zone in Episode 5
Peter Weir’s 1979 film, The Plumber, is essentially a battle of wills between two very different characters. Jill Cowper (Judy Morris) is a masters student in anthropology. She’s educated, articulate, liberal-minded, and upper middle class. She’s married to Dr. Brian Cowper (Robert Coleby), a highly respected academic who is on the verge of being offered […]
Film Review: The Plumber (dir by Peter Weir)
A deadly hiccup in space. So this is about a crew of three (Toni Collette, Anna Kendrick, Daniel Dae Kim). They’re on a mission to Mars to research how to sustain life there, but there is a small problem: there is a fourth person aboard (Shamier Anderson), and there isn’t going to be enough oxygen […]
The Oxygen Quandary – Stowaway (2021)
