Nothing burns through ideas faster than a film industry: in a constant battle to find pre-existing intellectual property to adapt for cinema, Disney once hit upon the idea of turning their Disneyland rides into blockbuster movies. It was, all in … Continue reading REVIEW: Jungle Cruise (2021)
August sees the return of the Fantasia International Film Festival, arguably the world’s premier screening event for science fiction, fantasy, horror, and other unusual genre cinema. Celebrating its 25th anniversary, this year’s festival is offering its Canadian audiences unprecedented online … Continue reading Eight films to watch at Fantasia Film Festival 2021
In John Boorman’s Hell in the Pacific (1968), Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune play rival fighter pilots that crash-land on an isolated island and must overcome their animosity to survive and escape to safety. In Wolfgang Petersen’s Enemy Mine (1985), Dennis Quaid … Continue reading REVIEW: Monster Hunter (2020)
Properly-made family entertainment is just about the hardest thing to get right in filmmaking, and yet for all of the effort placed into the best examples it is exceedingly rare for such a film to be a hit. Children are … Continue reading REVIEW: The Kid Who Would Be King (2019)
Carlo Collodi’s 1883 novel The Adventures of Pinocchio is one of the world’s most famous and best-selling works of children’s literature, and as such has long been a source for film and television adaptation. Walt Disney’s 1940 animated adaptation dominates, of course, … Continue reading REVIEW: The Adventures of Pinocchio (1972)
One of the absolute pleasures of this glorious age of streaming media, collector’s edition blu-rays, and international distribution is that it has never been easier than ever to track down and watch films. Old and new, any genre, any country … Continue reading REVIEW: The Mad Fox (1962)
Last year the Chinese videogame Zhengtu (aka Double World) received a film adaptation courtesy of Hong Kong-based director Teddy Chen – his first feature since 2014’s Kung Fu Jungle. Due to the closures of cinemas last year it was released online … Continue reading REVIEW: Double World (2020)
The 1980s saw a new wave of fantasy pictures in Hong Kong, ones that combined pre-existing elements of Chinese wuxia with a Hollywood-inspired use of visual effects. The poster child for this wave is almost certainly Zu: Warriors from the … Continue reading REVIEW: The Peacock King (1988)
Coming in at the end of 2020, Patty Jenkins’ widely anticipated sequel Wonder Woman 1984 has been framed as the last great hope for this year’s Hollywood box office. While almost all other blockbusters have been rescheduled for 2021 or beyond, Warner … Continue reading REVIEW: Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
Aaron Boone (Craig Sheffer), convinced that he is a uncontrollable serial killer, seeks to find the rumoured secret city of Midian – a place where monsters are said to go. He is trailed by his therapist (David Cronenberg), actually the … Continue reading REVIEW: Nightbreed: The Director’s Cut (1990)
