Tag Archives: Steven Spielberg

Stranger Things Has Happened

I love Stranger Things. The eight-episode Netflix series released in July is a terrific bit of summer entertainment, a mystery horror series starring Winona Ryder and a cast of kids. It feels new while evoking the best of 1980s American film, TV, and books—largely the work of Stephen King and Steven Spielberg, John Carpenter and… Read More

The BFG review — A Magical Antidote

Directed by Steven Spielberg | Written by Melissa Mathison, adapting a book by Roald Dahl | 117 min | ▲▲▲▲△ It amazes me that Roald Dahl books remain as popular as they do, and the film adaptations even more so. They're so dark and twisted. The BFG, which stands for Big Friendly Giant, has all these complicated… Read More

Indiana Jones series review

Welcome to items from The Vault. Between 2005 and 2009 I was a programmer on CKDU 88.1 FM every Sunday morning with something called The Love & Hate Movie Show. I talked about what I was seeing and revisited some of my favourite films of old, pretty much what I do now here on FITI.… Read More

Jurassic World review — Better off extinct

Directed by Colin Trevorrow, Written by Trevorrow, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver and Derek Connolly, based on the Michael Crichton book Jurassic Park Wherein a superhero dinosaur, genetically engineered to be bigger, smarter, and tougher than all who came before, finds freedom from enslavement, then crushes and eats all who oppressed her. It's a tale of redemption,… Read More

Labor Day review

Directed by Jason ReitmanWritten by Reitman based on the novel by Joyce MaynardWow, this is a tough one to get my head around. Why would Reitman, director of edgy, hip dramedies Young Adult, Up In The Air and Juno, tackle this kind of material? This is a total Hallmark/Lifetime TV movie, described in at least one… Read More