Movie Review: Klaus

When it comes to Christmas movies, I find myself sticking with the classics. It’s A Wonderful Life, Home Alone, A Christmas Story, The Santa Clause, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

On a recent plane ride I did check out the 1994 remake of Miracle on 34^th Street and found it a bit…bland. I don’t know what it was but a lot of it felt very forced and artificial.

By no means was it bad but I’m not overly fond of remakes and Mara Wilson’s character being wise-beyond-her-years got tiring very quickly. However, I’ll give high marks to Richard Attenborough as Kris Kringle in the film. The man made a remarkable Santa Claus.

 But last night after we finished dinner and my Dad decided to go to bed early, my Mom & I turned on Netflix searching for something holiday-themed that we could watch. Now I might have been tempted to see if Home Alone was available (It wasn’t) but then I remembered a Christmas film that came out last year that I had missed but told myself to catch the following year. That movie was Klaus.

Movie Review: Halloween (1978)

This was a review for John Carpenter's "Halloween" that I wrote a few years ago after watching it at a nearby theatre.

 "Halloween started as a low-budget horror film about babysitters being stalked by this serial killer, not a man with a backstory but a force of evil."

-John Carpenter, 2001

"Laurie Strode was EVERYBODY'S daughter, everybody's sister and therefore, if you believed Laurie Strode existed, then when Michael Myers comes in you are afraid for her."

-Jamie Lee Curtis, 2001

Movie Review: Halloween (2018)

This was something I wrote on Facebook two years ago after seeing the latest "Halloween" movie at the time.

In his review of Halloween from 1978, Roger Ebert gave the film four stars and compared it to Hitchcock's "Psycho".

Having just returned from seeing Halloween, the new sequel, I too can compare that to "Psycho".

Unfortunately, it's the remake of "Psycho" from 1998, directed by Gus Van Sant which made a lot of people ask, "What's the point?"

Movie Review: Jaws

"What is special about 'Jaws' is that it hits, in everyone, a primal fear of the unknown that's in water.

-Roy Scheider (2001)

In 1975, a young, then-unknown, Steven Spielberg in only his second effort as director, released a thriller called Jaws, based off the bestselling novel by Peter Benchley. Throughout the years, most people recognize the movie more than the novel and if they did read the novel, they'd find it's the exception to the rule of, "The book is better than the movie."

Know what this movie needs? A subplot where Brody's wife cheats on him with Hooper.

The Comics Conundrum: Max Overacts

It was in April of 2014 at the Calgary Expo on the last day of the show for that year. I found myself walking towards the back of the hall where there were some food vendors when I noticed a table with a particularly eye-catching picture on the table.

I'll be honest, I use this line quite a bit to make myself sound clever...

The two characters were Max (left) and his best friend Klaus (right), stars of the webcomic, Max Overacts. I briefly chatted with the creator of the series, Caanan Grall and decided to purchase the first volume of the comic. The one picture had made me laugh and figured the book might give me a few chuckles.