PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Three Pines Series 1

Three Pines Series 1 Created by Emilia di Girolamo, based on Fatal Grace by Louise Penny, written by Emilia di Girolamo, Jamie Crichton and Catherine Tregenna, directed by Sam Donovan, Tracey Deer and Daniel Grou. It's a Canadian and UK production that's on Amazon Prime.

Alfred Molina plays Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec. He works in Montreal with Rossif Sutherland as Jean-Guy Beauvoir and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers as Isabelle Lacoste. They all work in Montreal but most of the murders this series are in the small town of Three Pines in the Eastern Townships of Quebec.

There are eight episodes with 2 episodes devoted to each murder. There's also an 8 episode story arc about the search for a young indigenous woman who disappeared 18 months previous.

It's a more serious show than I like as a rule. Some of the murder's have to do with indigenous people, missing young women and the treatment of indigenous children who were tortured and killed after being stolen from their families and raised in religious schools that had the goal of beating the native out of the children. There have been a lot of stories about mistreating the locals in the Canadian news over the last couple of decades.

I liked the series for the most part, a bit too much personal story from all the characters. I didn't care for the cliff hanger but I don't much as a rule. I'd watch the second series, I did like the location scenery, but it wouldn't be something I'd tune into for a second go round.

Starhunter Redux Season 1

Starhunter Redux Season 1 Created by G Philip Jackson, Daniel D'or and Nelu Ghiran.

The original first series of 22 episodes ran in syndication November 1 2000 to March 28 2001. The episodes were re-edited, effects were upgraded, the image cleaned up, they aired in 2018. The 2 season Blu-ray set was released by Shout Factory in August 2022. I didn't notice until December 2 last year. I ordered it right away and watched the first season over the last month.

The first series has five discs packed in a season 1 case. The two cases are put into a nice box. The episodes do look much better than the old shabby looking DVDs. The new effects look so much better, well worth the upgrade. The stories are similar to what was broadcast originally. They have changed a few things. I watched the first episode with the old DVD playing on my PC. Amazing how bad the image looks on those old DVDs. It was the only episode that I did that with, too much work. There's probably someone online who's already done it. I'm too lazy to go look for that page. Maybe someday.

I was quite entertained and am looking forward to the next series.

Friday Night Movies 903

Crimes Of The Future 2022 Written and directed by David Cronenberg.

David returns to his love of body horror for the first time since 1999s eXistenZ. The film he made seems to me to be very much in that world and made in that era. I'm not a big fan of eXistenZ and I didn't find COTF to be even as entertaining as that film. Over the years I've come to see Eastern Promises and A History Of Violence as my favorites of all his films. I doubt I'd need to see it again.

The Spine Of Night 2021 Written and directed by Philip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King.

It took 7 years to make this rotoscoped fantasy adventure. It seems to take a long time to play out it's 93 mins. There's a decent but unoriginal story about creeps seeking power and the people who rise to stop them. It plods along at at one point it was nearly putting me to sleep, I wasn't the only one. I sure don't think I'll need to see this again.

Seaway 1965-1966

Seaway 1965-1966 Created by Abraham Polonsky. The series had 31 episodes that aired on the CBC.The Wikipedia says it was the most expensive show produced in Canada at that time, costing $3,000,000 which is about $11,200,000 today. It did well but it was in B&W and it didn't make a sale to the US because of that.

Steven Young and Austin Willis were the two main stars. Steven was a ship owner's agent and investigated crimes that involved the owner's ships. Austin was an agent for the Department of Transport. The action took place along the St Lawrence Seaway with several of the shows filmed in Toronto and Montreal.

I remember seeing this as a kid and liking it. I found a few episodes on YouTube and watched them. They were about average but watchable. There's some action, some drama and a bit of humor too. I put the link to YouTube in the title above.

Corner Gas Animated Season 4

Corner Gas Animated Season 4 Created by Brent Butt, written by Jennifer Siddle, Meredith Hambrock, Brent Butt, Andrew Carr, Dylan Wertz, Erica Sigurdson and Kyah Green, directed by Stephen Evans, Sean Janisse and Nathan Carey. This is the last season of the show, the 13 episodes aired July through November 2021.

There's  quite a bit going on in the episodes, usually several things are happening around the town as characters interact with each other. I enjoy their silly activities and I'll miss new stories. I guess I can watch the live show and animated show all over again. That'll have to do.

The Kids In The Hall Season 6 2022

The Kids In The Hall Season 6 2022 The Kids return to TV in a new 8 episode series for Amazon Prime. It's created and written by the Kids: Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson. They have some other writers: Garry Campbell, Mike Watts and Jennifer Goodhue. Mike and Jennifer join the Kids in front of the camera in some sketches. The episodes were directed by Kelly Makin and Aleysa Young. I'd just seen one of Kelly's first films, Tiger Claws, just the other night.

Many of the sketches are callbacks to past characters: The Hotel Rut with Francesca Fiore and Bruno Puntz Jones, the headcrusher, Gavin, Gordon and Fran, the Eradicator, the Police Department with a totally naked Dave and Kevin, willies a wavin'. It might be the time to get out your crushing fingers. I was pleased to see the return of Bellini in his towel, Buddy Cole, and Kathie and Cathy with their fax machine. I was quite pleased not to have seen The Chicken Lady, I watched each episode with a slight sense of dread. The sketch from the old series that introduced that character is excruciating to watch. I feel so for her unsuspecting blind date.

There are some new characters, like the restaurant staff in the Foodies sketches, Super Drunk, The Patrol, Friends of Kids In The Hall, the Doctor with the low drop average, the Doomsday DJ and more.

The guest cast includes quite a few people I recognize: Colin Mochrie, Kenneth Welsh, Mark Hammill, Jay Baruchel, Eddie Izzard, Fred Armisen, Martin Kaye, Will Forte, Kenan Thompson, Samantha Bee, Catherine O'Hara and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee.

The Kids have managed to recapture the feel of the original series fairly well. The old series always had a nice level of surrealness to it and so does the new show. Some sketches are quite funny, some are quite weird. I laughed when it was funny, occasionally out loud, and waited for something funny when it wasn't. I'll try to watch it again. If they put out a DVD I'll get one. I kind of doubt that's going to happen but you never know.

The Return Of Tommy Tricker 1994

The Return Of Tommy Tricker 1994 Written and directed by Michael Rubbo. Sequel to the 1988 film Tommy Tricker And The Stamp Traveller. Both are part of the Films For All series. This is the last of 4 kids films that Michael made for the series, the other two were The Peanut Butter Solution and Vincent & Me. I haven't seen the latter film. Stopped making films, bar two documentaries, after this came out.

Sadly the sequel is much less appealing when compared to the first film. Tommy Tricker takes center stage for most of it and he's even more of a douche bag than he was in the first film. He lies and cheats and steals all the time. Really disliked having to look at his smug face. The kid who played Tommy Tricker in the first film didn't get to play Tommy, he got a small part, don't know why. There are a lot of changes in the characters and situation from the first film, hard to believe when it's supposed to be set immediately after the first film.

The main plot is about trying to rescue Charles from the Bluenose stamp. The attempt brings a young girl from the past and she starts to age. They pack up and go to the south seas to try to find a cure. None of it makes much sense but the scenery of New Zealand and the Cook Islands was very nice. Disappointing in the end. Doubt I'd bother watching it again.

The Peanut Butter Solution 1985

The Peanut Butter Solution 1985 Written by Vojtěch Jasný, Andrée Pelletier, Louise Pelletier and Michael Rubbio, directed by Michael Rubbio. Severin has a kid's line, this is their first kid film.

Michael is the director of Tommy Tricker And The Stamp Traveler. I saw that not long ago, when I looked him up I saw he'd also directed this film. I had already purchased it, based on a guy's recommendation, but I hadn't seen it yet. I had no Blu-ray for a while and I'm not keen on watching them in the summer anyway. The old Plasma TV I have is rather hot, nice for this time of the year when it's bloody cold, not so nice when it fights the air conditioner in the summer.

The kid in the movie is called Michael, on the way home with his friend Connie he stops to sneak into a recently burnt mansion to look around. He gets a big fright and all his hair falls out. The man and woman who died in the fire were homeless, it's their ghosts that scared him, and it's their ghosts that give him a magical formula to regrow his hair. Michael doesn't deal with his baldness very well and he doesn't deal with his new hair very well either. He's got more reason to complain on the backside, his magical hair grows way too well, inches an hour, all day. It's annoying enough that the school kicks him out. It was Michael's own fault, he added too much peanut butter.

Michael's art teacher is a bully and a kidnapper. He kidnaps Michael for his magical hair and he kidnaps 20 other kids to make paintbrushes from Michael's hair. Connie and Michael's sister Suzie do some investigating but before they get too far Connie gets kidnapped too. Eventually Suzie figures out where they are and brings her dad and the police. Michael's hair growth is arrested and everything gets back to normal when Michael's mom returns from Australia.

It was alright though I didn't care for Michael that much. I liked Suzie and his pal Connie. The boy who played Connie is Siluck Saysanasy, he was born in Laos and moved to Canada. This was his first film, he next role was as Yick in 64 episodes of Degrassi High. He didn't act a lot after that but he did become an assistant director working on Degrassi: The Next Generation and some interesting films like Hairspray, Resident Evil: Afterlife, RED, The Thing, Pacific Rim and Robocop.

Glad I bought the movie, I'll want to watch it again sometime.

Murdoch Mysteries Season 14

Murdoch Mysteries Season 14 aired January to March 2021 and there are only 11 episodes this season. There were no Halloween or Christmas episodes this year.

The character's typically complicated lives get a real workout this season. Murdoch finds out he has a son, the Inspector finds his younger son is in big trouble, the black lady coroner dates a white man in a very racist society, Constable Higgins brother in law creates his own sovereign nation in Pimlico, people find out about the Inspector's black daughter, Detective Watt's is revealed to be gay at a time when it's illegal, Constable Crabtree loses his girlfriend, again.

Murdoch, Dr Ogden, the Inspector and Constable Crabtree get tricked into a deadly escape room by an insane woman who was manipulated by another of Murdoch's enemies. There seems to be a steady stream of returning characters this season. Mostly a pretty good season. I'll have to wait for the 15th season to hit Blu-ray this summer, hopefully, I've no streaming service that has it. The incomplete season is up on YouTube but the image is often too poor to watch.

Murdoch Mysteries Season 13

Murdoch Mysteries Season 13 aired at the end of 2019 and into 2020, the show is currently near the end of broadcasting the 15th Season. I got the Season 13 Blu-ray some time ago and finally got around to watching it. Like the previous Blu-ray sets the picture is fine. There's little by way of extras, a short Q&A with Yannick Bisson and Daniel Maslany, that was recorded from a live stream by Acorn TV. Nice enough but nothing special there really.

There are 18 episodes and they still maintain a high quality of writing, there's some good amount of mystery in the murders, some humor, some serious personal drama, scads of social commentary and a good bit of delightful wackiness.

Detective Murdoch and Doctor Ogden get stalked by a monster in the Halloween episode, George Crabtree has his new book published and goes on a book tour, Doctor Ogden gets arrested for murder, the Inspector goes on a fox hunt that starts with a dead body and Murdoch gets arrested for murder. Some of those stories deal with morality but it's not heavy handed enough to be bothersome. I enjoyed the episodes, especially the more humorous ones. I look forward to Season 14, that's up next. It's a show that I can binge several episodes in a day.