Dinner and a Movie with Moxie

  1980's Fantasy Double Feature: Willow and Dragonslayer The 1980s was a decade full of fantasy films, including some great classics like Legend, Princess Bride, NeverEnding Story, Labyrinth, and of course Willow and Dragonslayer.   Tonight I am looking at two beloved classics from my childhood, the 1988 classic Willow, and the 1981 classic Dragonslayer.  Both films were a head of their time in special effects, and both were met with mixed critical reviews, but both have gone on to live in the hearts of the children of the 1980s like myself.  Willow released in 1988 is a story idea written by Star Wars creator George Lucas, who approached Ron Howard to direct the film (he had worked with Howard previously in Lucas' film American Graffiti).  The story dates back to 1972 when Lucas first came up with the idea, and he called the story Munchkins.  In 1982 during the filming of Star Wars Return Of The Jedi, Lucas approached Warwick Davis (who was one of the...

The Good Son The Good Son is a 1993 psychological thriller/horror film directed by Joseph Ruben, with a screenplay written by novelist Ian McEwan.   From the time that McEwan was contacted by 20th Century Fox to write the screenplay until the film was finally made took about 7 years, multiple directors, multiple starring actors, and several rewrites, before finally in 1991 the sets were started being constructed in Maine for the film.  Then Kit Culkin, father of Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin said that he wanted his son in the film, to prove that he could do a darker role, rather than just the comedic roles that he had been previously cast in.   Then Macaulay demanded that his real life younger sister Quinn should play his sister, and a photograph of his younger brother Rory was used for the photo of his characters deceased younger brother.  Now with Macaulay Culkin added to the film, it set the filming back another year, due to him filming Home Alone 2....

  Whisper Of The Heart Whisper Of The Heart is a 1995 Japanese animated film from Studio Ghibli, and directed by Yoshifumi Kondo.  Kondo was set to be the successor to Hayao Miyazaki, however sadly this would be the last and only film he would direct before his death in 1998.  Originally released in Japan in 1995, it was also the first Japanese film to used Dolby surround sound.  The film was distributed by Toho, and later re-released in the USA through a deal that Studio Ghibli had with Walt Disney for their US releases, which also featured American voice actors doing the English language dub.   The version I am reviewing is the English dub that Disney released, and the Bluray version that I have is the GKIDS reissue (for Studio Ghibli Films I prefer the GKIDS versions for their packaging and extra features). Whisper of the Heart is a film adaptation of the manga Mimi o Sumaseba created by Aoi Hiiragi.  The original film release is called Mimi o Sumas...

  The Wicker Man (1973) The Wicker Man is a 1973 folk-horror film, directed by Robin Hardy, with a screenplay by Anthony Shaffer, and is loosely based on the 1967 novel Ritual by David Pinner.  The Film was produced and distributed by British Lion Films.  The Wicker Man is about a devout Christian police officer from the Scottish mainland, who is sent to the remote Hebridean island Summerisle, to investigate reports of a missing young girl named Rowan Morrison.  When he gets there by way of seaplane he discovers something is quite off about this island, and that the people have cast away their Christianity and began embracing the Pagan faith of the Celtic people, and have replaced the Christian god with the ancient Celtic Gods and Goddesses.    No one seems to know of the young girl that he is looking for, even her own mother, and when he discovers that he thinks she is dead, he finds only a hare in her casket.  No one is giving him straight answers, b...

What Lies Beneath What Lies Beneath is a Hitchcockian horror suspense film directed by accomplished director Robert Zemeckis, who is well known for films such as Romancing the Stone, Back To The Future, Forrest Gump, and Castaway.  This is the first film for his newly founded production company ImageMovers, and was distributed domestically by Dreamworks Pictures, and internationally through 20th Century Fox, and was a huge success grossing $291.4 million in the box office against its $100 million budget. What Lies Beneath stars Harrison Ford as Dr. Norman Spencer, in a role that definitely goes against type for the famous actor, as in this film he gets to play the villain.  Michelle Pfeiffer plays his wife Claire Spencer, who starts seeing the ghost of a young woman in their bathroom.  Katharine Towne plays Caitlin Spencer, the daughter of Norman and Claire Spencer, who in the beginning of the film leaves to go to college.  The film also stars Diana Scarwid as Claire...

War Of The Worlds: Two Versions from 2005 2005 saw two versions of HG Wells' classic science fiction story adapted to film, one is the well known Steven Spielberg adaptation starring Tom Cruise, and the other a lesser known release by Pendragon Pictures.  One film saw a the classic reimagined in the modern day USA, while the other stayed quite faithful to the original novel, in setting and in the screenplay.   Both films were interestingly enough released in June of 2005, though the Pendragon Pictures version never saw a theatrical release. War Of The Worlds, was directed by Steven Spielberg, and was distributed by Paramount (domestic) and Dreamworks (internationally.  The film was written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp, and based on HG Wells novel of the same name from 1898, though it also took inspiration from the famous Orson Welles' radio-show version of the story as well.  Through Spielberg wanted to take elements of the original story, he also wanted to ...

  Village Of The Damned (1995) Village Of The Damned is a remake of the 1960 film of the same name, and based on the 1957 novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham.  This version was directed by John Carpenter with a screenplay by David Himmelstein and re-written by John Carpenter.   The film was distributed by Universal Pictures, who had received the rights from MGM to do a re-make.   The film stars Christopher Reeves, who is best known for his iconic role as Superman, in his last film before his tragic accident, and also his final theatrically released film.   Christopher Reeves plays Dr. Alan Chaffee, Karen Kahn plays his wife Barbara Chaffee, Kirstie Alley plays Dr Susan Verner, Linda Kozlowski plays Jill McGowan, and Mark Hamill plays Reverend George (goes from "Luke I am your father", to "father Luke Skywalker"... I found that really funny was I watched this).   The children are played by Thomas Dekker as David McGowan, Lindsey Hau...