Happy Halloween!

It's that time of year again. Pumpkins, caramel apples, candy corn, horror movies and scary costumes. I have decided to dedicate this post to Halloween movies and DVDs for those who have kids or who just aren't into the usual Halloween "I Know You Did Last Summer When You Screamed on Elm Street" type fare.

Roseanne: Halloween Edition
I picked this DVD up at Walmart last Halloween for roughly 13 bucks. If you ever watched the series Roseanne, you'd remember how nuts the Connor family is about Halloween. This DVD features 9 classic Halloween episodes from the show. Great for the sitcom lover and suitable for the whole family.

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
Another Halloween classic from way back. The Peanuts gang celebrates Halloween and Linus convinces Sally that the Great Pumpkin will make an appearance if they just wait in the pumpkin patch long enough. A little bit dated, but still enjoyable.

Ghost Busters
This is a great Halloween movie for the comedy lover that's okay for the whole family, too. Starring Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson as a team of ghost busters acting as ghost exterminators. Also starring Sigourney Weaver as Murray's love interest, Rick Moranis as Weaver's neighbour who becomes possessed and Annie Potts as the Ghost Busters overworked and underpaid secretary. Very funny and okay for the older kids.

Scooby Doo
This Hanna Barbera cartoon about a great Dane and his crime solving friends is a classic. I think it's Teletoon that has a Scooby Doo marathon on a Saturday every year around Halloween time. It's a perfect way to kill a rainy afternoon and appropriate for Halloween because they're always chasing ghosts or monsters at some spooky abandoned amusement park or abandoned gold mine or museum. You can find Scooby Doo tv series DVDs in the Walmart bargain bin for cheap or the two live action Scooby Doo films are a good bet, too, with my preference being for the sequel Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. Fun for the whole family.

Scary Movie
This is the DVD I always pop in Halloween night after the kids are in bed. Great Halloween movie for the low brow, parody lover who isn't into scary, gory flicks. Essentially, the film is a parody of Scream, which is a satire of teen slasher flicks. Written by and starring the Wayans brothers, the film lampoons other slasher flicks like I Know What You Did Last Summer with humour, some of it more juvenile and gross out, but some of it really funny. This one is just for the adults.

Stay safe on Halloween night and indulge in some halloweenie chocolate bars.....enjoy!

More ramblings to come......

Dan in Real Life

I FINALLY got a chance to catch a Sunday matinee for the first time in months. I chose Dan in Real Life with Steve Carell. Written and directed by Peter Hedges (writer/director of Pieces of April) the film is an unconventional, quirky romantic comedy with more personality.

Steve Carell stars as Dan Burns, a newspaper columnist who has a weekly column giving advice to families about their problems. Dan is also a single father raising his three daughters after his wife's death. Dan and his three daughters are about to join the rest of the family for their annual get together at the family cabin by the lake. Unfortunately for Dan, his two teenage daughters are not very happy with him.

After they arrive at the cabin to meet the rest of the family, Dan is sent into town to the local bookstore for two reasons, to give him and his daughters some space and because he needs to pick up the papers. He meets a woman named Marie (Juliette Binoche) in the bookstore who he begins talking to and he opens up while they share one long conversation. She realizes she's very late for something and leaves rather quickly. He returns to the cabin very happy that he's met someone he's hit it off with, considering he's been alone for four years.


Unfortunately for Dan, he finds soon after arriving back at the cabin, that Marie is his brother, Mitch's (played by Dane Cook) new girlfriend. The next few days are spent with Dan and Marie alternating between flirting with each other and enjoying their chemistry and trying to stay the hell away from each other to avoid hurting Mitch. Dan continues his tenuous relationship with his daughters and finds out during his trip that his column is being considered for syndication.


The film is wonderfully cast with Carell and Binoche good choices with good chemistry as the leads. Cook does a great job as Dan's brother, Mitch, who is clueless that his girlfriend and brother are falling in love. Dianne Wiest and John Mahoney make the perfect matriarch and patriarch of this Rhode Island family who are wise to what's going on between Dan and Marie. The rest of the family are good, too. One thing I appreciate about this film is that they avoid the "perfect family" touches found in most romantic comedies. The families are usually too nice, too perfect and often break out into song, with scenes of the family singing "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" into cooking utensils and dancing around, just to prove they're fun and kooky. The annual family talent show night came very close, though, but for the most part they came across as a real family who grew up together, are still close and are too much into each other's business.


Overall it was a pleasant way to spend a few hours on Sunday. Carell gave another great performance as a widowed father who loves his girls and has a good job, but who is also a little lonely for company and struggling to relate to his teenage daughters. The film is a lot more subtle and layered and better than most romantic comedies without the cheese factor.

Dan in Real Life
7/10
Recommended: If you are in the mood for an unconventional romantic comedy, if you like Steve Carell, or if you prefer your rom coms a little darker.
Favourite quote: Marty: Love is not a feeling, it's an ability.

More ramblings to come.......

I'm Baaack. No, seriously.

So my friend Dave says to me the other day, "I want to see a new entry from you in your blog. And don't give me this 'I'm too busy' shit." I'm here, I'm here. I really have been very busy, though. I'm still working on two documentaries and doing some freelance radio work and whatever else gets thrown at me. It's so fun that it actually doesn't even feel like work. I love what I'm doing and I'm grateful I get to do it every day with people who are amazing and supportive. The fact that I get paid is just the icing on the cake.

So I will write some about movies, but mostly just writing to get my writing mojo back. I have a twenty page essay due in a month and a bit. I also have to write this documentary that is near and dear to me, but due to creative blockages has languished on the shelf for the last month and a bit. I know the film spirits will be good to me. Seriously, one of my production profs talked of believing in film spirits. So basically this is just a short note to say, yes, I'm still around, yes I will be writing again. Thanks for the comment, Mad. Good to hear from you. Due to a stalkerish experience with an ex from wayyyy back, I had to delete my myspace profile. Gotta love the internet.

More ramblings to come.....(I swear!)...