31 Scary Movies: ‘The Dead Zone’

“The Dead Zone” (1983) – Director David Cronenberg and writer Jeffrey Boam bring Stephen King’s 1979 novel “The Dead Zone” to life on the big screen in a gripping supernatural tale that spawned a six-season television series as well.  Here, Johnny Smith (Christopher Walken) was enjoying a happy life as a schoolteacher and a relationship with Sarah (Brooke Adams), but gets into a car accident and falls into a coma for five years. Sarah has moved on and Johnny laments the time and relationship that he lost, but he gains…

Four essential Jamie Lee Curtis performances

In 2018, Jamie Lee Curtis reprises her landmark role as Laurie Strode in a sequel to “Halloween” (1978), and director David Gordon Green’s “Halloween” (2018) (3/4 stars) assumes that none of the other sequels – “Halloween II” (1981), “Halloween: H2O” (1998), etc. – ever happened, in a scary and very worthy 40-year follow-up to the original. With Curtis celebrating her first staring role again, let’s look back at four essential movies by the legendary actress.  Of course, one could pick from a list of horror films, like “The Fog” (1980),…

The political comedy ‘The Oath’ purposely pledges uncomfortable laughs

“The Oath” – Election Day 2018 is right around corner, and with political tensions at arguably an all-time high, friendships are strained or broken, and families members are not speaking to one another. For Chris (Ike Barinholtz) and his family, they ARE speaking to each other, but that is a horrendous problem. A comedian by trade, Barinholtz takes aim at the current sludge of political discourse by writing and directing a picture built in an alternative, modern universe where the presidential administration asks voting-age Americans to sign “The Patriot’s Oath”, to…