Closing the Book

A revisionist feature that in many ways is the closing bookend to the classic western, Clint Eastwood directs and stars in (notably his last picture in the genre he helped make famous again) 1992's Academy Award Best Picture winner Unforgiven. Throwing the traditional rhythm out the door, David Webb Peoples writes a tale set at the end of the Wild West where in every characters’ mind, they are the ‘good’ guy. Centred around a town called Big Whiskey, Wyoming, Sheriff ‘Little Bill’ Daggett (Gene Hackman – The Replacements) runs the town with an iron fist – banning any guns in the place (if they don’t listen, he makes an example of them). Also of note, the lawman, though not a great craftsman, is trying to build his own home.

You know, it is always energizing attending a first year event. Being part of the birth of something new, feeling the excitement of a fresh hunting ground, as well as seeing the scaffolding being set up for the growth of an event that will likely thrive for years to come, is always a sight to behold... and that was certainly the case with Nepean’s first ever Horror-Fi, hosted at the Nepean Sportsplex on June 13th and 14th, 2026. Brought to vivid life by Geeked Out’s Shannon and Patrick O’Neill, they’ve certainly done their research

While viewing today’s movie, a quote revolving around The Doors and their band name popped into my head, “There are things you know about and things you don't, the known and the unknown, and in between are the doors – that's us”. With links to Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perceptions, and before that the even more apropos William Blake’s 18th century poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, one line from it reads, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.” It only seems fitting that this rather abstract lineage which discusses both reality and exploring expanded consciousness somehow links to the sci-fi psychological horror film Backrooms (2026), co-written and directed by 20 year old Kane Parsons.

When low budget B movies were produced back in the 1950s, studios (in this case, Columbia) never really expected that much from them... but as you might already know, especially when it came to fun sci-fi horror monster movies, they tended to hit the sweet spot for what movie audiences wanted. One such example is Robert Gordon’s cephalopod-centric It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955).

Sometimes, certain films just seem destined to underperform at the box office, only to fall into more of a cult status down the road... and this could likely be the case for writer/director Damien Chazelle’s epic depiction of late 1920s, early 1930s Hollywood in Babylon (2022). Clocking in at three hours, nine minutes, if Chazelle’s 2016 musical La La Land was a love letter to current Hollywood, then this could easily be considered something similar to the growth and birth of the place. In some ways reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 feature Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (which also gives the viewer a bird’s-eye view into the movie making business), the aptly named Babylon is perhaps not for the faint of heart, but will be rewarding for anyone intrigued by the silent and the 30s Pre-Code era (or for people who are simply looking to learn more about this cinematic time).

If someone was told that a movie had earned almost 110 million in just over two weeks at the box office, most people would just shrug it off and say that isn’t all that special... but with this film being made for somewhere between 750,000 and 1 million dollars, that makes it a whole different thing. Utterly impressive in this day and age, the psychological horror film Obsession (released back at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2025), written, directed, and edited by Curry Barker, is taking the cinema world by storm. Aptly titled, the rather timid, lonely, and lackluster Baron ‘Bear’ Bailey (Michael Johnston) is rather infatuated with coworker and longtime friend Nikki Freeman (Inde Navarrette). Working in the same music store along with co-friends Ian (a boisterous Cooper Tomlinson) and Sarah Harper (Megan Lawless) – whose father Carter (Andy Richter – yes Conan O’Brien’s longtime sidekick) runs the store, it has become a sort of frustrating groundhog’s day for the man – who has long fretted over making his feelings known to the girl.