Firestarter is a science fiction–horror thriller novel by Stephen King, first published in September 1980.
It tells the story of a young girl, Charlie McGee, with the ability of pyrokinesis, whose destructive force a ruthless government agency tries to harness for their own purposes.
A miniseries follow-up to the film, Firestarter: Rekindled, was released in 2002 on the Sci-Fi Channel and a remake from Blumhouse Productions was released on 13 May 2022.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
The Underground Man (1971) is an interesting read — looking back from 2026.
One in the series of hardboiled novels set in Southern California and featuring private detective Lew Archer.
The slow pace. The odd, jilted dialogue. The attention to details.
Interesting.
But — ultimately — you have to conclude this is a BAD BOOK.
The plot is confusing and dumb.
The ending inconclusive.
As a mysterious fire rages through the hills above a privileged town in Southern California, Lew Archer tracks a missing child who may be the pawn in a marital struggle or the victim of a bizarre kidnapping.
What he uncovers amid the ashes is murder—and a trail of motives as combustible as gasoline.
If any writer can be said to have inherited the mantle of Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler, it was Ross Macdonald.
Between the late 1940s and his death in 1983, he gave the American crime novel a psychological depth and moral complexity that his predecessors had only hinted at.
It was adapted as a TV movie in 1974. You can watch the entire thing on YouTube.
Peter Graves is Lew Archer.
The movie is not very good. 😀 Worse than the book.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Wow. This is one intense survival story.
Maurice and Maralyn Bailey were a British married couple who, in 1973, survived for 118 days on a rubber raft in the Pacific Ocean before being rescued.
… At dawn on 4 March 1973, their yacht was struck by a (dying) whale and severely damaged.
After transferring some supplies to an inflated life raft and dinghy and salvaging some food, a compass, and other supplies, the Baileys watched as Auralyn disappeared beneath the waves.
To survive, they collected rainwater and when their meagre food supplies ran out, began eating sea creatures such as turtles, seabirds and fish caught by hand or with safety pins fashioned into hooks.
Their adventure was turned into the book 117 Days Adrift (1988).
The story was retold in Maurice and Maralyn (2024) by first time author Sophie Elmhirst. The book was published in the United States in 2025 as A Marriage at Sea.
Amazingly, they returned to sailing, purchasing a new yacht called Auralyn II.
Maralyn Bailey died of cancer in 2002 at the age of 61. Maurice Bailey died in December 2018 at the age of 85.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
I can’t decide which of these two is more hilarious. 😀
Listers: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching is a 2025 documentary film created by brothers Owen and Quentin Reiser and published on YouTube.
The film, released with an accompanying book entitled Field Guide of All the Birds We Found One Year in the United States, follows the brothers as they attempt a Big Year, a birdwatching term for an attempt to observe as many species of bird as possible in a calendar year.
In the lower 48 USA.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
You might have seen The Big Year , a 2011 American observational comedy film starring Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson, …
The book follows three men on a quest for a Big Year – a competition among birders to see who can spot and identify the greatest number of bird species in North America (north of Mexico) in a calendar year. …
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
I loved the 2020 book Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman.
The Thursday Murder Club is a 2025 American crime comedy based on the book.
Its plot follows a group of elderly amateur sleuths who attempt to solve a murder.
Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, and Celia Imrie. Big names.
For me the movie started too slowly. I was disappointed.
BUT the second half got increasingly entertaining. I’m looking forward to the proposed sequel.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
I hate motor racing — but can highly recommend F1 on Apple TV.
It’s a feel good holiday treat.
… starring Brad Pitt as Formula One (F1) racing driver Sonny Hayes, who returns after a 30-year absence to save his former teammate’s underdog team, APXGP, from collapse. …
Racing sequences were adapted from the real-life races, with F1 teams and drivers appearing throughout, including Lewis Hamilton, who was also a producer. …
Pitt was paid $30 million for his performance in this very profitable film. But it’s not about the money … 😀
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Remain (film) will be released 2026, written, directed, and produced by M. Night Shyamalan.
He wanted a change from his usual genre, this time a love story.
New York architect Tate Donovan heads to Cape Cod to design a summer home for his best friend, seeking a fresh start after being treated for acute depression.
Still mourning his sister’s death, he meets Wren, a young woman who disrupts his carefully ordered world.
I lust for dead people, might be the tag line. 😀
Unique in this project is how the story was written.
It was developed simultaneously with author Nicholas Sparks, who separately wrote the novel version of the same story.
The book — Remain: A Supernatural Love Story — published 2025 — I found an OK read. Good, not great.
I was dubious when hearing that Timothée Chalamet would play Dylan. BUT he was excellent.
Won the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award for Best Actor. Sang all those songs himself. Played the instruments, as well.
Supporting cast members, including Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, and Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash, also sang their respective roles. The performances were recorded live on set to capture an authentic feel.
Edward Norton is a great actor. One of the best.
A Complete Unknown is a 2024 American biographical film about the early career of American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan …
… the period of 1961-1965, beginning with Dylan’s start as an American folk singer, and ending with his controversial use of electric instruments at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. …
Surprisingly, Dylan was supportive of the project. The movie is not true to the strict historical record, but rather tries to portrait his rise to fame in the folk music genre and the move to electric instruments.
Like everyone my age, I thought I knew Dylan’s story. I thought of him as a street poet with a terrible singing voice. Another Leonard Cohen.
BUT I realize now that Bob Zimmerman was a wonderkind super talent. The only musician to have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Well deserved.
A genius.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Surprisingly, I quite enjoyed the first Wicked movie.
So went to see part 2 in the theatre.
Certainly the 2nd film is not as good. Not as surprising. Songs not as entertaining.
BUT if you liked the first, it’s worth seeing For Good.
The most important theme for me is friendship.
Freeing the animals. Romance with Fiyero. An angry Tin Man. All far less interesting.
Jeff Goldblum plays Jeff Goldblum, always entertaining.
The nine million colourful tulips are real. As is the Yellow Brick Road.
Wicked: For Good … is a 2025 American musical fantasy … sequel to Wicked (2024) …
… explores the relationship between Elphaba and Glinda as they embrace their new identities as the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
John Candy was born 1950, seven years before me.
Like pretty much every Canadian, I was a huge fan of SCTV, the low budget, super hilarious, Canadian television sketch comedy show about a fictional TV station.
Many of those comics went on to have great careers, including John Candy.
John Candy: I Like Me is the 2025 documentary on Prime about his all too short life. He died age-43 while filming a movie in Mexico.
I saw most of his TV bits and films, but — looking back — it’s Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) that I remember best.
Some feel that Uncle Buck (1989) was even better at portraying John the man.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Rick McCharles 