iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 11h

I was looking to see what the discourse on the new CARRIE show is, and man...people have no imagination. They really just want the same stories told to them in the same way. How does it defeat the purpose to make Carrie White a curious girl who wants to do GOOD in the world...and is STILL bullied?

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

...THE RAGE: CARRIE 2 (which is an underrated film in my opinion. I got the VINEGAR SYNDROME 4K of it, and it was a much better film than I had been lead to believe since it came out, with a few caveats. My review is here: letterboxd.com/dthalliday/f... ) in which the protagonist has more agency.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Another change I'm enjoying about this version of CARRIE is that it's less about Carrie White absorbing cruelty until she explodes, and more about her slowly finding empowerment. She becomes aware of her power in the second episode, and there is something both cathartic and...foreboding in her smile

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Summer H. Howell is having her star turn as Carrie White. Obviously she's the lead of the show, and she has to carry it...and she does it admirably, portraying a wider range of emotions that Sissy Spacek was called upon to project.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Watching Mike Flannigan's CARRIE. I think it was oversold how different Carrie's mom was going to be in this one...she's still a crazy religious fundamentalist with extreme (and very topical) views...and on the surface she seems kinder to Carrie, but it actually makes her abuse more insidious.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

(Weeeeell...actually MEN OF WAR is probably the best Dolph Lundgren movie. But I think that UNIVERSAL SOLDIER is his best performance.)

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

...is that he's TRYING. He's actively challenging himself, and from what I've gathered, he always came in with a lot of ideas, and he even picks up some story credits on films like DOUBLE IMPACT, which came into being because he wanted to play a duel role and prove he could do comedy AND stoicism.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

JCVD is maybe at his most JCVD in this in terms of his look...he's fucking BEAUTIFUL, but also WAY bigger than he is later in his career where he becomes increasingly lean. JCVD takes a lot of flack for his acting, and I think that's unfair, because what strikes me (at least in his early stuff...

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Watching DEATH WARRANT (1990) starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, written by David S. Goyer, directed by Deran Sarafian. The film starts STRONG for me with this exchange: JCVD-"I'm going in." LAPD-"You can't...it's against protocol, Burke. This isn't CANADA...we have procedures here!" 🤣

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

From the trailer and the screen caps I've seen, the film looks like it has a really nice, saturated, palette with lots of cool blues and hot oranges, which always appeals to me. Plus I find that prison films tend to get a lot of production value out of the setting, which creates visual interest.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

While doing my regular grocery shopping, I found DEATH WARRANT (1990) on 4K from MVD Rewind. I saw quite a few Jean-Claude Van Damme movies in the 90s, but I've not seen this one. It looks pretty up my ally, as JCVD plays an undercover cop forced to go into a prison, and it LOOKS pretty great!

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I will never stop buying blu-rays/4Ks. : | Well...as long as they'll let me, anyways. (This is why I bit the bullet and paid through the ass for the STRANGERS THINGS super-box set from ARROW...who knows when they'll ever do something like this again?)

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I'm SO GLAD I got the DVD of this show when it was released YEARS ago. What a charming experiment, combining European and Japanese visual and storytelling aesthetics to create a wonderfully imaginative original series. I wish more people had seen this when it was on.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I remember seeing WORZEL GUMMIDGE a few times very early on in the existence of YTV while at a neighbor's house in town (we didn't have cable/satellite until I was in my teens so I would RAVENOUSLY devour TV at other people's houses), and...WHY WAS THIS FOR KIDS!?! It wasn't charming at ALL. ^__^;;

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Oh, LOTS of things. I was terrified of the Red Bull from THE LAST UNICORN, and that big Rat from THE SECRET OF NIMH. I saw both JAWS and PET SEMATARY far to young. The VHS cover of GHOULIES haunted me. The one time I heard the DOCTOR WHO theme song...lots of stuff.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The most impressive performance of this film is Kirsten Dunst as Claudia. God DAMN! I'll actually give this to Tom Cruise...he's better in scenes with Dunst than he is in scenes with Pitt. He's putting more in and getting more out of scenes with her.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I haven't seen this film in like 30+ years, and thus far I'm impressed with how good it looks. It's a LUSH production, and there is an impressive attention to detail. Cruise and Pitt are both very pretty, but neither are as attractive or as good performers as their TV counterparts.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Watching WB's 4K of INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (which was apparently subtitled THE VAMPIRE CHRONICLES, so maybe they were planning on this being a franchise at the time, and it didn't happen?). I don't know where this art is from, but I like how it proposes that Antonio Banderas is the protagonist.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Rewatching BELOW (2002), directed by David Twohy. I had this already on blu-ray, but regretted not getting it on 4K when I had the chance, and snatched it up on Friday when it appeared before me again. This really is a gorgeous film, with a really great cast of character actors supporting it.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

...2015 CGI animated THE PEANUTS MOVIE, which was really disarming to me in it's charm and sheer HUMANITY, casting Charlie Brown as an flawed and self-conscious, but thoughtful and kind, kid who endures, struggles, and in that way is heroic. I cried a BUNCH watching this. ;___;

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

...hot lights in the film, which is part of Renny Harlin's overall aesthetic, but also; being a film that has a lot of water in it; there are just a lot of places that offer up such highlights. It's strange how much just having a LIGHT that is so BRIGHT it feels like it's IN THE ROOM matters to me.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Rewatching DEEP BLUE SEA (1999) to inspect ARROW Video's 4K transfer. I already have their blu-ray of this, having purchased it before I became a 4K convert, and before I had the ability to PLAY 4Ks. I can immediately appreciate the benefits this receives from the HDR boost, as there are a lot of

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

It looks great, is largely fun and fully of audaciously ridiculous attempts at scares, like the kid coughing up birds and shit, and the entire thing is buoyed upon Russell Crowe's broad shoulders and he embraces the eccentricity of Father Amorth to play a charismatic and engaging hero.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

This was directed by the guy that did OVERLORD; the zombie Super-Nazi movie; and he is decidedly NOT trying to make THE EXORCIST...this isn't a sober and serious reckoning with faith and whether the belief in a Good God can exist in a world of evil and suffering...it's a gory visual spectacle!

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

They are apparently making a sequel to THE POPE'S EXORCIST, and I'm HERE FOR IT! That first film was a blast! Russell Crowe at her scenery chewing peak, doing a fun accent, and playing a charming and boisterous character. The film is silly, but UNDERSTANDS that it's silly, and leans into it.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Jack Kirby would have put him in a coffin that he dragged there himself like he was Django.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I recommend TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA. I saw it at a screening at the Revue Cinema in August, and it was fantastic...strange, provocative, and dreamy, while also surprisingly hilarious and over-the-top gory. What a blast!

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I'd really like to screen it, but I'll have to confirm with my audience first...so I'm likely going to put it up to a vote alongside my 3rd option, INNOCENT BLOOD (1992), which is a SADLY underrated gem of a film in my eyes (directed by a very problematic man in John Landis).

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

...just some lazy slurs, I can at least warn people or put it in context. I don't remember anything bad in TRICK OR TREAT, but I just want to confirm that. The other film in contention for this year is PRISON (1987), which...I'll have to talk with someone more knowledgeable than myself about.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Currently rewatching TRICK OR TREAT (1986) on 4K courtesy of SYNAPSE Video. I got this awhile back and talked about it then, but I'm rewatching it because it's in contention for SHOCKTOBER-Fest, my annual birthday celebration where I force people to indulge my ravenous desire for silly horror films

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Went downtown to have Turkish breakfast in Kensington with a friend (it was very good!), and ran back into the 2nd hand store, and found THE CABIN IN THE WOODS (2011) on 4K. Hard to believe this is 15 years old. @___@ Rewatched it and experienced a renewed appreciation for a film I already love.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I came to appreciate Igor Kordey much later...it was not my aesthetic at the time. But I love his work on X-TREME X-MEN now, which is the CLAREMONTIEST X-MEN book Chris Claremont ever did. A masterpiece of authorial idiosyncrasy to me.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

But I do have to thank you for giving us Outlaw, and bringing her back for that great run on DOMINO! :D

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

...bleak, violent, and morally challenging), while SARTANA seems more like a good time while still affecting a similarly lurid and morally complicated take on the Western anti-hero. Where I think SARTANA will excel, though, is in it's set pieces, as Sartana seems more like a Western SUPERHERO.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Like Django, Sartana is a similarly implacable and mysterious figure possessed of seemingly SUPERHUMAN killing ability, though his aesthetic differs quite a bit from Django's dusty black cloak, presenting Sartana as decidely more dapper killer of men, as well as a card sharp.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

There are some parallels here...Sartana similarly answers to only one name, and the branding is very similar with titles such as IF YOU MEET SARTANA...PRAY FOR YOUR DEATH, I AM SARTANA, YOUR ANGEL OF DEATH, SARTANA IS HERE...TRADE YOUR PISTOL FOR A COFFIN, and the such.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

SARTANA seems to be a bit of an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Sergio Carbucci's DJANGO, which became a big hit in Europe and lead to a slew of DJANGO derivatives (some of which were branded as DJANGO movies to help sell them, despite having no connection to the 'real' DJANGO at all).

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

And finally...also from ARROW Video is THE COMPLETE SARTANA (1968 - 1970). I have become a great fan of the Spaghetti Westerns of the 60s and 70s, with the films of Sergios Leone and Carbucci being my favorites, but I've been impressed by how visually impressive and fantastical many of these are.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

...which is what lead me to upgrade to this 4K, despite the face that I already have this particular edition from ARROW video on blu-ray. I thought the blu-ray looked very good, but I am admittedly curious about how it looks in 4K with the HDR boosting the color saturation and contrasts.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I, personally, find it very hard to believe that anyone could not enjoy this movie. Is it STUPID and patently RIDICULOUS? Sure. But it's also highly quotable, and even people that HAVEN'T SEEN IT know what it's about and know about it's most iconic scene, which is also one of the most...

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Renny Harlin is maybe the world's best Maximalist filmmaker...no one can really put together a spectacle like he can, and few films are MORE spectacular than DEEP BLUE SEA. In the hands of a lesser director, this film would have been regulated to the Trash Heap to be forgotten, while DEEP BLUE SEA..

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

DEEP BLUE SEA (1999) probably needs no introduction, as it's a somewhat infamously silly and utterly SPECTACULAR genre film, and I personally consider this something of a genre masterpiece. Few films this absurd in premise are this well made, visually stunning, and utterly ENTERTAINING to watch.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Towhy has a great eye for visuals, and shoots the film dark and moody, with a cool palette, and though I already have KINO LORBER's blu-ray of this...I regretted not getting it on 4K when I saw it at the time, so I was happy to see this show up used.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

BELOW is part of the rare genre of submarine films, which tend (in my opinion) towards being tense BANGERS, but this one also has the novelty of not just being an claustrophobic examination of mounting tensions, but ALSO a chilling ghost story about guilt, conspiracy, and madness.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

But I'm not here to litigate the virtues (or lack thereof) of Darren Aronofsky, but rather to sing the praises of David Twohy (who is also a successful screenwriter) who is one of my all time favorites, delivering A PERFECT GETAWAY, a nigh perfect genre film, as well as the RIDDICK franchise.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

BELOW is a 2002 effort from director David Twohy, written by Darren Aronofsky well before he decided to stop being a filmmaker by embracing AI like a fucking hack chump (though some might argue that he was already sort of a hack chump from the way he shamelessly stole from Satoshi Kon).

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Actually, if I'm being real, this might be my favorite Ron Howard film. I think it's a pretty masterful and very compelling human story about competition, drive, and conviction, and Howard shots the racing like it's GONE IN 60 SECONDS or BULLITT, making it THRILLING to watch.

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Derek Halliday 🇨🇦 @dthalliday.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

In particular, I think that Hemsworth largely holds his own on the screen against Bruhl, who gets the more compelling, much richer, character in the bristly, sometimes unpleasant, and blunt Niki Lauda (who ALSO gets a really great burn make-up to play later in the film), as the film is a two-hander.

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