Dp-Drn
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Sample: Title; rating (out of 4); principal setting; year of release; international co-producer (if any); cast; description; scriptwriter; director; content warning; running time.
DRACULA *
* 1/2
(1999) Juan Chioran, Roger Honeywell, June Crowley,
Benedict Campbell, Michael Fletcher, Shawn Wright, Amy Walsh.....Recorded-for-TV
version of the live stage show of the Canadian-made "chamber musical" about
the infamous bloodsucker. Musical/pop-opera (lyrics by Richard Ouzounian,
music by Marek Norman) is a bit hit and miss, done more as a highlights
of the novel than a real, self-contained story, with songs that are pretty
good and border on being catchy...but not quite and are a little too much
the same. Still, interesting and certainly accesible. A play that, with
a little tweaking, could become a semi-classic. First aired on TV Ontario.
app. 110 min.
DRAGON BOYS (TVMS)
* * * * setting: B.C.
(2006) Byron Mann, Lawrence Chou, Tzi Ma, Eric Tsang,
Steph Song, Derek Tsang, Christina Ma, Simon Wong, Darryl Quon, Joan Yoon,
Lauren Lee Smith, Stefanie von Pfetten, Vincent Gale, John Cassini.....Sprawling
saga of Asian-Canadian gangsters in Vancouver, the R.C.M.P. officer heading
an anti-gang task force (Mann), and some innocents caught between. Slick,
made-for-CBC drama-thriller starts out well produced and well acted, following
a complex cast of characters, but though a well done riff on the crime-drama,
other than the ethnicity of the characters, initially it is just a riff
on the crime-drama...but gets better and better as it goes, delivering
some emotional wallops and with a deliriously Byzantine (and, admittedly,
sometimes confusing) tapestry of disparate plot threads that gradually
weave tighter and tighter around each other, interconnecting in surprising
ways, and with memorable characters who are nicely shaded and nuanced.
Not an earnest "ripped from the headlines" docudrama, but a genuine suspense-drama
ala Martin Scorsese. It's a noirish story of corruption and redemption,
where noble characters can be tempted to the dark side, and villains reveal
traces of nobility. It's what The Last Chapter
wanted to be, and what Intelligence thinks
it is. Kudos to everyone, particularly scripter Weir. Four hours. sc: Ian
Weir. dir: Jerry Ciccoritti. - violence, sexual content.-
DRAGON HUNT
* setting: Ont.
(1989) Michael McNamara, Martin McNamara, B. Bob,
Heidi Romano, Sheryl Foster.....Twin kick boxing champs (the McNamara
bros.) are pursued on an isolated island by an old enemy and his gang of
specialized killers. Touches of campy humour and an O.K. premise
in this really low-budget pic, but it gets kinda nasty and never becomes
exactly action-packed (it is an action movie, after all). But there's
something refreshing about Canuck schlock that actually admits it's Canadian.
Sequel to Twin Dragon Encounter. sc: Michael McNamara. dir: Charles
Wiener. - violence.-
DRAW *
* 1/2 setting: USA.
(1984) (/U.S.) Kirk Douglas, James Coburn, Alexandra
Bastedo, Graham Jarvis, Derek McGrath, Len Birman, Gerard Parkes.....Aging,
former out-law (Douglas) gets forced into a shoot out in a small town,
then holes up in a hotel while the town's folk send for a famous ex-law
man (Coburn), now a drunk, who has had run-ins with him. Some funny
moments in this western comedy/drama though it's uneven and a bit abrasive.
sc: Stanley Mann. dir: Steven Hilliard Stern. - violence, sexual content.-
98 min.
THE DREAM BEGINS (TVMS)
* setting: P.Q.
(1993) Rene Gagnon, Annette Garant, Anne Bedard, Vincent
Bilodeau, Marie Josee Caya, Louis-George Girard.....Chronicle of Alphonse
Desjardins (Gagnon) who, for decades during the end of the last century
and the beginning of this one, worked to establish a credit union in Quebec
-- Les Caisses populaires. Badly doone, choppy docudrama is often
hokey and seemingly too propagandistic, rather than an honest drama, and
the actors seem too self-conscious. Only interesting for its facts,
but even then it's not as lucid as it could be. Dubbed version of
a 1990 Quebec mini-series. 4 hours. sc: Robert Malenfant. dir:
Richard Martin.
DREAM BREAKER
* *
(1996) Michael Pare, Tara Maria Manuel, Maria
Shretas, Peter Wylde, Kevin Stapleton.....In a gone-to-hell future,
where people escape from the miseries of reality in virtual reality games,
a cop (Pare) investigates when an old flame (Manuel) -- a game designer
-- is murdered and video game creations sstart popping up in reality. SF
thriller has an annoying desire to be true, thought provoking science fiction,
rather than just some lame, low-budget SF thriller. That's annoying because
the movie still suffers from low-budget problems of sluggish pacing
and a story that can be meandering and an incoherent mishmash of ideas
-- even with three scripters, they neededd a real writer to come along and
put the various ideas into a coherent package. A well-intentioned movie
more than a successful one. Rates as high as it does for its ambition and
the interesting (if repetitive) sets and costume designs. Produced by Danforth
Studios (and it shows). a.k.a. Carver's Gate. sc: Doug Bagot, Timothy
Lee, Sheldon Inkol. dir: Sheldon Inkol. - casual male nudity, brief female
nudity, violence.- app. 85 min.
DREAM HOUSE
* * setting: USA.
(1998) (/U.S.) Timothy Busfield, Lisa Jakub, Jennifer
Dale, Brennan Elliott, Dan Petronijevic, Cameron Graham, Pam Hyatt.....American
computer designer and his family move into a prototype computer controlled
house; complications arise when his estranged daughter (Jakub) shows up
with a hidden agenda and the computer goes the Hal-route and starts to
go crazy. Made-for-TV SF thriller has a good cast and some decent
character stuff (though the behaviour isn't always plausible). But
it's pretty familiar ground, with a climax that seems like a montage of
ideas from other people vs. computer stories. sc: Jim Makichuk. dir:
Graem Campbell. app. 90 min.
A Dream Like Mine, the novel by M.T. Kelly, became the film Clearcut
DREAM MAN *
1/2 setting: USA.
(1995) (/U.S.) Patsy Kensit, Bruce Greenwood, Andrew
McCarthy, Denise Crosby, Jim Byrnes, Cameron Bancroft, John Cassini, Jay
Brazeau, Armin Shimerman.....Psychic U.S. cop (Kensit) starts to fall
for the suspect (McCarthy) in a high society murder. Good looking
mystery-suspenser suffers from poor dialogue and the fact that, if you
can't guess who the killer is, you just haven't seen a film in the last
ten years. The movie's main original idea (involving the manipulation
of the heroine's ESP) is intriguing, but too preposterous to credit in
the largely realist setting -- better to have used it in a blatantly science
fiction milieu. Notable only for the chance to catch Denise ("Star
Trek: The Next Generation") Crosby in the buff. Kensit, McCarthy,
Crosby and Shimerman (another Trekoid) are all imports. sc: Michael
Alexander Miller. dir: Rene Bonniere. - partial female nudity, violence,
sexual content.- 95 min.
DREAM STORM *
* setting: N.W.T.
(1991) Tina Keeper, Tracey Cook, Peter Kelly Gaudreault,
Gordon Tootoosis, Dakota House, Tom Jackson, Lawrence Bayne, William de
Vry, Michael Horse.....A mysterious death on the cusp of a new pipeline
deal presages strange, supernatural occurrences in the town of Lynx River.
Third TV movie based on the popular CBC TV series, North
of 60, is, as to be expected, moody and slickly put together with some
strong core performances, but the atypical turn toward the supernatural
is awkward in a, usually, realist series. Thin, disjointed plotting allows
plenty of room for just hanging with the familiar characters, which might
appeal to hard-core fans, but to a more general audience, the movie is
slow and meandering, veering from soap opera-y drama, to humour, to the
(nominally) suspenseful, without really tying the stuff together enough
to make for a satisfying, take-it-on-its-own movie -- eventually arriving
at a simplistic, ghost story cliché solution. Tootoosis (as a ghost)
and Jackson have just small parts. sc: Andrew Wreggitt. dir: Stacey Stewart
Curtis. 91 min.
DREAM TO BELIEVE a.k.a. Flying
DREAMLAND: A History of
Early Canadian Movies 1895-1939 * * *
setting: CDN.
(1973).....Donald Brittain narrates this NFB documentary
about early Canadian cinema. Its strengths and weaknesses stem from the
same source: a lot of the movie is just showing clips from long ago films,
with Brittain providing synopsis of the films. Which is great, actually
giving you an idea of what the films were about...but it also means a lot
of the movie is just one synopsis after another. Some interesting behind-the-scenes
anecdotes, but not as many as you'd like, plus some look at the political
and business pressures at work. Interesting, and particularly recommended
to those unfamiliar with Canadian film history. Followed by Has
Anyone Here Seen Canada?. sc./dir: Donald Brittain. 86 min.
DREAMS BEYOND MEMORY*
* setting: CDN.
(1987) George Touliatos, Lisa Schrage, Leslie Yeo,
Maruska Stankova, Piotr Lysak, Tony Nardi, Jackie Richardson.....Sixty-something
war veteran (Touliatos) becomes infatuated with his much younger new neighbour
(Schrage) who resembles his war-time fiancé, but as they develop
a relationship, he begins to question what's real and what's a dream. Generally
decent performances in this low-budget drama, but though it has some interesting
scenes, it's not that interesting in and of itself. It needed more of a
story...or else would've been better as a half hour short. sc./dir: Andrzej
Markiewicz. - partial female nudity.- 91 min.
DREAMSPEAKER *
* setting: B.C.
(1976) Ian Tracey, George Clutesi, Jacques Hubbert.....Emotionally
disturbed boy (Tracey) runs away from hospital and is taken in by a kindly
old Indian (Clutesi) and his mute companion. Overly grim drama that
doesn't seem to have much of a point. Made for the CBC anthology
series For the Record. Won five Etrogs
including screenplay and Best TV movie and it was subsequently turned into
a short novel by its author. sc: Cam Hubert (a.k.a. Anne Cameron).
dir: Claude Jutra. 75 min.
DRIFTING UPSTREAM see Entre la mer et l'eau douce
DRIVE, SHE SAID *
1/2
(1997) Moira Kelly, Josh Hamilton, Sebastian
Spence, Jim Byrnes, Lori Triolo, Peter Stebbings.....A bored-with-her-life
American bank teller (American Kelly) is kidnapped by a friendly bank robber
(American Hamilton), and ends up travelling with him willingly. A good
cast all around in this comedy-drama, and some good dialogue, but it's
thin on plot and the over-used premise fails to be...convincing (though
given the occasional forays into whimsy and surrealism, maybe realism wasn't
high on the agenda). You aren't convinced Kelly'd go with the robber, you
aren't swept up (as she's supposed to be) in the giddy rush of the "adventure",
and the veer towards melodrama near the end is awkward. A muddled mishmash.
Sluggish tempo, too. sc./dir: Mina Shum. 81 min.
DRIVE TIME MURDERS a.k.a. Breakfast with Dick and Dorothy
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