End Credits Show Notes for Thursday August 10, 2017

This week on End Credits, we go dark. It’s a very bad world out there sometimes, and we don’t just mean pseudo-post-apocalyptic universes where magic cowboys chase the sorcerer Satan across the multiverse. Yes, we are reviewing The Dark Tower this week, but we’ll also be talking about the latest digital robbery in Hollywood, how that little film festival down the 401 is shaping up this year, and why a trailer for a certain movie coming out this year might make us wish we were dead…

This Thursday, August 10, at 10 am, Adam A. Donaldson with Tim Phillips and Peter Salmon will discuss:

1) Hack Mentality. Following closely after several compromising computer attacks in Hollywood, the latest victim is HBO, the premium cable channel that’s home to currently the biggest hit in television, Game of Thrones. The hackers claim to have gotten their hands on a lot of sensitive material, including details on upcoming episodes of Thrones, but so far all they’ve done is released episodes of low-rated fair Ballers and Room 104. But seriously, what’s the point of this attack, was it for the “lulz” or is something more sinister afoot?

2) TIFF Top Shape? The line-up for this year’s Toronto International Film Festival has been released, and this year’s festival will open not with a remake of a remake, but with the bio-pic about a bitter sports rivalry, Borg/McEnroe. It’s part of a move to streamline the festival this year in a very competitive atmosphere that sees other fests in Telluride, Venice and New York nipping at Toronto’s heels to be the one that sets up the yearly Oscar race. So is TIFF too focused on status to not bother to do what it’s supposed to do, which is highlight great movies, (especially the Canadian ones)?

3 ) Death Glitch. Last week, the new trailer for Death Wish was released, a remake of the 1974 film that starred Charles Bronson and will now feature Bruce Willis as a Chicago doctor avenging his family from a group of ethnic criminal stereotypes. If you watch the trailer, and think it has a tin ear, you’re probably right. Not only is the world of 2017 a far cry from the 1970s sociologically-speaking, let alone the fact that violet crime is continually going down, but as directed by Eli Roth, this movie is bound to be exploitative according to all his worst instincts. But is Death Wish going to be the alt-right fantasy people are worried about?

REVIEW: The Dark Tower (2017). Stephen King’s epic book series finally makes its way to the big screen in this adaptation of the western/horror/fantasy/adventure. Jake, an 11-year-old New Yorker, is plagued by visions of a Man in Black, a Dark Tower, and the Gunslinger, a knight of yore pledged to defend the Tower and kill the Man in Black. To Jake’s surprise, he isn’t crazy and his visions are real, as he finds a porthole to another world that leads him to the Gunslinger and a mission to save all realities from the MiB, including his own. Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey co-star in this long-awaited franchise wannabe.