Not for squares. 50 disparate people stand in a staggered circle facing each other, on some kind of technological dais, where the floor is touch-sensitive to their presence, so they cannot move off their individual space or touch each other on pain of electrocution. Black background, like some episode of LOST IN SPACE or THE TIME TUNNEL. Every two minutes, … Read More
BLADE RUNNER 2049
I’m too sexy for my existential crisis. He’s a BLADE RUNNER in 2049. And he’s a Replicant – a robot that resembles humans. And he hunts older-model Replicants that are not as gorgeous as him. And – unlike the last guy – he’s terrific at his job! Ryan Gosling is Agent K, a Nexus-9 Replicant, the newest products of the … Read More
BLADE RUNNER
Incompetent Killer of Incompetent Killers. He’s a BLADE RUNNER. He hunts Replicants – robots that resemble humans. And he’s terrible at his job. Deckard (Harrison Ford) is regarded as the indomitable hero of BLADE RUNNER, especially since his captain (M. Emmett Walsh) pulls him out of retirement to do a job that his best officer failed at doing – “retire” … Read More
PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE
No Plan. Hubcaps terrorize process shots of Los Angeles, while aliens try to save humanity from itself by turning dead people into bad actors. PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE is filmwanker Ed Wood’s love letter to science fiction plagiarism, its premise stolen directly from 1951’s THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL – that of aliens warning Earth to stop advancing … Read More
AD ASTRA
In AD ASTRA, Brad Pitt flexes all his other muscles. Brad Pitt saves the world (like WORLD WAR Z) while pondering the meaning of existence (like Tyler Durden), in transit from the Moon to Neptune (like we didn’t already know Brad Pitt was a heavenly body). AD ASTRA (“To The Stars”) turns an astronaut’s mission to save the Earth into … Read More
ANNIHILATION
Invasion of the fittest. A military biologist treks to an extra-terrestrial landing site, and discovers that one life form’s expansion means another life form’s annihilation. ANNIHILATION is about nothing less than the dissolution of the human species. I love it already. An extra-terrestrial species insidiously “invades” our planet, not via rockets and lasers, but through DNA, mimicking and overrunning every … Read More
BEYOND SKYLINE
As told from the cattle’s point of view… BEYOND SKYLINE makes the same mistake as its predecessor SKYLINE (2010), a story about an existential threat, dumbed down to punching and lasers. The “poignant” throughline in BEYOND is a father fighting to regain his son. Goes from poignant to kooky when he’s fighting to get his son back from extra-terrestrial aliens. … Read More
WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES
You maniacs! You blew it up!… WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES concludes the modern APES trilogy started in 2011 with RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. An epic film doing its best to capture the immensity of a protracted battle between two species for the stewardship of a planet, it succeeds on many intellectual and technical levels, … Read More
ENDER’S GAME
The Thinking Man’s Alien Invasion. A boy-genius strategist is recruited by Earth’s military to repel extra-terrestrial alien invaders. And does the job TOO well. Adapted from Orson Scott Card’s 1985 novel of the same name, ENDER’S GAME is set in a dystopian future where children adept at video games – the currency of future war – are taken from their … Read More
EXTINCTION 2018
When A-Actors B-Film. A working class family man is plagued by dreams of alien invasion. One day, his dreams come true. And the question becomes: Can he access those prescient dreams to navigate his family to safety? Then we find out his question was answered – in his past! Movie Maniacs say Wha–? Set in the near future, EXTINCTION is … Read More
THE ROBINSONS: LOST IN SPACE
Lost In Dysfunction. THE ROBINSONS: LOST IN SPACE is a 2004 remake of the 1965 series LOST IN SPACE, and remains as one unaired pilot episode. Following the unsuccessful filmic remake of LOST IN SPACE in 1998 (starring William Hurt and Gary Oldman), which was criticized (incorrectly) as being too dark, this television production goes in another direction and soaps … Read More
LOST IN SPACE 1998
Lost In Act Three. LOST IN SPACE blasts off as a well-produced science fiction adventure, then gets lost loster than its lostest characters. Brought to the big screen from the 1965 TV series, LOST IN SPACE captures much of the dynamics between all the characters originally created by Irwin Allen; it updates the tech, the spaceship, the production value; it … Read More
LOST IN SPACE – SEASON 2-26: TRIP THROUGH THE ROBOT
Robot-zilla! Will Robinson and Dr. Smith go into the body of the Robot, grown gigantic, to re-program him down to normal size, and get trapped as the Robot starts to shrink – in the most terrifying LOST IN SPACE episode ever. At least, for ten-year-old boys. By Season 2 (September 1966), LOST IN SPACE was churning out some pretty surreal … Read More
LOST IN SPACE 2018
Handsome, Pretty Handsome. One of the formative TV shows of our youth, LOST IN SPACE, is rebooted as an enjoyable Netflix series, capturing all the dynamics of the original show, and leaving out the camp and the bubble-headed booby. In the year 2046, the space-faring Family Robinson leaves a dying Earth, onboard a mothership of colonists, headed for the star … Read More
LOST IN SPACE – SEASON 1-00: NO PLACE TO HIDE
LOST tries to find its way… It’s LOST IN SPACE without Dr. Smith and the Robot, therefore 20% less fruity fun! “No Place To Hide” is the unaired pilot (Episode 00) of the 1965 TV series LOST IN SPACE, where the Robinson family, on their pioneering quest to Alpha Centauri, is thrown off course and into deep space adventures. The … Read More
LOST IN SPACE – SEASON 1-01: THE RELUCTANT STOWAWAY
Lost in Nostalgia. The Space Family Robinson, on a pioneering flight to Alpha Centauri, is swerved off course by an evil gay doctor and a bubble-headed booby. This first LOST IN SPACE episode (“The Reluctant Stowaway”) is a grim science fiction adventure tale, set in the bleak “future” of 1997, where a silver-suited Professor John Robinson leads his silver-suited family … Read More
THE SHAPE OF WATER
Interspecies Love and the Balls it Requires. Like the aqua spawn of THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON and Abe Sapien from HELLBOY, our collective consciousness accepts the “Gill Man” as a species; a familiar alien entity in our science fiction. Yet in Guillermo del Toro’s unique THE SHAPE OF WATER, the Gill Man has transcended the species demarcation and … Read More
ALIEN: COVENANT
In space, no one can hear you mandroid. Back in 1979, ALIEN was all about the Aliens. Now it’s about the mandroids. And no wonder. The resident mandroid in ALIEN: COVENANT is Michael Fassbender. And haven’t I always effused over Michael Fassbender’s magnetic onscreen presence? Unwittingly or not, he has become the focal point of the modern ALIEN saga. Since … Read More
AT THE EARTH’S CORE
Rotten to the Core. Much like the 1975 film THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT, Doug McClure once again discovers a prehistoric land AT THE EARTH’S CORE. And he must once again battle unevolved natives and outlandish beasts to survive. However this time, the beasts are not dinosaurs, but actual monsters, ruled over by giant telepathic bird-things (or maybe just guys … Read More
MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 – SEASON 11
A Season with eighteen years seasoning. Season 10 wrapped on September 12, 1999. EIGHTEEN YEARS LATER, Season 11 is shot from a cannon on Apr 14, 2017. Has there ever been a longer downtime between Seasons than MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000? Technically termed “THE RETURN,” Joel Hodgson (through the magic of Kickstarter and a few thousand fanatic souls) fires up … Read More