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
MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE RETURN
Playing MSTie for us, like it never went away. From the mind and mouth of madness of Joel Hodgson comes MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE RETURN! After 18 years, and millions of fans gnashing their teeth and milling aimlessly in the American Programming wasteland aimed at the Great Unwashed, creator/ writer/ director/ star Joel Hodgson reclaims the airwaves in the … Read More
THE TIME TRAVELERS
Time and Time Again – Stealing from H.G. Wells. Not to be confused with the vanilla TIME CHASERS (1994, featuring that cleft-chinned Canadian anti-leading man), THE TIME TRAVELERS is one of those classic 1960’s thought experiments where scientists accidentally trap themselves in a bleak, blasted future society of 2071 – a “future” which is closer to our present, so which … Read More
ARRIVAL 2016
Mind Encounters of the Close Kind. Unless I’m mistaken, she’s stuck in a time-loop, where extra-terrestrials, having arrived, affect her past, present and future… How do we say Hello? And how do we tell the stupid people of Earth to butt out of the conversation? ARRIVAL is an intelligent science fiction Möbius strip that speculates on the first contact between … Read More
ALIEN 3
One Singular Serration… One maximum security prison planet. One xenomorph extra-terrestrial alien. Let the screaming begin. That no one can hear you doing in space… And well I should bastardize the original slogan for the original ALIEN (1979). After the shotgun-sequel ass-klownery of James Cameron’s ALIENS (1986), with hundreds of hissing, cavorting aliens cluttering the frame, the filmmakers of ALIEN … Read More
MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN
Frankenstein’s Mobster. MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN has the reputation for following its infamous source material closely – Mary Shelley’s groundbreaking 1818 novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. The fact that it follows the book only barely, and the fact that people yet put on airs when lauding the movie as authentic shows how much people actually read. Kenneth Branagh directs and … Read More
EUROPA REPORT
Moon Struck. The first manned mission to Europa, Jupiter’s fourth-largest and most famous Galilean moon, seeking the suspected oceans of water beneath its icy crust, seeking organisms that may be emitting the heat signatures that NASA discovered, but mainly seeking to overcome that annoying “found footage” feeling. Fucking found footage. These days, every indie movie with great ideas and no … Read More