Archive for the ‘Science Fiction and Space Shit’ Category
Friday, July 10th, 2026
Big Willie Weekend, 1996
I was hesitant to watch PHENOMENON again, but it’s fine. It’s a corny but harmless drama/romance with sci-fi elements, directed by Jon Turteltaub (3 NINJAS, COOL RUNNINGS, WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING) from a script by Gerald Di Pego (SHARKY’S MACHINE).
It stars John Travolta in his post-PULP-FICTION I’m Back period. GET SHORTY made the comeback seem permanent, but then nobody saw/liked WHITE MAN’S BURDEN, and it was followed by the middle-of-the-road sappiness double whammy of the angel movie MICHAEL and this. So it took doing his first John Woo movie to put a little more gas in the tank, at least for those of us wanting him to do movies we perceived as cool. PHENOMENON was a pretty big hit, though, and I didn’t hate it.
It’s set in a vast land of aged white farm houses with big porches, and with rusty pickup trucks parked nearby. This is what we learn from the opening credits montage and the very sentimental but not painful score by Thomas Newman (THE PLAYER) telling us how majestic and shit it is. Good ol’ wholesome small town utopia.
Travolta plays George Malley, a humble mechanic who enjoys gardening and has lots of friends who will hang out with him at the bar on his birthday. Unfortunately they do not include the furniture-making single mother he keeps asking out, Lace (Kyra Sedgwick, SINGLES). Maybe next time. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Forest Whitaker, Gerald Di Pego, John Travolta, Jon Turteltaub, Kyra Sedgwick, Robert Duvall
Posted in Reviews, Drama, Romance, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, July 8th, 2026
July 2, 1996 (in video stores)
Until now I had never seen THEODORE REX. Obviously I always intended to see it – I’m not a heathen. But I took my time, and also I always got it confused with TAMMY AND THE T-REX. Thankfully this Slam Evil Summer series gave me motivation to finally see it, so now I know what it’s all about, at least to the extent that one can know that just from watching it.
I need to come up with a name for this type of movie. It’s most similar to SUPER MARIO BROS., which also has dinosaurs and cyperpunky stuff, so I’m kinda thinking DinoPunk, Dino Noir, something like that. But they’re fantasy world-building movies, usually set in a dystopian future or alternate world, they’re usually sold as kids movies and have some aggressively juvenile humor (often perpetrated by buffoonish henchmen with wacky voices) but otherwise don’t really seem like they’re made that much for kids (like, this one has a murder investigation complete with dinosaur autopsy). Also for some reason they tend to feature souped-up garbage trucks. But the most distinguishing feature is that they’re a big mess that seems full of the sort of colorful gimmicks and special effects I love (matte paintings and huge soundstage sets depicting stylized cities, animatronic creatures) but none of it really coheres and the whole thing is a slog. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Armin Mueller-Stahl, Bud Cort, Carol Kane, DinoPunk, George Newbern, Joe Dallesandro, Jonathan R. Betuel, Juliet Landau, Peter Kwong, Richard Roundtree, Robert Folk, Stephen McHattie, Whoopi Goldberg
Posted in Reviews, Family, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 11 Comments »
Tuesday, June 30th, 2026
SUPERGIRL is a fairly straight forward modern super hero movie, and I think a pretty good one, though (to quote the great philosopher Dalton) opinions vary. It follows SUPERMAN in James Gunn’s new Detective Comics Comics movie universe, but it’s directed by Craig Gillespie (FRIGHT NIGHT remake) and written by Ana Nogueira (an actress and playwright).
I, TONYA put Gillespie on the map, or at least is the credit people always put after his name, but I think what qualified him for this was CRUELLA, a movie I watched way after the fact and didn’t review but thought was a surprisingly stylish and clever version of the Misunderstood I.P. Villainess subgenre. Here he brings similar sensibilities to the sturdy foundation of the 2021 mini-series Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow by writer Tom King and artist Bilquis Evely. Like THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU this is a pretty humble, self-contained space western, specifically a space TRUE GRIT, though moreso in the comic (since it’s narrated by an adult version of the precocious young protagonist). After Ruthye (Eve Ridley) loses her entire family to scumbag brigands she goes to a saloon and offers a sword made by her late father (Ferdinand Kingsley, DRACULA UNTOLD) to whoever will help her track down his killer, Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts, BLACK BOOK, RUST AND BONE, THE DROP, THE OLD GUARD). Kara Zor-El, street name Supergirl (Milly Alcock, UNTITLED TAKASHI MIIKE FILM) is there, and not interested, but drunkenly helps the girl not get robbed, so the next morning Krem steals her ship and shoots her flying dog Krypto with a poison dart. That’s how Supergirl and Ruthye end up traveling together on a space Greyhound. Supergirl needs to find Krem in three moonfalls to get the antidote to save Krypto; Ruthye tags along because she wants to kill Krem. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ana Nogueira, Craig Gillespie, David Corenswet, David Krumholtz, DC Comics, Emily Beecham, Eve Ridley, Jason Momoa, Matthias Schoenaerts, Milly Alcock
Posted in Reviews, Comic strips/Super heroes, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 22 Comments »
Wednesday, June 24th, 2026
DISCLOSURE DAY is not related to the 1994, Seattle-set reverse sexual harassment/VR thriller starring Michael Douglas called DISCLOSURE, it’s merely Steven Spielberg (WAR HORSE) attempting to ride that film’s coattails. Also it’s his late career return to the subject of beings from other worlds, this time not dealing with close encounters or wars of but with how humanity as a whole handles the knowledge of their existence.
I went to this assuming I would like it because it’s Spielberg, but knowing that a movie with the same trailers and a no-name director probly wouldn’t have even gotten me into the theater. It didn’t look that exciting to me, so I was impressed to be immediately thrown into a conflict already in progress. Dr. Daniel Kellner (the mastermind himself, Josh O’Connor, CHALLENGERS) has already stolen secret files and “the device” from his employers, who have retaliated by kidnapping his girlfriend Jane (Maid Marian herself, Eve Hewson, BRIDGE OF SPIES), and are attempting an exchange. He manages to use this small extra-terrestrial object to escape with Jane and call his contact Hugo (Unicron himself, Colman Domingo, ZOLA) before going to hide out at a convent under the watch of Sister Maura (40-year-old Mattie Ross herself, Elizabeth Marvel, G20). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Colin Firth, Colman Domingo, David Koepp, Elizabeth Marvel, Emily Blunt, Eve Hewson, Josh O'Connor, Steven Spielberg, Wyatt Russell
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 21 Comments »
Thursday, June 4th, 2026
THE ARRIVAL is a mid-budget summer of ’96 sci-fi movie written and directed by David Twohy, who already had writing credits on CRITTERS 2: THE MAIN COURSE, WARLOCK, THE FUGITIVE (no big deal), TERMINAL VELOCITY and WATERWORLD, but had only directed TIMESCAPE (1992) starring Jeff Daniels. He wrote this specifically for Charlie Sheen (GRIZZLY II: REVENGE, NEVER ON TUESDAY, DEADFALL), who plays sort of against type as Zane Zaminsky, SETI researcher. I mean, he’s 99% regular Charlie Sheen, but I think he’s trying to throw some nerd into the mix. He has horn-rimmed glasses and perfectly spiked hair like D-FENS from FALLING DOWN, but he completes the look with a precisely sculpted goatee.
This was from a period between SPECIES (1995) and CONTACT (1997) when sci-fi movies were really interested in the brave scientific heroes who sit patiently at those giant satellite dish things listening for messages from space. Just in case. TWISTER’s hot shot storm chasers would give them the Dawn Wiener treatment, but they are important in their own way, and also think they’re cool because they like to howl like wolves and they’re good at rolling their office chairs back and forth between different computers.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: aliens, Buddy Joe Hooker, Charlie Sheen, David Twohy, Leon Rippy, Lindsay Crouse, Richard Schiff, Ron Silver, SETI, Teri Polo, Tony T. Johnson
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 4 Comments »
Thursday, May 28th, 2026
THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU is kind of a different approach to a Star Wars picture: a small, standalone adventure. The fate of the galaxy is not at stake, there is no chosen one, no prophecy. It’s not even a prequel or an origin story. Coming from the popular Disney+ series The Mandalorian has given people the impression that it requires homework, but I assure you there is nothing at all you need to know that’s not there in the movie. It’s just one story about the titular bounty hunters on a mission, and not the mission that changed it all. Just a mission. To misquote M. Bison, it’s not the most important day of your life. It’s just Tuesday.
So it’s in the same world I love visiting in that epic space opera, but truly it’s a western or a samurai movie. That’s what I like about the show too, and I was skeptical about turning it into a movie instead of doing another season, but it turns out it’s fun to see these guys in one contained story with movie level production values. It’s light on the force, but high on some of the other things I love in Star Wars: a bunch of fantastical settings, outlandish creatures and robots, lots of them animated, some puppets, even some stop motion by Phil Tippet Studios. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brendan Wayne, Dave Filoni, Hemky Madera, Jeremy Allen White, Jon Favreau, Lateef Crowder, Martin Scorsese, Pedro Pascal, Phil Tippet, Sigourney Weaver, space western, Star Wars
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 32 Comments »
Tuesday, April 14th, 2026
SPACE SWEEPERS is a South Korean movie from 2021 that I first watched in February of 2022. I know that because when I went to save this document I discovered the partial review I wrote back then, but got too busy to finish. Recently I was thinking about the movie, watched it again, and I’m excited to share it with anyone who missed it. (It’s on Netflix.)
This is in that sub-genre I love that some call “space truckers” – a sci-fi fantasy about a working class crew doing a space job in their junky, jerry-rigged but beloved space-hooptie. It’s both their vehicle and their home, a cramped quarters but with a plant and other items of comfort, a small kitchen, a table for playing cards. They’re a ragtag crew of good-hearted rejects like you get in SPACE ADVENTURE COBRA, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, Cowboy Bebop, SPACE TRUCKERS, SERENITY, etc., but this time the world they inhabit is a very pointed, acidic portrait of our current capitalistic hellscape. Four years ago it seemed very of-the-moment, and now it seems even more accurate than it did then. The truth hurts, but director Jo Sung-hee (A WEREWOLF BOY, PHANTOM DETECTIVE) still manage to make a fun popcorn movie about it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Jin Seon-kyu, Jo Sung-hee, Kim Tai-ri, Korean cinema, Richard Armitage, Song Joon-ki, space truckers, Yoo Hae-jin
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 3 Comments »
Monday, April 13th, 2026
Taken on its own, ÆON FLUX (2005) is an interesting oddity among post-MATRIX techno-soundtrack sci-fi action movies. The look is clean and brightly lit, the premise is vague, it has some legitimately strange tech and costumes. One of its shootouts happens in a rose garden, another on a manicured lawn beneath blossoming cherry trees. A major third act action set piece involves hanging from and climbing up the gold-lame-scarf tail of a blimp called “The Relical.” To date I think it might be the only movie with a Relical in it.
It’s an MTV Films production, but’s that just because it’s based on a cartoon birthed by their envelope-pushing animation anthology Liquid Television. It doesn’t have any needle drops and doesn’t seem fully invested in being of the time, or of pop culture. If not for the generic beats in the score by Graeme Revell (MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS: THE MOVIE) it would feel pretty otherworldly. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Charlize Theron, Frances McDormand, Jonny Lee Miller, Karyn Kusama, live action remake of cartoon, Martin Csokas, Matt Manfredi, MTV Productions, Pete Postlethwaite, Peter Chung, Phil Hay, Sophie Okonedo
Posted in Reviews, Action, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 4 Comments »
Thursday, April 2nd, 2026
PROJECT HAIL MARY is a nice crowd pleasing sci-fi movie based on a book by Andy Weir, same author as THE MARTIAN. It’s directed by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, the team who directed 21 JUMP STREET, produced SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE and got fired from SOLO. It’s a huge hit, some people are talking it up like it’s Important, and it’s the closest thing Lord & Miller have done to a classy grown-up movie, so time will tell if it sends them on a catastrophic Adam McKay type trajectory. But right now we’re good. It’s a movie with lots of laughs and a lovable alien. People just get emotional about astronauts, I think.
Ryan Gosling (director of LOST RIVER) stars as Ryland Grace, a middle school science teacher who accidentally winds up shouldering the responsibility of keeping the entire earth and at least one other planet from becoming uninhabitable. It’s kind of a long story doled out in episodic flashbacks, but an against-the-grain paper he wrote in a former life as a molecular biologist leads to him being one of numerous scientists recruited by a top secret international program to stop the crisis of single-celled alien organisms they call “astrophages” from blotting out the sun. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andy Weir, Chris Miller, Drew Goddard, Greig Fraser, Ken Leung, Milana Vayntrub, Phil Lord, Ryan Gosling, Sandra Huller
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 16 Comments »
Wednesday, March 25th, 2026
JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH is one of those sequel titles referring more to the series itself than the story. I think the only rebirth is that it’s new characters and storyline, you don’t need to remember any previous entries. They really exhausted all the bringing-back-characters gimmicks in the last couple so this is an all new cast with only one unobtrusive mention of one of them studying under part 1’s Alan Grant.
Scenario-wise it’s similar to THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK and JURASSIC PARK III. There’s no theme park, just a small team sent on a mission to an area where leftover dinos created on a separate island run wild. Since it’s set after three JURASSIC WORLD movies the world is used to and bored of dinosaurs, they get into cities sometimes and it’s not a huge deal, there are genetically altered breeds and mutations created for entertainment purposes. But mostly this is set at the equator, where travel is illegal due to dangerous wild dinosaurs, and on an abandoned R&D island, so it’s not that different from any other chapter. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: David Iacono, David Koepp, dinosaurs, Ed Skrein, Gareth Edwards, Jonathan Bailey, Luna Blaise, Mahershala Ali, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Rupert Friend, Scarlett Johansson
Posted in Reviews, Action, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 90 Comments »
