Archive for the ‘Science Fiction and Space Shit’ Category
Friday, July 28th, 2023
On July 29, 1983, the same day Luis Bunuel died, and two days after the release of Madonna’s debut album, Columbia Pictures released their entry in the “if you liked RETURN OF THE JEDI…” sweepstakes, KRULL. With the resources of a studio behind it, KRULL was able to be bigger than most of the other also-rans, having double the budget of SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE, for example. It even got a release in 70mm. It boasts a new score by James Horner that sounds kinda like BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS, instead of re-using the actual score from BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS like SPACE RAIDERS did. Notably it has the same cinematographer as THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, Peter Suschitzky. Editor Ray Lovejoy is the guy who did 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. So it’s quite a crew here.
The director is Peter Yates (BULLITT, THE HOT ROCK, THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE, MOTHER, JUGS & SPEED, THE DEEP), one of the many British directors George Lucas had considered for RETURN OF THE JEDI. Screenwriter Stanford Sherman was a TV guy (Man from U.N.C.L.E./Batman) but had done ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN. Unfortunately he did not include a punching orangutan in this one. Could’ve used one, to be honest. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alun Armstrong, Bernard Bresslaw, Freddie Jones, James Horner, John Welsh, Ken Marshall, Liam Neeson, Lindsay Crouse, Lysette Anthony, Peter Suschitzky, Peter Yates, Robbie Coltrane, Stanford Sherman
Posted in Reviews, Fantasy/Swords, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 27 Comments »
Tuesday, July 18th, 2023
SPACE RAIDERS is another summer of ’83 RETURN-OF-THE-JEDI-coattail-rider, and this time I had honestly never heard of it. It was a small enough release that IMDb and Wikipedia just list the date as July. No specific day, just some point within the seventh month of the calendar year. This is a Roger Corman production, the first released under the Millennium banner – a short-lived company he oversaw as part of the deal for selling New World Pictures. (Their other releases were SCREWBALLS, SUBURBIA [distribution only], DEATHSTALKER, THE WARRIOR AND THE SORCERESS, and LOVE LETTERS.)
I wasn’t surprised that SPACE RAIDERS was no RETURN OF A JEDI, or even that it was no SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE. I was pretty surprised when the credits started up and they were using James Horner’s theme from BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS. They just credit him with the score and recycle it all, from what I could tell. Easiest gig he ever had. I was even more surprised when I saw that the main spaceship in the movie was the same main spaceship from BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS. I probly wouldn’t have noticed with most movie vehicles, but how am I supposed to forget one shaped like a slug with boobs? I assume they reused footage, not just the model, but I don’t know for sure. I also gotta assume all the space ships are recycled from that movie, but I don’t really know that either. For what it’s worth, it’s pretty good miniature work, whichever movie it was done for. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: David Mendenhall, Howard R. Cohen, James Horner, Patsy Pease, Ray Stewart, Roger Corman, Thom Christopher, Vince Edwards
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 9 Comments »
Monday, July 17th, 2023
REPLICANT is the second of three collaborations between director Ringo Lam (FULL CONTACT) and star Jean-Claude Van Damme. The first was the theatrically released MAXIMUM RISK (1996), then this came out in 2001, then IN HELL in 2003. I’m pretty sure I watched this when it first came out and thought it was boring, but I’m a different person now. A replicant of what I was before. Or just older, I guess. But the difference is that now I’m much more appreciative of JCVD the adventurous character actor, and this is one where that side of him really shines.
MAXIMUM RISK gave him a dual role, but not at once – he was a guy who dies at the beginning, then he plays his twin. In this one he plays both the antagonist and one of the protagonists, and they’re both fun characters for him to play. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Catherine Dent, clones, fake Seattle, JCVD, Lawrence Riggins, Les Weldon, Michael Rooker, Ringo Lam
Posted in Reviews, Action, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 9 Comments »
Wednesday, June 14th, 2023
TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS is the new Transformers picture directed by Steven Caple Jr. (THE LAND, CREED II). It’s not a reboot, but a new chapter set in 1994 – after Travis Knight’s BUMBLEBEE, before all the Michael Bay ones. So technically it’s a prequel, but there’s not much important continuity (as there really isn’t in any of these movies).
Aside from a new director and attitude, the flashy new attraction is the Maximals – robotic animal characters from the 1996 computer animated show Beast Wars. You know how it is, you’re on Cybertron just minding your own business being a mechanical rhino or cheetah made out of metal but with fur on some parts, suddenly you gotta flee to an organic jungle world to hide the portal-opening Transwarp Key from the the giant planet-munching robot Unicron. That character was famously voiced by Orson Welles in THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE, and here he’s Colman Domingo (ZOLA), a great choice of voice to process even lower and blast through Imax speakers so loud you can feel it vibrating your bones. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony Ramos, based on a fucking toy, Colman Domingo, Darnell Metayer, David Sobolov, Dean Scott Vazquez, Dominique Fishback, Erich Hoeber, Hasbro, Joby Harold, Jon Hoeber, Josh Peters, Luna Lauren Velez, Michelle Yeoh, Pete Davidson, Peter Cullen, Peter Dinklage, Ron Perlman, Sarah Stiles, Steven Caple Jr., Tobe Nwigwe, Tongayi Chirisa
Posted in Reviews, Action, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 15 Comments »
Thursday, May 25th, 2023
May 25, 1983
Nobody was surprised that the movie of the summer, and of the year, was RETURN OF THE JEDI. It was the thrilling final(ish) chapter to the biggest pop culture juggernaut in the world, it was the ultimate summer popcorn movie, the movie others had to get out of the way of, or ride the coattails of, and of course became by far the highest grossing movie of the year (trailed by TOOTSIE in second place).
It’s one of the two movies I remember seeing in a theater that summer. That was monumental because I’d seen the other two at the drive-in while very young, but this one I was able to see with slightly more awareness of what was going on, and I’d bet the crazy discussions we had of it later on the playground were a little closer to what actually happened in the movie. Not that I was all that savvy. I remember my family went to Burger King after the movie and got RETURN OF THE JEDI drinking glasses, which seemed like a coincidence. Hey, this is the movie we just saw! What are the chances?
That’s the sort of thing I intentionally avoided talking about when I reviewed RETURN OF THE JEDI nine years ago as part of my “Star Wars No Baggage Reviews” series. The rule was that I had to look at episodes 1-6 as they existed at that time, in the current George Lucas-approved cuts, as if there had never been any other way to look at that story. I couldn’t complain about any Special Edition alterations, or lean on childhood nostalgia, or disappointment about the prequels not being what we’d dreamed of. It was a fun exercise designed to jettison all the stuff people usually discussed about those movies, things I was sick of hearing or talking about, and I think it was a worthwhile experiment that turned out well.
For this revisit of RETURN OF THE JEDI in the context of the summer of ’83, though, I won’t give myself those constraints. I’ll try not to get hung up on any bullshit. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Carrie Fisher, George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Phil Tippett, Richard Marquand
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 37 Comments »
Thursday, May 18th, 2023
May 20, 1983-
SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE IN 3-D is a movie I’d never seen before now, but had been vaguely curious about for years because of its long title and mysterious status as an ’80s space adventure that never much caught on as far as I’ve seen. Now thanks to this review series I finally get to learn what it’s all about and how it differs from another long-titled 3D sci-fi movie we’ll be taking a look at in August.
That first part of the title refers to Wolff (Peter Strauss, THE JERICHO MILE), who’s kind of a Star Lord – a 22nd century mercenary who takes a gig rescuing three tourists from Earth whose escape pod crash landed on the hostile planet Terra 11 after the luxury space cruise ship they were vacationing on blew up. It’s a pretty great opening with charmingly goofy model spaceships (some of the miniature work is by legendary TERMINATOR animator/slide guitarist “Sneaky” Pete Kleinow) and a really cool design for the pod. It opens up and they have these weird gold encasings over their torsos, you’re not really sure who or what you’re look at until they lift off the metallic things and reveal that they’re three ladies who look like they could be Barbarella’s friends from college or one of Prince’s girl groups. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aleisa Shirley, Andrea Marcovicci, Cali Timmins, Dan Goldberg, David Preston, Deborah Pratt, Edith Rey, Elmer Bernstein, Ernie Hudson, Harold Ramis, Hrant Alianak, Ivan Reitman, Jean LaFleur, Lamont Johnson, Len Blum, Michael Ironside, Molly Ringwald, Peter Strauss, Sneaky Pete Kleinow
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 18 Comments »
Wednesday, May 17th, 2023
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 is the finale to the Marvel’s Celluloidical Ubiquity’s best trilogy. It’s one of the few from a writer/director, and one with the most directorial personality, but it’s also very accessible to less dedicated viewers of comic book movies. It exists off in space, pretty separate from the other Marvel business, other than building off of things that happened to the characters in the two biggest MCU crossover movies, which are quickly summarized for our convenience.
Honestly the story is pretty simple. A weird powerful dude apparently called Adam Warlock (Will Poulter, SON OF RAMBOW) flies in from space and tries to abduct the talking raccoon Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper, THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN), instead putting him in a coma; when his friends try to resuscitate him they figure out from code in his cyborg parts that Orgocorp, the company that enhanced him from regular raccoon into Rocket, was trying to reclaim him as “proprietary property,” and now his body will shut down if they don’t get some security code. So the Guardians get help from former member Gamora (Zoe Saldaña, THE TERMINAL) to break into the company’s headquarters, and then to get information in a place called Counter-Earth (an experimental re-creation of an American suburb populated with animal-human hybrids) to save their friend and battle his cruel creator, the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji, JOHN WICK CHAPTER 2). Along the way, of course, there are complications, battles, many running gags and bits, and (new to this volume) some very grim but also sweet flashbacks about Rocket’s origins and his friendship in captivity with very innocent cyborg otter, walrus and rabbit lab animals. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bradley Cooper, Chris Pratt, Chukwudi Iwuji, Dave Bautista, Elizabeth Debicki, Heidi Moneymaker, James Gunn, Judy Greer, Karen Gillan, Maria Bakalova, Marvel Comics, Nathan Fillion, Pom Klementieff, Sean Gunn, Sylvester Stallone, Vin Diesel, Will Poulter, Zoe Saldana
Posted in Reviews, Comic strips/Super heroes, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 27 Comments »
Thursday, February 2nd, 2023
When I first encountered the trailer for INFINITY POOL I spotted Mia Goth, who gave one of my favorite performances last year in PEARL, so I knew I would be seeing it. Then I noticed Alexander Skarsgård, star of one of my other favorite 2022 movies, THE NORTHMAN. And at the end I learned it was the new one from writer/director Brandon Cronenberg, whose 2020 film POSSESSOR really knocked me on my ass, so this was a first show opening day kind of deal for me. And it lived up to my hopes.
It’s the story of novelist James Foster (Skarsgård, 13, BATTLESHIP, THE LEGEND OF TARZAN, GODZILLA VS. KONG) and his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman, STEP UP REVOLUTION, IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON) on vacation at a resort in the exotic foreign land of Latoka. It’s a beautiful place on the sea, but it’s creepy – fenced off with guards, tourists aren’t allowed to leave, so the closest thing to visiting the locals is going to restaurants in the resort’s fake downtown area. James is already thinking he was an idiot to believe this trip could break his six year lack of inspiration since publishing his one obscure and poorly reviewed novel. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alexander Skarsgard, Brandon Cronenberg, Cleopatra Coleman, clones, Jalil Lespert, Mia Goth, Thomas Kretschmann
Posted in Reviews, Horror, I don't know, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 19 Comments »
Tuesday, January 31st, 2023
I guess time flies, because I’ve kind of wanted to see GEOSTORM since it came out, and I didn’t realize that was more than five years ago. It’s the theatrical feature directing debut of Dean Devlin, former writing/producing partner of Roland Emmerich. Devlin wrote the script with Paul Guyot (two season 2 episodes of something called “Felicity”; also Chow Yun Fat’s assistant on THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS).
In my household Mrs. Vern is the fan of disaster movies. The best ones make her giggle. She loves the broad stereotypes, the corny speeches, the cataclysmic destruction, and especially the montages where different countries set aside their differences to save the world together. Unlike me she likes INDEPENDENCE DAY, but she’s not one of the people who considers it to be an actual well made blockbuster movie. She just finds it a little more hilarious and alot less annoying than I do. So she’s the reason we saw and got a kick out of 10,000 B.C. and 2012 in the theater and MOONFALL on video. I skipped THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW and she still gets excited and explains to me what’s happening when we come across it on cable. So although I would like to take credit for reviewing this as part of some post-PLANE Gerard Butler study, it’s really because she spontaneously decided the time had come to watch it, and I agreed it was a good idea.
Butler plays Jake Lawson, the chief architect of a web of climate-controlling satellites built through international cooperation in the futuristic year of 2019. Nicknamed Dutch Boy (a term I really got sick of hearing), the system successfully neutralizes climate-change-exacerbated weather events. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Abbie Cornish, Alexandra Maria Lara, Andy Garcia, Daniel Wu, Danny Cannon, Dean Devlin, disaster movies, Ed Harris, Eugenio Derbez, Gerard Butler, Jerry Bruckheimer, Jim Sturgess, Julia Denton, Laeta Kalogridis, Paul Guyot, Richard Regan Paul, Richard Schiff, Talitha Bateman, Zazie Beetz
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 12 Comments »
Monday, January 23rd, 2023
VESPER is a unique 2022 sci-fi movie that just came out on video. I never heard of it before but it looked cool, so I rented it. And my hunch was right – it was cool, so now I’m telling you about it. That’s how it works.
It’s a gloomy but hopeful small scale post-apocalyptic tale in an interesting reality. It features dystopian wealth disparity in the tradition of LAND OF THE DEAD, ELYSIUM or FURY ROAD, but in a world that seems a little more influenced by NAUSICAÄ OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND. At some point in the past there was an ecological crisis, and scientists tried to stave it off with genetic modification, but that backfired. Man-made viruses and plant species spread across the world, wiped out many people and animals, and made the earth useless for growing edible crops.
No problem. Word is oligarchs get to live comfortably in strange structures called citadels, even having manufactured clones called “Jugs” as their loyal servants. But we stay with the poor as they try to survive out in the mud, trading scarce commodities to the citadels for seeds that the fuckers genetically modified to only yield one harvest. Like copy protection. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brian Clark, Bruno Samper, Eddie Marsan, Kristina Buozyte, post-apocalypse, Rafiella Chapman, Richard Brake, Rosy McEwen
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 3 Comments »
