Colin Cantwell, Rocket Man. This morning, I woke up to read that Colin Cantwell–a name I’ve known since my teens, and a man I had the pleasure of meeting three years ago–passed away at age 90, after a struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. No, his name may not be a household name in special effects, like…
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, S1.3; “Ghosts of Illyria” shares a few secrets…
*****STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!!****** This week’s episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, “Ghosts of Illyria”, is a return to a storytelling device we’ve seen several times in the earliest episodes of new Star Trek series; the ship-wide epidemic. It was done in The Original Series’ (TOS) “The Naked Time,” The Next Generation’s (TNG) “The Naked Now”…
Star Trek returns to episodic storytelling, and repairs a nagging issue with the franchise…
*****STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS***** “As it was in the time of the beginning, so it is now…” “Star Trek” began in 1966 as an episodic TV series, and it would eventually change the pop culture landscape forever… though not at first. The show struggled with less-than-stellar ratings, and was later cancelled (despite massive letter-writing campaigns) after three…
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, S1.2; “Children of the Comet” spotlights a classic character…
*****STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!!***** The second episode of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” is available to stream on Paramount+. Written by Henry Alonso Myers, Sarah Tarkoff and directed by Maja Vrvilo, “Children of the Comet” showcases a character we Star Trek fans have known for nearly 56 years; Nyota Uhura (Cecelia Rose Gooding). As originally played by…
Diving into Luc Besson’s “The Fifth Element,” 25 years later…
*****SPACE CRUISE SHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!***** Acquired Taste. I remember seeing teaser trailers for French filmmaker Luc Besson’s “The Fifth Element” in early 1997, along with a dramatic TV spot during the Super Bowl (which, over time, has become more famous for its ads than the actual game). “The Fifth Element” promised an epic space opera, a…
Future Redux: “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” exits spacedock…
******STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!****** Two years ago, sometime after Star Trek Discovery’s second season finale, I made a case on behalf of other Star Trek fans for a possible Captain Pike “Star Trek” series. Well, two years later, and the powers-that-be at Paramount+ have heard our pleas. “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” is a reality now, continuing…
“A long time ago…”: Looking back at Star Wars Celebration 2015 in Anaheim…
“You’ve taken your first step into a larger world…” In April of 2015, my wife and I went to our first “Star Wars Celebration”; an every-four-years event that reaches Star Wars fans worldwide in places such as England, Japan, Germany, etc. Usually it’s held in locales beyond my immediate fiscal/practical reach. Luckily, in 2015, Star…
Retro-Musings: “The Six Million Dollar Man” (1973-1978)…
*****BIONIC SPOILERS!!***** Back when I was a kid in the Stone Age, we had three TV networks, a few UHF stations, and pretty much nothing else. VCRs were not yet commonplace (they existed, but were super-expensive), and there weren’t yet DVRs or DVDs, let alone streaming. For video gaming, you had Pong and Atari. That…
A few thoughts on “The Batman” (2022)…
*****SOME SPOILERS AHEAD!***** The following column might put me in the doghouse with some readers, and, to be clear, I’m not trying to attack anyone’s personal favorite incarnation of Batman. I’m just seeking to give my honest, unfettered opinion of a movie that I waited a long time to see. That movie, of course, is…
Doctor Who: “Legend of the Sea Devils” never quite gets its sea legs…
****TARDIS-SIZED SPOILERS!!**** I really wanted to like this one. So help me, I was genuinely enthused at the prospect of seeing the Sea Devils (one of the coolest looking Doctor Who adversaries) back in action for the first time since the Jon Pertwee and Peter Davison eras (“The Sea Devils” and “Warriors of the Deep”,…
The director’s cut of “Dark City” (1998) is ‘tuned’ to near-perfection…
*****REALITY-BENDING SPOILERS AHEAD!***** Resetting Reality. The first I’d heard of director Alex (“The Crow”) Proyas’ “Dark City” was sometime in late 1997, where I might’ve seen the trailer and filed it away to be ignored later in my younger, stimulus-addled brain. Sadly, I was ‘one of those people’ who didn’t show this movie the proper…
Netflix’s “The Adam Project” (2022) doesn’t aim too high, and that’s okay, too…
A little late to this party, but I finally got around to watching Netflix’s “The Adam Project” a couple of weeks ago, and had planned to do this write-up a bit sooner, but the Oscars, WonderCon 2022 and a few other things got in the way. Anyway, here we are. *****SPACETIME SPOILERS AHEAD!***** Crowdpleaser director-for-hire…
Musings of a Middle-Aged Geek 