Lessons learned; the ecstasy and agony. The first lesson of San Diego Comic Con attendance should be choose where to spend your time wisely. Try to sift through what sounds good versus what has real substance. Of course, it’s difficult to say what is actually worth your while until you’re actually there, right? It’s a…
San Diego Comic Con 2019 MegaPost: Preview Night and Cosplay…
San Diego Comic Con 2019 (the 50th anniversary) is once again upon us, and the crowds (limited to around 130,000 now) once again make this glorious, wildly over-the-top celebration of pop culture feel like a curious mix of “The Wizard Of Oz” and “Soylent Green.” Preview Night. Cosplay. Cosplay is the soul of these conventions….
Netflix’s “See You Yesterday” (2019) offers a different spin on time-travel tropes…
Netflix’s new film, “See You Yesterday” (2019) is a fresh take on sci-fi time-travel tropes that radically shifts gears into unexpectedly heavy social commentary… sort of a fusion of “Back To The Future” and producer Spike Lee’s own “Do The Right Thing”…
40 years of “Moonraker”; my first Bond movie…
Summer of 1979. It was the summer of 1979, and I was a 12-year old sci-fi junkie. I was deep into “Star Wars,” “The Twilight Zone”, “The Outer Limits,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Star Trek,” “Battlestar Galactica” and I caught occasional late night syndicated airings of “Space: 1999” whenever I could. I’d also…
Netflix’s “Stranger Things” third season goes a bit over the top, but it works…
*****DEMOGORGON-SIZED SPOILERS****** The Duffer Brothers, Mike and Ross, creator/directors of Netflix’s 1980s-saturated horror series “Stranger Things” have added a bit more romance & comedy into the mix this year. Some fans may not be 100% onboard with that decision. Personally, I enjoyed it very much. Season 3 is a bit more farcical in tone as…
“Space: Above and Beyond”: In memory of the 58th…
Space: Above And Beyond. In 1995, a new series debuted on the network that had an unfortunate, but mostly earned reputation of killing many a promising sci-fi series (“Alien Nation” “Firefly” and a few others). This single-season series (it was planned for five) was the ambitious, Australian-lensed space war series called “Space: Above and Beyond”…
Chucky takes a stab at smart devices in the “Child’s Play” reboot…
Child’s Play Back in the Day. 1988 saw the release of the original “Child’s Play”, directed by Tom Holland (“Fright Night”), with Catherine Hicks (“Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home”) as a retail-working single mother named Karen Barclay who manages to procure a popular ‘Good Guy’ doll for her son Andy (Alex Vincent). Unbeknownst to…
Stay tuned! Fresh “Musings of a Middle-Aged Geek” are coming soon…
Just wanted to say that I’m taking a week off to celebrate 20 wonderful years with my wife and convention partner in crime, Jules. We’re spending a few days in Oahu, Hawaii, so if I don’t wind up as a shark turd or a piece of flotsam in the middle of the Pacific, I will…
Netflix’s “I Am Mother” sings the body electric … and it’s a little off-key.
Netflix has unveiled a new sci-fi post-apocalyptic flick called “I Am Mother” that, if I’d paid to see it theatrically, I would’ve been very disappointed. Watching it relatively risk-free in my living room made it all go down a little easier, though its faults are no less obvious. *****SPOILERS!!!***** The Story. The film opens with…
Ten years of “Moon” (2009); a retro sci-fi study in loneliness and identity…
It’s been a decade since writer/director Duncan Jones (son of “Ziggy Stardust” himself, David Bowie) unveiled his independent, old-school-style science fiction film “Moon”, which had a limited theatrical release in the summer of 2009. I went to see “Moon” twice during its run, driving all over southern California to find theaters where it played, but…
HBO’s “Chernobyl”: Denial can be fatal…
April 26, 1986. I’ve just finished the five-part HBO miniseries “Chernobyl” (2019), a powerful depiction of the events and aftermath of the worst nuclear disaster the world has ever seen (a ranking which includes the horrific Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011). Interestingly, the miniseries isn’t necessarily a statement against nuclear power. In fact,…
Neil Gaiman’s “Good Omens” is a divine comedy that’s diabolically clever…
Neil Gaiman has written the Amazon Prime miniseries adaptation of his and the late Terry Pratchett’s novel, “Good Omens”, and the result is simply wicked. Imagine if the Monty Python troupe had adapted Richard Donner’s “The Omen” by way of Mark Twain’s “Letters From The Earth” with just a pinch of “Stranger Things” thrown in…
