“First Man” is the new film directed by “La La Land” director Damien Chazelle and written by Josh Singer (from a book by James R. Hansen). Chazelle, like the late Robert Wise, is on a varied career trajectory; going from a glitzy, stylized musical to a gritty, realistic story of real-life astronaut Neil Armstrong (1930-2012), the first…
A Tale of Two Hoods…
In the early late 1960s and early 1970s, British movies took up the horror anthology mantle left in the wake of groundbreaking American television anthology series such as “The Twilight Zone,” “Thriller” and “The Outer Limits” (“Zone” and “Limits” were two of my favorite shows as a kid; I still enjoy them very much today). These…
Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor truly sticks the landing in “The Woman Who Fell To Earth”…
You may be hearing things like the following in Doctor Who fan circles over the coming days; ‘Jodie Whittaker is brilliant’, ’Jodie Whittaker is born to play the Doctor,’ ‘Jodie Whittaker will bring in new audience members,’ and ’the show feels new.’ The reason you’re going to be reading these repeated phrases ad infinitum is because they’re true….
Discovery Short Treks, 1 of 4: “Runaway”…
I’d like to begin this recap/review of the first of four Star Trek: Discovery ‘Short Treks’ by saying that I’m saddened some kind of arrangement between CBS-All Access and Netflix couldn’t be made in time to simulcast this 15-minute short to the UK and the rest of Europe. To any readers who haven’t seen it, or…
Trekker Treat? Star Trek TOS: “Catspaw”…
I absolutely adore Halloween. It is easily my favorite holiday. See: This is Halloween: 25 years of “The Nightmare Before Christmas”… I also love Star Trek (that’s fairly obvious if you’ve seen the rest of this site). Like Halloween, I’ve loved Star Trek since I was a kid. It is one of my all-time favorite entertainment franchises,…
“Alien Nation,” 30 years later…
I remember catching a matinee showing of yet another ‘buddy-cop’ movie in the fall of 1988 called “Alien Nation.” The movie followed the same general template as “48 HRS,” “Lethal Weapon,” “Red Heat”, and a few dozen others, including the “Rush Hour” movies which came about a decade later. However, “Alien Nation” had a science…
This is Halloween: 25 years of “The Nightmare Before Christmas”…
When I was a kid, Halloween was (and still is) the coolest thing ever. It allowed us as kids to cosplay for an entire night (long before the word ‘cosplay’ was ever a thing) and we got paid in candy for our efforts! The thrill of the hunt; going to stranger’s houses, awing at their cool…
Still hungry for “Soylent Green”, 45 years later…
Back in the days before “Star Wars” and superhero movies transformed cinematic science fiction into gleaming toy commercials, science fiction cinema (with occasional exceptions) consisted largely of futuristic dystopias that were more like feature-length episodes of “The Twilight Zone” than today’s largely escapist entertainment. It’s far less common today to see a major studio offer up…
Hulu’s “The First” takes the long road to Mars…
I’ve just seen all 8 episodes of the first season of Hulu’s new streaming series, “The First” starring Sean Penn and Natascha McElhone (not to be confused with “First”, the upcoming Neil Armstrong movie). I have to admit that, while I eventually warmed up to this deeply angsty new series, a part of me initially…
Requiem for a nightmare; James Cameron’s “The Terminator” (1984)…
“What day is it? The date! What year?” October 26th, 1984. I still remember my sister coming home raving about a movie she saw with her then-boyfriend in the fall of 1984. It was a new Arnold Schwarzenegger movie and the next day she was telling me all about how truly good and scary it…
War and Remembrance: “The War of the Worlds”…
War Correspondent. It was over 120 years ago that Herbert George Wells first published the seminal alien invasion story, “The War of the Worlds.” Like so many of Wells’ works (“The Time Machine,” “The Invisible Man,” “The Shape of Things To Come”) WOTW became a template for many such alien invasion stories to come, such…
“Star Trek V: The Final Frontier” (1989): God only knows…
I’ve been a Star Trek fan for almost as long as I can remember, and one thing I’ve seen over the years is that there is rarely consensus on what constitutes good Star Trek. Even the best episodes & movies have their detractors, and the worst always have their champions. I myself have quite…
