******CYBERNETIC SPOILERS!****** Some significant sci-fi films/franchises celebrate anniversaries with aplomb. “Star Wars” is already prepping for its 50th anniversary next year, while “Star Trek” turned 60 with conventions, a current season of episodes, and much media fanfare. Then we have absolutely forgotten sci-fi films like “Cyborg 1987” (1966), which also turns 60 this year, and…
My recent tour of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art…
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art My wife and I first got wind of the creation of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art a little over ten years ago, when it was rumored to be built in Chicago or even George Lucas’ hometown of Modesto, California. From the concept art, this graceful, futuristic-looking venue looked…
Star Trek celebrates its 60 anniversary: “Yet I feel uneasy, and I wonder why…”
It’s probably redundant to explain where the title of this Star Trek 60th anniversary column comes from, since other old-as-dirt Star Trek fans like myself have probably seen “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” more times than we care to admit (even to our therapists). However, for this landmark year of the franchise, Kirk’s…
“Coyote vs. Acme” (2026) is an explosion of wit well worth the wait…
******ACME ROCKET-SIZED SPOILERS!****** Written by Marvel/DC screenwriter/director James Gunn, Jeremy Slater and Samy Burch and directed by Dave Green (“Earth to Echo”), the animated-live action comedy “Coyote vs. Acme” (2026) certainly had an uphill struggle to the silver screen. Based on a parodic 1990 article from The New Yorker magazine and filmed in 2022, this…
Retro-Musings: “The Illustrated Man” (1969) brings several Ray Bradbury stories to life…
******SKIN-ILLUSTRATED SPOILERS!****** With Oscar-winning lead actor Rod Steiger starring as the title character in movie based on a book from legendary writer Ray Bradbury, 1969’s adaptation of “The Illustrated Man” had a lot going for it. However, the devil is in the details, and “The Illustrated Man” is a devilishly difficult book to will into…
(Finally) seeing “The Odyssey” in 70mm IMAX…
Does Size Matter? This is not going to be a review of “The Odyssey” (2026), which I saw at an AMC Dolby Digital theater on opening weekend, and have already reviewed in a previous column (SPOILERS). This is about the experience of seeing “The Odyssey” in IMAX 70mm. Director-screenwriter Christopher Nolan went to great pains…
The original “Star Wars” (sans “A New Hope”) returns to the cinema next year for its 50th anniversary…
At the recent D23 Disney convention in Anaheim, the seemingly inevitable news finally dropped; Disney/Lucasfilm is finally releasing the original, unaltered “Star Wars” (1977) to theaters next year (without the “A New Hope” subtitle added to the film in 1981 for rerelease) for the movie’s 50th anniversary in a limited release beginning February 19th. Lucasfilm…
Star Trek TOS’ “Tomorrow is Yesterday”; looking back at Star Trek’s first time travel adventure…
******STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!****** Way back in the dark days before streaming or even affordable home video, I used to place my old audio tape recorder up to the TV speaker and record Star Trek episodes during their syndicated broadcasts in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I’d taped roughly half of them before the shifting sands…
The San Diego Maritime Museum; “All I ask is a tall ship…”
San Diego Comic Con Sidequest… During our recent annual trek to San Diego Comic Con, our hotel was located in the Little Italy area of downtown San Diego, a few blocks from the San Diego Maritime Museum. On the day of our arrival, I walked down to the shipboard museum, which is centered aboard the…
Apple TV’s first season of “Star City” is much more than a spinoff…
*****SOYUZ-SIZED SPOILERS!****** Apple TV’s “For All Mankind” presents a more cosmically expansive, inclusive alternate-present for America than the one we’re currently enduring in our own timeline, and it’s all based on a simple premise; what if the Soviet Union beat the United States to the first manned lunar landing in 1969? In this series’ reality,…
Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” (2026) is pure, undiluted cinema…
******3,000 YEAR-OLD TROJAN HORSE-SIZED SPOILERS!****** On the surface, writer/producer/director Christopher Nolan (“Interstellar,” “Oppenheimer”) is a cross between Ridley Scott (“ALIEN,” “Blade Runner”) and David Lean (“Lawrence of Arabia,” “Doctor Zhivago”); sharing their love of grand spectacle and pioneering visual effects, with a knack for attracting all-star casts who earn their paychecks. With his career marked…
San Diego Comic Con 2026 had a lot of news to share, and some disappointments…
Like that line from The Godfather Part III, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” My wife and I have been attending San Diego Comic Con together for roughly 22 years, only missing it in 2007, and, of course, the year it was shut down in 2020 for COVID. As…