“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…

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…

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…