History Exam. ****MAJOR SPOILERS, DUDE!!**** Way back in the fall of 1989, on a Friday night with a good friend of mine, we decided to take in what looked to be a very guilty pleasure sorta movie… “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” Turned out to be a fun little flick, too; think “Back to the…
Month: August 2020
“Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” (1986); the ‘one with the whales’ is still seaworthy…
34 years ago this November, I went to see “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” with my Trekkie sister over Thanksgiving weekend. I was a month shy of my 20th birthday, and still filled with much of the optimism for the years ahead that is often reflected in the Star Trek universe. Star Trek III…
“Zardoz”(1974) is “The Time Machine”on acid by way of Monty Python…
*****STONEHEAD-SIZED SPOILERS!!***** 1974’s “Zardoz”, written, produced and directed by John Boorman (“Deliverance” “Excalibur” “Exorcist II: The Heretic”) is, without a doubt, one of the single weirdest pieces of cinema sci-fi fans are likely to see. The movie first came on my personal radar at the tender age of 8, when I read about it in…
Star Trek: Lower Decks, S1.3: “Temporal Edict” buffers…
CBS-All Access has just released the third episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks for streaming, and “Temporal Edict” (written by Dave Ihlenfeld and David Wright) has nothing to do with time travel, despite the title. Instead, this week’s story is all about that unwritten rule of USS Enterprise former Chief Engineer, Montgomery Scott; always leave…
Netflix’s “Project Power” shorts itself out…
Potential. When Netflix announced a new action movie starring Oscar winner Jamie Foxx (“Ray”), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (“Inception”) and interesting newcomer Dominque Fishback, my hungry-for-fresh-entertainment ears perked up a bit. The premise of the movie sounded intriguing; there is a new drug on the streets of New Orleans that, when ingested, gives a person superpowers for…
Star Trek: Lower Decks, S1.2: “Envoys” embark…
The 2nd episode of CBS-All Access’ latest Star Trek series (three, for anyone who’s counting) is now available to stream, and it’s a marginal improvement over last week’s overstuffed, overly-busy pilot. I was glad to see a better delineation of the characters, as well as more coherent ‘A and B’ stories. That said, I still…
Sequencing the DNA of “Gattaca” (1997)…
Back in 1997, there was buzz about a new sci-fi film called “Gattaca” which caught my eye; it was written and directed by Andrew Niccol, who would later be credited with writing 1998’s “The Truman Show” as well as directing “SimOne” (2002) and other innovative, underrated movies (2005’s “Lords of War” is another). Danny De…
Star Trek: Lower Decks makes “Second Contact” with its first episode…
*****STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS AHEAD!!****** A new Star Trek animated series (the first since 1974) has debuted on CBS-All Access this week. Created by Mike McMahan (“Rick and Morty”), “Star Trek: Lower Decks” is a look at the crew members who work at the less glamorous jobs within Star Trek’s fictional Starfleet; the ones who fix replicators,…