******GLACIER-SIZED SPOILERS!****** Australian director Fred Schepisi is well known for dramas (“Six Degrees of Separation,” “The Russia House”), and a few comedies (“Roxanne”), but my favorite film of his was a little-known science fiction movie from 1984 shot in and around the snowy wilderness of British Columbia called “Iceman.” The movie stars American actors Timothy Hutton,…
Month: April 2024
Retro-Musings: Mario Bava’s “Planet of the Vampires” (1965) is a clunky yet stylish precursor to “ALIEN”…
******SPACESHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!****** In 1965, famed gothic horror filmmaker Mario Bava (1914-1980)—director of movies such as “Black Sunday,” “Blood and Black Lace,” and “Black Sabbath”—made a rare foray into science fiction. While “Planet of the Vampires” (original Italian title, “Terrore nello Spazio”) isn’t representative of Bava’s best work, it’s among his most visually creative, influencing generations…
“I.S.S.” (2023) presents a darker, more sobering kind of ‘star wars’…
*****SPACE STATION-SIZED SPOILERS!***** Shot on a shoestring budget of $13.8 million (the catering budget of an average Marvel movie these days), 2023’s “I.S.S.” was released with nary a notice in the US back in January, making very little in its domestic run, despite a dark and intriguing trailer that made me curious enough to plunk…
“The Abyss” finally surfaces on 4K Blu-Ray, and it was worth the wait…
*****SUBMERGED SPOILERS!***** Several years ago, I wrote a deep-dive review (the first of several puns to come) for James Cameron’s “The Abyss” (1989 & 1993 Director’s Cut), and in that review, I made a sincere wish for the film to make the transition to Blu-Ray. Well, after an intervening “Avatar” sequel that no one asked…
The plug is (sadly) pulled on the new “Quantum Leap” (2022-2024)…
*****SPACETIME SPOILERS!***** The Reboot With its second season ending on an intriguing cliffhanger, NBC has made the decision not to renew its previously on-the-bubble TV series “Quantum Leap” (QL), which was a soft-reboot/sequel to the original series (1989-1993), featuring a new cast who continue in the time-traveling footsteps of Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) and…
Star Trek: Discovery’s 5th and final season debuts, with “Red Directive” and “Under the Twin Moons”…
*****STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!****** Last weekend, I saw a sneak preview of the first part of Star Trek: Discovery’s 5th and final season’s two-part premiere, “Red Directive.” Though I was under an unofficial nondisclosure agreement with the entire audience not to reveal spoilers before the debut, I am no longer under that constraint, so here goes. Before…
WonderCon 2024 in Anaheim was a weekend of fantasy and imagination spent ‘under the weather’…
Welcome Back to WonderCon! The title of this column is both literal and metaphoric. The usually sunny spring weather of Southern California gave way to two days of near-nonstop rain, which forced a few last-minute changes to this year’s WonderCon 2024 in Anaheim (right across the road from Disneyland). The metaphoric aspect refers to my…