******SPACE STATION-SIZED SPOILERS!****** After my deep disappointment with the last two installments of the ALIEN franchise (“Prometheus,” “Covenant”) another ALIEN movie has burst from the chests and brains of director/cowriter Fede Álvarez. Like “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” “ALIEN: Romulus” (2024) feels conspicuously designed for a younger audience (as is most everything these…
Author: A Middle Aged Geek
I am a happily married, progressive-minded, middle-aged science fiction geek. My interests included photography, reading, movies, Halloween, and all kinds of nerdy-niche things. After months of prodding from my wife (and my friends), I decided to 'throw down' with a blog of all of my nerdiest of nerdly thoughts and musings... here's hoping you enjoy!
Retro-Musings: “The Day of the Dolphin” (1973) is a curious mix of “Three Days of the Condor” and “Flipper”…
*****CETACEOUS SPOILERS!***** A little over 50 years ago, a movie came out starring one of my favorite actors, George C. Scott (1927-1999), that, until very recently, I’d somehow missed over the years. The movie is called “The Day of the Dolphin” (1973) and was adapted by the late comedy screenwriter and early Saturday Night Live…
“Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” unveils a most illogical preview of season three…
******STRANGE NEW SPOILERS FOR SEASON 3****** After its electrifying debut two years ago, “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” (SNW) really had me. Coming five years after a lot of uneven, too-heavily serialized, and often less-than-satisfying Star Trek stories, the franchise got back on track with SNW returning to largely episodic storytelling, with some serialized elements; striking…
Marvel goes full Mel Brooks for its superhero satire “Deadpool & Wolverine” (2024)…
******SOME SPOILERS****** As I’ve said in earlier columns, I’ve gotten away from the superhero genre lately, which more or less peaked for me with 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame.” Now, with the seemingly endless flood of Disney/Marvel multiverse product, my eyes glaze over whenever I’ve tried to get into a new Marvel movie or show, and I…
“Top Gun” enters “The Twilight Zone” in 1980’s “The Final Countdown”…
******NIMITZ-CLASS SPOILERS!****** My late European-born dad, while not exactly a hawk by any means, was fascinated by modern US aircraft carriers; mainly for their awesome size and impressive strategic capabilities. And in early 1985, in my late teens, he and I went on a tour of the Kitty Hawk-class USS Constellation (CV-64); a massive carrier…
San Diego Comic Con 2024: Marvel and Star Trek and drones! Oh my…
San Diego Comic Con 2024: Welcome Back! This year’s San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) is in the rearview mirror now, and once again, it was (as usual) another grand, exhausting celebration of pop culture. As a now 20-year veteran of SDCC, I do not camp out all night in lines hoping to get seats to…
Where Nomad had gone before: Star Trek TOS’ “The Changeling” (1967)…
******STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!****** An ancient Earth space probe, radically upgraded and repurposed by alien technology, now seeks to eliminate Earth’s ‘infestation’ of irrational ‘biological units.’ What sounds like the short synopsis of 1979’s “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” (ST: TMP) also happens to be the plot of a 1967 episode of Star Trek: The Original Series…
Netflix’s “Under Paris” (“Sous la Seine”) swims smartly between genuine action-horror and broad camp…
******SUMMER SHARK SPOILERS!****** I just did a column on shark movies with my recent rewatch of “JAWS,” but hey—it’s summer. And off and on since 1975, summer has meant summer shark movies. With the exception of Steven Spielberg’s legendary summer blockbuster “JAWS,” most shark flicks fall somewhere along the spectrum of disposable wastes of time…
Watching 1975’s “JAWS” with a young first-timer…
******THREE BARRELS OF SPOILERS!****** Last night, we had our friend Kathy and her 12-year old son Joshua over for another ‘garage theater’ movie night at our humble abode. Continuing young Joshua’s ongoing film education into “the classics” (“Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Jurassic Park,” “The Princess Bride,” the “Star Wars” & “Back to the…
The second season of “Star Trek: Prodigy” fires on all thrusters at Netflix…
******STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!****** After its unceremonious cancellation—and inexplicable removal—from the Paramount+ streaming service, “Star Trek: Prodigy” (PRO) has safely beamed down to Netflix, where it recently dropped its entire 20 episode second season for streaming on June 1st (nice not having to wait week-to-week for new episodes). I’ve long championed this underrated series, which is one…
BBC/Disney’s “Doctor Who”; a fourteenth series overview…
******TARDIS-SIZED SPOILERS!****** With new Disney money flowing into this 61-year old series, BBC’s “Doctor Who” just wrapped its 14th series/season—or 40th, if you’re a completist. A newly bi-generated Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) has a new (temporary) companion, Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson). Orphan Ruby’s arc was more or less completed at the end of the run. A…
“A Boy and His Dog” (1975) conjures a bizarre, post-apocalypse world of, um, 2024…
******SCREAMER-SPOILERS!****** Based on one of a cycle of stories from the late Harlan Ellison, “A Boy and His Dog” was adapted into a low-budget indie film in 1975 by longtime Western-genre actor/director L.Q. Jones (“The Wild Bunch”), who was a surprisingly passionate advocate for adapting and directing this wildly offbeat dystopia story into a movie. “A…