******SILOS OF SPOILERS!****** Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”) first came onto my radar with a rural Romeo & Juliet vampire film. No, not the “Twilight” movies; the good one, “Near Dark,” from 1987. Since then, her reputation has grown tremendously, with action films such as “Point Break” (1991), before her Best Director Oscar…
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!
Star Trek TOS: “The Corbomite Maneuver” (1966) put the series on course…
******FESARIUS-SIZED SPOILERS!****** As a kid watching Star Trek out of broadcast order in reruns during the 1970s and 1980s, I could always tell earlier episodes by their ‘growing pains’; uniforms without black collars, different paint/layout scheme for the ship’s interiors, Spock’s makeup tweaks, various terminology differences (“United Earth Space Probe Agency,” “Vulcanian” ), etc. First…
Retro-Musings: “The Thief of Bagdad” (1940) works its magic, 85 years later …
******DJINN-SIZED SPOILERS!****** Even the most ardent movie lovers like myself have ‘blind spots’; major classics and blockbuster movies we’re familiar with through cultural osmosis, yet we’ve never actually seen. Despite my mad love of cinema, I’ve had an embarrassing number of overlooked classics in my lifetime. For example, I’d never seen “It’s a Wonderful Life”…
Guillermo Del Toro’s “Frankenstein” (2025) is stitched together from both faithful and divergent pieces…
******207 YEAR-OLD SPOILERS!****** After impressing critics and audiences with his first independent feature film “Cronos” (1993), future Oscar winning writer-director Guillermo Del Toro quickly rose through the ranks, making his Hollywood debut with “Mimic” (1997) before going on to more mainstream projects such as “Hellboy” (2004). He would return to less commercial films, such as…
The first two episodes of AppleTV’s “Pluribus” give rise to a world of shiny, happy, eerie people…
*****SMILEY-FACED SPOILERS!***** The trailer for AppleTV’s new sci-fi series “Pluribus” (Latin for many) had me hooked for several reasons; creator/producer/director Vince Gilligan (“The X-Files,” “Breaking Bad,” “Better Call Saul”), lead actress Rhea Seehorn (“Better Call Saul”) and a not-unfamiliar sci-fi idea of a shared human consciousness. The plans to create a unique RNA molecule has…
The “Star Trek: Khan” audio-drama podcast is truly ‘Paradise Lost’…
******PLANET-SIZED SPOILERS!****** “Star Trek: Khan” was conceived as a live-action Paramount+ miniseries that would be written by writer/producer/director Nicholas Meyer (“Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country”) which would chronicle the exile of Star Trek antagonist Khan Noonian Singh and his genetically-engineered ‘augment’ loyalists on the doomed planet of…
Making dreams tangible: Drew Struzan, 1947-2025…
Drew Struzan I meant to do this column earlier, but October kept me very busy, and I needed a little extra time and a less frazzled mindset to look back on the career of the late Drew Struzan; the pop artist whose work helped define movie posters for the last fifty years. His work has…
Retro-Musings for Halloween: “Nosferatu” (1922) rises at the historic Mission Inn hotel with a live music score…
******103-YEAR OLD BLOODSUCKING SPOILERS!****** I’m hoping readers aren’t too tired of my Halloween content (my favorite holiday), because this one should be the last one for this season…I think (?). This past weekend, I went to see my first-ever public screening of a silent movie with a live organist supplying the soundtrack! I own a…
Retro-Musings for Halloween: “Tombs of the Blind Dead” (1972)…
******UNDEAD SPOILERS!****** The Spanish-Portuguese horror coproduction “Tombs of the Blind Dead,” originally titled “La noche del terror ciego” (“Night of the Blind Terror”) is one of those cult horror franchises that I came to late. I missed its laserdisc renaissance in the 1990s, but would later discover the Blue Underground DVD in the mid-2000s. I…
Retro-Musings for Halloween: “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken” (1966)…
******SPECTRAL SPOILERS!****** And now for something completely different… As a kid, options for ‘family-safe’ Halloween entertainment in our primitive, pre-streaming era were a bit limited, with some exceptions, such as CBS’ annual broadcast of “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” (1966), Halloween variety specials, and Halloween-themed episodes of TV shows. “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken”…
Musings for Halloween: The San Francisco Ballet’s interpretation of “Frankenstein”…
******207-YEAR OLD SPOILERS!****** Young 19th century author Mary Shelley’s groundbreaking 1818 novel “Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus,” famously fused gothic horror with elements of science fiction. It’s since been adapted into various mediums, including stage plays and films. The most popular of these adaptations were the loosely-adapted Universal Monster movies of the 1930s-1940s, three of…
“Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” is the latest Star Trek movie to get the coffee table book treatment…
******STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!****** One of my favorite activities in my free time is book shopping. Back in the day, when we had many used bookstores in my area, I would love to spend an afternoon leisurely perusing through titles, looking for my next read. Rarely did I go into a bookstore knowing exactly what I was…