******SUN-SIZED SPOILERS!****** Few movies lately have filled me with as much anticipation as “Project Hail Mary” (2026), which I’ve waited nearly five years to see on the big screen, after devouring the 2021 novel by Andy Weir (“The Martian,” “Artemis”). The movie is being adapted by Drew Goddard, who previously adapted Weir’s “The Martian” for…
Tag: The Martian
The first trailer for “Project Hail Mary” (2026) launches, and it’s spectacular…
******SUN-SIZED SPOILERS!****** As a fan of author Andy Weir (“The Martian”) since the mid-2010s, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed his three novels to date, as well as his short stories. It’s safe to say Weir is one of the best sci-fi novelists working today. Each new book of his is an event. Given Weir’s information tech background,…
25 years later, Disney’s “Mission to Mars” still fails to achieve escape velocity…
******PHOBOS-SIZED SPOILERS!****** 25 years ago, my wife and I went out for dinner and a movie with two married friends of ours to see “Mission to Mars” (2000); a Disney (nee: Touchstone) space opus directed by esteemed director Brian De Palma (“Carrie,” “Scarface,” “The Untouchables”), a screenplay cowritten by Graham Yost (“Speed”) with music by…
Spotlight on screen-used sci-fi/fantasy movie & TV props, costumes and miniatures…
“Gain Strength from the Sharing…” With a nod to Spock’s half-brother Sybok, the purpose of this particular column is to share; to share in the good fortune I’ve had in my life as a semi-professional geek to see a virtual treasure trove of actual screen-used props, costumes, miniatures and other such cool stuff over the…
“The Moon” (2023) is Korea’s well-crafted fictional answer to “Apollo 13”…
*****SPACE-SURVIVAL SPOILERS!***** Space survival dramas are hardly new, of course. Even as a kid, I remember my eyeballs nearly pressed against the glass screen of the family Zenith while watching 1964’s “Robinson Crusoe on Mars.” However, the post-“Star Wars”/“Jurassic Park” revolutions in filmmaking made later space survival sagas a lot more realistic. And with a…
“Robinson Crusoe on Mars” (1964) gets some overdue recognition…
*****MARTIAN POLAR CAP-SIZED SPOILERS!***** As a kid in the 1970s, I remember staying up very late one night (well after my family had gone to sleep) to watch a movie on TV called “Robinson Crusoe on Mars” (1964). While the title sounded a bit goofy, the movie was amazing. I sat in rapt attention (even…
“John Carter” (2012), the unfairly maligned adaptation of the original space hero…
Before Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and Luke Skywalker… I was born about a half-century too late to have been among the first generation to read Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “John Carter of Mars” books, but my own first inklings of them came via Carl Sagan’s landmark 1980 PBS TV series, “COSMOS.” The late pop scientist reminisced…
The novels of Andy Weir: “The Martian,” “Artemis” and “Project Hail Mary”…
New Voice. As a lifelong fan of science fiction, I’m not embarrassed to admit that sometimes the genre can fall a bit short in a couple of areas; humor and actual science. Much of the early literary sci-fi I’ve read in my life came from greats like Ray Bradbury (my all-time favorite author), H.G. Wells,…
The ‘cold equations’ of Netflix’s “Stowaway” (2021)…
******SPACESHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!!******* 2021’s Space Odyssey. In a time where I’m still a bit pandemic-skittish about going back to cinemas, I decided to peruse my neglected Netflix queue when I came across “Stowaway”, a space flick released this past April. Starring Anna Kendrick (“Up in the Air”), Toni Colette (“The Sixth Sense”), Daniel Dae Kim (“Lost”)…