“The Suicide Squad” (2021) is a big, brutal, mean-spirited time killer…

******KEIJU-SIZED SPOILERS!!****** Good News and Bad News. The Good News. If you are, as I am, still skittish about returning to movie theaters during the current COVID-19 pandemic? You can still catch 2021’s reboot of “The Suicide Squad,” directed by James Gunn (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) on HBOMax, without an extra access code, now through…

Seeing double with Stanislaw Lem’s “Solaris” (1972/2002)…

*****AN OCEAN OF SPOILERS!!***** The Essentials of Stanislaw Lem’s Story (1961). Spawning a lengthy, 1972 Soviet-era sci-fi epic (2 hours, 49 minutes) and a trimmer American reimagining 30 years later, it’s surprised me to learn that Polish sci-fi author Stanislaw Lem’s original 1961 novel “Solaris” is a brisk read (204 pages), despite its deep subject…