So let me try to tell you as little as possible: this is a funny show with lots of pathos that deftly balances dark comedy with strong performances of people with metal health problems. If any of that interests you, see this without learning anything else about it. Ideally, if you can even avoid knowing …
Tag: Science Fiction
Stalker (1979, Andrei Tarkovsky)
Stalker is a willfully difficult, philosophical medication on the nature of faith posing as a science fiction film that feels like it would have been significantly more dramatic had it been made during the age of CGI. (Though Tarkovsky wouldn’t be the one to have made it, then.) I have not read the novel its …
Rainbows End (2006) by Vernor Vinge
I don’t read a lot of sci-fi or fantasy. And so quality of the dialogue is always a surprise to me when I do. For the first few chapters, I was kind of dying. I really thought about giving up. Vinge’s is dialogue is not great, at times reminding me too much of just about …
Space Raiders (1983, Howard R. Cohen)
When this movie came out, somebody noticed some of the spaceship fighting scenes were the same as Battle Beyond the Stars. And somebody noticed the score was the same too. Remarkably, despite those hilarious facts, this is not among the worst movies ever made. SPOILERS?
Children of Men (1992) by P.D. James
I have seen Children of Men at least twice and am a pretty big fan. So I have no idea if what I am going to say about this book is fair or whether it just comes from having seen the movie (twice) before reading the book. Additionally, the book came out in a different …
The Island (2005, Michael Bay)
For some reason, I had rated this movie on IMDB without ever having seen it. I’m not sure why I did that but for some reason I did. Because not only have I never seen it, I had no idea what it was about. MILD SPOILERS
Spiderhead (2022, Joseph Kosinski)
I love George Saunders. I’ve only read one collection and one other story, but I’ve loved everything I’ve read. (This reminds me, I really should read his more recent collections.) But I’ve never read this story. So I can’t comment on how true this movie is to the story. [Editor’s Note: I have since read …
The Crawling Eye aka The Trollenberg Terror (1958, Quentin Lawrence)
This is a pretty lame science fiction horror film with pretty bad effects and fairly cliche performances. However, um, it could have been worse. Um, SPOILERS
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (2018) by Hank Green
I’m not really sure how I ended up reading this. I am a huge fan of Crash Course but I’ve never followed anything else they’ve done and I’ve always had zero intention of reading John’s novels. But somehow, this book showed up on my fiction pile. I must have added it to my list one day due …
The Day Time Ended (1979, John ‘Bud’ Cardos)
This is one of those films that I watched courtesy of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and I can’t really imagine doing it without. I wonder if my rating would drop a point if I had to watch it on my own. It’s one of those terrible films that appears to be just very, very boring.
Arcane (2021)
This was recommended to me by work colleagues whose pop culture tastes I don’t yet know. I mention that because I might not have started this show if I’d known much about it. It is apparently associated with the League of Legends game franchise, something I know nothing about.
Lords of the Deep (1989, Mary Ann Fisher)
One of the innumerable 1989 underwater science fiction horror/thriller/mystery films that just exploded, this is probably the worst (that I’ve seen).
Jurassic World (2015, Colin Trevorrow)
I have no idea who was clamouring for yet another Jurassic Park sequel over 20 years after the original movie but somebody must have been. My memory is that this movie got some pretty good reviews, certainly better than the reviews for the last sequel. But I imagine the pitch meeting was “This film will …
Fortitude (2015)
So this is a hard show to review for me because we watched the first season a few years ago, we watched the second season maybe at the beginning of the pandemic and we just watched the abbreviated final season this week. My memory of both the first and second season has faded and it’s …
High-Rise (2015, Ben Wheatley)
I have read only one J.G. Ballard novel though I have seen a couple of films adapted from his books. I thought I had seen more than one of Ben Wheatley’s movies, but it turns out I’ve just seen one. On paper, I think I can probably see the Ballard-Wheatley pairing as a match made …
Altered Carbon (2018)
I usually review a TV show when I’ve finished it or when I’ve given up. But, given the Pandemic and the state of the film industry, I’m not sure when or if a 3rd season of this show is coming. And by the time it does come, I may have forgotten about the show. So …
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1978)
Full disclosure: I ended up not reading the novel. I polled some friends about what I should consume “first” and the verdict was that I should listen to the radio play first. So I listened. And then I listened to the Christmas episode, and then I listened to the “second season” (which, I believe, is …
The War of the Worlds (1898) by H.G. Wells
This is a landmark novel which manages to still be pretty entertaining but has dated in a few ways which make it kind of hard to appreciate how important it probably was when it came out.
Arrival (2016, Denis Villeneuve)
This is a fascinating and compelling science fiction drama/mystery that is occasionally undercut by Hollywood military cliches. It’s probably pretty hard to talk about this movie without SPOILERS but I will try. But, seriously, SPOILERS
Chronicle (2012, Josh Trank)
This is a pretty great idea, though hardly a new one, which is marred a great deal by the found footage conceit, which feels stupid and completely of its time. One wonders if they could only get the film made because of how trendy found footage was in the aughts. SPOILERS
Blade Runner 20149 (2017, Denis Villeneuve)
I’ve seen the original Blade Runner 2 or 3 times over 10 years ago but I’ve yet to be completely sold on it. Before I watched, multiple people (critics, friends) told me it was one of the best movies ever made. I liked it more the second or third viewing, but I’ve never come around …
Children of the Damned (1964, Anton Leader)
A long time ago I read something which told me to add this film, and not the earlier film, to my list. Watching this movie now, I have no idea why someone thinks this is the better movie. Because this film is worse in basically every way.
Village of the Damned (1960, Wolf Rilla)
This is one of those horror classics which has aged pretty poorly, with both the script and the effects having dated kind of horribly. But the production values outside of the effects are otherwise excellent and it really is on the good side of horror films of the period.
Westworld (2016)
Westworld was a pretty great concept when it was conceived and it’s a great concept now. It’s been forever since I’ve seen the movie – the inability of 1970s special effects to capture the concept well forever immortalized by The Simpsons – but the idea was so ahead of its time that it feels entirely …
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018, David Slade)
When I was in Grade 7 or 8, the math/history teacher at my alternative school brought in a man with a bizarre piece of technology. My math/history teacher and the man insisted this technology would change entertainment forever. There was a regular TV, a regular VCR, and what seemed to me like an absolutely gigantic …
Extinction (2018, Ben Young)
This is a pretty high concept science fiction film with a tiny budget that looks rather shitty and has a few really odd decisions that likely only happened because of the budget. SPOILERS
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017, Rian Johnson)
When this movie came out, I read in various places that it was perhaps the best Star Wars movie ever made. That would be a tall order, I guess, if I actually enjoyed Star Wars as an adult. The thing is, I don’t. I keep watching these movies and whatever it was that compelled me to really …
Alien: Covenant (2017, Ridley Scott)
It’s been so long since I saw the latter Alien sequels that I do not remember if they cared much about mythology, but I feel like they must have, at least a little bit. But Prometheus, which was only sort of a prequel – depending upon who you spoke to – really introduced mythology to the series, …
Cowboys and Indians (2011, Jon Favreau)
Many years ago, in my teens, I had a habit of writing down every movie idea I had, as I dreamed I would one day be a filmmaker. One such idea was a western film in which aliens showed up part way through. However, a key part of the idea – perhaps the key part …
Rogue One (2016, Gareth Edwards)
The problem with science fiction prequels, as I’m always saying, is that they are made with better technology then the ostensible sequels, making them incoherent in terms of technology.