Sci-Fi / Fantasy

In 1951 Robert Wise made the Earth stand still. The United States, in fact the entire planet, was in the middle of a frightening cold war. If you believed the media at the time, we were standing just moments from nuclear annihilation. We were given images of a crazy man’s itching trigger-finger poised over a button. School kids were led in air raid drills that promised protection from this powerful menace by the wooden tops of your desks. The government and private sectors were engaged in witch hunts to smoke out “commie” sympathizers. The fear touched every aspect of our lives. Hollywood was no exception.

“I know I’m too old to love comics as much as I do. But, in comics, the villain can launch a missile at a superhero and the hero just keeps on coming. And then the villain can throw an atomic bomb, or an asteroid, or an entire planet at the hero, but that won’t stop them either, because a real superhero’s like a force of nature and when I read comics I get a faint glimpse of what it would be like to be not just stronger, or faster, or smarter than ordinary people, but what it would be like to be unstoppable”.

Who among us hasn’t felt that way at one time or another in our lives? We all have the desire to feel that in some way we are

If you can’t see where this thing is going after 10 minutes, check your forehead for lobotomy scars. I strongly suspect that everyone associated with this film, from the writer to the actors to the money people who thought this was a good idea, all have matching scars. The box art claims that someone from Bloody Disgusting calls this the best time travel movie of all time. What?! Either that guy was taking some serious medication at the time, or he was paid off, or his sister worked on the film in some capacity, or he’s actually managed to never see films like

A heavily armed group descends on a small-town supermarket. They gun down a customer, and announce that they are robbing the place. More killings ensue, but it soon becomes clear that this is no ordinary robbery. A strange form of triage is taking place that determines who is shot and who is allowed to live. Before long, only a handful of employees and customers remain, and it becomes clear that the attackers are not thieves at all, but in fact humanity's last hope against an insidious alien invasion.

Long before the magicians of movie special effects had computers to conjure up monsters and otherworldly creatures, or even talking dogs, they relied on more physical tricks of the trade. One method, used perhaps most famously in 1933’s King Kong, is stop-motion animation. Kong inspired a young boy who would go on to master the art form and establish himself as a legend of fantasy filmmaking: Ray Harryhausen. Over a career spanning more than 40 years, Harryhausen produced some of the most delightful moments ever captured on film, wowing audiences and inspiring people to believe in movie magic.

My Grandfather used to tell me if you can’t find something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Still, Grandpop never had to watch and then review a film like Black Swarm. This is another one of those Sci-Fi Channel original films that just can’t seem to find the quality bottle when mixing ingredients. Can someone please tell me how a network that could bring us Farscape and the Stargate franchise can’t seem to give us even one good original film? They must have produced a hundred films by now, and I can’t honestly say I’ve seen even a halfway decent movie yet.

Marvel has been pretty busy lately. Since starting their own film studio to work on their iconic characters, we’ve seen a lot of the Marvel universe of late. This past summer saw not one, but two of Marvel’s stable characters enjoy blockbuster releases on the live action front. Iron Man captured world wide attention and the hundreds of millions that go with it. While the new Hulk film didn’t bring with it the same kind of financial bounty, it was a well respected film that won over much of the character’s fan base, lost when Ang Lee put together his horrible Hulk feature some years ago.

The second season of The Invaders saw a shift in the show’s focus. Vincent has started to get his message out there, and some of these people are organizing. There’s no doubt, that if left to continue, the show might have taken on a more resistance center much like Kenneth Johnson’s V mini-series. If you’re looking for a conclusion, you won’t really get it. Vincent’s still out there, and so are the Invaders.

Posted by Ken Spivey

In a box, the men of importance placed a secret. They then created an underground city capable of complete autonomy, isolated from the outside world in hopes of shielding them from the trials of time. The box was given to the first mayor of “Ember City” and passed on to each successive mayor. After two hundred years the box was to open, revealing to the mayor's descendant the way out of Ember City. Yet, somewhere along the way the box was lost. Meanwhile, the city has fallen into a major state of disrepair.

When I was young I used to love to eat oranges, but it wasn’t only the taste or the benefits of some good old fashioned vitamin C I was necessarily after. I would cut the fruit in half and then carefully peel the rind, attempting to keep the halves in one piece. I’d cut one of those pieces in half again. I would then place them around my mouth and there you’d have it… instant Apes makeup. Then I would twitch my face muscles to imitate Roddy McDowall’s clever facial movements intended to make the foam prosthetic pieces come alive.