Closet Sci-Fi Geek

I went to see Max & Co this week. A cute story by Christine Dory and Emmanuel Salinger, and very cool stop animation. The mise-en-scene is a nice mixture of steam-punky technology and alpine small-town idealism. And there’s something I really like about French with subtitles. Just sounds cool.

While it’s essentially a kids film, it has some nice adult level moments, like when the captured flies are gassed, have orgasms, and lay eggs while cavorting drunkenly through the air. Well, I laughed.

So, highly recommend it if you get the chance to see it.

July 16th, 2008 | Tags: Max & Co | Category: Animation, Movies | Leave a comment

Zombie’s scare the bejesus out of me. I read in a dream book that Zombies represent a disconnection from feelings. If you are feeling numb, depressed, cold inside, or if you are completely consumed by a certain feeling, like hunger or fury, then you are the closest to being a zombie – at least according to dream symbolists. I think the loss of rational thought, that which makes us civilised human beings, is also what makes Zombies a terrifying prospect. You’re bog-standard, shambling, ‘brains’ groaning Zombie is a classic example, and made wonderfully chilling in the game, ‘Resident Evil’. The other, and I personally think scarier Zombie, is the ‘Rage Zombie’ portrayed in Danny Boyle’s ’28 Days Later’. That film, and ’28 Weeks Later’, have given me nightmares, and I still half expect when I look up at the glass sliders first thing in the morning, when it’s still twilight, to see a rage zombie, drooling blood, glaring at me with red eyes, just waiting to dive through the glass and eat my spleen.

[Shudder]

Lately I’ve watched Robert Rodriguez’s ‘Terror Planet’ and Johnathan King’s ‘Black Sheep’. Neither of these frightened me – in fact they made me laugh which was the creators’ intention I’m sure. ‘Black Sheep’ was particularly cool as I grew up on a sheep farm and my father always wanted me to write a story about mobs of rabid sheep revolting and running amok. Johnathan King got there before me, and Dad would have loved ‘Black Sheep’ had he lived to see it.

So there’s my thoughts on Zombies. What do you fullas and fullesses think about them?

July 3rd, 2008 | Tags: 28 days later, black sheep, resident evil, zombies | Category: Horror, Video Games | Comments (1)

I had one of those lazy Sundays where I just got caught up on Battlestar Galactica…from season three right into season four. There’s something to be said for watching the whole lot at once – you aren’t constantly waiting for those incessant cliffhangers.

And how about that ending, eh? Well, I sure didn’t expect the kind of happy earth reception we had for the original series, where the kids got to play a baseball game with their super jumping skills thanks to the gravity differential. No, this earth was a bit darker.

I was wondering, actually, when they would place our earth in the BSG timeline. Would it be in our early history or in our future? Obviously, the writers chose our future. I think the only thing that could have possibly improved on BSG’s mid-season finale would have been if we got to see a shot of the Statue of Liberty buried in the sand, with a bunch of clothed apes coming out to meet the crowd.

Then Dr. Zaius (the ape) could greet Dr. Gaius (Baltar) and we’d find out that the apes were actually cylon-ape hybrids all along. Or something like that.

June 30th, 2008 | Tags: Battlestar Galactica | Category: Television | Comments (1)

Just a heads up: On occasion you’ll see me review a book or DVD here and I’ll be giving it away for free. I’ll be doing this through Bookins, which is a fantastic online book/DVD trading service. What you do is sign up and then earn points for giving your used books and DVDs away. You can then use those points to get other books and DVDs. You just pay $4.49 for the shipping (ONLY when you receive).

I’ve been so excited about this service. It is beyond easy to use. The great thing is that if you have old books and DVDs to give away, you don’t have to pay to ship them out. You go to the website, print out a label with postage, and the receiver pays the shipping.

I’m on a mission to promote them a little bit more because I’d just like more people taking my books and DVDs. (OK, I do get some free “points” through referrals, but no cash.) If there’s one downside to this service, I find that some of my books can sit there for a long time without getting taken. So sign up using my link here and then when I have something available and post it here, you can be the one to get it.

June 25th, 2008 | Category: Announcements, Books | Leave a comment

June 17th, 2008 | Tags: Ascii Animation, Ascii Star Wars | Category: Star Wars | Comments (2)

Recently, more anomalies have been showing up in my photos…anomalies such as those mysterious “orbs” you may have heard about. While skeptics say they are just dust on the camera lens, others think they may be signs of the paranormal. Whether they are real or not, I find them to be a ton of fun. So I have put up a new photo blog to share pictures of orbs and other ghostly apparitions. Please check it out at:

http://www.orbsandghosts.com

June 15th, 2008 | Tags: ghosts | Category: Announcements | Leave a comment

WARNING: SPOILER if you haven’t watched the series recently! So am I the only one who will not be missing Owen on Torchwood? I could never get his appeal. Somehow he was this sex-god with women, and every woman on Torchwood was in love with him, but he was just so unappealing to me, physically and personality-wise. But where Torchwood really lost it for me was when Owen became the living dead man. So somehow, his body was dead, and he couldn’t recover from a wound, and yet he was able to SPEAK, which meant he was breathing. This was some of the worst, unscientific sci-fi nonsense I have seen in ages. I was really glad when they just finally offed him. Farewell, Owen, but sorry, I’m not going to miss you.

June 13th, 2008 | Tags: Torchwood | Category: Television | Leave a comment

June 3rd, 2008 | Tags: Starfleet, X-Bomber | Category: 1980s, Retro Sci-Fi, Television | Leave a comment

The Tomorrow People, Thames Television (A&E Home Video)

Starring Nicholas Young, Peter Vaughan-Clarke, and Elizabeth Adare

For those of us who tuned into “Nickleodeon” on weekday afternoons in the 1980′s, the US-formatted DVD release of “The Tomorrow People” is a blast to our Gen-X retro past. Yeah, the special effects were cheesy and the acting amateurish in that special British sci-fi way, but the stories were powerful and spoke to those of us who felt “different.” For those who value style over substance in a sci-fi series, just compare the forty-plus year run of “Doctor Who” to the twenty-seven year run of the Roddenberry “Trek” franchise. Which one is still currently in production? That’s right. “Doctor Who.” And the Lucasing of TOS Trek doesn’t count.

The premise of “The Tomorrow People” is one explored extensively in the Marvel Comics universe: people developing powers through natural mutation and evolution. In the series, the powers manifest themselves at the onset of puberty in a traumatic process called “breaking out,” a metaphor for the whole junior high experience if ever I heard one. While powers acquired in the Marvel universe are usually singular and specific (laser eyes, control of the weather, etc.), the powers displayed by the Tomorrow People include telekinesis, telepathy, and teleportation. Each of the People display all three abilities, but some have a greater degree of speciality in one of the other. One characters is adept at picking locks, while another is able to project images of ghosts through telepathy.

 A mainstay of the series is the characters’ ability to teleport, or “jaunt,” a term borrowed from the novel The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester. Just by thinking about it, they can teleport to any location they can imagine. I never did get why they had to be mechanically assisted by the “jaunting belts.” I guess it so the “TIM” character could play a greater role in the series. TIM is the biomechanical computer, voiced by Phillip Gilbert. Gilbert’s is one of the classic sci-fi computer/robot voices, right up there with Roddy McDowell, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, Douglas Rain, and Dick Tufeld.

The episodes in the DVD sets are presented in their original 30-minute “serial” format, with opening and closing credits between each episode. While this makes for disjointed viewing of the entire story and can be tedious when viewing the “flashback” sequences from the previous episode, the format keeps the entire set true to the original series. The lack of original series artwork on the box makes it hard to spot on the shelf. For some reason, A&E elected to go with original art on the box and DVD cases.

It’s a set worth owning. Here’s to A&E for finally bringing this series to DVD on our shores.

LarryJP

May 31st, 2008 | Tags: British Sci Fi, DVD, Tomorrow People | Category: 1970s, Retro Sci-Fi, Television | Leave a comment