In A Daze Of Futures Passed

The cover for The Uncanny X-Men #141 is one of the most legendary in all of comics. Penciller John Byrne and inker Terry Austin (likely under the direction of their X-editor Louise Jones (Simonson)) created a grim masterpiece for part one of the two part future-set epic "Days Of Future Past."

For a while now I have been gathering once a week on the interwebs with friends I made on Twiter and we watch fun silly mostly '70s and '80s fare such as Buck Rogers In The 25the Century, UFO and Space: 1999, Star Trek TOS and TAS, Ultraman, Knight Rider and Automan. However there is one show that brought us all together that first time and from which our group's name was coined: Manimal.

Presented for your approval is my loving homage to the incredible Byrne and Austin cover of that X-Men title for the "ManimAlliance" and many of the wacky goofy television shows of yore we have enjoyed and skewered in friendship.

Uncanny X-Men #141 Copyright 2022 by Marvel Entertainment. 

The Poseidon Adventure on the Planet of the Apes

Two great genre tastes that go great together (or at least they should).

Journey with us now as our stalwart heroes, including Taylor, a cynical astronaut, Reverend Scott, a cynical priest, Roddy McDowall in surprising dual roles, and a cast of Hollywood luminaries sail aboard the S.S. Poseidon on its fateful voyage. 

The reveries soon turn to screams as the Poseidon encounters the strangest, strongest tsunami wave ever, which not only overturns our ship but sends it thousands of years into the future. A future ruled by Apes!

Parody poster. No copyright infringement is intended with this work.

Guardian of Forever Buffering

 

Star Trek is a Registered Trademark and Copyright 2020 CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved. No infringement of those rights is implied with this parody.

Space: 1999 episode "The Taybor" Features the Worst Alien Hairstyle in the Universe

This cock was a crock. The episode "The Taybor" of Space: 1999 featured, hands down, the lamest alien menace with the WORST hairstyle in all of sci fi: he looked like a cockatoo.

So in honor of this load of space garbage that even Quark the space sanitation guy (that is a 70s reference, kids, not the Quark from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) would not take out, here is Cockatoo magazine's latest issue. Also their first and only! Collection it all!

Pizza: 1999

I used to watch the classic sci-fi TV series Space: 1999 as a kid and I always thought it was more than a bit slow: it was leisurely paced, compared to say Star Trek, episodes were often filmed with heavy shadows on the sets, and lead actor Martin Landau whispered his dialogue when he wasn't shouting it.

But I have had the pleasure of re-watching the episodes online with a group of like-minded folks and they are often a laff riot!

Take this episode, for example:

The moonbase crew, most of them anyway, sit down for an evening of sitar music (why the sitar? why not, said the producers). While the man-bunned electric sitar player strums his heart out, a small group of Alphans just happen to hold a seance in the botany lab -- that's right, they are trying to "make contact" with the plants! Oh, the '70s was full of really far out ideas. Well of course things go terribly wrong in short order, people start seeing a weird apparition, and Alphans start dying.

The man with the plant plan is Italian doctor Dan Mateo, or should-a I say-a "Doctor-a Dan-a Mateo". Yes, kids, he's-a one-a those-a Italian actors who put-a "a" at the end-a most-a his words-a. (I think I might have broken the "a" on my keyboard. Mama Mia!)


This episode is tailor made for people who like to riff on (with love, of course) the movies or TV shows they loved as a kid, with Dr. Chef Boyardee, the psychic plant seance, burn monster apparitions, Barry Morse's antler like sideburns, and Martin Landau's "I'd rather be back on Mission: Impossible" acting choices.

Who Wore It Better: Zardoz vs Vartox

The cover of Superman #281 (Nov 1974) popped up on a Twitter account recently, featuring the introduction to a hirsute, mustachioed villain named Vartox.



 If you thought he looked just like Sean Connery's character of Zed in the trippy sci fi flick Zardoz (released in Feb 1974) you win the Golden Thigh High Boot.

Now the question is, Who wore it better? And why was this deemed appropriate for young boys of the 1970s?

The Wrath of The Wraith

I can't believe I went through the entire decade of the 1980s without ever watching the movie The Wraith.

You know the one I'm talking about: the goofy flick about a ghost sports car and its mysterious black-clad driver that challenges the members of a gang to street races. Every video store open during the 80s was required to have this movie's poster pinned up on its walls.

Charlie Sheen drives the movie's well-worn plot of a murdered man who comes back from the grave to avenge himself upon his killers. It's like High Plains Drifter but with Clint Eastwood trading his spotted pony for a Dodge M4S Turbo Interceptor (according to Wikipedia, a "technology demonstrator vehicle").

The movie opens with a couple of animated balls of light coming down from the night sky (because 80s), zooming across the Arizona highways before colliding to form...The Wraith, an all black sports car, with a black-helmeted, black-jumpsuited asthmatic driver - seriously, as the camera is pulling into a closeup of Mr. Helmet Guy, we hear labored breathing; I guess coming back from the dead is strenuous work. His getup looks like a lovechild of a stillsuit from the movie Dune and a Borg from TV's Star Trek: The Next Generation. Then H.R. Giger puked on it for good measure.

The gang of killers is a hilarious assortment of 80s weirdos and wasteoids: lanky leader Packard Walsh, played by lanky Nick Casavettes, who races hapless motorists for their pink slips (heads up: he always cheats); a strangely coiffed Clint Howard is Rughead (Eraserhead must have been his hairdresser); rounding out the gang are Skank and Gutterboy, a couple of perpetually high tweakers who looked like they were ported over from another 80s' gem, Class of 1984. Note: The Crow, another murdered man returns from the grave for revenge flick also has a gang member named Skank. What are the odds?

This is all just silliness writ large. A pre-Tiger's Blood Sheen makes a good pretty boy, but nothing more. His role requires no acting, just show up, look at prettier Sherilyn Fenn (girlfriend of the murdered boy, and now Packard's "property"), and drive a dirt bike. Spoiler: yes, at the end, we see Mr. Helmet Guy take off his helmet to reveal Charlie Sheen, but, between you and me, I don't believe for a second he drove the sleek ebony Murdermobile in all those races.

Speaking of races, don't expect any true fast or furious action from those in this film. The Wraith's races against the baddies always end with an explosion, and those were fairly decent, but the camerawork and race choreography leading up to the kaboom were substandard: I've seen more intense car chases on the local news.

The movie appears to have been a co-production with a local Dodge dealership because every single car - that's EVERY. SINGLE. CAR - is a Dodge automobile. In this town, Ford spells f-i-g-h-t.

I don't know if I could truly recommend a supernatural car chase movie where the sleazy villain has the name of your grandfather's old sedan (remember the Packard, ya'll?) but I guess if you are sufficiently drunk - and NOT driving anywhere - you could do far worse than to let your eyeballs melt to the sights and sounds of The Wraith.

 (Clint Howard from The Wraith from https://medium.com/every-day-is-movies)

Jurassic World: Farsical Kingdom

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

The latest "run the dinosaurs are attacking!" movie is an abysmal failure, adding nothing new to this long in the saurian tooth franchise.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom takes place three years after the events of Jurassic World, with the abandoned park now overrun not only with island growth but dinosaurs - keep out, no humans allowed. However, the island's volcano (the other movies never mentioned a volcano) is erupting, posing the question, "Should someone save Earth's only remaining dinosaurs, who were extinct until greedy billionaires and unscrupulous geneticists recreated them for fun and profit?"

Enter Claire and Owen (Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt, respectively, back from the last film), who are tasked by Generic Evil Corporate Guy (Rafe Spall), on behalf of Unwitting Sick Industrialist Guy (James Cromwell as the shady partner to park founder John Hammond, whom we have never seen nor heard mentioned before in the previous FOUR JP movies).

Claire and Owen take along Fourteen Year Old Nervous Techie and Animal Girl, face off against Mercenary Hunter Guy and his goons, and...oh, what's the point? We've seen this all before, and done much, much better.  The point is a dollar sign, something the Jurassic Park/World backers and Universal Studios are both chasing. Now a bad movie isn't going to kill anybody, but it can kill - or at least seriously dampen - the movie-going experience. The first Jurassic World movie was released ten years after JP III, showing the world that dinosaurs are still fascinating, enthralling creatures in the public's imaginations. But that will hold water, or plesiosaurs, only so long if you don't have an engaging story and interesting characters, things which are plainly absent in JW:FK.

Fallen Kingdom's story is cherry-picked from previous films in this series: an abandoned park (from JP 2 & 3), the evil industrialists/capitalists (JP2), the protagonists made to return to the park under false pretenses (JP3), the misguided geneticists creating designer dinos (JW), and so on. We might be able to forgive them is they cherry picked from other movies and not so incestuously from within their own franchise.

The most engaging dinosaur in the public's imagination has long been the Tyrannosaurus Rex. After being put through some of the greatest action/suspense/thriller sequences by the master Steven Spielberg in the first two films in the Jurassic Park series, the T-Rex was given the back seat in JPIII to the Spinosaurus, a much bigger dino with a crocodile-like snout. When the series was revived with Jurassic World, the filmmakers got the idea to just invent a new dinosaur called the Indominus Rex, a creature made from the DNA of T-Rex, Velociraptor, and a half dozen other big, angry dinos. This weirdo made no real impression on me and was replaced as the dinosaur du-jour in Fallen Kingdom with another dino-Frankenstein in the form of the Indoraptor, which was the Indominus mixed more closely with the Velociraptor. The Jurassic World films clearly are trying to turn the public's fascination and love toward the Velociraptor (the hero dinos during the JW movies' final sequences) but we ain't having none of it. No matter how smart scientists think raptors were, Tyrannosaurus is still King of the Dinosaurs.

The first three Jurassic Park movies relied heavily on the on-set dinosaurs created by the late Stan Winston and his team. The filmmakers had to constantly cut from Winston's dinos to visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic's computer-generated dinosaurs. As a testament to the fluidity and believability of Winston's creations, especially the T-Rex and Spinosaurus, they matched seamlessly with ILM's digital wonders.  The Jurassic World franchise is all CGI and it shows. The actors are staring at nothing, except maybe a tennis ball or "x" taped to a green screen wall. I no longer believe I am watching real animals on the screen. The wonder is gone.

There will be the inevitable, and already scheduled, Jurassic World III, but I do not look forward to it. Why should I, when it will simply be another loud, frenetic CGI-filled summer blockbuster. So much sound and fury, signifying dino-nothing.

Directing E.T.: The Extraterrestrial's Kids

Back in 2012 Entertainment Weekly held a reunion for ET: The Extraterrestrial, the magical 1982 science fiction film, reuniting director Steven Spielberg with now-adult stars Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore. It includes a rare behind the scenes moment where Spielberg is discussing the movie's final scene with a then-10 year old Thomas.

Spielberg could give a master class in directing child actors (or even adult actors). Here is the link to the EW post.

War For The Planet Of The Apes Brings New Trilogy To A Satisfying Close

My favorite thing this year was the character of Bad Ape in the thrilling War For the Planet of the Apes, the likely conclusion to the latest Apes trilogy involving the intelligent talking ape Caesar.

As the latest Apes movie was a serious war movie with death and destruction aplenty, the filmmakers included some welcome humor in the form of Steve Zahn's character of Bad Ape.

(Black) Mirror, (Black) Mirror On The Wall

The TV series Black Mirror is The Twilight Zone of the iPhone era.

BrainPilot on YouTube helpfully posted a list of the 5 Most Powerful Moments from this series (through Nov 2016).  SPOILERS, obviously, if you have not seen the show.

Shorts But Sweet

Short films can really pack a punch, if done well.

With little to no budget these mini-movies can deliver the goods.

Sometimes the directors of these shorts hit the big time and the material is adapted for the big screen. Two such lucky filmmakers are David F. Sandberg with Lights Out, which plays so well with our fear of the dark. His 2013 short film below was adapted into a successful big screen version in 2016, also called Lights Out. Sandberg has Annabelle: Creation out in theaters August 11.

Director Andres "Andy" Muschietti and his sister producer Barbara Muschietti created their extremely chilling short film Mama in 2008. It caught the eye of visionary filmmaker Guillermo del Toro who produced the 2013 big screen version also titled Mama. Andy Muschietti has the highly anticipated movie version of Stephen King's It coming September 8.

It's not just horror movies that work in the short film realm. Neill Blomkamp adapted his now-classic sci fi short Alive In Joburg (2005) into his acclaimed big screen District 9 (2009).

Kong: Skull Island trailer goes BIG

King Kong roars back to life, and onto to the big screen.

Kong: Skull Island looks terrific, with a great cast including om Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson and John Goodman.

The studio behind it, Legendary Pictures is setting the stage for their new GIANT Kong to face off against Godzilla in just a few years.

Let's Get Ready To Crumble!

Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2 Trailer

"Showtime, a-holes!"

That phrase will be on everyone's lips and t-shirts next summer, thanks to Chris Pratt's charisma and the deft writing and directing of James Gunn in reassembling his misfit Guardians of the Galaxy for new exploits in the sequel.

The new trailer has got it all: laughs, spectacle, Baby Groot, button pushing, beautiful multihued people, great 70s rock music. Enjoy Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2.

Robots Got Talent - Dancing Robots Prove It

I like robots.

You like robots.

Who doesn't like robots?

Well, how about 1,007 tiny robots. All dancing in unison. (originally found on Gizmodo)

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Going Into Major Reshooting

Oh, my. What is going on with Rogue One: A Star Wars story?

You get a promising up and coming director in Gareth Edwards to helm your Star Wars story, which is written by top established writers in Gary Whitta and Chris Weitz. Going into it, Lucasfilm and Disney executives knew that this was an offbeat tale - it was a one off story about the group of rebels that managed to steal the Death Star plans that they then deliver to Princess Leia, which opens the tale of the original 1977 Star Wars film. There was not going to be a Rogue One: Part II, or anything like that; it was a standalone film set in the Star Wars Universe.

However, after the massive success of the JJ Abrams-directed Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Episode VII), the powers that be want Edwards flick to appeal to a "four quadrant" audience (that's males and females, viewers aged 25 years and under, and over 25 years old).  In other words instead of getting a cool, dark, serious combat movie that was likely to appeal to most Star Wars fans and much of the public, they are reshooting a large chuck of the movie to appeal to EVERYONE. 

According to sites like The Hollywood Reporter, Academy Award-nominated writer Tony Gilroy is reworking the script and possibly overseeing some reshoots. Also, noted 2nd Unit director and stunt maestro Simon Crane is working his action magic as well.

Hopefully Gareth Edwards' movie is still in there once all the reshoots and reediting are done. I guess we will see this December.

May the Force be with them.

Silent Running - Making The Movie

Silent Running was originally released in March 1972. It was a modestly budgeted (made for about $1 million) science fiction film, but one with a very big environmental message which is still relevant today: We have to protect our forests. 

A documentary crew followed director Douglas Trumbull and his cast and crew as they made the film, primarily shooting on the decommissioned US Navy aircraft carrier Valley Forge in California. This is one of the better documentaries showing the behind the scenes goings on of a great film.

Riddick 3, Audience 0

In this edition of Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy (NOT!), io9 reports that Vin Diesel just. won't. let. Riddick. die.

Yes, Pitch Black (2000) was good - a lean, muscular lower-budgeted sci-fi action thriller where Diesel really had a presence about him as the convict Richard B. Riddick with the spooky see-in-the-dark eyes.

Chronicles of Riddick (2004) spent some big bucks to only go waaay overboard and create an ass-load of backstory and shit around Riddick, making a shady convict anti-hero into a mythological prophesied space god (or something).

Since Chronicles didn't do gangbuster biz, Diesel and writer/director David Twohy tried to go back to basics with the modestly budgeted Riddick (2013). Audiences everywhere shrugged - what was this movie even about?

Now that Diesel's profile has been raised by the admittedly fun Fast & Furious franchise, Vin wants to do ANOTHER Riddick movie for the six people still interested in the character, AND do a TV series tie-in set in the "Riddick Universe."

Come on Vin, you might have a small, and I mean small, cult following around the Riddick character, but after three movies that received wide releases over a 13 year period, and only managed to gross on average just over $46 million each - audiences has spoken: they simply don't care for this character.

The mercs didn't catch up to Riddick, but audience indifference surely did.

Mad Max: Fury Road Legacy Trailer

You know his name.

Max.

Mad Max.

The Road Warrior.

He's fueled up his V-8 Interceptor and is heading our way.

If you're up to no good, I feel sorry for you.

Mad Max: Fury Road opens May 15.

The X-Files and Breaking Bad - The Vince Gilligan Connection

Everything old is new again.

Fox is set on testing that adage by reviving the beloved once-cult-then-mainstream-hit series The X-Files by bringing it back to television as a limited event series in 2016.

Before we see if creator Chris Carter can capture magic in a bottle (the last X-Files movie simply wasn't very good) next year, decider.com put together a fun list of X-episodes that were written by Vince Gilligan, of Breaking Bad fame. Yes, before he got Walter White hooked on the meth business, Gilligan was putting the screws to Mulder and Scully in inventive and often funny ways.

So join me in boning up on some great X-Files episodes in anticipation of discovering that "The Truth Is (Still) Out There."