I know, I know, I keep saying it: The one thing you can count on is that any movie adaptation of Jules Verne will bear little or no resemblance to his actual stories. Well… Yeah, I’ve been able to count on that as a general rule for years. But darn it, there’s always someone who […]
Read more "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"Once in a while a film comes along which reminds us that science fiction doesn’t need to be stuck in the same old all too familiar mold, but can, with a bit of imagination, give us something surprising and different. As unlikely as that may sound. Freaky Faron definitely falls in this category. After five […]
Read more "Freaky Faron (2006)"I’ve never paid too much attention to the Kamen (Masked) Rider phenomenon. I was more or less aware that the show existed, but never had any interest in it until Hideaki Anno announced that after the first two films of his trilogy of “Shin” movies — Shin Godzilla and Shin Ultraman — he would give […]
Read more " Kamen raidâ Zetto Ô [Kamen Rider ZO] (1993)"What an odd little film. It’s rather hard to sum up, although Interkosmos looks at first glance like a documentary on a Soviet era space mission. A mission which intended to set up permanent settlements not on the moon, but on the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. But, of course, it isn’t a real documentary, […]
Read more "Interkosmos (2006)"Honorable Mention I’ve never penetrated too far into the bottomless quagmire which is Mexican horror films. There are a lot of them out there and I’ve only seen a few around the edges, mostly the ones other people have praised, or which are notable for some other reason. And then there are a few I’ve […]
Read more "El pantano de las ánimas [Swamp of the Lost Souls] (1957)"The amazing thing is that this film completely slipped under my radar. I hadn’t heard any reviews, or anyone talking about it on any of the film chat programs I listen to, nor did IMDB or any of the other sites I visit regularly suggest it to me. Instead, I was visiting a movie site […]
Read more "No One Will Save You (2023)"I’ve watched a lot of Albert Pyun’s films and it is hard to predict exactly what you are going to run into when you sit down to watch one of them. After all, he worked in the jungle of direct to video production companies, making films for next to nothing in odd corners of the […]
Read more "Alien from L.A. (1988)"It’s hard to describe this one. And even harder to make sense of it. An alien comes to Earth in a bright red flying saucer, which conveniently turns into a Fifties-vintage car in mid-flight. But this isn’t the first time he’s come to Earth. You see, Blackie was sent on a mission some forty years […]
Read more "The Sore Losers (1997)"I’m not bothered by a bit of arty editing, or weird imagery, unconventional storytelling approaches, or any of the other things you will find in films made for the art house market. In fact, that sort of thing can be a nice change, when you’ve seen too many routine low budget films or overblown blockbusters. […]
Read more "The Drivetime (1995)"[Mild spoilers ahead] For some strange reason or other, I seem to have watched a lot of art house science fiction films over the weekend. Don’t ask me why. I ran into Ascension of the Demonoids on a list of interesting no-budget science fiction films, and I suppose it was the fact that I’d seen […]
Read more "Ascension of the Demonoids (1985)"
rivets on the poster 