Category: Movies

Direct Beam Comms #153

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVPosted on

Rumor Control

I’ve been thinking a bit lately about sci-fi films in the late 1970s and early 1980s and I came up with a theory: for a time every sci-fi movie back then either wanted to be the next Star Wars or Alien. Released in 1977 Star Wars would quickly become one of the most influential movies ever, and while Alien didn’t do quite as well at the box office in 1979, it too would go onto become one of the most influential sci-fi movies in cinema history.

In 1978 there were such films as the dreadful Starcrash that was an Italian version of Star Wars and Battlestar Galacticawhich was the TV version of Star Wars that aired as a feature film in some countries. In 1979 Disney released their version of Star Wars with The Black Hole.

1980 saw the released of The Empire Strikes Back along with movies like Flash Gordon which, ironically, the source material from was influential to the creation of Star Wars while equally Star Wars was influential to the creation of the film version of Flash Gordon, as well as Battle Beyond the Stars which was Roger Corman’s low-budget version of Star Wars.

Alien
Alien

In 1981 there was Outland that was basically Alien minus the monster set on a mining colony and Galaxy of Terror that was Corman’s low-budget version of Alien.

Much like with Outland, Blade Runner from 1982 was essentially Alien minus the monster but set in a dystopian Los Angeles while The Thing also from that year was Alien only not on a futuristic spaceship but instead an Antarctic research station present day. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was more Star Wars than classic Star Trek in many regards with gigantic spaceships zapping each other while Disney’s Tron that year also owed a lot to Star Wars as well.

I think what changed things that year was the release of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial that was a huge box office hit in 1982. That movie broke the mold as it was a sci-fi flick set present day about a nice alien visiting nice people on the sometimes not-so-nice Earth and, other than special effects wizardry, didn’t owe a thing to either Star Wars or Alien.

After 1982 there would be a much more diverse group of sci-fi movies like Terminator, Dune and Enemy Mine to be released. While there were still movies like The Last Starfighter that were essentially versions of Star Wars and Creature that was essentially a clone of Alien, for the most part filmmakers were done with trying to make new versions of Alien and Star Wars.

For a while, at least.

The one major sci-fi movie from the late 1970s that doesn’t fit the “clone” mold was Star Trek: The Motion Picture from 1979. While that film relies on the special effects revolution created with Star Wars, in no way shape or form did Star Trek: The Motion Picture want to be Star Wars. I think that’s because Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was helming this first feature film version of the TV series and seemed to be an individual with a strong sense of how he wanted Star Trek: The Motion Picture to be. While I think he was fine with utilizing the special effects wizards that came out of Star Wars, at the same time he wanted his Star Trek to be something entirely different that Star Wars. Which, for better or worse it is.

TV

True Detective season 3 commercial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btoZfxs0pE0&feature=youtu.be

Comics

William Gibson’s Alien 3

Dark Horse Comics is releasing an adaptation of William Gibson’s script to Alien 3 in comic form starting this week. Gibson’s version would’ve been more of a direct sequel to Aliens than the theatrical Alien 3 was and would’ve featured both Hicks and Newt as well as Ripley and is considered by many to be one of the great unmade films of all-time.

After the deadly events of the film Aliens, the spaceship Sulaco carrying the sleeping bodies of Ripley, Hicks, Newt, and Bishop is intercepted by the Union of Progressive Peoples. What the UPP forces don’t expect is another deadly passenger that is about to unleash chaos between two governmental titans intent on developing the ultimate Cold War weapon of mass destruction.

What To Watch This Week

The Girl in the Spider's Web
The Girl in the Spider’s Web

Out this Friday are two new films in theaters. First up is the fifth film to bring anti-social anti-hero Lisbeth Salander (Claire Foy) to the big-screen The Girl in the Spider’s Web whileOverlord features American paratroopers battling it out with Nazi zombies during World War 2 in a horror/action flick.

The Reading & Watch List

Cool Movie & TV Posters of the Week

  • From Russia with Love
    From Russia with Love
  • Adventures of Captain Marvel
    Adventures of Captain Marvel

Movie Traditions

CategoriesFeature, MoviesPosted on

While some people have traditions like where they eat when they drive across the country to visit grandma, I have certain pop-culture traditions I like to follow. One of those traditions is with the novel Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King and Bernie Wrightson. Beginning in January, each chapter of that book takes place over a different month and what I like to do is read the book one month/chapter at a time throughout the year.

But I have a lot more traditions like these around movies than books. Like everyone else I watch A Christmas Story on Christmas every year, but my movie traditions go a bit deeper than this. The movies I’ve listed below are all ones I try and watch each and every year at the time they’re set.

Thanksgiving

Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Planes, Trains and Automobiles

There’s not a lot of movies based around Thanksgiving, but the obvious one is Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Obvious or not, the film was written and directed by John Hughes, who also wrote and directed just about every movie kids growing up in the 1980s love, and is superb. While I didn’t much care for this flick as a kid when it was first released in 1987, I’ve come to really like it as an adult where I can now identify with Neal Page (Steve Martin) as he tries to get from New York City to Chicago in time for his family Thanksgiving dinner along with Del Griffith (John Candy) who’s sometimes more of a hindrance than a help. Planes, Trains and Automobiles has an ending that gets me every time.

Christmas

Gremlins
Gremlins

There are loads of movies set around Christmas that aren’t about Christmas I could choose from here; Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Prometheus, Go…, but the one I’m going to go with is Gremlins. Set at Christmastime in the town of Kingston Falls, Gremlins was so obviously shot on the backlot at Warner Bros in hot, sunny California rather than someplace that really sees snowflakes it’s almost comical. That’s not a dig at this fun flick that while the setting might look artificial, everything else from the special effects to the story to the outright SCARES in this PG rated movie makes it a classic in my book.

Independence Day

Zodiac
Zodiac

The easy movie to go with here would be the literal Independence Day, but I like to go with the film Zodiac instead. “What,” you say, “Zodiac isn’t a movie about Independence Day!?” And I’d agree with that, Zodiac is a movie that takes place over many years during the hunt for the Zodiac Killer. But the first scene of the movie takes place on July 4, 1969 and for whatever reason has stuck with me since.

Labor Day

Stand By Me
Stand By Me

There’s only one movie I can think of about Labor Day, and that movie is Stand By Me. Taking place over Labor Day weekend and ending the morning of, Stand By Me so perfectly captures what it’s like to be a boy in between elementary and middle school as well as what it’s like for every kid on those last few days of trying to stretch out the final remaining bits summer before the start of school.

Halloween

The Crow
The Crow

There are a million and one Halloween movies and more than a few of them that take place ON Halloween, not even considering there’s a whole franchise of Halloween movies at this point. But the movie I like to watch every year at Halloween is The Crow. Unfortunately, The Crow is mostly remembered for being the film that star Jason Lee was killed on during production. But it’s also a great movie based on a comic book that has a unique visual style and look that was heavily influential to things like The Matrix. Oh yeah, it also takes place in this hyper-real and dark Halloween that alternates between the fascinating and the stuff of nightmares. Here, musician Eric Draven (Lee) and fiancé are murdered one Halloween by thugs but arises from the grave as a practically indestructible mystical force to avenge their deaths one year later. The Crow is a superhero movie while also being an anti-superhero movie at the same time.