Movie #30: Looper

Welcome to Sci-Fi 100! 
100 Sci-Fi movies in 100 days!

** NO SPOILERS**
Today I saw "Looper" which is in theaters now. It was directed by Rian Johnson and stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, and Emily Blunt.
Here's the plot without any spoilers (it's what you can see on the trailer.)
The year is 2042. The story is about a hit man (Joseph-Gordon Levitt) who kills people who are sent back by criminals 30 years in the future. Apparently in the future, it's too hard to get away with murder and hide a body, so this way the person in the future just disappears with no trace. These hit men are called Loopers.

                     click the box above to watch the trailer

The Looper (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)

Anyhoo... Joseph Gordon-Levitt is the best looper. Excellent at his job. A monkey is thrown in the wrench when he finds out that one of the people he must assassinate is himself from 30 years in the future (played by Bruce Willis.) 

The Loop (Bruce Willis)

So, somehow Bruce Willis gets away and now both of them are hunted men and they have to find out together how to fix this mess.

I can't say too much without giving details away, so I will just say that I though it was a fantastic film. Great story, great action, great special effects, and great acting.

Emily Blunt

The only thing that I was iffy about was the heavy makeup that Joseph Gordon-Levitt was in to make him resemble Bruce Willis. I could see a resemblance a couple of times in certain angles or facial expressions, but for the most part I didn't get it. I didn't think it looked like Willis that much to go through all that trouble.

Go see it. It's a great flick.

- Patrick Shawn Bennett
Broadcasting from 30 years in the past.

xxx

Movie #20: Hangar 18

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100 Sci-Fi movies in 100 days!

"Hangar 18" is a sci-fi film from 1980. It is directed by James Conway and is chocked full of stars such as Darren McGavin (Kolchak, A Chirstmas Story,) James Hampton (F-Troop, Teen Wolf,) and Robert Vaughn (The Man From U.N.C.L.E.) I remember watching this movie on TV when I was a kid and loving it.

The story is about astronauts on a mission to launch a satellite from the space shuttle. While in space, the satellite is hit by a UFO. 

The UFO crashes on Earth. Since it's election time, the UFO crash is hidden from the public and the spaceship and alien bodies are moved to Hangar 18, a secret hangar on an Airforce base in Texas which houses government secrets. 

When the space shuttle astronauts return to Earth, they are blamed for the death of their crew member who was killed during the accident. All records of the UFO hitting the satellite have been erased from video and the computers. The astronauts sneak away and set out on an adventure to find the fabled Hangar 18 and clear their names and reveal the conspiracy to the public.

                   click on the box above to watch the trailer

This is one cool, underrated movie! The acting is awesome and the pacing of the movie is great. One thing I really liked is that this movie featured the space shuttle before the real one ever went into space. 

I bet when it came out at the theater that was a real draw for sci-fi fans as well as aeronautical & space buffs. The miniatures and special effects were pretty good for an early '80s movie. The set designs for the space shuttle cockpit, the alien ship cockpit and Hangar 18 itself were very convincing. The Alien makeup was simple and effective. 

All around, I give this movie a very high rating.
Check it out on Netflix, DVD, or Youtube.







- Patrick Shawn Bennett
Broadcasting from a secret (beep...beep...beep... this transmission has been shut down by the government... beep...beep....beep)

XXX

Movie #26: Interzone

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100 Sci-Fi movies in 100 days!

"Interzone" is a 1987 Itallian sci-fi movie directed by Deran Sarafian and filmed in the surrounding countryside of Rome.  It stars Burce Abbott, Beatrice Ring, and Teagan Clive. The story is set in a post-nuclear holocaust world (think Mad Max) where humans fight mutants and everyone is searching for "the treasure." I remember Bruce Abbott from the late night TV series "Dark Justice" in which he played a judge by day and a motorcycle riding vigilante by night. In this movie, which is a big Mad Max/Road Warrior rip-off, he plays the mercenary hero who is out to save a girl from an evil gang. 

The movie is full of Road Warrior style vehicles and weapons, but also has some sci-fi lasers and forcefields thrown in the mix. The main villain is a muscle bound chick, seen in the poster above, who is trying to find this mystical treasure that is hidden in a monastery and protected by priests. 

The film is ok, but nothing special. Another late night nacho-eating flick filled with over-the-top acting, bad stunts, and cheesy one liners like "I'm gonna hit you so hard your dog's gonna die" and "looks like this is the final chapter (the villain)" followed by "Depends on which book you're reading (the hero.")

It even has one of the worst death scenes I have ever seen. But, out of all the Mad Max rip-offs out there, this one has to be the best.
I couldn't find a trailer for it, but there's a few clips from it on Youtube. The entire movie is available on Youtube & Netflix. Check it out and let me know what you think.

- Patrick Shawn Bennett
Broadcasting from the wasteland.

xxx

Movie #29: Ghosts of Mars

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100 Sci-Fi movies in 100 days!

"Ghosts of Mars" is a 2001 sci-fi movie written & directed by John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing, Escape From New York, Christine.) It has an all-star cast including Natasha Henstridge, Ice Cube, Jason Statham, Clea DuVall and Pam Grier.
The story is set 200 years in the future on the planet Mars. It's about cops who are sent to a mining facility to investigate why the mining corporation has lost contact with them. What they find when they get there is that the miners have been taken over or possessed by the ghosts of Martians who lived their long ago. These ghosts are very violent and are determined to kill any aliens (humans) who have come to their planet. The cops must team up with a few prisoners and remaining miners who haven't been possessed yet in order to have a fighting chance of getting out of the mining facility alive when the ghosts invade with their army of host bodies.

I have always known about this movie, but this is my first time to watch it. I had listened to friends that saw it and basically said it sucked, so I never watched it for myself. I wish now that I would have watched it because I thought it was awesome! I mean, how could it not be... you have John Carpenter at the helm, the beautiful Natasha Henstridge,

Natasha Henstridge

 Jason Statham, and a Hollywood legend like Pam Grier and they are on Mars! Just hearing that should have made me check it out.

Jason Statham in one of his first major roles

 

The movie plays like a western... you have a mining town, a sheriff, a posse', a prisoner, a train, and lots of shootouts. All that was missing were horses. LOL. There was tons of action and extreme violence, including lots of beheadings and cannibalism. The violent martians would put the human heads on pikes in the ground. They also threw circular saw blade looking weapons that would cut off arms, legs, heads, etc. The makeup was creepy too. 
The set construction was awesome. The mining town looked very gritty and something cool that I read was that much of the location shooting was done on a gypsum mine near Albuquerque, New Mexico and that gypsum is pure white in color... so to make it look like the red surface of Mars they sprayed the ground and hills and mountainside with a biodegradable red food dye to make it look like the Martian landscape. A lot of detail went into the art design of this movie.

                    Click on the box above to see the trailer.


If you like John Carpenter films and Sci-fi action films then I think this one might just be for you.
Check it out! It's available on Youtube, Netflix and DVD.



- Patrick Shawn Bennett
Broadcasting from a runaway train on Mars.

Movie #28: The Angry Red Planet

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100 Sci-Fi movies in 100 days!

"The Angry Red Planet" is a sci-fi film from 1959 which was directed by Ib melchior and stars Gerald Mohr, Naura Hayden, and Les Tremayne.
It's about the first spaceship sent to explore Mars, which disappears. We finally recover the ship, bringing it back to Earth via remote control. Only 2 of the 4 crew members are still alive... an unconscious girl and a guy in a coma with some sort of alien growth attached to his arm. The scientist are able to wake the girl up and as she slowly starts remembering what happened to them on Mars, she tells an amazing story of horror about giant creatures living on the Red planet. 

With the girl's help, the scientists are able to remove the growth from the guy's arm. The two astronauts tell of a warning that the aliens of Mars gave to them before they made it back to Earth. The recorded message is found aboard the spaceship and is played back, revealing a message from Mars that if the Earth sends another ship to their Planet, they will destroy the Earth.

                   Click on the box above to see the trailer

I thought the acting was pretty good and the costumes, props and sets were practical and believable for that time period. The special effects were unique... they put the film of the crew on Mars fighting aliens through some sort of process (which the trailer refers to as "cinemagic")that made it look almost like a negative image with a glowing red tint to it. It was actually pretty cool looking. 

Here's the Mars mission crew seen with the "Cinemagic" applied

The alien creatures they encountered on Mars were pretty freaky. One was a giant fly-trap type plant creature with tentacles. Another was a giant crab-like creature with a bat's head. There was even a gelatin type creature that reminded me of the creature on "The Blob." Yes, Mars is wickedly dangerous place that we Earthling should stay clear of.

Les Treymane as "Mentor" in the TV series "Shazam!"

One of the actors, the doctor aboard the spaceship, was Les Tremayne. He later acted in one of my most beloved kid's TV shows of the '70s... "Shazam!" Les played Billy Batson's mentor who drove the Winnebago RV. What a great actor. He passed away a few years back. Wish I could have gotten his autograph on a Shazam picture.

I enjoyed watching the film, but I don't think it's for everyone. But if you want to see some cool trials at early sic-fi special effects, then go for it. It's on Netflix and Youtube.

- Patrick Shawn Bennett
Broadcasting from the red planet.

XXX

Movie #27: The Incredible Melting Man

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100 Sci-Fi movies in 100 days!

"The Incredible Melting Man" is a sci-fi/horror film from 1977 (the same year Star Wars came out.) It is written & directed by William Sachs (the director of Galaxina) and stars Alex Rebar as an astronaut who passes through the rings of Saturn in his spaceship and is exposed to some sort of radiation. When he returns to Earth, his flesh begins melting right off his body like cheese sliding off a pizza. He is an oozing, dripping mess. He escapes from the science lab and begins killing and eating people, like a zombie. A scientist friend of his tries to find him before the police do so that he can help him. But the countdown is on in which the melting man will eventually melt away to a stain on the ground.

                     click on the box above to see the trailer


Famous Hollywood make effects guru, Rick Baker, is behind the melting man effects on this film. You can tell that it is some of his earliest work because it is so cheesy, as is the acting. It's basically a slasher flick and I would have completely overlooked it if it weren't for the fact that Baker had had worked on it. I guess it's worth checking out just to see some of his earliest work to compare to what he does today on films like Hellboy and Men in Black 3.

Rick Baker on the set doing what he does best

- Patrick Shawn BennettBroadcasting from the land of melting goo.

Movie #25: Robot Monster

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100 Sci-Fi movies in 100 days!

"Robot Monster" is a 1953 film that was shot in 3D and directed by Phil Tucker. It stars George Nader, Gregory Moffett and Claudia Barrett. Let me start off by saying this... I read that shortly after the movie released in 1953, the director, Phil Tucker, tried to kill himself because the movie sucked so bad. With that said, could this be the worst movie ever made? It has to be up there with the best, or the best of the worst.  But then again, I thought it was great because of the cheese factor. 

I always laugh out loud at the costume and some of the things that go on in the film. It's one of those "so bad it's good" type of movies to me. I had a VHS copy of this film a couple of decades ago that was actually in 3D. It came with a couple pair of cardboard 3D glasses, so I got to see the film the way it was originally meant to be seen.
The story is about a Robot Monster called Ro-Man, but that was also his alien race (Ro-Man instead of Hu-Man.) This monster was sent to Earth to kill all the humans so that the rest of his race could come and colonize the planet. 

Well, he kills everyone but a group of 5 people who have developed a drug that makes them immune to his radiation weapons. This is where the story begins. It's about Ro-Man trying to kill the final humans.

   Click the box above to see the trailer to "Robot Monster."

The movie looks like it was made for about $50. The monster is just a dude in a gorilla costume with a space helmet over his head. The main film set was just a couple of tables with radios on them sitting in the opening of a cave (which was filmed at the famous California park which has this cave that's been seen in hundreds of movies... called Bronson Canyon.) 

The dialogue was cheesy and the acting was over the top. The special effects were pretty bad too. I don't know what the deal was with all the bubbles. Every time Ro-Man used his radio to contact his commander, hundreds of bubbles would come out of the equipment. Maybe it was for the 3D aspect of the film. 
Horrible Film? Judge for yourself, but it has become a cult classic. The entire movie is on Youtube for your enjoyment.

- Patrick Shawn Bennett
Broadcasting from a hidden cave inside Bronson Canyon.

Movie #19: Not of this Earth

Welcome to Sci-Fi 100! 
100 Sci-Fi movies in 100 days!

"Not of this Earth" is a 1988 cheesefest from executive producer Roger Corman. (Which is a remake of a movie he made in the '50s.) The film was directed by Jim Wynorski (Return of the Swamp Thing) and stars ex-porn star turned actress Traci Lords, Arthur Roberts and Lenny Juliana.
The story is about some space vampires who come to Earth to get blood to ship back to their home planet so they can sustain their life. Earth blood is the richest blood they have found on any planet. They try to send humans through a space portal to their planet but it doesn't work. They can only send containers of blood through. 

Traci Lords taking a break at the pool

The creepy trench-coat-wearing & sunglasses-wearing vampire hires a private nurse (Lords) to give him daily blood transfusions to keep him alive while he conducts his vampire duties in the basement, which the nurse knows nothing of. 

Traci Lords in her nurse outfit

The way he kills his victims and drains their blood is by taking off his sunglasses and shooting blue lightning out of his eyes. 
He gets his victims, mostly females, by picking up hookers and taking them home to the basement.
An ex-boyfriend of the nurse, who is now a cop, is investigating "disappearances" of hookers and other people in the area. When everything starts pointing to the strange man in the sunglasses, the vampire tries to kill the nurse and the cops that are onto him.

       Click on the box above to watch the video release trailer.

The movie, and story, is very cheesy, yet entertaining. (like most of Roger Corman's classics.) The special effects were bad and the acting was somewhat over-the-top, but that just added to the enjoyment of the film. I think Traci Lords looked better in this film than I have ever seen her before. She was gorgeous and stunning with her blonde '80s hairdo and black evening dress and even more gorgeous in that blue bikini!
The movie is available on DVD, also on Netflix. Be warned though that there are a few scenes with nudity.
Check it out. I might watch the original '50s version somewhere along this 100 movie journey. It will be fun to compare the two.

- Patrick Shawn Bennett
Broadcasting from within the portal to another world. 

xxx

Movie #23: Android

Welcome to Sci-Fi 100! 
100 Sci-Fi movies in 100 days!

"Android" is a sci-fi film from 1982. It is directed by Aaron Lipstadt, who is a well known television director, and stars Klaus Kinski (I think this is the 3rd movie I've reviewed starring this creepy actor) Don Keith Opper and Bri Howard.
The movie is about an android named Max who is shy, clumsy, and very awkward. He lives aboard a space station with a mad scientist and assists him in illegal experiments involving androids. 

Don Keith Opper as the android MAX

Androids have long been banned on Earth because there was an android revolt where the androids went crazy and stopped obeying humans and started killing their owners. Since then, it has been illegal to own or build an android. That's why Max and the scientist conduct their experiments in deep space. The main experiment that the crazy doctor is working on is trying to create an android that will be the ultimate female. He hopes she will serve him in any way, even sexual.

Klaus Kinski as the mad scientist

Max is only 5 years old and has never actually seen a woman, except on old movie videos he watches when he's off duty. Max dreams and fantasizes what it would be like to actually meet a real woman. He suddenly gets the chance when a spaceship signals his space station asking permission to make an emergency landing to repair their ship. Max has strict orders to never let anyone come onboard the station, but... the person requesting to land is a woman. 

Max decides to grant permission. What Max doesn't know is that the woman and her two male companions are actually deadly criminals who escaped a space prison.
The prisoners land and come aboard and use aliases and make up a story to fool Max into letting them stay for a while so they can work on their ship. Max is so preoccupied by the woman that he is easily fooled.
When the scientist finds out what Max has done, he is furious. That is until he too sees the woman. Then he wants to use the woman in his experiment to transfer some of her sexuality into the female android he is working on.

The scientist is still mad at Max and fears that Max is developing the same condition that caused the androids of earth to rebel. Max hears him recording in a voice log stating that he will terminate Max once the female android is complete and she will be his replacement.
Later, the police track the stolen spaceship the criminals escaped on to the space station. They ask permission to land. Max, in love with the human woman and not wanting harm to come to her, blasts the police ship out of the sky with a laser. When the criminals find out Max has helped them they take a liking to him. The woman tries to make out with Max, but freaks out when she discovers he is an android. She flees.

Max the android in killer mode

The criminals get in a fight over the girl making out with the android and the main criminal guy kills the girl. The other criminal guy challenges him and also gets killed. 
The scientist reprograms Max to kill the remaining criminal. Max does. Meanwhile more police arrive. while they are searching the ship, the scientist tries to make out with his new female android creation, but she resists and fights him. Max shows up and helps her fight the scientist. When the police storm the lab, they find the two androids who are disguised as the scientist and his female assistant. They ask to return to Earth with the policemen. They hope to seek out any surviving androids and start a new life with them.

                     Click the box above to view the trailer.

The movie had some pretty good special effects for a low-budget '80s movie. The sets were great too. Klaus Kinski played a great mad scientist... he's usually creepy in every role he plays. 
Don Keith Opper was very believable as an android. His odd and quirky behavior was quiet convincing. Watching his performance was the best part of the movie. He later played the bounty hunter in the "Critters" franchise.
Overall I thought it was a good, solid, sci-fi flick. The story seemed pretty original too. It's available on Netflix. Check it out.

- Patrick Shawn Bennett
Broadcasting from Android Central

xxx

Movie #22: Dredd

Welcome to Sci-Fi 100! 
100 Sci-Fi movies in 100 days!

*** NO SPOILERS. ***
"Dredd" is a sci-fi / action film starring Karl urban, Olivia Thirby, and Lena Headey. 

Karl Urban as Judge Dredd and Olivia Thirby as a trainee

It's based off the '80s comic book character Judge Dredd. 

How Judge Dredd looked in the comic books

The premise of the story is that in the dystopian future, the United States is pretty much a wasteland. There is high crime and the remains of the cities are over- filled with the homeless, gangs, drug dealers, and people just trying to survive. There is hope though... there is some justice left... the futuristic police force known as the"Judges." They are special cops who have instant field judiciary powers... they are judge, jury and executioner. If they judge you guilty of a crime, and the penalty for that crime is death, they can execute you on the spot. No courts, no lawyers, no overcrowded jails. Thy take care of business. 

Karl Urban as Judge Dredd int he 2012 film

Sylvester Stallone as Judge Dredd in the 1995 film

They are the law. Judge Dredd is the most famous and most feared of all the Judges. Karl Urban plays Judge Dredd in this new film, but in 1995... Sylvester Stallone stepped into the characters boots in the film "Judge Dredd" which also starred Diane Lane and Rob Schneider. Schneider was put in there for comic relief. The new film doesn't have such a character. It is a lot darker and more violent than the first movie. 

     Click the box above to watch the trailer for the new film

Poster from the 1995 Stallone film

The plot of the new movie, which can be seen on the trailer, is... Judge Dredd has to team up with a trainee to take down a gang that deals the reality-altering drug called Slo-Mo.
Without giving spoilers, all I can say about this movie is that it's good. It's a solid film with a great cast, great action, great special effects, great props & wardrobe, and lots of things go boom! I can see this turning into a franchise with many more movies or being a great idea for a weekly TV series.
Go check it out while it's still in theaters so you can experience it on the big screen.

Click the box above to watch the trailer for the Stallone version

The Stallone version looks way cooler... in a cheesier kind of way. I haven't seen it in a while. I noticed it came out on Blu-ray this week. It would be a perfect movie to review at a later blog.


- Patrick Shawn Bennett
Broadcasting from the wastelands of future America.

xxx