301 posts tagged with scifi and sciencefiction.
Displaying 1 through 50 of 301. Subscribe:
Movie: Things Will Be Different
Two siblings on the run hide out in a farmhouse and get into some adventures in this cerebral time-travel movie. The trailer has some mild spoilers. [more inside]
Movie: The Cat
[TRAILER] Okay, imagine a remake of the 1978 Disney movie The Cat From Outer Space, only it's from Hong Kong exploitation company Golden Harvest, it's directed by Lam Ngai Kai (Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky), and it's filled with ultraviolence, goopy body horror VFX, a monstrous alien that seems to be made of tongues, and a fight between the strongest dog in the world and an alien cat named The General. [more inside]
Movie: Enemy Mine
1985 film about an alien and a human who crash land on a dangerous planet after a space battle, then continue their war one-on-one until they realize they have to work together to survive. With Louis Gossett Jr. under 4 hours of makeup and gargling his own spit to give the alien language that extra....something, Dennis Quaid as the jerky human who must learn to live with The Other, and a fun biological twist. Directed by Wolfgang Petersen soon after Das Boot and The Neverending Story. [more inside]
Movie: The Apple
[TRAILER] In the glitzy, glittering futuristic world of 1994, music is king -- and the man who controls it is all-powerful malicious mogul Mr. Boogalow. Now he has his eye on two fresh-faced young singers, Alphie and Bibi, who score a hit at his WorldVision Song Festival and fall under the irresistible spell of fame, money, and temptation. A science-fiction musical also known as Star Rock. [more inside]
Movie: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
[TRAILER] Many years after the reign of Caesar, a young ape goes on a journey that will lead him to question everything he's been taught about the past and make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike. [more inside]
Movie: Doomsday
[TRAILER] When the first outbreak of the Reaper virus hit Scotland, Eden Sinclair was one of the last to escape containment and had to leave her mother behind. Twenty-five years later, Maj. Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) leads a team back into the hot zone to find a counteragent to the virus, which has re-emerged in London. She and her comrades wage a desperate battle for survival against feral survivors, as they try to prevent it from ushering in a new dark age. [more inside]
Movie: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
[TRAILER] Captain William "Buck" Rogers (Gil Gerard) is a jovial space cowboy who is accidentally time-warped from 1987 to 2491. Earth is engaged in interplanetary war following a global holocaust, and Buck's piloting skills make him an ideal starfighter recruit for the Earth Defense Directorate, where his closest colleagues are Dr. Huer (Tim O'Connor), squadron leader Col. Wilma Deering (Erin Gray), the wisecracking robot Twiki (voiced by cartoon legend Mel Blanc), and a portable computer-brain named Dr. Theopolis. Produced as a television pilot, but released theatrically in advance of the TV show. [more inside]
Movie: X-Men: First Class
[TRAILER] In the early 1960s, during the height of the Cold War, a mutant named Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) meets a fellow mutant named Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender). Despite their vastly different backgrounds -- Charles grew up with a wealthy family, while Erik lost his parents at Auschwitz -- the two become close friends. As the world teeters on the brink of a nuclear war, Charles and Erik join forces with other mutants to save humanity. However, a situation soon tears the friends apart. [more inside]
Movie: The Wolverine
[TRAILER] Lured to a Japan he hasn't seen since World War II, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) finds himself in a shadowy realm of yakuza and samurai. [more inside]
Movie: X-Men Origins: Wolverine
[TRAILER] After seeking to live a normal life, Logan (Hugh Jackman) sets out to avenge the death of his girlfriend by undergoing the mutant Weapon X program and becoming Wolverine. [more inside]
Movie: X-Men: The Last Stand
[TRAILER] When a cure is found to treat mutations, lines are drawn amongst the X-Men—led by Professor Charles Xavier—and the Brotherhood, a band of powerful mutants organised under Xavier’s former ally, Magneto. [more inside]
Movie: X-Men
[TRAILER] Two mutants, Rogue (Anna Paquin) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), come to a private academy for their kind whose resident superhero team, the X-Men, must oppose a terrorist organization with similar powers. [more inside]
Movie: Dead End Drive-In
[TRAILER] In the future, a health nut and his tag-along girlfriend become trapped in a drive-in theater that has become a concentration camp for outcast youths. [more inside]
Movie: Arcadian
[TRAILER] In a near future, life on Earth has been decimated. Paul (Nicolas Cage) and his twin teenage sons (Jaeden Martell, Maxwell Jenkins) find tranquility by day but terror by night when ferocious creatures awaken and consume all living souls in their path. Faced with an impossible situation, the boys come up with a desperate plan for survival, using everything their father taught them to keep him alive. [more inside]
Pantheon: Season 1 (all episodes) Season 1, Ep 0
Bullied teen Maddie begins receiving messages from a mysterious stranger that claims to be her recently deceased father, David; his consciousness has been uploaded to the cloud after an experimental brain scan, and it turns out he's not the only one. [more inside]
Movie: Invention for Destruction
[TRAILER] Also known as The Fabulous World of Jules Verne. An evil millionaire named Artigas plans to use a super-explosive device to conquer the world from his headquarters inside an enormous volcano. Karel Zeman's legendary Czechoslovak black-and-white science fiction adventure film, based on several works by Jules Verne. [more inside]
Movie: Bride of Re-Animator
[TRAILER] Unperturbed by the disastrous outcome of his previous meddling with the dead, Dr. West (Jeffrey Combs) continues his research into the phenomenon of re-animation; only this time, he plans to create life... starting with the heart of his young protégé Dan's dearly deceased Meg Halsey. [more inside]
Movie: Battlefield Earth
[TRAILER] In the year 3000, man is no match for the Psychlos, a greedy, manipulative race of aliens on a quest for ultimate profit. Led by the powerful Terl (John Travolta), the Psychlos are stripping Earth clean of its natural resources, using the broken remnants of humanity as slaves. What is left of the human race has descended into a near primitive state. After being captured, it is up to Tyler (Barry Pepper) to save mankind. [more inside]
Movie: Her
[TRAILER] In the not so distant future, Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix), a lonely writer, purchases a newly developed operating system designed to meet the user's every need. To Theodore's surprise, a romantic relationship develops between him and his operating system (Scarlett Johansson). [more inside]
Movie: Akira
[TRAILER] In 1988 the Japanese government drops an atomic bomb on Tokyo after ESP experiments on children go awry. In 2019, 31 years after nuking the city, Kaneda, a bike gang leader, tries to save his friend Tetsuo from a secret government project. He battles against anti-government activists, greedy politicians, irresponsible scientists and a powerful military leader until Tetsuo's supernatural power suddenly manifest. A final battle is fought in Tokyo Olympiad exposing the experiment's secrets. [more inside]
Glitch: (2022, Kdrama) Season 1, Ep 0
Glitch (2022) is a Korean scifi drama. Hong Ji-Hyo (Jeon Yeo-been) and Heo Bo-ra (Nana) are childhood friends who are obsessed with UFOs and alien abductions. Years later, they reunite to solve the mystery of Ji-hyo's mysteriously missing boyfriend, which leads to deeper and more sinister mysteries. It's on Netflix in the USA. [more inside]
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist
A narrative RPG with a card battling system and a queer-friendly science fiction vibe. Explore, grow up, and fall in love. The choices you make and skills you master over ten years will determine the course of your life and the survival of your colony. [more inside]
Movie: Ikarie XB 1
Awesome 1963 Czech scifi film directed by Jindrich Polák about a spaceship crew bound for Alpha Centauri, based on an early Stanislaw Lem novella. It's been called an influence on 2001 (we know Kubrick saw it) and Star Trek. It includes eerie encounters with alien spacecraft, fantastic sets and costumes, a wonderful experimental electro-acoustic score by Zdeněk Liška (who later scored Jan Svankmeyer shorts), and the 2nd best outer space dance scene ever, complete with casual drug-sniffing. Available in a beautiful 2016 restoration from Second Run DVD with neat extras, and currently up at YouTube. [more inside]
Movie: Viking
A sly, deadpan Canadian comedy about a team of non-astronauts sent into isolation in a desert on Earth because their personalities match the members of an actual ongoing Mars mission that's having interpersonal conflicts. The earthbound team is tasked with mirroring the real astronauts' behavior and coming up with solutions to the Martian team's psychological problems. 100% on RT with 9 reviews, free on Tubi and other options, mostly in French with English subtitles.
Book: Wool (Silo, Book One) by Hugh Howey
Thousands of them have lived underground. They've lived there so long, there are only legends about people living anywhere else. Such a life requires rules. Strict rules. There are things that must not be discussed. Like going outside. Never mention you might like going outside. Wool is book one in the Silo series, a TV adaptation of which on Apple TV just completed its first season.
Movie: Fresh Kill
[TRAILER] Shareen and Claire, a lesbian couple living on Staten Island, find themselves ensnared in a vast conspiracy involving a ghost ship of nuclear refuse, ominous television commercials, and deadly cat food. [more inside]
Movie: Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers: To Live and Die in Starlight
A disgraced Ranger takes command of an old, possibly haunted, ship on an escort mission that encounters deadly peril from a new enemy civilization. [more inside]
Movie: Primer
Intellectual engineers Aaron (Shane Carruth) and Abe (David Sullivan) build and sell error-checking technology with the help of their friends Robert (Casey Gooden) and Phillip (Anand Upadhyaya). But when Aaron and Abe accidentally invent what they think is a time machine, Abe builds a version capable of transporting a human and puts the device to the test. As the two friends obsess over their creation, they discover the dark consequences of their actions. [more inside]
Movie: Wyrm
In an alternative 1990s, lonely Wyrm grieves his recently-deceased older brother, and struggles to complete a unique school requirement in which students wear electronic collars that detach only upon engaging in their first kiss, with little help from his distant parents. Expanded from a 2017 short film; available to watch on Hulu and several other streaming services. Heavily reminiscent of Napoleon Dynamite, but more melancholy. Written and directed by Christopher Winterbauer. Includes a short Rhea Seehorn appearance.
The Peripheral: Jackpot Books Included Season 1, Ep 4
Flynne's health takes a turn. Wilf visits Flynne in Clanton, deepening their relationship. [more inside]
Movie: Significant Other
Young couple Ruth (Maika Monroe) and Harry (Jake Lacy) take a remote backpacking trip through the Pacific Northwest, but things take a dark turn when they realize they may not be alone. [more inside]
Movie: Lightyear
Legendary Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear embarks on an intergalactic adventure alongside a group of ambitious recruits and his robot companion Sox.
Russian Doll: Full Season Two Season 2, Ep 0
Russian Doll returns after three years. [more inside]
Movie: Finch
On a post-apocalyptic Earth, a robot, built to protect the life of his dying creator's beloved dog, learns about life, love, friendship, and what it means to be human.
(Apple TV +)
Book: A Psalm for the Wild-Built
It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.
One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered.
But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.
They're going to need to ask it a lot.
Babylon 5: Intersections In Real Time Rewatch Season 4, Ep 18
John Sheridan is interrogated in his prison cell. Will he sign a confession? And what will happen to him if he doesn’t?
“The truth is sometimes what you believe it to be and sometimes what you decide it to be. My task is to make you... decide to believe differently.” [more inside]
Babylon 5: The Face of the Enemy Rewatch Season 4, Ep 17
The battle to free Earth from the Clark regime continues. Sheridan attempts to rescue his father. Garibaldi commits a betrayal and learns some devastating truths.
“I think the last guy got thirty pieces of silver for the same job.” [more inside]
Babylon 5: The Exercise of Vital Powers Rewatch Season 4, Ep 16
Garibaldi journeys to Mars to meet his secretive employer at last. Meanwhile, Dr. Franklin and Lyta continue trying to free the Shadow-implanted telepaths. [more inside]
Book: Fugitive Telemetry
The latest in Martha Wells's stellar Murderbot series, novella-length Fugitive Telemetry, is out. [more inside]
Book: Cryptonomicon
Written by Neal Stephenson and published in 1999. Two groups of characters, one from the late thirties and forties and one in the then present-day ~1999 (a few who are descendants of the earlier group) involve themselves with codes, codebreaking, and Axis war gold, among other things. [more inside]
Movie: Sputnik
In 1983, a cosmonaut is involved in an incident in space and crash-lands back to the Soviet Union. A nervy psychiatrist (Oksana Akinshina, Lilya 4-ever) is recruited to help him recover from his amnesia about the incident in this sci-fi horror movie. [more inside]
Book: The City in the Middle of the Night
Humanity clings to life on January--a colonized planet divided between permanently frozen darkness on one side, and blazing endless sunshine on the other. Two cities, built long ago in the meager temperate zone, serve as the last bastions of civilization--but life inside them is just as dangerous as the uninhabitable wastelands outside.
Sophie, a young student from the wrong side of Xiosphant city, is exiled into the dark after being part of a failed revolution. But she survives--with the help of a mysterious savior from beneath the ice.
Movie: WALL-E
In the distant future, a small waste-collecting robot inadvertently embarks on a space journey that will ultimately decide the fate of mankind. [more inside]
FanFare Book Club?
I just went through the book posts for the last three months. There's lots of books I'm considering reading, and one book I read a while ago but don't remember well enough to do deep insightful commentary. In order to get more synchronicity on this, does anyone want to start a book club? Or even a couple in different genres? I would love a romance, science fiction, fantasy and/or nonfiction book club.
Movie: Prospect
A teenage girl and her father travel to a remote alien moon, aiming to strike it rich. They've secured a contract to harvest a large deposit of the elusive gems hidden in the depths of the moon's toxic forest. But there are others roving the wilderness and the job quickly devolves into a fight to survive. Forced to contend not only with the forest's other ruthless inhabitants, but with her own ...
Movie: The Big Space Travel
From the same studio that produced Richard Viktorov’s diptych Moscow-Cassiopeia / Adolescents in the Universe comes this second teen-themed sci-fi adventure, in which three youngsters have to take command of a space flight when their adult captain comes down sick and is forced to quarantine himself. [more inside]
Movie: Teens in the Universe
Interstellar expedition equipped by "pioneers"(soviet scouts) travels to Alpha Kassiopea after receiving a distress signal and finds a planet run entirely to the ends of making its inhabitants happy. Unexpected difficulties, however, ensued. [more inside]
Movie: Moscow-Cassiopeia
A young student develops an interstellar engine that can reach near light speed and seeks to take a team of teens on a mission to Cassiopeia to check out the origins of a radio signal emanating from near the star. The mission requires teens as it is expected to take 50 years to complete. [more inside]
Babylon 5: No Surrender, No Retreat Season 4, Ep 15
Sheridan and B5 try to free Proxima III. Londo and G'Kar try something new. "So from now on, I guess the operational phrase is 'trust no one'." "No. Trust Ivanova; trust yourself. Anybody else -- shoot 'em!" [more inside]
Book: A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarer's Guide #2)
Lovelace was once merely a ship's artificial intelligence. When she wakes up in an new body, following a total system shut-down and reboot, she has no memory of what came before. As Lovelace learns to negotiate the universe and discover who she is, she makes friends with Pepper, an excitable engineer, who's determined to help her learn and grow.