Warning: Minor Man of Steel spoilers follow. In all fairness, Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel is a beautiful movie. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect from a “New 52”-era DC Comics adaptation: loads of […]
Science fiction and fantasy are taking over the realm of the Hollywood summer blockbuster, no question about it. Marvel Studios is gearing up to launch the Avengers franchise into space with the forthcoming Guardians of […]
I’ll try and keep this spoiler-free, because I think it goes without saying that spoilers are the film buff’s bane, but I will need to at least hint at a few key aspects of the […]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cn4A5IZg1k&w=570&h=321] Having seen Star Trek Into Darkness twice now, and having very much enjoyed it, my aim is to avoid spoilers here whenever possible, for the sake of those readers who might intend to […]
I think Django Unchained is one of the ballsiest, most badass flicks I’ve seen in ages — significantly more mature, artful, and honest than Tarantino’s own Inglorious Basterds, I’d argue. Its unflinching portrayal of the acts […]
Iron Man Three surpasses its predecessor, Joss Whedon’s The Avengers, in one very exciting and fundamental way: it feels more like an actual comic book than any single Marvel flick before it—hell, maybe more than […]
I’m sitting with a group of friends in the Seminary Street Pub, familiar faces here and there casting shadows upon near-forgotten memories, making plain the slippery nature of time and life. Red neon lights drench […]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQcgiZwLxVM&w=570&h=321] Joseph Kosinski’s Oblivion (2013) is a love letter to every science fiction film you’ve already seen, and a pretty beautiful one, at that, but it nearly collapses under the weight of its own […]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_hYs1jBy8Y&w=570&h=321] You can almost smell the rain, feel it hammer the leather of your trenchcoat. Hear the harmonic buzz of blue neon all around you. You can taste the Tsingtao, bubbly and cool on […]
The following essay originally appeared in issue number 111 of the quarterly journal Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, edited by Graham Sleight. Revised and expanded, 2nd ed. Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road […]
“The safest place there is. . . .” It’s a dubious, quizzical line, delivered by Lois Smith near the end of her one unforgettable scene as the self-proclaimed mother of Precrime. Dubious because we’re talking […]
According to my extensive academic research over at Wikipedia this afternoon, the third installment in Fox’s Alien Quadrilogy (’Cause why use the word tetralogy, right? What a lousy word . . .) went through development hell for several […]
Last Saturday, I spent my morning on the couch with a debilitating migraine, wondering what karmic injustice I’d committed in order to deserve being so miserable on my weekend off. But like the glass-half-full seeker […]
We geeks love our gadgets. Can’t live without ’em. Granted, I have a dumbphone and a laptop—neither a tablet nor smartphone to boast of. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t rather own a Galaxy S-III or […]
I would put forward that the next thing is going to be a story, because right now, people really don’t have a big story, a big software. . . . They don’t have a big […]
I had given some thought to doing an Oscars recap this week, tallying the various gains and losses of the science fiction and fantasy fields within that most prestigious of movie awards ceremonies. But given […]
Vampire flicks have been all the rage since Twilight flooded the box office with sticky, coppery crimson in ’08, and have proven a solid moneymaking strategy ever since, with each of the saga’s four sequels […]
(Or, Why Your Beloved Franchise Is About to Become More Powerful than You Could Possibly Imagine.) Since the news that J. J. Abrams will be directing the seventh installment of Star Wars hit a couple […]
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