THE GREEN SLIME (1968) -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 6/9/21

 

Currently watching: THE GREEN SLIME (1968), a collaboration between Italy, Japan, and the USA, with the disparate cinematic styles of each clashing together to create a wild space opera-slash-monster movie that's both exhilaratingly strange and delightfully bad.

Some time in the future an orbiting space station detects an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Commander Jack Rankin (TV star Robert Horton, "A Man Called Shenandoah", "Wagon Train") is called out of retirement to head a team of astronauts to take off from the space station, land on the asteroid, and plant bombs that will blow it to smithereens.

The team does so in what is basically a small-scale dry run for the later epic ARMAGEDDON, but this time the astronauts bring back an unexpected souvenir from the asteroid in the form of a strange green slime which, when charged with electricity, grows into a horde of grotesque, very hostile alien creatures with pincer-tipped tentacles and one big red eye. 

 

 

Feeding upon the space station's various energy sources, the creatures grow in size and multiply rapidly until the station's inhabitants begin dying horribly one by one and end up fighting hand-to-tentacle for their very survival.

Hence, the entire second half of the film is a furious and at times incomprehensible series of frantic battle sequences splattered with red blood and green slime, as the space soldiers struggle to protect the station's medical and scientific personnel as well as other civilians.

To make matters worse, Rankin's romantic rival, Commander Vince Elliott (Richard Jaeckel, THE DIRTY DOZEN, STARMAN) chafes at having his command usurped by Rankin, with the mutual object of their affection, beautiful medical officer Dr. Lisa Benson (Luciana Paluzzi, THUNDERBALL, MUSCLE BEACH PARTY), adding fuel to the fire with her very presence.

 

 
From the film's first scenes, we're treated to an environment almost totally comprised of miniatures--cityscapes, rocket launch pads and spaceships, the rotating space station itself, etc.--which sometimes approach the quality of the usual Toho/Kaiju stuff we're used to, while at other times are markedly cheap and fake-looking.

Space station and spaceship interiors have the low-budget look of the old live-action Saturday morning sci-fi shows from Filmation such as "Space Academy" and "Jason of Star Command", and even such earlier series as "Rocky Jones, Space Ranger." On the plus side, vivid colors abound in most scenes, especially those involving the approaching asteroid, giving them a pleasing comic-book quality.

The low-rent feel of the film also shows in the artless, almost amateurish direction and camerawork, which, combined with the freaky slime-monster costumes and other slapdash special effects, make the film either an object of boredom and derision or, for bad movie lovers such as myself, a delightfully dizzying wallow in junk-movie joy.

 

Amazingly, this movie was directed by the same man, Kinji Fukasaku, who would go on to helm the spectacular sci-fi classic BATTLE ROYALE in 2000.  The consistently tense screenplay also boasts as its co-writer another familiar name--Bill Finger, who, along with Bob Kane, created the legendary comic book character, Batman.

Square-jawed and stern, Horton's Commander Rankin could almost have stepped right out of an episode of "Thunderbirds Are Go!" Jaeckle gets a rare chance to stretch his considerable acting chops in a major role, while Paluzzi has a cult appeal all her own as the woman who keeps the film's romantic triangle fired up while protecting her patients from the rampaging slime creatures.

While none of this looks or feels convincing for a second, THE GREEN SLIME is such a relentless onslaught of splashy, full-tilt space madness that one can hardly fail to enjoy it to some degree, on its own oddball terms, as an old-fashioned space opera laced with cheesy 1960s mod stylings and juvenile Monster Kid fun.

THE GREEN SLIME (1968) -- Movie Review by Porfle

DARK STORM -- Movie Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 11/15/10

 

After watching EARTHSTORM with Stephen Baldwin, I thought to myself, "Wow, I sure would like to see another cheapo Canadian ARMAGEDDON-inspired Stephen Baldwin sci-fi movie with the word 'storm' in the title." 

Well, the good folks at the SyFy Channel and Lionsgate must've heard me, because sure enough, here's DARK STORM (2006), a cheapo Stephen Baldwin sci-fi movie made in Canada with the tagline "Armageddon is on the horizon."  Yay...

At least Stephen Baldwin fit the part of a building-demolition expert in EARTHSTORM.  Here, he plays a scientist named Daniel Gray who's part of a secret government project to collect dark matter in space.  (I'm not quite sure what "dark matter" is, but it's one of those neat things like wormholes that you don't really have to understand in order for it to be a cool subject for a sci-fi flick.)  Seeing Stephen Baldwin in a lab coat is like seeing a gorilla wearing a tutu--somehow, the two just don't go together.  I kept expecting his associate Dr. Fred Flintstone to show up at some point so they could sneak out and go bowling together.

Anyway, this project is supposedly being done to benefit Mankind somehow, but the weaselly guy in charge of it, Dr. McKray (Gardiner Millar), turns out to be a dirty rat who's planning to turn the whole thing into a deadly weapon and sell it to the highest international bidder.  While demonstrating it to the visiting General Killion (William B. Davis, better known as Cancer Man from "The X-Files"), who controls the government purse-strings that finance the project, a containment leak in the orbiting dark-matter-collecting satellite is detected and a cloud of dark matter is spreading over the atmosphere.  (Sorry, but I'm just going to have to keep saying "dark matter" a bunch of times during this review.)
 

Dr. McKray doesn't want to lose his funding so he forces the reticent Dr. Baldwin and his coworkers to ignore safety measures and proceed with the demonstration, which causes the dark matter to enter our atmosphere at different points known as "spikes", wreaking all sorts of havoc with the weather and disintegrating airplanes and buildings and stuff.  This is done using that TV-quality kind of CGI that looks pretty good in some scenes and so hot at all in others.

Not only that, but Dr. Baldwin gets exposed to some errant dark matter himself during the botched test, which gives him strange super-powers that enable him to start his car without keys, lob dark-matter fastballs at bad guys, and repel focused beams of destructive dark matter with his mind.  He's Dark Matter Man!  This, too, turns out to be part of the repulsive Dr. McKray's plan to turn himself and everyone else into a race of dark-matter superbeings in order to bring Mankind's evolutionary process to its ultimate peak.  Wow--sounds just crazy enough to work!

It's interesting seeing William B. Davis as a good guy for a change, but without those fake cigarettes he used to chain-smoke on "The X-Files" he doesn't really know what to do with his hands anymore.  Camille Sullivan (THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT), who looks and sounds a bit like Sarah Jessica Parker but I didn't hold it against her, is okay as Dr. Baldwin's wife Ellie, and Keegan Connor Tracy (WHITE NOISE, FINAL DESTINATION 2) does a fairly good job playing the nasty agent of an unnamed government bidding for the dark-matter weapon.  I liked Rob LaBelle (FIDO, "Taken") as Dr. Baldwin's dorky associate Andy--he reminded me of a skinnier, shorter-haired Larry from the Three Stooges. 

Some of the dark-matter storm scenes are pretty cool but there are just enough shots of calamity and destruction, with varying degrees of cartoony-ness, to remind us that this is going on while the talkier, less-expensive scenes take up more running time.  Dr. McKray eventually has Dr. and Mrs. Baldwin kidnapped and taken to his secret dark-matter destructo-beam installation, and it's up to them to find a way to foil his evil scheme.  It all builds to a final super-powered showdown, with predictable results.

I liked EARTHSTORM better because its "Buck Rogers"-type space shuttle mission and other cheesy sci-fi elements were brighter and more fun.  DARK STORM, which is darker, more earthbound, and  a bit dreary at times, is a fairly entertaining time-waster and I didn't hate it, but that's about it.  

DARK STORM -- Movie Review by Porfle

EARTHSTORM -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 10/17/10

 

I really like imminent-doom-from-space movies like ARMAGEDDON, DEEP IMPACT, WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, and their directionally-inverted counterpart, THE CORE.  The makers of EARTHSTORM (2006) obviously like them, too, because their movie is very similar to these in several ways except a very obvious one: budget.  It's an epic disaster flick scaled down to barely the size of a Sci-Fi Channel movie (which, in fact, it is), with most of the drama taking place in--as Paul's very clean grandad from A HARD DAY'S NIGHT might have put it--a cheap CGI shot and a room, a barebones space shuttle interior and a room, and a room and a room.

After a title sequence that resembles the opening of "Star Trek:The Next Generation", the movie kicks off with the moon being struck by a huge asteroid.  Not only does this send a shower of huge meteorites raining down upon the Earth, but it also causes a gradually-widening crack that threatens to break the moon itself into pieces.  Worldwide weather chaos ensues as well, and we get to see the usual idiot newsguys standing in the middle of it as they breathlessly give us the play-by-play.  The CGI in the "meteors hit city" scenes is okay--not great, but not actually laughable, either.  It's a small-scale disaster, to be sure, but if you scale down your expectations to match, then it's not so bad.

Scientist Lara Gale (Amy Price-Francis) is summoned to the ASI, or "American Space Institute" (which is the equivalent of NASA in the alternate dimension in which this story seems to take place), by her colleague Dr. Garth Pender (John Ralston), to help whip up some kind of solution to the problem.  Lara's late father predicted that this scenario might someday occur and came up with his own theoretical remedy, based on his belief that the interior of the moon was composed mainly of iron.  This, however, was ridiculed by his peers in the scientific community, including the President's current Chief Scientific Advisor, Victor Stevens (Dirk Benedict), one of those characters whose sole purpose is to arbitrarily laugh off all the rational solutions proposed by our heroes and insist on doing things the stupid way.  Benedict, who was Starbuck on the original "Battlestar Galactica" and Face on "The A-Team", is used to playing stupid characters and does a pretty good job here.

The plan, as it is, consists of sending astronauts to the moon to blow up some nukes and cause the crack to collapse in upon itself.  In ARMAGEDDON, the fate of mankind rested on the world's greatest oil driller.  Here, it requires the expertise of ace building-blower-upper John Redding (Stephen Baldwin), who just happens to be the world's greatest demolition expert.  He gets summoned to ASI headquarters, and we just know that before you can say "Press the button, Stamper!", he's gonna end up having to go into space himself to make sure the job gets done right.  Upon hearing the plan, he protests, "I don't know anything about the moon!" to which Dr. Pender responds, "Nobody knows more about how things collapse in on themselves than you."  Well, you can't argue with that.

After a bunch of scenes consisting of people in rooms talking to each other, with a few "ehh" disaster shots thrown in here and there, we get to the film's most gripping sequence: the launch of the shuttle during a furious tropical storm.  With time running out and no backup plan, Redding and the two shuttle pilots must go for broke and take off even as various systems hover in and out of "no-go" status and the storm rages around them.  Things also get pretty tense during the shuttle's approach to the moon through a dense field of debris.  By this time, I wasn't expecting ILM-level effects, so I found these scenes visually adequate.  What sorta had me scratching my head, though, was the fact that they seem to have gravity on board the shuttle.  I guess you just can't simulate having a big lug like Stephen Baldwin floating around weightless without spending some serious cash.

Speaking of which, these Baldwin brothers really are a bunch of big lugs, aren't they?  Don't get me wrong--I like them.  But they look like the kind of guys you'd see hanging out at a Flintstone family reunion.  Alec used to be the slim, handsome one--his "Flintstones" character would probably be a movie star named "Rock Granite" or something--and Stephen was the lanky, kid-brother one.  Daniel, the middle Baldwin, was the original "big lug" type of the three.  Now, they're all starting to look more and more alike as Alec and Stephen's physical appearance begins to move closer toward the middle ground inhabited by Daniel.  A time-lapse montage of close-ups from their movies, in chronological order, would probably look like one of those transformation scenes in THE WOLF MAN.  One of these days we won't even be able to tell them apart, and they'll be able to star in an all-Baldwin remake of WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH.

Anyway, once Redding and the astronauts reach the moon, they discover that the nuke plan isn't going to work and that an alternate plan based on the theories of Dr. Gale's late father must be improvised (which will vindicate the old guy at last).  Take that, you dumb old President's Chief Science Advisor!  This leads to a sequence similar to one in APOLLO 13 in which the eggheads at mission control must devise a way to utilize only the equipment and resources available on board the shuttle to conquer the problem.  And a certain level of suspense is maintained as the shuttle is bombarded by debris while the clock ticks down to the point beyond which it will be too late to save the Earth. 

Stephen Baldwin does a good job and is likable in his Barney Rubble kind of way.  The supporting players are good, particularly Matt Gordon as "Albert", one of the eggheads running around mission control like a chicken with its head cut off, and Richard Leacock as "Ollie", the mission control guy who wants to abort the shuttle liftoff.  I also liked Redding's building-demolition helper, Bryna (Anna Silk).  She's very appealing in a "girl-next-door" kind of way.  Does Bryna get together with Redding in the end, like I wanted?  I'll put it this way--no.  GRRRRRRRR!!!  The final romantic pair-ups in this movie are infuriatingly wrong, and made me want to smash the DVD into little pieces, mix it with mashed potatoes and gravy, and eat it, thus symbolizing my total victory over this film and everyone involved. 

But on further reflection, I decided that such a course of action would probably be overdoing it a bit.  After all, EARTHSTORM is just a low-rent sci-fi actioner that is fairly entertaining if you catch it in the right mood, and it's not going to kill me if it doesn't end exactly the way I wanted it to.  But Stephen Baldwin's character and Amy Price-Francis' character ending up together?  Pffft--never gonna work.  Just wait'll she sees how much hair this guy's gonna leave in the tub every time he takes a shower.

EARTHSTORM -- Movie Review by Porfle

THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION) -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted in 2016

 

I watched an awful lot of afternoon TV back in the 80s, but I somehow missed out on "Transformers."  (Although I did buy my nephew one of the toys for Christmas once.) 

This half-hour cartoon series--some would call it an extended toy commercial--about the never-ending war for planet Earth between two opposing factions of intelligent shape-shifting robots named the Autobots and the Decepticons, who can all turn into various high-powered vehicles or cyber-creatures, ran from 1984-87 and garnered a fervent cult following for which it rated a feature-film treatment in 1986. 

Thus, THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION) (Shout! Factory and Hasbro Studios, 2-disc Blu-ray) is a great way not only to catch up on what all the nostalgia's about but also to see it at what I assume to be its very best.

Even for a "Transformers" novice like myself, the 80s nostalgia that this rollicking animated space adventure radiates is intoxicating.  It's old-school anime-style cel animation without the CGI gimmicks.  Even if it sometimes betrays its TV origins, it looks fantastic.  And it has a voice cast that's to short-circuit for. 

The film opens with a pretty spectacular sequence in which a renegade planet-sized robot named Unicron (voiced by Orson Welles in his final film appearance) attacks a peaceful world populated by robots and ingests it for fuel.  The artistic depiction of this massive global devastation is stunning, the first of several more upcoming scenes that will dazzle the viewer.

After a "Superman: The Movie"-style main titles sequence featuring the show's familiar theme song, we then settle into the story proper as our mechanical heroes, the Autobots, thunder into action to stave off an attack from the evil Decepticons in the far-off year of 2005.

No sooner is this action-packed battle over than Unicron shows up and transforms some of the surviving Decepticons into his own personal army with which to defeat the Autobots and steal from them an all-powerful device known as the Matrix of Leadership.  Leonard Nimoy himself provides the voice for Unicron's duplicitous number-one, Galvatron (formerly Megatron), who covets the Matrix for himself.

An interesting side note: the deaths and transformations of several regular characters during this sequence are a result of the scripters' instructions to retire the old line of toys and replace them with new ones for young viewers to covet.  This proved to be more traumatic for fans than anyone expected, especially the intensely dramatic death of the Autobots' leader, Optimus Prime, who passed the Matrix on to new leader Ultra Magnus (voiced by Robert Stack.) 

The rest of the film is a robot vs. robot free-for-all with several cool detours along the way, including a visit to a junk planet with "Monty Python" alum Eric Idle voicing a comedic bot named "Wreck-Gar" who listens to too much Earth television, and an encounter with a race of grotesque mecha-beings whose main form of entertainment is to conduct kangaroo courts in which to sentence strangers such as Hot Rod (Judd Nelson) and Kup (Lionel Stander) to "death-by-sharkticon."

Dealing with these foes leads to the ultimate battle with Unicron (who turns out to be one huge transformer himself) and his dark forces which provides the film with its thrilling finale. By this time, I was finally starting to sort out all the many characters including good guys Hot Rod, Kup (he turns into a pickup--get it?), female robot Arcee, human Spike and his plucky son Daniel--both of whom also get to be transformers by wearing exo-suits--Bumblebee, Blurr, and the diminutive Wheelie.

Much comedy relief is provided by the Dinobots, who lack all social graces, talk in Bizarro-Speak ("Me, Grimlock, want to munch metal!"), and live for the times in which old soldier Kup regales them all with oft-told war stories ("Tell Grimlock about petro-rabbits again!") The Decepticons are also good for a few laughs when their inter-family squabbles escalate into all-out fights for dominance among the different robot clans. 

Character design is good and the backgrounds are often beautiful.  The musical score is okay when we aren't assaulted by bad 80s arena rock (I did enjoy hearing "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Dare to Be Stupid" at one point).

Dialogue ranges from likably dumb ("Your days are numbered now, Decepti-creeps!") to quite good, as in the numerous exchanges between Welles and Nimoy.  Celebrity voice talent also includes Scatman Crothers ("Jazz"), Casey Kasem ("Cliffjumper"), Clive Revill ("Kickback"), Norm Alden ("Kranix"), and Roger C. Carmel ("Cyclonus"). Legendary voice performer Frank Welker takes on no less than six different roles.

The 2-disc Blu-ray set from Shout! Factory and Hasbro Studios gives us both the 1.85:1 widescreen version (disc 1) and the full screen version (disc 2) with English stereo and 5.1 sound and subtitles in English and Spanish.  Remastered from a brand-new 4k transfer of original film elements.  (A steelbook edition and a single-disc DVD edition with only the widescreen version plus digital copy are also available.)

Special features include a lengthy and highly-informative behind-the-scenes featurette entitled "'Til All Are One" (the segment on voice talent is especially fun), several other short featurettes, animated storyboards, trailers and TV spots, and an audio commentary with director Nelson Shin, story consultant Flint Dill, and star Susan Blu ("Arcee").  The cover illustration is reversible.  Also contains the code for downloading a digital copy.

THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION) is good old bombastic meat-and-potatoes space opera for kids and adults alike, with a welcome anime flavor.  It should rocket original fans of the show right back to their childhoods (or teenhoods, as the case may be) while gaining new ones such as myself who just love a good mind-expanding sci-fi adventure.  

Street date: Sept. 13, 2016

www.shoutfactory.com
www.hasbro.com

Images shown are not taken from the Blu-ray disc.

THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION) -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Goofy G-Force Grimace In 1950s-60s Space Movies (video)

 

Space movies in the 1950s-60s speculated on what futuristic space travel would be like.

One of the most common features of these movies was the ever-popular "G-Force Grimace."

As a kid I could never figure out why they all made those weird girning faces during take-off.

ROCKETSHIP XM (1950)
DESTINATION MOON (1950)
PROJECT MOONBASE (1953)
CAT-WOMEN OF THE MOON (1953)
CONQUEST OF SPACE (1955)
MISSILE TO THE MOON (1958)
12 TO THE MOON (1960)


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!

Goofy G-Force Grimace In 1950s-60s Space Movies (video)

Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em ("FIRE MAIDENS OF OUTER SPACE", 1956) (video)

 

For those of you who go in for drinking games, here's one...

Take a drink every time one of these low-rent astronauts lights up a cigarette.

With all the butts being lit up in this flick, you'll be blotto in no time!



I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!

Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em ("FIRE MAIDENS OF OUTER SPACE", 1956) (video)

FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 6/25/21

 

I've been a bad movie lover for so long, I can sit back and enjoy movies like FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER (1965) just as much as I would CITIZEN KANE or THE SOUND OF MUSIC, whereas your average normal person might find both their gag reflex and their flight instinct activated by the very sight of it.

I pity such people their inability to watch stuff like this with the same giddy delight I felt as I ordered the DVD from Amazon, knowing that when it arrived, I would be able to immerse myself in low budget, ineptly made, but wonderfully entertaining sci-fi goodness about aliens from Mars who have come to Earth to kidnap women as breeding stock to help repopulate their atomic war-ravaged planet.

As if that weren't enough, NASA scientist Dr. Adam Steele (venerable actor James "Jim" Karen in an early role) and his co-worker Karen (Nancy Marshall) have just made space travel safer for humans by creating an android astronaut, whom they've named "Colonel Frank Saunders" (Robert Reilly). 

 

 

 
Right after Frank is launched into space, the Martians shoot his rocket down, leaving the horribly disfigured humanoid robot roaming the countryside killing people a la "Frankenstein."

Not only am I not making any of that stuff up, but it's even nuttier than it sounds. The head Martians are played by former Playboy Playmate and Three Stooges co-star Marilyn Hanold (as "Princess Marcuzan") and familiar face Lou Cutell (LITTLE BIG MAN, PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE) as her second-in-command Dr. Nadir, a bald, white-skinned alien with pointed ears and a high camp sense of humor that kicks in whenever he's ordered to blow something up or shoot it down.

Their bargain-basement spaceship is also populated by a gaggle of henchmen whose spacesuits, confusingly, make them look like Earth astronauts. There's also a tall, brawny alien played by the great Bruce Glover (CHINATOWN, DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, WALKING TALL), recognizable even under heavy makeup in his second movie role. He also plays the fearsome space monster of the title, who will indeed meet "Frankenstein" during the film's furious climax.

 

 

 
The story begins in Florida, where, at a press conference, we're treated to the sight of Frank rather comically going freeze-frame during a press conference and having to be hustled back to the lab for repairs by Adam and Karen.

Then we're whisked off to Puerto Rico after Frank's disfiguring crash, allowing the director to shoot a lengthy montage of the two scientists riding a dinky motor scooter along scenic motorways and beachfronts to the film's sappy and rather incongruous love theme, "To Have And To Hold" by The Distant Cousins.

While the two young lovers search for their runaway robo-astronaut, the Martians terrorize the countryside kidnapping bikini-clad women from beaches and pool parties, disintegrating any men who get in their way with sunlight-reflecting ray guns like the ones used in TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE.

 

 

 
Also like that film, this one is surprisingly well-edited, with a gradually quickening pace that leads to a fast-moving, exciting finale that sees the Martians attacked by our air force and Frank, his rational mind now restored, going mano-a-mano with that really cool space monster.

Just as Johnny Depp claims in ED WOOD that he could construct a whole movie out of stock footage, this one goes a long way toward doing just that by using tons of the stuff for any scenes involving either the military or NASA spacecraft (including much footage from Mercury launches and orbital photography). The final five frenetic minutes or so are evidence that the film's editor was having a ball putting this thing together, and it's infectious.

Granted, the shamelessly warped FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER would fit comfortably onto any list of the worst films ever made, but that doesn't keep it from being just as much fun as a lot of "good" movies that I could name. Maybe even more fun if, like me, you're just a tiny bit warped too. 

FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER -- Movie Review by Porfle

Elmer Bernstein's Early Sci-Fi/Horror Themes: "Robot Monster" and "Cat Women of the Moon" (1953) (video)

Before scoring such classics as THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, THE GREAT ESCAPE, and THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN...

...legendary film composer Elmer Bernstein supplied the music for the notorious turkeys ROBOT MONSTER and CAT-WOMEN OF THE MOON.


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it.  Thanks for watching!

Elmer Bernstein's Early Sci-Fi/Horror Themes: "Robot Monster" and "Cat Women of the Moon" (1953) (video)

Mr. Spock At His Most Pointlessly Pedantic (video)

 

Star Trek's writers always had fun with Spock's character...

...especially all the little quirks and idiosyncrasies that made him so much different from humans.

But in this particular episode, they may have gone just a bit overboard. 

Video by Porfle Popnecker. I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!

Mr. Spock At His Most Pointlessly Pedantic (video)

JASON OF STAR COMMAND: THE COMPLETE SERIES -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

 (Originally posted on 11/17/09)

 

There's nothing like a show that's both stupid and cool at the same time to bring out the kid in me. That's the feeling I get watching this boxed set of the entire run of JASON OF STAR COMMAND, a live-action sci-fi series from Filmation that ran for two seasons on Saturday mornings starting in 1978. By that time, I had taken to sleeping in on Saturday mornings instead of jumping out of bed to watch TV. But now, through the magic of DVD, I can catch up on what I missed out on the first time around. 

Originally just one segment of a 90-minute show called "Tarzan and the Super 7", JASON began as a throwback to the old cliffhanger serials like "Flash Gordon" that used to get the kids flocking back to the theater week after week (with hefty doses of STAR WARS, "Star Trek", "Battlestar Galactica", and "Lost In Space" thrown into the mix as well). And like these old serialized adventures, each eleven-minute chapter has a sensational title such as "Attack of the Dragonship" or "Marooned in Time" and is open-ended, with Jason and his good-guy companions facing certain death at the hands of the evil Dragos (who has dubbed himself "Master of the Cosmos") to keep kids in the late 70s eagerly tuning in from one Saturday morning to the next. 

A spin-off of an earlier Filmation production called "Star Academy", and using many of the same sets, models, and costumes, this series centers around the adventures of a secret branch of the Star Academy, located on a city-sized spaceship built on an asteroid, whose job is to protect the galaxy from evildoers like Dragos. Their number-one guy is the brave, adventurous Jason (Craig Littler, who is currently the Gorton's fisherman), described as a "soldier of fortune" even though he isn't one (if he ever made any profit from any of these exploits, they must've been paying him under the table). He's really Han Solo Lite, right down to an almost identical set of threads and insoucient (though properly sanitized) attitude, and since Han is a soldier of fortune then, by golly, I guess Jason is, too. But he's also a true-blue, straight-arrow good guy type who feels right at home spouting lines like: "You overestimate yourself, Dragos. Never, on all the planets of the galaxy, has evil won out over decency and honesty--and freedom." Tell 'im, Jason! 

 The female lead in season one is the button-cute Susan O'Hanlon (PRIVATE PARTS, "All My Children") as Captain Nicole Davidoff, Star Command's leading computer expert. She was replaced in season two by Tamara Dobson (CLEOPATRA JONES) as a super-strong alien named Samantha. Charlie Dell (FIGHT CLUB) plays the brilliant but eccentric science officer, Professor E.J. Parsafoot, who shares comedy-relief duties with a couple of cute droids (of course) named Wiki and Peepo. Season one's "Commander Canarvin" is none other than the redoubtable James "Scotty" Doohan, who then left to do STAR TREK:THE MOTION PICTURE and was replaced in season two by well-known Western actor John Russell (PALE RIDER, THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES) as the stern, blue-skinned Commander Stone. And along the way we see such familiar faces as Julie Newmar, Angelo Rossito, Francine York, and Rosanne Katon in guest roles.  

Dragos, the most rotten guy in the universe and sworn enemy of all that is decent, is portrayed by Sid Haig, best known these days as "Captain Spaulding" from Rob Zombie's HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES and THE DEVIL'S REJECTS. He wears a red and black outfit with black platform boots and a cape, and a silver headpiece that makes him look like he just placed dead last in a Borg costume contest. Haig is the Darth Vader of the series, revelling in his various dastardly schemes with eye-rolling delight and frequently letting loose with his trademark maniacal laugh ("MWAAAH- ha-ha-ha-ha-HAAAAAA!!!") 

Dragos has the ugliest spaceship in screen history, the dreaded Dragonship, which resembles a mechanical bulldog with a papier-mache' dragon head stuck on it, and his enslaved minions look like a bunch of diseased Wookies with really bad hair. Most of his schemes are along the lines of trying to disable Star Command's defense shields and sending it plunging into a sun or something. MWAAAH- ha-ha-ha-ha-HAAAAAA!!! 

The production values would be laughably bad by theatrical standards, but for a Saturday morning kids' series from the 70s they're impressive--cool, even. Much of it consists of STAR WARS-style visual effects done on the cheap, by some of the same technicians, with ingenuity compensating for lack of budget. The model work is good for the most part, and some of the planet sets rival those that Captain Kirk used to wander around in, as do the Star Command interiors. John Beuchler, who went on to make quite a name for himself as a creature-maker as well as a director, populated the series with a multitude of hastily-made but impressive monsters and aliens. 

My favorite aspect of the show, however, is the use of stop-motion animated monsters. I love this stuff, from the Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen classics right down to the jerky dinosaurs from BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN or TV's "Land of the Lost", and JASON features four or five stop-motion animated creatures with a lot of personality. Which, for me, raises the show's appeal to an even higher level. 

With the second season, the show was plucked from the "Tarzan and the Super 7" line-up and given its own half-hour time slot. While the episodes continue to form a loose overall story arc, individual plotlines are wrapped up in just two or three episodes. Dragos gets a brand new Dragonship, and, thank goodness, it's sorta cool and nowhere near as butt-ugly as the first one. He also gets a whole menagerie of beastly Beuchler-built cronies, and they all maniacally laugh their heads off just like Dragos--I think maybe it's catching. Tamara Dobson fits smoothly into the cast and seems to genuinely enjoy portraying the mysterious Samantha--she and Littler have a good chemistry together--while the fine actor John Russell's no-nonsense demeanor as Commander Stone, who strongly disapproves of Jason's cavalier attitude toward authority, gives the series a welcome and unexpected touch of gravitas. The only drawback is that as Jason and Stone gradually warm up to each other later on, Russell begins to smile more often, which is one of the scariest sights in television history. 

The three-disc set includes both seasons of the show and some nice extras. The highlight is a half-hour documentary called "The Adventures of Jason of Star Command", which features interviews with producer Lou Scheimer (sadly, his partner, Norm Prescott, as well as Tamara Dobson, are no longer with us), stars Craig Littler and Sid Haig, John Beuchler, and others involved with the production. It's packed with interesting anecdotes and information about the show. There's also a six-minute special effects demo reel, a photo gallery, episode scripts in PDF format, an episode guide/trivia booklet, and several trailers for other Filmation DVD sets that bring back a lot of Saturday morning memories. 

I accidentally found an Easter egg. Put in disc 2 and wait for the menu to appear. Hit "stop", then "play." Some leftover interview footage of guest star John Berwick that wasn't used in the documentary, lasting two or three minutes, should then appear. I tried this with the other two discs but no luck. If you should happen to find any more, let me know. And last but not least, three of the episodes contain lively commentary tracks with Scheimer, Littler, and Beuchler, among others. But careful, Mom and Dad--at one point, one of them gets so excited about viewing the old series again that he drops the "F" bomb! OOPS! 

 Scriptwriters include original "Star Trek" vets Samuel A. Peeples ("Where No Man Has Gone Before") and Margaret Armen ("The Paradise Syndrome"). The stories are fast-moving, simple, and often pretty dumb--in a bad-Roddenberry moment, Captain Kidd even pops up in one episode--but they're also a lot of fun, and not nearly as obnoxious as "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" (with the despicable "Twiki") or the original "Battlestar Galactica" tended to be. 

Basically a live-action version of the kind of cartoons Filmation is known for (but without the crummy limited animation), JASON OF STAR COMMAND is corny, cheesy pulp sci-fi for kids, pure and simple, but it's done with such a goofy, unabashed earnestness and childlike sense of adventure that I couldn't help enjoying just about every minute of it. 

JASON OF STAR COMMAND: THE COMPLETE SERIES -- DVD Review by Porfle

COMMANDO CODY: SKY MARSHAL OF THE UNIVERSE -- DVD Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 9/13/16

 

You already know whether or not you love the old movie serials.  And if you do, then chances are the words COMMANDO CODY: SKY MARSHAL OF THE UNIVERSE should already have you salivating like a geek incarnation of Pavlov's Dog. 

I know that's how I reacted when I scarfed an eyeload of this new 2-disc DVD from Olive Films, which contains all 12 episodes of the 1953 serial.  That cool cover pic of Cody in his gadget-bedecked leather jacket, quasi-military cap, and Lone Ranger mask just seems to say "You know you love me." 

I call them "episodes" instead of "chapters" because this isn't your usual serial.  In fact, many fans would argue that it isn't a serial at all, being that it consists of 12 half-hour adventures which, while being parts of an overall story arc, each have a beginning, middle, and end without the usual cliffhanger.

Without going into the technical reasons for this, suffice it to say that the series was first shown in theaters in 1953 as a serial, and then showed up two years later as the television series it was intended to be all along.  And while I do miss the nail-biting cliffhanger endings, I got used to the self-contained stories after awhile.

At any rate, this has all the elements I love in serials--a cool hero with both capable and comical sidekicks, a hokey villain with an evil master plan and plenty of goofy, inept henchmen to carry it out, lots of fantasy sci-fi that doesn't make much sense and consistently defies the laws of physics, cheap production values, and a general air of hokiness with plenty of corn. 

The main gist of the story concerns the efforts of a secret government organization to thwart an evil madman who calls himself The Ruler, who wants to conquer Earth so he can use it as a base to take over all the other planets in the solar system.  (The Ruler is played by Gregory Gaye, who can be seen in CASABLANCA as the irate customer whom Rick won't allow into the back room of the casino.)

Our hero, Commando Cody (Judd Holdren), wears a mask to protect his identity and flies around by means of a cool rocket pack on his back.  Not only is he one of those rigidly upstanding paragons of virtue, but with his ever-present mask he even resembles Clayton Moore in both looks and voice.  Which, as a big "Lone Ranger" fan, I found to be a definite plus.

His boss, Commissioner Henderson (Craig Kelly, who appeared in the first two DIRTY HARRY movies), gives him two assistants--loyal but comical Ted Richards (the great character actor William Schallert) and the lovely and capable Joan Gilbert (winsome Aline Towne), who eventually becomes Cody's spaceship co-pilot.  Ted will be replaced after a few episodes by equally comical Dick Preston (Richard Crane, who would go on to star as "Rocky Jones, Space Ranger" the following year.)

Over the course of the show's 12 episodes The Ruler pulls all manner of devious schemes to either enslave the Earth or wipe it out--he never can seem to decide which--and each of these results in as much widespread calamity and destruction that the copious amounts of stock footage can depict.  In his employ are traitorous humans such as Lyle Talbot, Fred Graham, and Lane Bradford, and various aliens played by the likes of Denver Pyle, John Crawford, and Rick Vallin.

Time after time, Earth comes close to destruction via tidal waves, shifting of its axis, blocking out the sun, duplicate suns roasting the planet, deadly storms, a near-miss with our own moon, and meteor attacks.  The latter are repelled by Cody's creation of a cosmic dust barrier around the Earth which makes any foreign object from the sky explode, including enemy space ships not equipped with a special "dispersal beam."

Cody's own spaceship, while primitive by modern SPFX standards, is still very cool.  An impressive full-size mockup was constructed on the Republic Pictures backlot which is seen in conjunction with a fairly large working model suspended by wires.  It's a real step above the wobbly, rinky-dink spaceships of the old "Flash Gordon" serials and is almost always used to good effect. 

Sets range from the usual 50s backdrops to sometimes impressive otherworldly settings where The Ruler carries out his dastardly plans on various planets such as Saturn and Mercury. The costumes are gloriously tacky (The Ruler seems to be wearing his mom's kimono) and the dialogue is both arch and delightfully corny.  Ray guns sound like car horns.  Each episode offers a couple of furious fistfights and several appearances by our main man in flight.

This is accomplished using the same remarkable technique seen in perhaps the greatest serial of all time, 1941's "The Adventures of Captain Marvel" (also from Republic Pictures), with a realistic mannequin suspended on wires combined with nice springboard take-off and landing shots with actor Holdren.  The effect is stunningly good and well worth waiting for in each episode.

The 2-disc DVD from Olive Films is in the original full-screen ratio with mono sound and English subtitles.  No extras.  Picture quality is very good.  

Just as much fun as the title sounds, COMMANDO CODY: SKY MARSHAL OF THE UNIVERSE is one of the most consistently entertaining and well-produced serials I've seen.  It easily transcends the "so bad it's good" quality of many cheaply-produced serials, especially if viewed with the same giddy, childlike enthusiasm with which both kids and adults greeted these films on theater and TV screens back in the 50s.

COMMANDO CODY: SKY MARSHAL OF THE UNIVERSE -- DVD Review by Porfle

INALIENABLE -- DVD review by porfle

Originally posted on 12/23/09

 

 

"From the mind of Walter Koenig", erstwhile Ensign Chekov of the Starship Enterprise, comes INALIENABLE (2009), which starts out as a horror tale of a man who isn't quite sure whether he's carrying a deadly parasite or an alien offspring, and ends up itself resembling the unearthly lovechild of SyFy and Lifetime.

Research scientist Eric Norris (Richard Hatch, a veteran of both versions of "Battlestar Galactica") is trying to discover a cure for AIDS while dealing with the endless guilt caused by the death of his wife and son in a car crash in which he was driving. One day his friend brings him a piece of rock that broke off of an alien wessel--sorry, a meteor--that crashed on his property. Eric wakes up the next day to find that the rock has transformed into a jellyfish-like creature and invaded his body, nestling in a pouch-like protrusion over his left hip and sending tendrils throughout his body which intertwine with his vital organs.

It soon becomes apparent that Eric is "pregnant" with something, and when the FBI finds out about this potential alien threat, he must flee along with a sympathetic coworker, Amanda Mayfield (Courtney Peldon), who has fallen in love with him. After giving birth to the grotesque, tentacled baby (which he christens "Benjamin") in a barn, Eric and his new son are captured and placed under strict observation. Meanwhile, Amanda hooks up with a space-case civil rights lawyer named Ellis (Erick Avari) to help free Eric and allow him to have custody of Benjamin without government interference. This results in a courtroom drama in which Benjamin's humanity, or lack thereof, is in bitter dispute.

INALIENABLE begins with all the elements of early David Cronenberg body horror, but that all changes as soon as the proud dad gets a gander at his new butt-ugly baby with the octopus tentacles and goes all sappy. After that it's all tears and hugs and courtroom intrigue designed to tug at our heartstrings. When Eric and Benjamin are reunited in a holding cell under the watchful eyes of coldhearted government types, their impromptu Charlie Chaplin dance will either make you smile or retch. Most interesting is the battle of wits between the two lawyers over Benjamin's basic "human" rights, bringing to mind similar questions about robot sentience as seen on some of the best episodes of shows like "Star Trek" and "The Outer Limits."


Richard Hatch sells his character convincingly and makes his scenes with Courtney Peldon seem a little lopsided by consistently out-acting her. Koenig, as Eric's boss and eventual enemy (for reasons we discover later on), proves that he's a pretty solid screen presence himself when he isn't having to portray the biggest weenie in Starfleet. Special credit goes to Marina Sirtis for her impressive turn as the queen-bitch prosecutor, a far cry from ST:TNG's compassionate Deanna Troi. Other familiar sci-fi faces pop up here and there throughout the story, including Alan Ruck and Tim Russ (both alumni of different Trek incarnations), Richard Herd, Gary Graham, Jay Acovone, Erick Avari, and longtime sci-fi/horror stalwart and stuntwoman Patricia Tallman ("Babylon 5", "Star Trek", the NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD remake).

Production values are adequate but rather spartan, and Robert Dyke directs without a whole lot of energy. The film is low-key to the point of timidity, as though it were aware that someone was taking a nap in the next room and didn't want to wake them up. Some of the courtroom scenes are undercut by the constant drone of strangely soothing music which seems intent on lulling us to sleep ourselves. Worse, Amanda's first meeting with lawyer Ellis is accompanied by an intrusively whimsical tune that lets us know Ellis is supposed to be a funny character, even though he isn't funny.

The alien SPFX aren't very convincing, although it's nice to see something like this done with animatronics and puppetry rather than cheap CGI for a change. The newborn infant is a nicely-rendered creation that's somewhat reminiscent of the baby in ERASERHEAD. Later, the older Benjamin's makeup makes him look more like an aged midget than a cute little alien child, and the less said about his bobbling tentacles the better. Again, however, Richard Hatch does such a good job of interacting with this weird little gremlin that he manages to give their scenes together a surprising amount of pathos.

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Surround 2.0 and English subtitles. The sole extra is a trailer, but if you zip to the end of the closing credits you get to see Walter Koenig cutting up on the set for about half a minute.

INALIENABLE's heart is in the right place and for the most part it's a fairly absorbing though slow-moving little sci-fi tale. The first half, with its potentially horrific imagery of an unknown alien lifeform incubating inside a human host, would be good fodder for a Cronenberg film or episode of "The X-Files." The second half, though, is a rather listless stroll through KRAMER VS. KRAMER territory with an ending that fails to generate much tension or suspense. All in all, an amiable little flick that I can neither condemn nor recommend with much enthusiasm.

INALIENABLE -- DVD review by porfle

Mr. Spock At His Most Pointlessly Pedantic (Star Trek: "That Which Survives", 1969)

 

Star Trek's writers often enjoyed having a little fun with Spock's character...

...usually by contrasting his precise, stoic manner with that of his emotional human crewmates.

But in this episode, it's possible that they went just a tad overboard.

Video by Porfle Popnecker. I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!

Mr. Spock At His Most Pointlessly Pedantic (Star Trek: "That Which Survives", 1969)

The Best Scene In "Star Trek" History? ("The Doomsday Machine", 1967) (video)

Captain Kirk (William Shatner) is aboard the wrecked starship USS Constellation...

...and has aimed it directly into the maw of a renegade war machine headed for Earth.

The ship's is rigged to explode with a 30-second delay, but the transporter is acting up...
...making this an extremely perilous course of action for Kirk.

Sol Kaplan's excellent musical score is one of the best ever written for television.

The SPFX in this episode have since been updated with CGI...
...but many Trek fans much prefer these original effects.

Some shots use a model kit replica of the Enterprise.
Dramatic license is used in the countdown to show simultaneous events.

Many Star Trek fans regard this as the series' best episode ever.


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it.  Thanks for watching!

The Best Scene In "Star Trek" History? ("The Doomsday Machine", 1967) (video)

SPACEBALLS: THE TOTALLY WARPED ANIMATED ADVENTURES! -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

(Originally posted on 1/11/10)

 

 

 

When Mel Brooks' sci-fi spoof SPACEBALLS came out way back in the 80s, I only watched it once because it wasn't all that funny to me compared to his previous films, and I didn't like it very much. The same could be said for Mel Brooks' SPACEBALLS: THE TOTALLY WARPED ANIMATED ADVENTURES! (2008), only with even more emphasis on "not funny" and "didn't like." As low comedy, the laughs just aren't there, and as an exercise in shock value (cartoon characters saying and doing very crude things) much of it is enough to embarrass even John Kricfalusi.

As in the original film, Mel plays (that is, voices) the evil President Skroob of the planet Moron. Together with his diminutive henchman Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis in the movie, Dee Bradley Baker here), Skroob comes up with one dastardly scheme after another for ruling the universe, but is thwarted every time by interplanetary good guy Lone Starr (Rino Romano) and his canine co-pilot Barf (Tino Insana), who are patterned after STAR WARS' Han Solo and Chewbacca. Bill Pullman and the late John Candy are missing from these roles, but Daphne Zuniga and Joan Rivers are back as the ever-in-peril Princess Vespa and her faithful protocol droid Dot Matrix, who is like a female C3PO. Brooks also supplies the voice for Yogurt, a Yiddish Yoda who aids Lone Starr in using "The Schwartz" to battle evil.

The artwork for the series is pretty good--at times resembling a moving Bill "Zippy the Pinhead" Griffith comic--while the animation is done via digital manipulation a la "Aqua Teen Hunger Force." This doesn't quite compliment the series' BLAZING SADDLES-style humor which depends so much on performance to put it across, especially considering that much of the voice work here is less than stellar.

Brooks tries his best to liven up the stale, smut-filled dialogue he has to work with but the medium is simply too constricting and makes him sound stilted. His "Yogurt" character grows especially tiresome with its endless string of Jewish jokes, and the attempts at topical humor mostly fall flat (Yogurt's nagging wife Yenta chides him for eating imitation shellfish: "Kosher-shmosher! Still gives you more gas than Dubai.") The "adult" nature of the show's humor manifests itself mainly in a plethora of boobs, barf, blow-up dolls, overt sexual sight gags, single entendres, and fart jokes.

Four of the series' thirteen episodes are on hand here, and can be viewed either seperately or combined into a "feature" with new interlocking segments in the form of a telethon-slash-infomercial for President Skroob's new book, "The Moron's Guide to Conquering the Universe and Beyond." The first episode, "Outbreak", concerns Skroob and Dark Helmet's plan to spread Ebola and Ecoli throughout the galaxy with a new soft drink called Ecola. When all shipments of the tainted cola are accidentally sent to their own planet Moron, they must call upon Lone Starr and Barf to save the day as the entire infected population begins to drown in its own barf.

There's a big barf sequence with a random fart-joke topper that provides a few laughs. We also get some pretty groan-inducing lines such as a conversation about "moving the bowels" of the ship, Dark Helmet's "I'm getting a bad case of deja-voodoo!", and Skroob announcing "I can see your Schwartz is as firm as ever, but it's no match for mine!" A sequence showing Dark Helmet trying to fit his head into the tight folds of a tent entrance is a prime example of the kind of anatomical visual humor this series has to offer.

"The Skroobinator" pokes fun at a certain Arnold flick (along with BACK TO THE FUTURE) with Skroob scheming to go back in time to the 1980s and kill Lone Starr's great-great-great-etc-grandmother. The one redeeming feature of this episode is a pretty good chase sequence although the "hog" joke might make you wince. In "Deep Ship", Skroob tricks Princess Vespa into his clutches by luring her and Dot Matrix onto an interplanetary cruise ship to the planet Areola (where things tend to get "a bit nippy"), making way for a string of clunky gags based on TITANIC and THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE. Not surprisingly, the ship eventually gets sucked into the Galaxy of Bad Gas, prompting Skroob to announce to us: "Lucky for you this isn't Smell-o-Vision!"

"Grand Theft Starship" wraps things up with Lone Starr's videogame obsession resulting in him and Princess Vespa being sucked into the titular game and forced to play for their lives. Skroob and Dark Helmet get into the act with a scheme to take over videogame land, and with Yogurt's help Barf must enter the game MATRIX-style and save his pals. Gamers might appreciate the myriad of references to everything from Tetris to Super Mario Brothers to (of course) Grand Theft Auto, with other gags aimed at the likes of THE MATRIX, TRON, and THE ROAD WARRIOR.

The DVD from MGM and Fox Home Entertainment is 1.33:1 full-screen with Dolby Digital stereo and English soundtrack and captions. Besides the four episodes, there are the five brief connecting segments mentioned previously, plus an additional closer entitled "One More Goodie."

SPACEBALLS: THE TOTALLY WARPED ANIMATED ADVENTURES! would probably be dandy entertainment for little kids if it weren't packed to the gills with bouncing boobs, bawdy (and oddly old-fashioned) burlesque humor, and resounding farts. As a cartoon aimed at adults, however, it wouldn't last long on Adult Swim alongside far superior shows of its kind such as "Aqua Teen Hunger Force", "Futurama", and "Sealab 2021." Back to the drawing board, Mel!

SPACEBALLS: THE TOTALLY WARPED ANIMATED ADVENTURES! -- DVD Review by Porfle

PANDORUM -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 12/29/09

 

Imagine if ALIEN RESURRECTION had been really grim and scary instead of just a fun, pulpy, and ultimately silly sci-fi/action flick. Or if EVENT HORIZON had really kicked major ass instead of just coming frustratingly close. Or if Ridley Scott and James Cameron were Siamese twins. That's pretty much what you get with PANDORUM (2009), one of the most satisfying sci-fi thrillers I've seen in quite a while.

As the film opens, the immense space ark Elysium is carrying thousands of refugees from a dying Earth to another planet that can sustain human life. Crewmen Bower (Ben Foster) and Payton (Dennis Quaid) are awakened from hypersleep to discover that something has gone very wrong--during their abnormally long hibernation, a space sickness known as Pandorum has driven certain other crewmembers and passengers mad. Not only have the ship's systems been sabotaged, but a segment of the ship's population have mutated into terrifying flesh-eating creatures known as Hunters.

With Payton trying to gain access to the bridge, Bower sets off to find the ship's reactor in order to restore power and keep the ship from self-destructing. Along the way he meets warrior woman Nadia (Antje Traue) and Vietnamese badass Manh (Cung Le) who help him survive against wave after wave of attacks from the almost-invulnerable mutants. As time runs out and the symptoms of Pandorum begin to set in, Bower eventually discovers the shocking secret of how truly disastrous their situation is.


PANDORUM starts out with an intriguing mystery that's only gradually revealed as Bower's odyssey takes him further into the bowels of the cursed ship. The fact that he has partial amnesia due to his extended hypersleep means that he must discover each part of the puzzle along with us. We never know if he can trust Payton, who's starting to act a little funny, or if Bower himself may be suffering from delusions. The fellow crewmembers he meets along the way are equally in the dark, while the ones who have been out of hypersleep longer than Bower have become ruthless killers bent only on day-to-day survival.

As Bower, Ben Foster gives an intense performance that finally helps me forget him as Charlie Prince in 3:10 TO YUMA, with old pro Dennis Quaid ideal in the role of Payton. The rest of the cast is also very good, particularly Antje Traue as the lovely and dynamic Nadia. Not quite as lovely but just as effective are Cung Le as Manh and, in a smaller role, Eddie Rouse as a cunning survivor with a culinary interest in our heroes. Cam Gigandet (of the TWILIGHT saga) is suitably mysterious as crewmember Gallo, who may be behind the Pandorum-induced sabotage of the ship and its vital mission.

Director Christian Alvart has crafted a stylish, great-looking film with beautiful cinematography and stunning set design that is continuously impressive. Camerawork is fine and editing is sharp while only occasionally bordering on the hyperactive. Special effects, including an imaginative ship design that looks really cool in the fly-bys, are top-notch.


The late Stan Winston's creature shop supplies some very effective and convincing Hunter-monsters, which reminded me somewhat of the subterranean creatures in THE DESCENT but are even uglier and way more deadly. CGI is used with restraint and doesn't draw attention to itself, which is how CGI should always be used as far as I'm concerned.

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Surround 5.1 and Spanish mono, with English and Spanish subtitles. Extras include a making-of featurette, flight team "training video", a short film that shows us the fate of Nadia's team, several deleted and alternate scenes, and a trailer. There's also a commentary by director Alvart and producer Jeremy Bolt which is loaded with behind-the-scenes info.

A scintillating space thriller that's both mindbending and action-packed, PANDORUM is a riveting experience that keeps the viewer in suspense until the twist ending. It's definitely up for a spot on my list of favorite sci-fi flicks.

PANDORUM -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE RELUCTANT ASTRONAUT -- Movie Review by Porfle

(This is part two of my look at the "Don Knotts Reluctant Hero Pack", a two-sided DVD containing four of Don's best-known movies: THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN, THE RELUCTANT ASTRONAUT, THE SHAKIEST GUN IN THE WEST, and THE LOVE GOD?)

Following on the heels of Don Knotts' previous comedy success, 1966's THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN, THE RELUCTANT ASTRONAUT (1967) continues the adventures of Don's patented nervous-guy character, who always seems to find himself in situations that stretch his jangled nerves to the limit and force him to act beyond his normal capabilities in order to succeed. And what better way to do that than to strap him into a rocket and shoot him into outer space?

This time Don plays Roy Fleming, a nervous type (naturally) who is so terrified of heights that he "can't even get up on a chair to get the marmalade." He runs a modest little outer-space ride in a local amusement park, pretending to be an astronaut and taking the kids on space adventures in a mock-up rocketship. But his father, Buck (Arthur O'Connell), a WWI hero with big dreams for his son, keeps sending in his astronaut application to NASA. And one day, the Flemings receive a shocking letter--Roy's been accepted!

The prospect of being dozens of miles off his beloved terra firma terrifies Roy, but it also helps him win over the girl he's got the hots for, Ellie Jackson (Joan Freeman), who runs a concession stand in the amusement park, and raises him to the upper reaches of his father's estimation at long last. But when Roy gets to NASA, he discovers that he hasn't been accepted as a prospective astronaut after all, but as a janitor. And not even that--he's an apprentice janitor.


At this point, it's too late to tell the truth to his proud parents and all his admiring friends back home, so he keeps up the charade for as long as he can--until one day when his father and a couple of his old pals show up for an unexpected visit. Abandoning his mop, Roy hastily dons a space suit, gives the guys a highly scientifically-inaccurate tour of the space facility, destroys a rocket sled, and gets fired in front of his father. But just as it appears that Roy must slink home in disgrace, an amazing development occurs--the Russians send a dentist into outer space in order to prove the infallibility of their automated rocket ship. So NASA decides to respond by putting the most inexperienced person they can think of into orbit. Which, of course, turns out to be Roy.

THE RELUCTANT ASTRONAUT repeats various elements set into motion way back on "The Andy Griffith Show" and continued in THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN. Don Knotts plays a cowardly failure who gets his big chance to succeed and rises to the occasion, winning the affections of the hottest babe in town along the way, and gets plenty of chances to play his nervous-guy character to the hilt. There's a drunk scene (this didn't happen in GHOST, but Barney Fife was always accidentally getting drunk, remember?), and it's always fun to watch Don get gassed. He has a big brother-type friend who, like Sheriff Andy Taylor, looks out for him and helps bolster his ego--this time it's Major Fred Gifford, a famous astronaut who befriends Roy and suggests him as the perfect candidate for the upcoming space shot.

There are running gags--people are always posing for Rush (Paul Hartman) to take their picture but his camera never works, Roy is always being urged to "do a countdown" ("Three, two, one...puh-KEWWW!") and, whenever his loved ones see him off at the airport, the acrophobic Roy sneaks away to catch a bus instead, etc. The script is written by "Andy Griffith Show" vets James Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum, who also wrote GHOST and knew how to bring out the best in Don Knotts. And Vic Mizzy contributes another of his pleasantly goofy comedy scores.

Once again, the capable supporting cast is dotted with great familiar faces. Arthur O'Connell and Jeanette Nolan play his parents, while Frank McGrath ("Wooster" the cook on TV's "Wagon Train") and Paul Hartman ("Emmitt the Fix-It Man" on the later Griffith show episodes) are funny and endearing as Buck Fleming's friends. Jesse White (the "Maytag repairman" for those old enough to remember) is Roy's unforgiving janitorial boss, and Burt Mustin, Guy Raymond, and Nydia Westman are on hand as well. Familiar child star Pamelyn Ferdin even makes a brief appearance as a little girl who has to go to the bathroom during Roy's space ride ("We have just touched down!" he abruptly announces). But the biggest surprise, for those familiar with Leslie Nielsen only as a comedian, will be seeing him playing straight man to Don's character. He's very likable here as the dashing Major Gifford, but nowadays he'd be the one getting the laughs.

THE RELUCTANT ASTRONAUT isn't quite the all-round success that THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN was a year earlier, but it's still very enjoyable in a low-key way, and family-friendly without being sappy or saccharine. There are even a couple of fairly emotional scenes between Don and Arthur O'Connell as father and son that are nicely handled. The best part, though, is when Roy Fleming makes it to outer space (complete with some endearingly hokey special effects) only to have everything go wrong. In a delightful turn of events, he is able to astound Major Gifford and the other guys at mission control by falling back on his old space-ride character in order to save the day--which is just the sort of thing that makes a Don Knotts movie so much fun to watch.

THE RELUCTANT ASTRONAUT -- Movie Review by Porfle

PHOBE: THE XENOPHOBIC EXPERIMENTS -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 9/27/16

 

In the latter part of the 20th century there was a brief but wonderful phenomenon in which people took their camcorders, which were designed for Mom, Dad, and the kids to shoot their own crappy-looking home videos, and started making crappy-looking "movies" with them. 

As the technology progressed, the homegrown charm of these crude do-it-yourself productions began to fade, leaving us with a precious few memorable examples of the camcorder genre which are noteworthy for being either surprisingly watchable (as is David A. Prior's SLEDGEHAMMER, the first shot-on-video horror movie) or just jaw-droppingly awful (and thus, perversely, still just as watchable, as in the case of Barry J. Gillis' mindboggling THINGS).

The 1995 sci-fi opus PHOBE: THE XENOPHOBIC EXPERIMENTS (Intervision, DVD) falls into the former category thanks to the competent direction of Erica Benedikty (also a co-writer, among other things) which, amazingly enough, even includes a crane shot or two (!). 

 

Originally conceived as a horror-themed feature film to be shot on 16mm and blown up to 35mm, its projected half-million dollar budget was later reduced to around a few hundred bucks--which, as you might expect, resulted in a considerably less lavish finished product, shot with a Betacam Sp, which made its debut on a Canadian community cable TV station. 

The script involves a cop from the planet Mondora who's been tasked to track down an escaped cyborg creature known as a "Phobe."  The Phobes (short for "Xenophobe") were originally created as super-warriors in an interplanetary war but are now on the loose. 

When one of them steals a spaceship and hightails it to Earth, Sgt. Gregory Dapp (John Rubick) is ordered to bring it back alive.  This he attempts to do with the help of a high school cheerleader named Jennifer (Tina Dumoulin) after she is inadvertently drawn into the whole potentially bloody mess while walking home from school through the woods. 

 

The less-than-svelte Rubick is supposed to be playing a cool supercop but he looks more like that guy in high school you dread showing up at your house because he eats all your snacks and drinks all your beer.  As a cheerleader, the cute Tina Dumoulin is a bit on the plus side but that just somehow seems to make her even cuter. 

While both are rather lacking in acting skills, if they'd actually been good I would have been severely disappointed.  Besides, the dialogue is so amusingly banal and unsophisticated that their unpolished acting style fits it perfectly.

The Phobe itself is like a shaggy cross between the Terminator and Swamp Thing, the costume being not too bad at all when photographed right.  Sgt. Dapp seems to alternate between actively tracking the beast and being tracked down by it so that the film can emulate various scenes from THE TERMINATOR, PREDATOR, and other similar sci-fi/action films. 

Naturally, it's pretty much irrelevent in this case to notice things like bad acting, gaping plot holes, inept production values, bad sound, or, in short, bad anything.  These are to be fully expected and, as such, are as normal and natural as whiskers on a kitten. You like kittens, don't you?  Sure you do.

 

The filmmakers do pull off some nice touches here and there (such as the aforementioned crane shots that pretty much had me agog).  The few outer space/spaceship shots that we see are pretty basic computer graphics but in this context they're quite passable.  A later spaceship landing benefits from some clever forced perspective.  Ray gun FX are well done, and in one fight scene between Dapp and the Phobe we even get a couple of honest-to-goodness lightsabers! 

The DVD from Intervision is in 1.33:1 full frame with Dolby 2.0 sound, remastered and greatly improved from its original form.  No subtitles.  In addition to a pleasant director's commentary plus Benedikty's first feature-length movie, the supernatural adventure BACK IN BLACK, we get a lengthy behind-the-scenes featurette entitled "The Making of PHOBE", a recent cast and crew Q & A which followed the remastered film's first actual theatrical screening, a comparison of FX shots between the original TV broadcast and the new improved version, outtakes, and a rendition of the film's catchy theme music by the group Gribble Hell. 

When talking about camcorder films, the two most basic questions are: (1) does it vaguely resemble an actual movie?, and (2) is it watchable?  With PHOBE: THE XENOPHOBIC EXPERIMENTS, the answer to both questions is a cheerful "yes."  While it didn't exactly blow me away or anything, the fact that it's effortlessly charming and just plain fun to watch in its own amateurish way is enough for me to recommend it.  Unless, of course, you simply insist on being a camcorder-phobe. 

PHOBE: THE XENOPHOBIC EXPERIMENTS -- DVD Review by Porfle