Fall TV 2012: Week One

We’re back for the start of another fall premiere season. First thing I have to say is that I’m not super excited about it. Being a sci-fi, fantasy, genre fan, there’s not a whole lot for me to get excited about this year. There is virtually no sci-fi on TV this fall (the closest we…

Fall TV 2012: Preview Week Zero

I can’t believe that summer is behind us already and networks are gearing up to bring us all their fall seasons. Fortunately some networks also decided to put their new shows up on iTunes or streaming from their websites, so I’ve gotten to watch some of the pilots of new shows even before they air….

Movie #49: Contagion

Contagion was not an easy movie to watch (and probably the scariest of my summer 50). Director Steven Soderbergh once again uses the technique he mastered in Traffic, the sober series of interconnected stories featuring a huge ensemble cast, to tell the larger tale of a global viral outbreak. While it’s a bit of a…

Movie #43: John Carter

Hearing that there’s going to be a big-budget sci-fi-fantasy movie made, gets me pretty excited. But when the movie turns out to get bad reviews, I get a bit nervous to watch the movie for fear of how they’ve botched something that could have been really good. I was going to save John Carter for…

Movie #31: The Thing

I’m not quite sure how to review a movie like The Thing. I have not seen the original 1982 horror movie classic, but I suspect that it was not too different from the pure creature-feature that this remake is. The movie is set almost entirely in Antarctica, where a group of Norwegian scientists invite a…

15 Flicks for Fall 2012

As summer is more than half over, it’s time to start thinking about movies for the fall. Sadly, I didn’t end up watching all of last year’s list (at least not in the theatres). Nevertheless, here’s what I’m looking forward to (in vaguely chronological order) for Fall 2012: 1. Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Pt. 2…

Movie #26: Another Earth

I didn’t know what to expect from this movie, but I’m a sucker for indie sci-fi movies. I think sci-fi concepts open up a huge realm of storytelling — it’s a great way to explore dramatic and philosophical questions. Anyway, in this case, Another Earth is mostly a human drama about a teenage girl, Rhoda,…

Movie #25: Cowboys & Aliens

I’ve never been a fan of westerns (they are my second-least favourite genre, next to mob movies). However, when I heard about this western-sci-fi mash-up, I was intrigued. When I learned that Daniel Craig was going to star as the mysterious lead character, I was downright excited. Like many westerns (not that I’m any kind…

Safety Not Guaranteed – Movie Review

I had not heard anything about Safety Not Guaranteed before stumbling upon it in the theatre listings. It got great ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, and I love discovering indie-movie gems (especially when they have a sci-fi twist). When the following ad appears in the local classifieds, some writers from Seattle Magazine are intrigued enough to…