Colonizing mars is a popular topic right now, even offering the seeds of a space race between Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Boeing Aerospace to see which group can establish a manned base on Mars. And then there’s the splendid movie The Martian from 2015, coming on the heels of the gripping film 2013 film Gravity. Fifty years ago, Hollywood was fascinated by the moon, in parallel with the Apollo missions leading up to a man stepping onto…Read More
Review: John Carter
John Carter is based on a pulp science fiction story from the golden era of science fiction, written by a popular author who is now better known for his series of Tarzan the Ape Man books, a story that transplants the political tensions of Europe and the world just before World War I broke out to the Red Planet Mars. John Carter (a rugged Taylor Kitsch) is an American Civil War soldier who has deserted…Read More
Review: Green Lantern
Just when I thought that the summer was going to be defined by a set of great tentpole films (I really liked both X-Men: First Class and Super 8) I sat through the dreck that is Green Lantern. Based on a storyline that is more suited for Saturday morning cartoons than a big screen production, the film had the awkward feel of a children’s made-for-TV animation that got redefined along the way to be a…Read More
Review: Robin Hood
If you can get over the fact that this is most assuredly not the story of Robin Hood of Nottingham Forest, eternally battling the evil Sheriff of Nottingham for Maid Marion’s hand, you might find that Robin Hood is an interesting and exciting war movie set in medieval times with Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) as the central character. Like director Ridley Scott’s last outing with Crowe, Gladiator, Robin Hood is a dirty, gritty movie with so much…Read More
Review: Sherlock Holmes
I’ve been a fan of Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary detail-oriented detective Sherlock Holmes for as long as I can remember. As a young child I devoured the stories and as recently as last week was watching a classic 1944 Holmes movie, The Scarlet Claw, starring Basil Rathbone as the eponymous detective and Nigel Bruce as his bumbling medical sidekick John Watson. I also greatly enjoyed the BBC series of Holmes stories that starred Jeremy Brett…Read More