It’s been forever since I watched this short-lived series, but alongside Star Wars, Star Trek, and Galactica, Buck Rogers was an integral part of my youth. I had previously written about the pilot episode, released theatrically, before airing on network television on 20 September, 1979, so I moved right on to the next episode in…
Tag: effects
Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975) – Ishiro Honda
Director Ishiro Honda returns for the last Godzilla film of the Showa era, and while it still features space aliens intent on taking over the planet, this one feels a little deeper than some of the previous entries, by introducing some interesting characters who seem to really struggle with their natures. I’m talking, specifically about…
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974) – Jun Fukuda
These stories just get more and more out there! Delightedly so! This Godzilla adventure brings in secret Interpol agents, invading aliens, an imposter Godzilla,a new kaiju to add to the mythos, an Okinawan prophecy and a very rare non-terrestrial element, space titanium! There’s a lot going on in this one, and not a lot of…
Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973) – Jun Fukuda
The dwellers of Seatopia send the drilling kaiju Megalon to the surface to destroy humanity for causing the destruction of a number of their people and their homes with the ongoing nuclear tests humanity is conducting. And despite the fact that they disappear about halfway through the film and don’t show up again, the rest…
Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) – Yoshimitsu Banno
The next film in the Godzilla series is probably the most psychedelic entry to date, and even features brief animated sequences. It also has a pretty important environmental message. The newest threat for Godzilla, and humanity, to confront is an ever-evolving, and shape-shifting creature from outer space, christened Hedorah, by young Godzilla fan (who he…
The X-Files (2002) – Sunshine Days, and The Truth
The penultimate episode of the ninth season is all about family, in a roundabout way. Written by Vince Gilligan, who also directed it, it first aired on 12 May, 2002. When a body is recovered from a location that sometimes appears to be the Brady house from The Brady Bunch television show, Doggett (Robert Patrick),…
Son of Godzilla (1967) – Jun Fukuda
It was gonna happen sooner or later. There was going to be a classic Godzilla film that just didn’t ring my bell like the rest of the series, and as of this moment, it’s Son of Godzilla. While I enjoy all the monster fighting sequences, and even some of the goofy science outpost plot, the…
Flight of the Navigator (1986) – Randal Kleiser
Disney delivers a staple of 80s childhood with a revisit to Flight of the Navigator. Watching it now, I find myself more interested in the mysteries going on at the edges of the story than the main thrust of the narrative following young David Freeman (Joey Cramer), his abduction and subsequent return eight years later,…
The X-Files (2002) – Hellbound, and Provenance
Reyes (Annabeth Gish) brings an unusual case to Doggett (Robert Patrick) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) in Hellbound. She also has a strange connection to it that she can’t quite figure out. Written by David Amann and first airing on 27 January, 2002, the agents find themselves a series of deaths involving ex-cons who were skinned…
Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965) – Ishiro Honda
Godzilla is back! But he almost takes a backseat to the rest of the story, which sees an expansion of the Godzilla universe by bringing in aliens, flying saucers, and seeing the return of Rodan and King Ghidorah. When a new planet, Planet X, is discovered in orbit around Jupiter, a joint Japanese/American mission is…
The Mind Reels 