War of the Worlds (1953): ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Holds up incredibly well. I mean, sure, part of that is the charm of early ‘50s sci-fi (weird red-hot meteor lands, so of course the local service station guy whacks it with a shovel, and when the scientist’s Geiger counter clicks like mad due to radiation, he casually says they might want to think about keeping people a little further away). But it’s also really tightly written, and still pulls me right into the story. Absolutely a classic.
TV And Films
The shows and movies I like (or don’t).
🎥 Repo Man
Repo Man (1984): ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: It had been decades since I’d watched this, which was great, because there was so much I’d forgotten. Gloriously weird, with a killer soundtrack. It’s one of those films that is really good, even though in many objective ways it’s really bad, but it’s not a “so bad it’s good” situation, it’s just a superimposition of the two.
🎥 Top Gun: Maverick
Top Gun: Maverick (2022): ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: While definitely still a flashy and impressive recruitment film, is a much better film than the original, in that there’s actually a somewhat reasonable amount of plot and character development between money shots. Also lots of entertaining callbacks — the opening few minutes are practically a shot-for-shot redo of the opening few minutes of the original, just with modern equipment.
🎥 Top Gun
Top Gun (1986): ⭐️⭐️⭐️: First time watching this in years. Still fun, but wow, did its lack of plot stand out. It really is basically a cross between a Navy recruitment film and a porn film: just barely enough plot to string together the money shots.
🎥 Thor: Love and Thunder
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022): ⭐️⭐️: It was…okay? I mean, it more or less held my interest. There were amusing moments, and I wouldn’t really say I was bored through much of it. But the tone was just weird. It felt less like it was done by the same director as Ragnarok, and more like it was done by his understudy who almost but not quite understood what made Ragnarok work so well.
📚 Second Self by Una McCormack
45/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Though the framing story takes place just after season one of Picard, most of the story is set just following the Dominion War, with tensions still high among Bajorans, Cardassians, Romulans, and Starfleet, all on a remote Bajoran planet occupied by the Cardassians. Lots of intrigue and mysteries abound.
🎥 Moonfall
Moonfall (2022): ⭐️: Makes Armageddon look like Carl Sagan’s Contact. If you look hard enough, there are a few brief glimpses of some good hard SF ideas somewhere in there, but they’re so slathered in layers of dreck that there’s nothing of real interest left.
If the basic premise of “the moon falls to Earth and things get real bad” interests you, read Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves for an actually intelligent take on the idea.
📚 The Shocks of Adversity by William Leisner
42/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Kirk finds that new allies have some hidden secrets. Another entirely acceptable Trek adventure.
📚 Devil’s Bargain by Tony Daniel
40/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A decent Trek adventure, with some interesting explorations of the Horta. However, yet another instance of Kirk immediately falling in love with a pretty woman from the planet of the week. I know it’s Trek cliche, but I wish more authors would just let Kirk interact with women as people, instead of so predictably and pointlessly as romantic interests.
🎥 Journey 2: The Mysterious Island
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012): ⭐️⭐️: Much like Brendan Frasier carried the first film, The Rock completely carries this film. Luis Guzman, unfortunately, drags it down, bringing a Jack Black-style over-the-top attitude that kills his lines, even when the lines themselves are funny. A few things kept throwing me off, including that Frasier’s character isn’t even mentioned at any point, and the scaling (up or down) of creatures was confusing. Still, equally as inconsequentially entertaining as the first. The two made a completely acceptable Saturday afternoon double feature, but I’ll never have a great desire to see either one again.