Movie version of the classic Robert A. Heinlein short story, “All You Zombies.” Remarkably true to the story, down to the dialogue, with an added layer of complexity added to make the story movie length. A very well made movie based on perhaps the best time travel story ever written.
Tags: Friday B-Movie, Movie, Robert Heinlein, Science Fiction, SciFi, Time Travel
Roswell, Texas by L. Neil Smith
This is a graphic novel, set in one of L. Neil Smith’s Libertarian universes. In this reality, Santa Ana was killed by a long range rifle shot from the Alamo, allowing the people in to escape, and the Republic of Texas to survive. Flash forward to 1947. There is a mysterious crash near the Texas town of New Mexico. Four Texas Rangers are sent to investigate, along with various military units and spies from various nations, including the California Republic, the Third and Half Reich, and a much smaller United States. It’s a fun read, and Ranger William Bear doesn’t just get the girl, he gets the girl.
Tags: book, Comic, Graphic Novel, Libertarian, Monday Book Pick, Science Fiction, SciFi, Time Travel
Let’s ring in the new year with the latest from Woody Allen. The Woodman isn’t in front of the camera for this film, he just wrote and directed. He got Owen Wilson to play the role of Woody Allen in this movie, and I have to say that Wilson plays the Woodman better than Woody ever did. A bit of Allen history here. Fans of the Woodman know his first film appearance was in “What’s Up Pussycat?”, which was set in Paris. Shortly afterwards, Allen moved to LA and starting writing (and directing/acting in) a string of successful movies. In this film, Wilson plays a writer who has had a string of very successful screenplays made into successful movies. He is currently in Paris, with his fiance, working on a novel. He is constantly complaining that he was truely happy back when was living in Paris as a near starving writer, before going to Hollywood and “selling out.” His fiance doesn’t see what the problem is, he is successful in his career and should continue doing what has been bringing in lots of money. To make things worse, they run into old “friends”, including a fellow Wilson’s character (i.e. Woody Allen) can’t stand, but his fiance thinks is knowledgeable and charming. True to form, our protagonist is complaining about many things, including about how boring modern times are, and how much more alive Paris was during the 1920s. Then comes the movie magic, while wandering the streets of Paris alone, at Midnight, an old limo pulls up and the occupants insist that he join them. The booze is flowing freely, so he gets in. The car takes them to a party where he meets F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Ernest Hemingway, and other famous people who made 1920s Paris their home. In the morning he returns to the early 21st Century and freshly inspired, works on his novel, while his fiance “tours” Paris with friends. This repeats for multiple nights, and his adventures continue, including getting Gertrude Stein and Hemingway to read his novel and give advice. Oh, and he also finds the love of his life. She is as bored with Paris of the 1920s as the Woodman stand in is of the 21st Century. She pines for the “Bella Epoch”. The two of them travel there, were they find her heroes pining for the old days as well. This is a revelation for him, he returns to the 21st Century, cleans up the mess of his personal life, and decides to move forward rather than living for the past.
I described an earlier B-Movie pick as “a big sloppy wet kiss, with tongue, to Steven Spielberg.” In this film, Woody Allen does much more than that. He gets down on his knees, unhinges his jaw, and deep throats Paris. The city of Paris is as much a character in this movie as any of the roles played by actors (the actor playing Hemingway was fornicating awesome BTW). This is a film carefully crafted by a master film maker and will be especially enjoyed by fans of the Woodman’s work, such as myself. The only part I would warn my gentle readers about is where Allen let’s his far left extremist political views leak through. It’s clear that those are based on his emotions, and not any rational thought.
Tags: Friday B-Movie, Movie, Time Travel, Woody Allen
Pirates of the Timestream by Steve White
Jason Thanou is back (26 Aug 2013 Book Pick) for round three. This time is it in the golden age of Pirates. His team links up with Captain Henry Morgan while they battle it out with time traveling Transhumanists! Even worse, he has to deal the uncaring bureaucracy of his own government.
Tags: Baen, book, Monday Book Pick, Science Fiction, SciFi, Time Travel
Sunset of the Gods by Steve White
Jason Thanou is back (26 Aug 2013 Book Pick) and things are getting even weirder in his trips to the past. He finds out that there are worse things than finding that the anicent Greek Gods were aliens mucking with human development. At least they were slowing dying out. One a mission to observe, from a lot closer viewpoint than he planned, the battle of Marathon, things go pear shaped right quick when he runs into Pan!
Tags: book, Monday Book Pick, Science Fiction, SciFi, Time Travel
Blood of Heros by Steve White
A well researched time travel tale. The author lays out the rules for time travel in his future universe up front, which is a plus in time travel stories. Our heroes travel back to bronze age Greece to observe a historical event and then the fun starts. They run into humanoid aliens. Very long lived, technologically advanced aliens. These aliens didn’t reproduce very often, but they had been there long enough produce a second generation. The older ones had names that included Chronos and Theia. The younger ones included Zeus, Hera, and Apollo. You can see were this is going. There is much action and adventure (adventure: bad things happening to other people far away). A fun read with two sequels already.
Tags: Alternate History, book, Monday Book Pick, Science Fiction, SciFi, Time Travel
Time’s Last Gift by Philip Jose Farmer
This classic is back in print, so if you haven’t read it yet, go do so! In the not so far future from now, time travel is discovered. You can only travel backwards in time, and there is a limit of how far back you can go. So a team of scientist is sent back as far as possible, to the early days of Homo Sapiens. So far back, North Africa was lush plains and forests. Here is the plot twist, one of the team members is not quite what he presents himself as. He is in fact, much older than his other team members, since he been given the gift of immortality (or an extremely long life span) by a Witch Doctor he saved from a leopard in the African jungles he was born in. If you haven’t guessed who the tall gray eyed ringer is by now, you haven’t read enough Farmer.
Tags: book, Monday Book Pick, Philip Jose Farmer, PJF, Science Fiction, SciFi, Time Travel
A Van Damme classic from 1994. A good SciFi Time Travel adventure with really good fight scenes.
Tags: action movie, Alternate History, Friday B-Movie, Martial Arts, Movie, Time Travel
This movie was better than I expected, mostly because of good actors, including John Cusack and Crispin Glover. That and a complete irreverance for just about anything. Craig Robinson pretty much played the same character he did in Zack & Miri do a Porno, but he did it well. I watched the unrated version, so there was a fair amount of gratious nudity, which added to the mindless enjoyment of this B-Movie.
Tags: Comedy, Friday B-Movie, Movie, Science Fiction, SciFi, Time Travel