I recently published a blog piece celebrating my fiftieth year on the planet. In the article, I wrote about the books I read as a child under the age of ten. The intention was twofold: to inform people about the books that inspired a young boy to take on the monumental goal of writing science fiction thrillers (a task which took decades to achieve), and to implore parents to always buy books for their children.
I wrote about turning forty-seven here. My thoughts remain the same. I was born at the best possible time. I loved the decades I’ve experienced — the films, the music, the television, pop culture, and the explosion of technology. I’ve witnessed the birth of the personal computer, the internet, the ease of information acquisition and now this time of instant gratification. It’s a period that we could only have imagined just a short time ago.
The Best Science Fiction Movies of the 1970’sI should clarify that a film’s presence on this blog post is entirely subjective based on my experiences growing up. These were my creative formative years, during which I was discovering genre books, television shows, and movies. I was born in 1970, so really the 80’s were my true introduction to Science Fiction Horror, Thriller and Adventure — books by Asimov and Crichton and films by Cameron, Spielberg, Carpenter, and Verhoeven — but the 1970’s played a huge role in my love for the genre. Detroit Channel 7 broadcast most of the films I saw. Many had poor effects, but the stories were so powerful and the actors so committed that the movies rose above the rest of the stories that were available at the time. The themes were relevant, the plots compelling and interesting, all the base human emotions like revenge and lust and greed and hate were on full display, they spoke of issues that people dealt with every day, and they featured powerful scores and incredible directing. They were gripping.
STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
(Previously Published at TrekWeb on 18 May 2013)
Format: Digital 2D
Studio: Paramount
Director: J.J. Abrams
Writers: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof
Rating of STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS: 9/10
Rating of STAR TREK (2009): 9.5/10
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The Best Movie Sequels of All TimeBefore I begin, here are a few basic facts about me that you might already know by now:
I love movies.
I love genre movies — thrillers, action, adventure, horror, science fiction.
I love sagas, series, and trilogies. Call them what you want; I love to revisit characters and storylines that captivated my attention in the first film.
STAR TREK (2009): A PERFECT REBOOT AND A SOARING THRILL-RIDE(Originally published by TrekWeb on 14 February 2012)
J.J. Abrams and writers Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman did in 2009 what I thought impossible: they rebooted a franchise with over forty years of history, including seventy-nine episodes, six motion pictures, four spinoffs, an animated series, countless books, comics, video games, and references in popular culture. It seemed a task that only a fool would tackle. To face the criticism of rabid fans — a group in which I include myself — and the most critical eyes focused on every bit of the film, including story, f/x, sound, acting and music, a failure could have potentially resulted in complete disaster for the franchise and also the death of careers. But J.J. & Co. faced it head on, with fresh eyes, a new perspective, and with intense creativity.
