Top 100 Sci-Fi Movies of the 20th Century!!! Part 5 No. 58 - 52

 

  I received this issue of Remind, which Alison calls "my old people magazine," that ranked the top 100 Science Fiction movies of the 20th century.

Remind does feature many pop culture stories, primarily from the 1950s through the 1990s, though there are references to earlier decades as well. Each issue focuses on different topics, such as country music, westerns, and "where are they now" issues, among others. I enjoy it, as I love pop history. They also have puzzles and a monthly guide to what's on TCM (Turner Classic Movies).

I thought it would be fun to review the movies on the list in reverse order and share my thoughts on them. The magazine's ranking of the movies is not mine.  

I won't go into detailed reviews, but I will share the IMDb ranking and my own rating on a 1-10 scale. I am starting to grade some movies by fraction, such as grading a 7 as 7.3.  

58)

Soylent Green

Year: 1973  IMDb: 7.0 Tom: 7.0  Had I seen before? Yes  Service found on: Library Rental

Imagine 2022 New York City.  Pollution is rampant, there is overcrowding, poverty, unemployment and hunger. The only food in abundance is Soylent Green.  And what is it made of?  Huh? Eh? Eh? At the time, it was perhaps the biggest surprise I had experiencec in cinema.  It features a disillusioned cop in Charlton Heston, and Edward G. Robinson in his final film role. I enjoyed revisiting this science fiction mystery thriller.

57)

The Andromeda Strain

Year: 1971  IMDb: 7.6 Tom: 7.3  Had I seen before? Yes  Service found on: Pluto TV

Well, this time we did it to ourselves.  Achrashed sattelite brings in deadly microbes, killing an entire town, except for an old man and a baby. Wickedly realsitic, sometimes plodding, but always focused on the crisis at hand, aa small group of scientists try to figure and neutralize the virus. This was based on a bestseller by Michael Chrchton (Jurrasic Park), a writer I followed until he went globel warming denier.

56)

Starman

Year: 1984  IMDb: 7.0 Tom: 8.1  Had I seen before? Yes  Service found on: Roku

It's no secret that I am a huge John Carpenter.  I seldom see movies more than once, but most Carpenter films I could watch again and agian.  This one is one of his best, and is unique in it's romantic ... stariness.  Jeff Bridges plays an alien doing his best to emulate human behavior. He was nominated for Best Actor, a rarity for a scince fiction film performance.  And he deserved to win.  He is aided by a Karen Allen (also a steller performance), assisting him in trying to return to his home world, while being persued by those pesky governemtn agents.

55) 

Strange Days

Year: 1995  IMDb: 7.2 Tom: 8.3  Had I seen before? No  Service found on: Library Rental

Yeah. I have no idea how I hadn't seen this before.  To date, of those movies I had missed, this was the biggest surprise. Set just four years in the future, it's use of VR and other elements are more prophetic for now than 1999/2000. I found the story very engaging, and the two leads, Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett, very engaging. It really rings true today, not just thte VR, but with AI, and the increasing racial and social injustice of our times. Successful both as a social commentary and an action thriller, I highly reccomend it.  But, oh boy!  Is it ever hard to find!  Your best bet is a livrary DVD rental.

54)

The Thing From Another World

 

Year: 1951  IMDb: 7.0 Tom: 5.9  Had I seen before? Yes  Service found on: Roku

This is based on a famous novella by John Campbell.  I'm not sure how close to the source material it is.  John Carpenter may have benn slighltly closer in his 1982 adaptation. It's strenght is on a more realistic dialogue and presentatiion than many science fiction movies of it's time. It's scare factor is fairly muted.  James Arness (Gunsmoke's Mattt Dillon) plays like a giant alien carrot.  Not phenomenal, but impressive fot it's time, and worth a watch,

53)

 Starship Troopers

Year: 1997  IMDb: 7.3 Tom: 7.4 Had I seen before? Yes  Service found on: Pluto TV

Another film whose thmes hit harder today than they did at the time of the film's release. Based on Robert Heinlein's sceince fisftion novel, the film presents a mix of younf adult angst  and outright fascism.  Earth fights off an invasion of giant bugs, eventually trying to take the fight to the bug's home planet. There are news clips and TV ads icleverly interspersed throughout.  I understand what director Paul Verhoevan (Robo Cop) was going for, but the message against facism is somewhat lost in the miltary glory of the young soldiers, fghting as much for their home planet, as they are for the right to be a "citizen." I'm not sure everyone gets what they're watching, but that just might be me. Yes, the scariness of what we're going through now effects how I view this movie.

54)

Year: 1976  IMDb: 6.6 Tom: 4.0 Had I seen before? No  Service found on: Puto TV

I'm sorry to end this segment on this downer of a note, but this movie is terrible. Maybe you'll find it palatable, but I didn't.  It just meandered incoherently, and i didn't understand much of it. This is not a crticism of David Bowie.  He's a great musician, and he probably just did what they told him.  Sotry line is somewhat similar to Starman, I guess.  I'm not sure. In my opinon, a waste of celluloid. 

 As an added feature, I would like to keep a running list of those movies I have rated 8 or higher.

90) Akira 8

89) Cocoon 9

88) They Live 9

84) Face Off 8

77) The Time Machine 8

75) The Truman Show 8

          70) Galaxy Quest 8

          68) Time After Time 8

          67) Superman 8 

          63) Men In Black 8  

           56) Starman 8.1

           55) Strange Days 8.3

Next up? More John Carpenter! Perhaps the best of 50's science fiction planetary visits! James Cameron enters the charts! Star Trek chase whales! And much more!  Well, two or three more.

Until next time!

T. M. Strait (thanx, H. G. Wells!)

AOC '28

 

In The Land of Fairy Tales

 

Many of us thought it wouldn't happen.

No matter how much we shouted, the Emperor had no clothes; we thought that those who could or would not see it would remain blind to the truth forever.

I mean, it worked with Reagan, didn't it? No matter how much I tried to communicate this to others, no one would listen.

Time and time again, the boy would cry wolf, and no wolf was coming. It got to the point where no one would listen to him. When the wolf finally arrived, the warning was ignored because the villagers no longer believed the boy.

But, lo and behold, things are starting to change.

I'm not precisely sure of the exact trigger. Maybe it was different things for different people. But the end result is that many who used to think he was clothed realize now he is a naked charlatan. Many who were Pavlovian in their response to his wolfy warnings no longer believe him.

Maybe it's because they now see the Emperor lying about things they can easily see are not true. It's one thing to lie about an election he lost; it's another to lie about the prices that people can see are clearly going up, not down. All it takes is a trip to the gas station or to the grocery store, and you can see he's lying. All it takes is seeing your health insurance premium rise and your 401(k) wobble.

Maybe it's the sudden realization that he's not going to truly open the Epstein Files, because lo and behold, it's not a Democratic Party hoax. It's not just filled with Bill Clinton and other Democrats. It's filled with billionaires and elites, people that Donald Trump wants to protect. And the dawning realization that the Number One person he wants to protect is...himself.

Maybe it's the "No New Wars" peacenik America First isolationist, suddenly plunging into an unnecessary and brutal conflict with a large nation of 90 million people. The reasons shift, but the biggest one is the wolf warning cry that they were two weeks away from a nuclear weapon, and we wouldn't want an unbalanced, mentally deranged leader to have a nuclear weapon, would we? These are the same potential weapons that the Emperor had declared just a few months ago that we had completely obliterated in Operation Midnight Hammer.

Now, those who had supported him are beginning to question other things. I was surprised to see the Butler assassination attempt re-emerge recently on social media. And it wasn't because of left-wing accounts. The suspicions were coming from MAGA!

The suspicions had grown so great that the recent incident at the White House Correspondents' Dinner was largely disbelieved. The immediate response by many was that it was also staged. The credibility of dear leader has declined so badly that a significant swath of his own supporters no longer believe him.

Were these assassination attempts staged? I have no idea. Many open questions surround both incidents. I really miss effective independent journalism, and I really wish that some modern-day Woodward & Bernstein would get to the bottom of it.

The deterioration is finally affecting his poll numbers. His approval rating has plummeted to the low to mid-thirties. Personally, I feel like his popularity should never have risen above one percent, but I have always recognized that he has no clothes and that he CONSTANTLY cries wolf.

For those of you who are finally waking up to this and are finally absorbing the lessons of these fairy tales, I welcome you aboard. I'm sorry you didn't wake up until democracy was in the ICU, but I'm glad you're here now.

Now we have to emulate Hungary and vote in numbers that are too big to ignore, with a single voice that no amount of gerrymandering and voter suppression can silence.

Please join me in voting out every Trump-loving Republican in the midterms this Fall.

My Irish Eyes

 

My Irish Eyes are Smiling

A'Smiling Up at You

Except my eyes aren't Irish.  If green means Irish, that's a pretty rare eye color. It's less than 2% of the population, and although the Irish may have a slightly higher concentration, it's nowhere near a dominant trait.

My father carefully laid out his ancestry, dating back to the Welshman who first came here in the mid-seventeenth century.  He carefully traces the subsequent 13 generations, but he doesn't often identify the original nationality of those they're marrying. I know they're references to English and  German, but nothing else specific. I'd like to think we played the field.  The only other reference is a vague late 19th-century warning not to marry the "damn Dutch". That type of warning makes me think somebody had already done did that.

My mother's side has no equivalent history.  There is a notion that many were Scotch-Irish.  That doesn't mean Irish. They were Scots who were enticed to go to Ireland (particularly Northern Ireland) to tame the native Irish and keep them in Great Britain. The plan kinda worked and kinda didn't.  The island is now divided between Northern Ireland (part of Great Britain) and the independent Irish Republic.

I've never taken a DNA test.  It may be interesting, but ultimately, I see myself as me, not as a personality driven by the "cultures" of arbitrary nation-states.

Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day. I don't drink beer, green, or any other color.  I've never been to a St. Patrick's Day party. Sometimes I wear green - if I think about it and am going to be around people who care. This year, probably not.  I don't expect to see many people.  But who knows? Because of this blog story, it's more on my mind than it otherwise would be.

This is me.  Yes, I'm lousy at taking selfies.  It was everything I could do just to keep my eyes open.  It's not enhanced like the model's up above.  Hard to tell on the interwebs whether that one is a natural eye color.

Hazel brown?  Hazel green?  Just brown?

I have no idea.  I'm glad there is no place I have to identify my eye color.

I'm not sure how relevant it is that I am or am not Irish.  I do know that Alison and I visited there a few years back, and we fell in love with the place. We have, on occasion, looked at what it would take to move there.  

In this age of the Orange Conman, there are a lot of places we've looked to move to.

The Most Fiery Consequence of Who is now President

 The blog article just before this answered the question Does it Matter Who the President Is?

It listed many consequences to the Trump Presidency, but I inadvertently left off the biggest one of all.

That's climate change. Global warming. It's not a myth. It's a scientific fact. And it's rapidly changing the viability and livability of our planet.

It's not happening as fast as originally projected. It's happening faster. Scientists are constantly having to accelerate the timetable for the deterioration of our climate.  

Extreme weather is becoming more and more common. Global average temperatures continue to soar. And, in the near future, climate refugees will even dwarf political refugees.

Our time to effect this is dwindling. Even if we had the right leadership, at this point, we can only mitigate rather than achieve a complete reversal.

The Orange Conman and his billionaire cronies are putting in policies that put us at the very top of this temperature pathway chart. Rather than embrace new technologies, they firmly embrace fossil fuels and all the devastation that their continued use will cause.

We are galloping, GALLOPING in the complete opposite direction we need to go.

The only way we could bring a quicker demise is if Trump's warmongering leads to nuclear war. Sadly, I can't rule that out.

It Makes No Difference Who Is President? Are You Serious?

 

The following is a Facebook post I posted on February 28th:

Shortly after Trump was announced the winner of the 24 election, someone told me not to worry. It really didn't matter who the President was. After one year of this madman, and especially this morning when the "Peace Presdient" has taken us to an unecessary war that will very likely result in the loss of lives of ourr sons and daughters (and the slauglter of countless Iranian citizens), I have to ask him, "Do you still think it makes no difference who is President of the United States?" But I can't. It might cause a rift in the organization we both attend.

He thinks himself neutral. He is not. He is very conservative, but with so much extremism around here, relative silence stands out as middle of the road.

For the last ten years, I have felt pent up and angry. It has been everything I can do to hold my temper in check.

I had an opportunity to ask him this about a week ago. I passed. Call me a coward if you want. But I have to constantly measure the collateral damage a remark can cause. And I decided it wasn't worth it.

But the question remains. Do you still think it doesn't matter who the President is?

Would we be currently engulfing the world in flames due to a war of choice? Would a school filled with young girls still be with us? Would any other President be stupid enough to be sucked in by Netanyahu's idea of obliterating Iran? The answer is no. No other president would have done this, especially without explanation or preparation. Bush and Cheney propagandized for a year or more before invading Iraq.

Would any other President been stupid enough to think that blanket-level tariffs were good economic policy? All that it has done has raised prices for average Americans and turned many of our allies against us. The big lesson for other countries is to build up their markets by excluding the United States. And hey, let's give 40 billion dollars to newly fascist Argentina, and prop up their beeef market over the Uniyted States! And hey, American farmers, don't worry! We'll bail you out with billionsmore of US taxpayer money!

Would Renee Good and Alex Pretti still be alive if we had a different President? Of course they would! And countless others who have been killed and/or dragged away by ICE. They're not going after the worst of the worst. They're dragging off and kidnapping US citizens, and that's bad. But they're not targeting the worst of the worst - those undocumented who have committed violent felonies. No, they're persecuting even those playing by the rules, people showing up for immigration hearings, trying to follow procedure. They're arresting people at workplaces - going after individuals - not the businesses that hire and exploit them. People are going to detention centers and then disappearing - no one knows where they've gone -deported, moved to another camp, murdered? We just don't know.* There is no exemption in Christianity where you get to treat people like they're less than human.

Would we have a President who, along with his cronies, is making billions off of corruption? No, there has never been anything like it. This is at a level we have never seen before and would never see with any other President.

Would the lgbtq+ community be made to feel less safe with any other President? I don't think so. The trans community, less than 1% of us, is being scapegoated and villainized. This is a trend in Republican politics, to attack and persecute minority communities, but the focus on trans people has been vicious and dangerous. Of course, hatred is not just reserved for them; they are just the most vulnerable. Somalis, Mexicans, Muslims - anything to make the blood boil in reich-wing America.

We elected someone who WEKNEW was a close associate of Jeffrey Epstein, the most notorious pedophile of modern times, who appears in the Epstein files more often than God and Jesus do in the bible. We have those in this country who close their eyes and pretend Trump wasn't involved. Trump wasn't a client. Trump was IN on it, part of the small inner circle planning and perpetuating this monstrosity. He owned teen beauty pageants and "modeling" agencies. He bragged about how his celebrity allowed him to get away with sexually assaulting women. They have tried to censor his name from what is released, but enough has slipped through that you have to know in your heart that he is every bit the monster that Epstein was.

I could go on and on. There are some things that are only happening, or happening at such an intense level, because we have a narcissistic, adjudicated sexual assaulter, adjudicated fraudster, convicted felon, racist, dementia-riddled, body-disintegrating, mad conman as President of the United States.

Of course, it matters who is President of the United States. Sometimes the differences are subtle. And sometimes they are apocalyptically crushing.

Guess which one Trump is?

Great Moments in Olympic History

 Please do not interpret this as a comprehensive list.  These are just moments that have stood out to me and had some impact beyond the sporting event.  They are not ranked; instead, they are listed in chronological order.

Jesse Owens at the 1936 Berlin (Nazi) Olympics

The 1936 Berlin Olympics were designed to be a showcase for Nazi ideology and demonstrate Aryan athletic superiority.  Hitler's racist statement was clouded by Jesse Owens winning FOUR Olympic gold medals in track and field.

Not all was golden memories, however.  Jesse Owens did not come home to a glorious welcome.  He was mistreated and ignored. He had great difficulty earning a living.  No advertisements.  No endorsements. Most of what he achieved was through the African American community.

We tend to forget that the Nazis were inspired by how historically Americans had treated blacks and native Americans, and helped develop some of their policies in persecuting the Jewish community.

Protest at the 68 Olympics

At the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, two American athletes, Tommie Smith, who won gold, and John Carlos, who won bronze, raised their fists during the playing of the national anthem during their award ceremony.  It was to call attention to human rights and the racial injustices faced by Black Americans.  Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated earlier that year.  

The two athletes experienced much criticism and ostracization after that.  Nevertheless, it was an important moment in demonstrating the influence that athletes could have on important social issues, and the salute they gave has lived on as an important symbol in black communities and others that have been repressed.

The Perfect 10

It was a breathtaking moment.  Young Nadia Comaneci, a Romanian gymnast, was all of 14 years old, scored the first perfect ten on the uneven bars at the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

It was spectacular, heartstopping.  It was also a bit dangerous. 

It took a while, but it did bring up age concerns.  Is 14 too young? The current age to participate is now 16.  I believe it raised some safety concerns, but I'm still researching that.  

Miracle on Ice

At the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics, what is considered one of the greatest miracles in sports occurred.  A team of amateur athletes from the US defeated a team of professionals from the Soviet Union. 4 to 3.  The Soviet Union had long dominated the sport at the Olympics, and no one anywhere was expecting this outcome.  

It also marked the beginning of the end of the Olympics as a contest for amateurs.  Always an iffy proposition, with authoritarian countries doing things like placing their athletes in the military, and making it the only job they do. 

Eventually, pro athletes, including NBA and NHL stars, competed in the Olympics.  The effect in some events, like basketball, was to weigh heavily in favor of countries like the USA.  

Yes, it's kind of a recognition of reality.  It's also kind of sad, in that it was one of the last places to let amateurs shine.

Simone Biles and Mature Judgment

Gymnast Simone Biles is one of the most accomplished athletes of our time. Her 11 medals are the most won by an American gymnast.  Even those who watched little Olympics would seek out her performances.

But it is not just what she did that made her such an important sports figure.  It's having the maturity to know her limits and make wise judgments.  Gymnastic performances require and incerdible balance between the mind and the body. And she was wise enough to know when those were out of synch, and going forward would put her at considerable physical risk.

She brought that balance into sharper focus and encouraged people to respect their mental health as well as their physical health.

I admire her greatly.

The Incredible Spirit of Freedom and Joy

What an amazing breath of fresh air!

A performance not only memorable for its physical and athletic accomplishments, but for the sheer joy and explosion of optimism it encircled us with.

I'm not sure I've ever been as captivated by a performance and story as I have by Alysa Liu.  Everything in this post about the greatest moments of the Olympics is represented in her.

Her family story is captivating.  His father was a Chinese dissident who challenged the authoritarian government in Tiananmen Square. He came here to find freedom in America. She is a first-generation American, and her family shows the VITAL contributions made by our immigrants.

She is not shy about her political beliefs, standing up against ICE and other progressive causes, including her support for the LGBTQ community.

She treats her fellow competitors with support, hugs, and love.

She's a freaking nerd, into anime.  She and Amber Glenn remind me so much of my son, Benjamin.  If Earth moved in that direction, I think they would be great pals.

Where some of our other athletes were getting too far into their own heads, stressing out and making mistakes they normally wouldn't, Alysa had a carefree attitude, where the most important thing was just to skate and have fun.

She broke the stranglehold that coaching has on many of our athletes.  They are overcoached and overtrained, limited in what they can eat, do, or even think.  They've surrendered their identity to the machine, which is more concerned with promoting itself than with their athletes.  

She left the sport at 16 because it was no longer fun with everyone overcoaching and controlling her.  When she came back in 2024, it was on her own terms, and the idea that whatever happened, she was going to have FUN!

And so have we all!  In these dark days, as America gets swallowed whole by a brutal and growing fascism, she has let back in the joy of being who you are.

Whether she retires or goes on to the greatest achievements in sports, I will never forget this moment in time.

She has lit up the world for all of us.

Ice Hits Close to Home

 

Linda Davis, beloved teacher.

As terrible as some things are, we fool ourselves into thinking that they are too distant from us to impact us. Minneapolis is many hours and states away from where I live. They are mainly targeting Democratic cities, and I live in one of the reddest counties on the planet. Nothing has happened to jar loose any of the 90% who voted for Trump and pals in elections here.

But a terrible tragedy has struck close to home. The madness that is ICE struck in Savannah.   Rather than me stumbling trying to describe what happened, I will let this news story written by Margaret Coker in The Current Ga outline it for you.

"A Chatham County elementary school teacher en route to work early Monday was killed after a man trying to flee federal immigration agents rammed her vehicle on Whitefield Avenue near the Truman Parkway, according to county police.

Linda Davis, a longtime teacher at Herman W. Hesse K-8 School was pulled from her crushed Lexus sedan by emergency personnel but later pronounced dead at the hospital. The driver who allegedly hit her, 38-year-old Oscar Vasquez-Lopez, was arrested by Chatham County Police and charged with homicide and reckless driving, police said.  

The fatal collision occurred around 7:20 a.m. less than a half mile from Hesse after agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tried to pull over the vehicle driven by Vasquez-Lopez, according to police and eyewitnesses. 

Although Monday was a school holiday, Davis was due to attend teacher training that morning at the elementary school that serves a large number of Spanish-speaking children. Vasquez-Lopez appears to have driven through the red light on Whitefield on the east side of the Truman at such speed that the front and side of Davis' vehicle was crushed, witnesses told The Current GA. 

Around 7:30 a.m., before emergency workers arrived at the scene, two masked immigration agents dressed in tactical gear detained one person and ushered him to one of their two vehicles parked along Whitefield Avenue, according to two eyewitnesses. It is unclear if that person was Vasquez-Lopez or someone else. 

It is unclear whether federal agents offered any emergency assistance to the special needs teacher. Three eyewitnesses told The Current that they did not see anyone attending the mangled black Lexus before Chatham emergency services arrived at 7:45 a.m. and pried Davis from her vehicle.

Chatham County police said that they had not been aware of any planned immigration enforcement operations on Monday and were not involved in any when the collision occurred."

END Article inclusion

ICE, looking for suspects, apparently decided to harass around an elementary school, began a car chase in an area where they put others at risk. This led to a crash that took Linda Davis's life. The so-called criminal, Vasquez-Lopez, had NO criminal record.* The chase was dangerous and unwarranted.

But this hits even closer to home for us than even Savannah. Two of the witnesses were people we know. I haven't seen their names in print, so I won't name them. One is a lifelong friend of Alison's who grew up in Pierce County. The other is a close friend of one of our church family, and I believe grew up in Ware County. They are both good friends and good people, ones we still see several times a year. They escorted us around Savannah a few years ago and were great hosts, hitting up a lot of the foodie spots.

One of them worked at the school system with Linda Davis. Both of them adored her. Both of them were horrified by what ICE had done.

No one is safe. The horrors of the Trump administration will affect us all.

Even if you think the undocumented are a problem that needs to be dealt with, I think you have to agree that this is not the way to go about it. Too many innocents are being killed or wounded, many others are having their lives and families disrupted, and some are just disappearing to God knows where.

Remember, being undocumented is a civil offense, not a criminal one. THE UNDOCUMENTED ARE NOT CRIMINALS.

If you live in Southeast Georgia, you should be looking at The Current GA. Please search for it or link it to your social media. There are few truly independent, investigative news sources left. We should cherish those that we can find.

Until next time.

T. M. Strait

AOC '28