The Sci-Fi Boys (2006)

Director: Paul Davids

Writer: Paul Davids

Composer: Brian Thomas Lambert

Starring: Ray Harryhausen, Peter Jackson, Leonard Malton, Forrest J. Ackerman, John Landis, Dennis Muren, Stephen Sommers, Bob Ducsay, Rick Baker, Roger Corman, Steve Johnson, Ray Bradbury, Donald F. Glut, William Malone, Bob Burns, Paul Davids, Johnny Grant, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Phil Tippett, Frank Darabont, Stan Winston, Fred Barton, Robert Rotstan

More info: IMDb

Plot: Legendary all-stars of cinema bring to life the evolution of science-fiction and special effects films from the wild and funny days of B-movies to blockbusters that have captured the world's imagination. This is the story of the Sci-Fi Boys, who started out as kids making amateur movies inspired by Forrest J Ackerman's FAMOUS MONSTERS magazine and grew up to take Hollywood by storm, inventing the art and technology for filming anything the mind can dream.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again? Maybe.

It's always fun spending time with the special effects master that found their inspiration from Ray Harryhausen, guys that came into their own in the 1970s and 1980s.  This documentary is less a history of special effects in film, although you get a little of that, but more a pastiche of a lot of the most important people in the film industry who had something to do in making and providing the best effects in the industry as well as those that took inspiration from Harryhausen or even Forrest J. Ackerman's ground-breaking 60s movie magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland.  It would be a mistake to go into this thinking you're going to learn a lot.  Instead, just sit back and listen to your old pals talk about what got them excited and inspired them as youngsters to want to turn their imagination into cinema realities.