Omega Doom (1996)

Director: Albert Pyun

Writers: Albert Pyun, Ed Naha

Composer: Anthony Riparetti

Starring: Rutger Hauer, Shannon Whirry, Norbert Weisser, Tina Cote, Anna Katarina, Jill Pierce, Simon Poland, Cynthia Ireland, Jahi J.J. Zuri, Early White

More info: IMDb & www.albertpyun.net

Tagline: Robots rule the Earth. Only one man can stop them.

Plot: After earth is taken over by an army of robots, the small number of humans left are forced into hiding. In the nuclear winter, only droids walk the face of the earth, in fear of the rumored human resurgence, and in search of a hidden cache of weapons. One robot, his evil circuits destroyed, enters a small town where a robot civil war is taking place. He tries to convince both sides to join forces in search of the weapons, all the while having a hidden agenda, and an affinity for one of the local droids.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? No.

What you've basically got here is YOJIMBO (1961) (and then A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964) which this film has a riff on the "apologize to my horse" bit) in a post-apocalyptic world with humanoid robots calling the shots...that is until badass motherfucker Rutger Hauer, I mean Omega Doom, walks into town.  Hauer is his usual action flick, soft talking badass schtick which works well for the picture.  Norbert Weisser as The Head was great and he added some much needed comic relief.  Most viewers, myself included, will take issue with the picture's pacing. It's in need of a good bit of tightening.  It's not that bad of a picture but editing it to pick up the pace would do wonders.  Just shaving off ten minutes by turning the screws a little could fix that, but then you wouldn't have a near-90 minute film which, for some damn reason, seems to be the magic number for most pictures.  Another annoyance was the constant sound of the droid's servo gears or whatnot.  It's all over the place.  You'd think this problem would have been fixed by then.  This isn't the 1930s for cryin' out loud.  It could have used a better score, one that wasn't filled with slow, undercurrent pop/rock guitar riffs.  There are cues that I really dug but the overall vibe didn't help the film's biggest offender, the pacing. It's one of the better minor films Rutger Hauer made and it's not as bad as the internets are want to tell you.  Fans of BLADE RUNNER (1982) will have some fun with some off-the-beaten-path references.

Morons from Outer Space (1985)

Director: Mike Hodges

Writers: Griff Rhys Jones, Mel Smith

Composer: Peter Brewis

Starring: Joanne Pearce, Jimmy Nail, Paul Bown, James Sikking, Dinsdale Landen, Tristram Jellinek, George Innes, Mel Smith, Griff Rhys Jones, John Joyce, Mark Lewis Jones, Leonard Fenton, Andre Maranne, Moanna Dickens

More info: IMDb

Tagline: An incredible saga or love & hate that spans an entire universe.

Plot: Four holiday travelers from the planet Blob have somehow lost control of their rented spaceship and crash-landed on Earth. At first, the military and scientific teams assume they are higher life forms. But not for long. Idiocy is hard to hide. The stranded wayfarers are complete morons, content to drink their green beer, sing ear-splitting pop songs and talk to trash cans, which they assume are the planet's leaders. But not until an enterprising journalist decides to market their dazed innocence and turn them into glitzy superstars do they find their true mission to Earth.

My rating: 5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

It looks like they got shafted on the poster art.  It's interesting that this is from the same director as GET CARTER (1971), FLASH GORDON (1980) and CROUPIER (1998).  It's a silly and moronic film that's amusing every once in a while.  I probably laughed a couple of times.  The CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977) gag with the organ was hilarious but that's about it.  The comedy is rather playful and fun and I can easily see how it can appeal to folks. Being a British film helps.  George Innes (as Stanley) took the cake for me.  He was great.  I'd swear I've seen him before but I couldn't find anything in his extensive credits that I recognize him from.  Maybe SHINER (2000) which I saw recently.  It could also be that he looks and sounds like Topol from the early 80s.  For the most part the film just kind of sat there, going through the motions for laughs only I didn't find it all that funny.  It's silly and harmless and that's about it.

Nightfall (2000)

Director: Gwyneth Gibby

Writers: Isaac Asimov, Michael B. Druxman, John William Corrington, Gwyneth Gibby

Composers: Brad Segal, Nic. tenBroek

Starring: David Carradine, Jennifer Burns, Winsome Brown, Joseph Hodge, Ashish Vidyarthi, Pradeep Singh Rawat, Tony Mirrcandani, Sushant Kumar, Smita Hai, Varun Vardhan, Malini S. Paul, Lalith Sharma, Manosh Sen Gupta

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The greatest science fiction story of all time.

Plot: When a distant planet's six suns slowly disappear, the population is overwhelmed with fear and superstition.

My rating: 5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

If you watch the trailer and think this is a straight-to-video type of picture you'd be right.  It is but it's not horrible like the internets say it is.  It's not good, either.  From what I gather the story is much, much better and this film version takes an awful lot of liberties.  After watching it I can see how.  It feels like there's a really good concept here but the execution of it turns it into a low budget actioner that takes place on another planet. That's about it.  The acting is what you'd expect for something like this and even Carradine has moments where he fluctuates from pretty good to autopilot. I picked this one up for a buck somewhere; the cover looked good, Carradine's in it and it's a sci-fi flick based on an Asimov story.  I expected more than what it delivered and you should, too.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Director: Robert Wise

Writers: Edmund H. North, Harry Bates

Composer: Bernard Herrmann

Starring: Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe, Billy Gray, Frances Bavier, Lock Martin, 'Snub' Pollard, Stuart Whitman

More info: IMDb

Tagline: A robot and a man . . . hold the world spellbound with new and startling powers from another planet!

Plot: An alien (Klaatu) with his mighty robot (Gort) land their spacecraft on Cold War-era Earth just after the end of World War II. They bring an important message to the planet that Klaatu wishes to tell to representatives of all nations. However, communication turns out to be difficult, so, after learning something about the natives, Klaatu decides on an alternative approach.

My rating: 8/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

It's been at least 20 years since I last saw this and it gets better with every view.  The performances are solid and I dig Billy Gray's performance as the kid, Bobby. Say, how crazy is it that Bobby's mom and friend are totally OK with leaving him alone with Klaatu after having just met the guy minutes/hours before?  My how times have changed.  Rennie does a fantastic job as the alien, Klaatu.  Hell, the whole cast is great.  What makes this one stand out among the countless other sci-fi flicks of the 50s is the seriousness given in the story and Bernard Herrmann's wonderfully moody and eerie score.  It's one of the all time best for this era (if not THE best).  It's a great flick all the way around.  Funny story, I picked up the Blu-ray for a couple of bucks at a flea market.  It was cheap because it was the 3 disc edition of the remake that included the '51 film but it was missing the disc for the remake and only had the original film.  That's all I cared about.  I have no desire to see the remake. The original is all I need to see. I say that now but I forget about the countless hours of absolute crap that I find myself watching.

A Bridge Too Far (1977)

Director: Richard Attenborough

Writers: Cornelius Ryan, William Goldman

Composer: John Addison

Starring: Sean Connery, Dirk Bogarde, Ryan O'Neal, Gene Hackman, Edward Fox, Michael Caine, Anthony Hopkins, James Caan, Maximilian Schell, Hardy Kruger, Wolfgang Preiss, Walter Kohut, Liv Ullmann, Elliott Gould, Ben Cross, Denholm Elliott, Laurence Olivier, Robert Redford, John Ratzenberger

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Out of the sky comes the screen's most incredible spectacle of men and war!

Plot: A historical telling of the failed attempt to capture several bridges on a road to Germany in World War II, in a campaign called Operation Market-Garden.

My rating: 8.5/10

Will I watch it again? Naturally.

It's been ages since I saw this last and it's better than I remembered.  Sure, it's got some casting flaws but overall it's a great picture. It's one of the last (if not THE last) 'kitchen sink' WWII spectacle films that we used to get back in the 60s and I love it.  This time I watched in on a much larger screen than ever before and it's just a gorgeous film.  Geoffrey Unsworth's cinematography is absolutely stunning.

That shot is much more impressive when you see it blown up on the big screen, by the way.  John Addison's upbeat score sometimes feels a bit too much in that rally-the-boys propaganda kind of way but for the most part it works and he's got a great theme.  It's at its best when it gets somber.  There's a ton of action and it's all through the picture.  The quality of the stunt work, explosions, etc. is fantastic.  Fans of the WWII video games Medal of Honor and Call of Duty are going to recognize a few places.  It's clear that this film was one of the inspirations for both series.

If there's anything to take task with it's the casting.  They were clearly trying to bank on getting butts in seats by adding everybody that could that had any kind of box office draw.  For the most part they did a great job.  I don't recall Sean Connery or Michael Caine every hurting a picture.  The cast is largely stellar.  But then you get weak or over the top performances by Ryan O'Neal and Elliott Gould.  O'Neal feels like he's in a different film.  I like the guy but he sticks out in a bad way.  Gould is chewing up the scenery more than the cigar in his mouth.  He's there to provide some comic relief but he's just too much.  It's funny but the American roles feel a bit underwritten while the British ones are fleshed out more.  Having said that, James Caan has one of the best performances and scenes in the film.  You know the one I mean, when he forces a doctor to look at his dying friend. He takes a risk in doing so but it ultimately saves his friend and gives the film some emotional weight.  And Arthur Hill (as the medical officer) also delivers one of the best performances in the picture.

For as much as I dig this picture, one thing that gets me is how some scenes feel unnatural in how the characters play out. Like when Lt. Browning (Bogarde) explains the operation in the beginning of the picture.  When it came to his interaction with Major Sosabowski (Hackman), it's like the camera gives the actors their moments, one at a time, instead of blending them...if that makes any sense.  I could be that Hackman is overplaying it more than I think.  Regardless, it's the sum of what's great in this that makes it so good.  I remember very little about Operation: Market Garden from my school days and my early fascination (which never left me) with WWII so I don't know how accurate it is but as a 3-hour WWII spectacle film, it's a blast.  The Blu-ray (which I picked up this week for $5!) looks marvelous but beware that the sound during the dialogue is considerably quieter than the action scenes which will leave you frequently reaching for the remote to alter the volume.

I Am Legend (2007)

Director: Francis Lawrence

Writers: Mark Protosevich, Akiva Goldsman, Richard Matheson, John William Corrington, Joyce Hooper Corrington

Composer: James Newton Howard

Starring: Will Smith, Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Willow Smith, Emma Thompson

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The last man on earth is not alone

Plot:  Years after a plague kills most of humanity and transforms the rest into monsters, the sole survivor in New York City struggles valiantly to find a cure.

My rating:  7.5/10

Will I watch it again? Nah.

LAST OMEGA SPOILERS ON EARTH!!!! YARRRRR!!!

Good flick.  I dig the long stretches of silence or no dialogue and what's there works just fine.   Smith pulled off a great performance.  I totally bought it when he had to snuff out the dog.  That had a lot of emotional weight and everything Neville (Smith) did seemed logical for a man who's been alone for a few years except when he meets the woman and her child.  He's off at first but it felt a little rushed for him to accept this dynamic so quickly.  The ending I saw had Neville sacrifice himself to let Anna and her kid make it out with the blood sample.  I'm only just now watching this flick and I've heard for years how everyone hated the theatrical ending.  I'm guessing what I saw wasn't it because I dug it.  I watched the ending on the second disc and that one was crap with the Alpha Male monster coming to take his woman back without killing Neville.  That was horseshit.  Other than that, it was a fine film. 

Lifepod (1993)

Director: Ron Silver

Writers: Jay Roach, Pen Densham, Alfred Hitchcock, Harry Sylvester

Composer: Mark Mancina

Starring: Robert Loggia, Jessica Tuck, Stan Shaw, Adam Storke, Kelli Williams, Ed Gale, CCH Pounder, Ron Silver, Lisa Waltz, Sam Whipple, Cork Hubbert, John Mahon, Pat Destro

More info: IMDb

Tagline: A futuristic retelling of the classic Hitchcock film "Lifeboat"

Plot: Lifepod chronicles the trip of eight passengers after the ship they were traveling on blew up on Christmas Eve. Immediately people start dying. The passengers begin to investigate why the ship blew up and how it relates to them.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? No.

It's not that bad, really.  It's obvious with the actors who has more experience than others.  Ron Silver does a good job (I should hope so, he also directed it).  It was his name and Loggia's that got me to watch it.  It was neat seeing CCH Pounder.  I recognized Stan Shaw from HARLEM NIGHTS (1989) but couldn't place him until the picture was over.  It's a TV movie so the running time has to fit a certain schedule.  There's too much time spent in the beginning with the ship exploding and everyone doing what they can, eventually ending up on the pod.  Once that happens is a by-the-numbers picture with the usual stereotypes we're used to seeing.  Everything's moving along pretty slowly until something happens with one character that changes everything.  Then folks start dying and some stay dead.  THAT was nice.  I really dug it.  But that's the best part of the movie.  I'm glad it happened but it was almost a case of too little, too late.  In the end, I just wanted to see Hitchcock's LIFEBOAT (1944) instead.