At Flashbak: Diana vs. Lydia

My newest article at Flashbak tallies my five favorite moments of the Diana/Lydia rivalry on V: The Series (1984-1985).

Here's a snippet, and the url: (http://flashbak.com/peel-you-a-goldfish-diana-and-lydias-5-most-outrageous-moments-on-v-the-series-1984-1985-18198/)

"V: The Series (1984 – 1985) -- the continuing saga of reptilian alien “Visitors” occupying 20^th century Earth -- aired on NBC in America thirty years ago, and this anniversary affords us the perfect opportunity to remember the series and its often over-the-top (but nonetheless delicious…) brand of storytelling.

In creator Kenneth Johnson’s hands, the original V mini-series (1983) was a serious, thoughtful allegory about fascism taking hold in America, and it aped Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel It Can’t Happen Here.

Yet by the time the weekly series aired, Johnson was gone, and the new producers opted for a more soap opera approach to the alien and human intrigue.

In short, the series suddenly had to compete in the mid-1980s with the likes of popular programming like Dynasty, Knots Landing, Falcon Crest, and Dallas. 

So while the mini-series had focused on the ways that the sneaky Visitors assumed control of our hearts and minds (via the media, government, propaganda, and scapegoating), the ensuing NBC series focused on fireworks of a more personal nature. 

In particular, many of the series’ most dynamic and involving moments involve the sparring matches between Jane Badler’s brilliantly-drawn villain, Diana and June Chadwick’s equally charismatic Visitor opponent, Lydia. 

The primary reason to watch the series -- especially following a behind-the-scenes cast massacre mid-way through -- very quickly became this character interaction.

Diana and Lydia battled over war strategy, peace, and romantic lovers like Duncan Regehr's Visitor, Charles.  They always attempted to gain ultimate power, making their opponent look bad in the process.

Tallied below are the five of Lydia and Diana’s best moments from the program."

At Flashback -- "Come on Pip Squeak, We’re Saving a Seat for You: The Five Most Underrated Films of Sam Raimi"

At Flashbak, my latest article has been posted.  It is called "Come on Pip Squeak, We’re Saving a Seat for You," and it weighs the five most underrated films from Sam Raimi's canon.

Here's a snippet (and the url:  http://flashbak.com/come-on-pip-squeak-were-saving-a-seat-for-you-the-5-most-underrated-films-of-sam-raimi-17772/ )

Sam Raimi began his career making low-budget horror films such as The Evil Dead (1993) before moving to expensive blockbusters such as Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007).  Raimi’s long movie-making career also encompasses award-winning thrillers such as A Simple Plan (1998) and cult-movies such as Army of Darkness (1993).  In 1999, he also made the baseball love-story, For Love of the Game.  

But like virtually all filmmakers, Raimi’s career has also included several films that -- for whatever reason -- didn’t garner the popular or critical success of others, even though they were quite good, or at the very least, inventive and ambitious.

With that thought in mind, I present my list of Sam Raimi’s top five underrated films (in chronological order)..."

At Flashbak: The Ten Most Ridiculous (But Awesome...) Horror Movie Tag-Lines of the 1990s

My latest article at Flashbak remembers some crazy horror movie tag-lines from the 1990s.

Here's a snippet (and the url:  http://flashbak.com/10-ridiculous-but-awesome-horror-movie-tag-lines-of-the-1990s-17431/)

"By the beginning of the 1990s, horror movies had changed significantly from previous decades, and their tag-lines changed with the times too. 

In the 1970s, horror movies had titles such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1973) or The Last House on the Left (1972), but movies of the 1990s were titled The Temp (1993) or Scream (1996). 

Additionally, horror movies of the 1990s were often big studio products, featuring A-list stars like Julia Roberts, which meant that they required a degree of decorum and respectability. Everything, including tag-lines, was becoming more…generic.

The great age of ridiculous but awesome movie tag-lines was largely at an end.

But, some movies still bucked the prevailing trend towards homogenization and featured some good olf-fashioned, sleazy, funny, inspired tag-lines.

Here are ten of the most ridiculous and yet awesome from that span."

At Flashbak: The 5 Most Historically Significant Humans in the Planet of the Apes Saga

My newest article at Flashbak is the follow-up piece to the one I wrote for Go Ape Week about historically significant apes.

This one is the yin to that article's yang, and it looks at humans from the same franchise who shaped the course of "future history."

Here's a snippet (and here's the url: http://flashbak.com/the-only-good-human-is-a-dead-human-the-5-most-historically-significant-humans-in-the-planet-of-the-apes-saga-17197/  )

"In my earlier post this week, I gazed at the five simians that -- across the Planet of the Apes multiverse -- had significantly impacted the media franchise’s “future history.”

Today, I want to remember the five human beings in the Planet of the Apes saga who did much the same thing. 

As is the case with the apes, not all the actions of these characters prove positive in either the short term, or the survival of the species."

At Flashbak: The Five Most Historically-Significant Apes in the Planet of the Apes Saga

My newest article at Flashbak ties in with the Go Ape theme of the blog this week.  In particular, I enumerate the five most historically significant simians in Ape history!

Here's a snippet (and here's the url: http://flashbak.com/fonts-of-simian-kindness-the-5-most-historically-significant-apes-in-the-planet-of-the-apes-saga-17111/)

"The Planet of the Apes franchise consists of five original feature films made from 1968 to 1973, a short-lived CBS TV series in 1974, a Saturday morning animated revival, Return to the Planet of the Apes (1975), Tim Burton’s 2001 widely-disliked re-boot, plus a second re-boot, Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), and its follow-up, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), due in theaters this week.

All heads of this multi-platform media hydra revolve around one central topic: future history, particularly the fall of man, and the rise of intelligent apes as Earth’s dominant species.

Uniquely – and completely in keeping with the time-travel aspect of the franchise -- each branch of the Apes legacy, whether TV series, cartoon, or re-boot -- seems to exist in a similar but slightly different alternate reality.  One might view this as evidence that the future can indeed be altered, but the final destiny of the planet -- the fall of mankind to intelligent apes -- is immutable.

With that notion in mind, enumerated below are the five most historically important simians in Planet of the Apes history.  Some of these five characters described below, you will note, play roles of extreme significance in more than one parallel reality, a fact which cements their status as focal points in the franchise and in the fate of Earth."

At Flashbak: 5 Most Underrated Stephen King Movies

Flashbak, a new spin-off of Anorak, has posted my new article, which concerns underrated films based on the canon of Stephen King.

Here's a snippet (and here's the url:  http://flashbak.com/the-5-most-underrated-stephen-king-horror-film-adaptations-16858/)

Hollywood filmmakers have been adapting the literary works of horror maestro Stephen King since 1976, and often with tremendous financial and critical success. 

De Palma’s Carrie (1976), Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), Romero’s Creepshow (1982) and Cronenberg’s The Dead Zone (1983) are just a few memorable titles from the first wave of silver screen adaptations, but other, later successes include Misery (1990) and The Mist (2008).

With a canon that includes over fifty films at this point, it’s only natural that some efforts should be forgotten or not quite given their due as works of art.

That idea in mind, below are listed, in chronological order, five of the most underrated films based on the genre works of Stephen King.

At Anorak: The Day of the Animals - The Five Strangest Revenge of Nature Movies of the 1970s

My latest article is posted at Anorak, and it remembers the revenge of nature horror cycle of the 1970s.

Here's a snippet (and the url: http://www.anorak.co.uk/402579/news/flashback/the-day-of-the-animals-the-5-strangest-revenge-of-nature-movies-of-the-1970s.html/  ):

IT’S not nice to fool with Mother Nature.

In the seventies, science fiction and horror filmmakers were certain that mankind was going to soon face his comeuppance for polluting and over-populating Mother Earth. And more so, that this comeuppance was going to be delivered at the paws, claws, talons, webbed fingers, and teeth of our former friends: the animals.

Call it the Circle of Death.

Between 1970 and 1979, more than a dozen genre films involved Mother Nature striking back against man for his mis-use of pesticides, his damage of the ozone layer, and for polluting previously unspoiled terrain.

Among these movies were titles such as The Bug (1975), Food of the Gods (1976), Kingdom of the Spiders (1977), and Empire of the Ants (1977).

From a certain perspective, even blockbuster films such as Jaws (1975) — which saw a great white shark attack a beach town’s economy virtually forty years to the day that atom bombs were dropped on Japan — and Dino De Laurentiis’s King Kong (1976) — in which the noble ape was exploited by an Exxon-like oil company — tread into this then-popular “revenge-of-nature” territory.

So with that prologue in mind, here is a look back at five of the most bizarre Revenge of Nature films of the 1970s.

At Anorak: Ten Ridiculous (But Awesome) Horror Movie Tag-Lines of the 1980s

My new article at Anorak is up, remembering some of the crazy (and inventive) tag-lines from 1980s horror cinema.

Here's a snippet (and here's the url: http://www.anorak.co.uk/400427/keyposts/10-ridiculous-but-awesome-horror-movie-tag-lines-of-the-1980s.html/ )

 IF the Seventies proved a fertile time for imaginative horror filmmakers, the 1980s very much represented a new age of plenty, a span wherein every idea that had worked in a movie once before was hauled out a second, third and sometimes fourth time.

And because of the home video revolution and VHS technology, new filmmakers had the opportunity to get their movies seen by more eyes than ever before.

In terms of the decade’s horror then, there was more of everything to enjoy: more slasher films, more Jaws films, and more holiday-themed horrors too.

And once again the marketers writing copy for horror movie posters broached the unenviable task of selling films that otherwise might not have merited audience attention if judged by quality alone.  Sometimes, a great tag-line could still fill a theater, or make the difference at a rental store counter.

So without further prologue here are ten ridiculous and yet utterly brilliant horror movie taglines from the 1980s, the great decade of excess:

At Anorak: The Five Most Underrated George A. Romero Movies

My newest article at Anorak -- "The Same Animals...Only Functioning Less Perfectly" -- studies the five most underrated films in director George A. Romero's film canon.

Here's a snippet of the piece (and here's the URL since some folks are having trouble seeing the links: http://www.anorak.co.uk/400587/keyposts/the-same-animalsonly-functioning-less-perfectly-the-five-most-underrated-george-a-romero-movies.html/ )

GEORGE Romero’s impressive movie-making career stretches back to the Pittsburgh area in the late 1960s and spans over forty years.

Like many horror filmmakers of his generation, Romero has seen his share of big successes, like Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Creepshow (1982), critical darlings like Martin (1976), cult classics such as The Crazies (1973) and the occasional out-right bomb, like Diary of the Dead (2007).

But several of Romero’s finer films didn’t meet with financial or critical success, and deserve to have further light shone on them.  Accordingly, my selections for the most underrated of his feature films are listed below.

At Anorak: "Horror TV Boom - The 5 Best X-Files Knock-offs of the 1990s"

My latest article at Anorak remembers that special time in the middle-nineties when every new network series on the air was trying to copy Chris Carter’s The X-Files (1993 – 2002).  Many of these knock-off series didn’t last, or weren’t very good. 

But some were actually quite promising, and this article lists my five favorites from the era. Here’s a snippet:

CHRIS Carter’s landmark TV series The X-Files (1993 – 2002) proved not only a ratings blockbuster throughout the 1990s, but a cultural phenomenon too…the Star Trek of the Clinton Age, essentially.  The series, which starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson proved so popular that its success led to movies, comic-books, toys, and even spin-offs such as The Lone Gunmen (2001).  Chris Carter even had the opportunity to create another masterpiece for the era: Millennium (1996 – 1999).

But importantly, The X-Files also dramatically proved to network executives that horror and science fiction could play well on television if presented intelligently, and with a strong sense of continuity.

Accordingly, the years between 1995 and 1999 saw a veritable flood — a genuine boom — of horror-themed genre programming hit the airwaves.

These series had titles such as American Gothic (1995 – 1996), Strange Luck (1995 – 1996) , Dark Skies (1996), Kindred: The Embraced (1996), Poltergeist: The Legacy(1996 – 1999), Psi-Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal (1996 – 1999), The Burning Zone (1996 – 1997), Sleepwalkers (1997), Prey (1998), Brimstone (1998 – 1999) and Strange World (1999).

Most of the series above lasted only a season, but nearly all of them involved, like The X-Files, aspects of the police procedural format, and elements of the horror genre, namely the supernatural or paranormal.  Many of the series also involved government conspiracies, or an “Establishment” attempt to hide some important “truth” from the American populace.

Below are my choices for the five best of this post-X-Files pack.

At Anorak: 10 Ridiculous (But Awesome) Horror Movie Tag-Lines of the 1970s

My new post at Anorak remembers some of the most creative (and funniest…) tag-lines of the horror movies of the 1970s.

Here’s a snippet:

TODAY, movie-going audiences expect a certain threshold in terms of a film’s technical qualities. Viewers expect the sound to be crisp, the picture to be in sharp focus, and special effects to be, generally, believable.

But way back in the seventies, many low-budget filmmakers couldn’t always hit those rudimentary-seeming bench-marks… and yet they wanted their movies to succeed and to be seen by the most people possible.

One cheap and effective way to achieve theatrical success was to devise a great tag-line, one that veritably guaranteed audience curiosity, or amusement.  Indeed, a key weapon in the marketer’s arsenal in the 1970s, at least as it applied to the horror film, was humor.

Below are ten tag-lines from 1970s horror films that walk the line between humor, hucksterism, and, perhaps even, in some cases, genius.

At Anorak: The 5 Best Alien (1979) Knock-Offs of the 1980s

My new article is up at Anorak, and it gazes at some of the best knock-offs of Ridley Scott's horror watershed: Alien (1979).

Here's a snippet:

RIDLEY Scott’s Alien (1979) dramatically altered the template for horror films set in outer space. For example, the blockbuster film was among the first (after Dark Star [1975] to suggest that travel in the final frontier would be the purview of “work-a-day” space truckers rather than noble explorers or adventurous astronauts.

And instead of intrepid space travelers fighting men-in-rubber suits inside idealized white-on-white space station environs (as was the case in The Green Slime [1968]) Alien suggested a technological space age marked by endless industrial corridors and aliens of constantly shifting dimension.

The Scott film’s central alien — a bio-mechanoid horror created by H.R. Giger — could also gestate inside a living human host, and this fact ushered in a new era of cinematic “body horror.”

As with any genre blockbuster, Alien almost immediately spawned a host of knock-offs, some terrible and some quite good.  These films found much material to imitate and emulate, from the diverse make-up of Alien’s victim pool, to bloody variations on Alien’s famous chest-burster birth scene.  Many Alien knock-off films also involved long forgotten derelicts or other structures on alien planetary surfaces, for instance.  Inevitably, human crews would discover these Lovecraftian edifices and wake up age-old horrors.

Among the Alien knock-offs of the 1980s were Scared to Death (1981), Forbidden World(1982),  The Beast Within (1982), Parasite (1982), The Being (1983), and Biohazard(1985), to name just a handful.

The list below represents five of the best — or at least the most memorable– of the Alien knock-off breed.  As is often the case regarding knock-offs, the best such films are invariably those that re-purpose not merely the clichés from one source – in this case — Alien — but also from other literary or cinematic works as well.

At Anorak: "Up, Up, and Astray - The 5 Worst Superhero TV Shows of All-Time"

My newest article at Anorak has been posted, and it remembers some really bad, no good, awful superhero TV series of yesteryear.  

Here's a snippet of "Up, Up, and Astray - The 5 Worst Superhero TV Shows of All-Time:"

IN terms of television and cinema, we live in an age one rightfully term “Superheroes Triumphant.”

In other words, you can’t trip in a movie house these days without bumping into an auditorium showing another superhero film.

Already this summer, we’ve had three genre films: Captain America: Winter Soldier, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and X-Men: Days of Future Past. 

So after several decades of Hollywood getting superheroes decidedly wrong, suddenly the most famous creations of Marvel and D.C. are being treated with enormous respect and fidelity.  These superheroes of the 21^st century get films made by top-of-the-line directors, and see budgets that frequently top 200 million dollar.

But in years past, many superheroes – especially those bowing on TV — were simply not so lucky.

Instead, producers only ended up creating terrible, eminently forgettable embarrassments.

There have been some truly lame superhero TV shows over the years, but few are as dreadful or as humiliating as the five programs tallied below, which successfully re-defined “lame” to mean “mask,” “costume,” and “cape.”

At Anorak: Wooden Tops - The Five Best "Real" Characters You Meet in Gerry Anderson Live-Action Productions

My new article at Anorak is one I have been meaning to write for some time now. 

It's all about the conventional wisdom -- and the mistake -- that the characters in Gerry Anderson live-action series are somehow wooden.  

On the contrary, I find these characters quite realistic, and that is the subject of "Wooden Tops: The Five Best "Real" Characters You Meet" in the works of Mr. Anderson."

Here's a snippet:

A VERY long time ago — in the late 1960s — a newspaper critic somewhere wrote what he believed was a witty joke.

He noted that the characters and performances in the live-action works of producers Gerry and Sylvia Anderson were “wooden.”

You see what he did there, right?

Gerry and Sylvia Anderson had often worked with puppets on TV series such as Stingray(1964) and Thunderbirds (1965), so this joke was no doubt a clever slam on the actors and writing in the production he was actually reviewing.

Even when they weren’t puppets, Anderson characters were about as real as puppets, the joke went.

In this case “wooden” might be defined as simply “stiff and unnatural”

or “without spirit or affect.”

For literally decades now, this joke about “wooden’ characters and performances has been mindlessly regurgitated, and applied to what sometimes seems every Anderson review imaginable.

But the question we must now ask is, simply: is the oft-repeated slam actually true?

Or is the over-used “wooden” descriptor just a form of conventional wisdom that has gone unquestioned for so long that it has now become mindlessly accepted?

To better answer that question, I respectfully submit below the five “real” people you may meet in the live-action productions of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson.

I consider “real” (as opposed to “wooden”) to mean in this context that the characters showcase a sense of verisimilitude.  They closely resemble people you have encountered and may know in life.

Similarly, a “real” person is someone replete with contradictions and failings (rather than just an affectless avatar for “wooden” dialogue or exposition).

In other words, these folks may look like one thing, but when you scratch

the surface a bit you find there is something deeper, and maybe even a little conflicted going on inside.

At Anorak: The Devil Made Them Do It - The Five Best Exorcist Knock-Offs

My new article at Anorak is now up. It gazes at the Exorcist (1973) craze of the mid-1970s, and five films that exploited it to strong effect.

Here's a snippet:

WILLIAM Friedkin’s The Exorcist — based on the best-selling novel by William Peter Blatty — quickly became one of the first genre blockbusters of the seventies, and a generational touchstone to boot.

The Exorcist also represented a new brand of horror film, in a sense, because it lacked a familiar “monster” like Dracula, the Wolf Man or The Frankenstein Monster, and it didn’t depend on well-known genre personalities, like Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, or Peter Cushing, either.

Accordingly, lines stretched around the block for showings of the horror film on the East and West coasts in America, and everyone seemed to have a very strong opinion about the controversial film, pro or con.

The Reverend Billy Graham, for instance reported that traumatized Exorcist viewers were experiencing “nightmares and problems they never had before.”

Graham’s publicly-expressed fear was that there would be even more psychological damage to Americans if people continued to “flock to the box office” to see The Exorcist.

But while such self-appointed protectors of morality wrung their hands over Friedkin’s masterpiece and its public acceptance, Hollywood filmmakers realized that a large audience was now primed for much more of The Exorcist’s brand of terror.

Specifically, this brand of horror consisted of “normal” Americans unexpectedly encountering the supernatural and/or paranormal, and in the process facing questions of the after-life, and the existence of God…or the Devil.

In the span of a few short years, movie audiences were treated to Exorcist imitations such as Abby (1974), Beyond the Door (1975), The Devil’s Rain (1975), Race with the Devil(1975), The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975), The Haunting of Julia (1976), Ruby(1977), and The Legacy (1979).

Below is a list of five of the best such Exorcist knock-offs, in chronological order.  These inventive, well-made films — while no doubt inspired by The Exorcist — also expertly established their own unique  and terrifying artistic identities...

At Anorak: "All Broken Up Inside: The Five Most Shocking Deaths in Cult-TV History

My new article at Anorak gazes at five shocking character deaths in cult-television history.

Here's a snippet:

WILLIAM Shakespeare once wrote that “the valiant taste of death but once,” while cowards die “many times” before their actual demise.

Audiences of cult TV classics might also be said to die many times too, especially if they watch and re-watch beloved characters die in their favorite genre programming.

Over the years, a number of beloved series characters have been unceremoniously offed by series writers, only to leave grieving audiences in shock at their passing.

At least for the most part, these characters died heroically –or valiantly — though that was not always the case, either.

Sometimes, prominent characters deaths prove so shocking because they occur within no larger heroic or meaningful context…and seem — like life itself — utterly random.

Listed below are five examples of the most shocking character deaths in cult-tv history.

At Anorak: The Five Most Underrated Episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987 - 1994)

My latest article at Anorak is now posted, and it remembers -- and lauds -- five underrated episodes from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Here's a snippet:

IF Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987 – 1994) did not have the words “Star” and “Trek” in the series title — or the good fortune to air on TV the year after the box office hit, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) — it may never have survived a few awkward, early seasons and come to achieve the reputation for greatness it currently enjoys with fans and reviewers.

The conventional wisdom — which happens to be correct in this case — is that Star Trek: The Next Generation did not really hit its stride until its third season.

The early seasons of the series re-purposed plots from the classic sixties series (“The Naked Now,”) played musical chairs with the Enterprise’s CMO, failed to introduce the series’ new villain, the Ferengi, in a way that made the race of “Yankee traders” seem menacing, and traded in preachy didacticism about the perils of nationalism (“Encounter at Farpoint,”) eating meat (“Lonely Among Us,”) and recreational drug use (“Symbiosis.”)

One dreadful episode, “Code of Honor,” featured a race of primitive black-skinned humanoids, and was absolutely cringe-worthy for its commentary on race. Another equally embarrassing installment, “Angel One,” featured that old genre cliché about a world run by — gasp! — women.

 But one fact to consider about conventional wisdom as it regards The Next Generation is that it largely fails to account for the fact that some of the early episodes were also, in their own peculiar way, daring and even experimental.

That doesn’t mean that the following episodes were necessarily complete successes, but rather that they tried things, and in the process attempted to push the franchise in new and ambitious directions.  For that, they deserve recognition, and perhaps even a little love.

Accordingly, below you will find a list of the five most underrated episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

And you’ll notice that all but one of them emerges from the series’ first two highly-uneven seasons, a period of great lows, but also some unexpected highs.

Godzilla Week: At Anorak - The 5 Greatest Godzilla Movies Ever Made

Up at Anorak right now is a post connected to the Godzilla Week event here on the blog.  Specifically, I've written up my five selections for the five greatest Godzilla Movies Ever Made.  

I suspect some of my selections will be surprises, because they generally don't conform to conventional wisdom on the franchise (except, of course, for selection #1.)

Here's a snippet:

SINCE his first silver screen appearance in 1954, Toho’s giant monster Godzilla has starred in more than two dozen epic movies.

The big green lizard has been featured as a terrifying villain, as a defender of the Earth, and, occasionally, even traveled to American shores to wreak havoc.  In this span, Godzilla has stood alone, acted as a tag team player (with friends like Anguirus and Rodan…), battled ancient threats to humanity, and even fended off alien invaders on more than one occasion (Monster Zero [1965],Final Wars [2004]).

With the release of Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla in theaters (2014) now imminent, it’s the perfect time to remember Godzilla’s most memorable and successful historical efforts.

The following five films represent Godzilla’s greatest cinematic triumphs.

At Anorak: The Five Greatest Star Wars Knock-offs of the 1970s and 1980s

My newest article is posted at Anorak, and it looks at five "space war"  films -- or Star Wars (1977) knock-offs of the late 1970s and early 1980s. 

As I note in the piece, George Lucas's blockbuster inspired tons of imitators, but the best ones are those that are able to incorporate mythology, film history or simply political/contemporary trends into their Star Wars-inspired story-lines.

Here's a snippet:

WHEN George Lucas’s space fantasy Star Wars premiered in the summer of 1977 – and promptly became the highest grossing film in history – it was only a matter of time before intrepid filmmakers sought to imitate and thus re-capture the movie’s magic in a slew of lookalike films.

Importantly, the Star Wars film craze not only brought a barrage of new science fiction-themed films to the international box office, it also changed the very way that movie-makers approached the difficult-to-visualize genre.

Before Star Wars, the 1970s SF cinema obsessed, largely, on matters of environmental disaster and future dystopias  like Soylent Green (1973) and Logan’s Run (1976).

After Star Wars, however, science fiction films usually featured more action, colorful laser blasts, cute robotic sidekicks, and a concentration on fantasy aspects.

Some of titles from the 1970s-1980s Star Wars craze include Message from Space (1977),Starship Invasions (1977), Star Crash (1978), The Humanoid (1979), The Shape of Things to Come (1979), Galaxina (1980), and Space Raiders (1983).

Below is a list of five of the best examples of the trend.

You will note that the films that make this list are, generally, ones that develop their narratives from literature, myth or film beyond the obvious Star Wars riffs; inspiration such as Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954), Arthurian legend, or even Chariots of the Gods.

At Anorak: The Five Most Underrated Brian De Palma Thrillers

My newest article at Anorak obsesses on one of my favorite directors: Brian De Palma. Specifically, I gaze at five great but highly underrated thrillers from the director of such favorites as Dressed to Kill (1980), Body Double (1984), and The Untouchables (1987).

In "The Five Most Underrated Brian De Palma Thrillers" I tally some of the great productions that aren't as popular as those listed above, but which nonetheless reveal the director's penchant for tricky narratives, and masterful visualizations.

Here's a snippet:

"Since the early 1970s, director Brian De Palma has crafted many intense and highly cerebral thrillers.

Alas, such efforts are often dismissed by critics as being overly imitative of Alfred Hitchcock’s films and style rather than praised for their own finely-developed sense of intertextuality and intellectual gamesmanship. 

In short, De Palma is much more than either “The New Hitchcock” or -- as he is sometimes known -- “The American Godard.”  Instead, this uber-formalist is a deeply film-literate director who mines the visual canon of established masters (including Kubrick, Eisenstein and Antonioni) and co-opts their most famous imagery for new, and often highly imaginative purposes.

Although the artist is often tagged for perceived misogyny in his violent thrillers, De Palma’s best thrillers merge social commentary (often encoded in the visuals) and a critique of the medium of film itself, a technological art form which, in De Palma’s lexicon “lies” 24 frames-a-second. 

What many critics detect as “voyeurism” is actually an exploration, instead, of the way that film allows us to see, experience, and interpret a narrative, or perhaps competing narratives.

In De Palma’s work, seeing and “knowing” are often two vastly different things, and sight and knowledge are frequently confused by the protagonists. We see this duality explored in many acknowledged and well-received De Palma thrillers, including Dressed to Kill (1980) and Blow Out (1981), but also in the films that have not been as warmly welcomed.

With that description in mind, here my five selections for the most underrated De Palma thrillers."