Films

Red Planet

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Taking a break from the impact movies for a while, but don’t worry–they’ll be back. Meanwhile, please enjoy a Martian tangent. You know, it takes Hollywood a few years to notice something interesting happening in the scientific world and then bastardize it until it’s unrecognizable milk every dollar it can from the public produce a movie on … Read more

Death from Above, Part 4: peripheral places

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Contrary to popular belief, not only is the Earth not the only planet in the universe, it’s not even the only planetary body in our solar system. With a wide range of other targets, it was only a matter of time before the bad movie factories mass produced an impact movie or two where Earth … Read more

Death from Above, Part 3: more minor matters

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3. The Chairman? Unfortunately, no. This isn’t even the Barefoot Contessa. It’s Solar Attack, another slice of made-for-TV ham, which features Mark Decascos, a rising SyFy star, and a smorgasbord of nobodies. Coronal mass ejections head for Earth and doom us all! I’m choosing to include this in the comet/asteroid impact section because the CMEs are portrayed … Read more

Death from Above, Part 2: minor matters

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There are a slew of direct-to-DVD or Sy-Fy Channel original features on asteroid/comet impacts, and, while they’re not worth going into in detail, it’s worth mentioning a few. 1. Judgement Day (1999). You know you’re in for some real quality when your film stars Mario Van Peebles and pre-SVU Ice-T, plus Coolio for good measure. This movie … Read more

Death from above, Part 1: Deep Impact

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I don’t know if anyone (other than a few friends) is reading this blog, but if you’re out there, I hope you appreciate the pain and suffering I am going to endure during this next section. Do you know how many movies there are about asteroid/comet impacts? Neither do I, but we’re about to find … Read more