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

The Core

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30 people in the same geographic area, all of whom have pacemakers, drop dead from an electromagnetic pulse. Thus begins The Core, an apocalypse movie in which a combination of science and rugged determination save the day. It’s hard to know where to begin with the badness in a movie that features the Space Shuttle … Read more

Apollo 18

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Continuing along the same lines as Capricorn One, we have Apollo 18, about a secret Defense Department mission to the Moon. I actually kind of enjoyed this film in the way that I enjoy suspenseful sci-fi schlock, and in terms of simple science like gravity, oxygen, and appearance of the lunar surface, it does better than … Read more

Capricorn One

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This thing has to begin somewhere and it might as well begin with the hip thing that all the kids are talking about these days–a bad conspiracy theory movie from the ’70s. Capricorn One came out the same year as Star Wars, and is more a cultural critique than science fiction movie. After declining interest in … Read more