I have a question on the cyborg listing for the checklist also. First I watched Syngenor from 1990 because the cover says its cyborgs and AllMovie listed it as cyborgs, but they are really sythetically engineered beings, I don't believe there are any robot parts. Then I watched Sucker Punch because it lists cyborgs but they are only in one fight scene in the movie. Do either/both of these qualify? I may be dramatically overthinking this, in the past I always counted anything that listed the subgenre in the keywords.

And you went over all this last week <slaps forehead>.

As for watching it as a kid, that meant being on TV or renting it on VHS. I'll try to get at least one viewing in.

I finished FLASH GORDON (1936) this morning, the first Flash Gordon serial. It’s a really bizarre piece of big-studio filmmaking, with some strange elements, awkward acting and a very primitive, crude approach to its subject. (E.g., those tin-can rocket ships that emit sparks and smoke and take off like planes and have no seats for anybody but the pilot.) But it deserves attention because it was the first example of filmed space science fiction to come out of America. There’d been George Melies’ A TRIP TO THE MOON in France (ca. 1902); AELITA, QUEEN OF MARS (1924) from Russia; Fritz Lang’s WOMAN IN THE MOON (1929) from Germany; and THINGS TO COME (1936) from England, which ended with a space capsule being shot off from a space gun to go to the moon. But nothing from the U.S. until FLASH GORDON.

I was curious to see the comic strip, by Alex Raymond, that the serials were based on, so I stopped in at a comic book shop in Manhattan and bought a coffee table edition that had every Flash Gordon strip, in color, from 1934-36, just what I was looking for. I’d forgotten how sexy the strip was—the equivalent of a pre-code movie, but available in every family’s Sunday paper! Poor Dale Arden gets stripped and whipped in one scene. It was hard to find a page to scan that could fit on the scanner, but I think this will give some idea of what I'm talking about;


The serial occasionally aims to try and capture some of this quality. Dale Arden is put in some sexy outfits and Priscilla Lawson, a dark brunette, is pretty sexy as Aura, but it’s never as explicit as it is in the comic strip.

Flash and Dale are played by Buster Crabbe and Jean Rogers as, essentially, dumb blondes. Good-looking, but not terribly proactive. Ming the Merciless and his daughter Aura have the more interesting characters and are acted by performers who give what could have been seriously stereotyped characters some nuance and layers. Charles Middleton is pretty amazing. He was capable of great oratorical gifts and could have made a great Lincoln. In fact, he played Lincoln three times in the 1930s, and Lincoln’s father once (in ABE LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS). He played Lincoln’s Confederate counterpart, Jefferson Davis, in one movie (VIRGINIA CITY). His rich American voice may not have had the right accent for an Oriental despot from outer space (not that I know how such a character would have sounded), but Middleton’s authority and gravitas made Ming quite a formidable character.

John Lipson plays the rotund, bearded King Vultan, ruler of the Birdmen, and laughs his way through the entire serial. His performance is definitely atypical of a serial villain, even one who becomes an ally of the hero. But he's always fun to watch (and listen to).

I'd never seen FLASH GORDON (1936) in its entirety before. When I was a kid I watched the sequels, which are much, much better, when the chapters ran on a local kids' show (The Chuck McCann Show) in the mid-'60s. Now to re-watch the sequels.

while im still well behind I got back into atching some first time views.

Day the Earth Stood Still - original...debating on watching the remake as I bought it to get the original on blu
Inception - which I enjoyed alot more then I thought I would prolly of of my favorites so far this challenge
Shutter Island - another decent flick...anyone know if this is a remake at all seemed really familiar but cant remember the title it reminds me of I do remember it was a foreign title.


tonight gonna watch me Super 8

I’m not as far along with the checklist as I would have liked. I have films selected for about everything, but am not sure I’ll get to everything. I’ve been watching a lot of Babylon 5 and Star Trek: TNG. As noted, I often find it easier to watch television episodes than films.

Saturday, my parents took me to see Brave for my birthday, and I really enjoyed it. The people at Pixar are so good at pulling heartstrings. I was sitting next to my mother and noticed that she was also getting emotional.

I rewatched a couple of old favorites: Superman and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I was not really into superheroes as a kid, but Superman was one of the films that the choir director showed during downtime after competitions. I also wasn’t a big fan of science fiction, but my younger brother was. He convinced me to stay up and watch Close Encounters with him. It started at midnight, and he fell asleep about thirty minutes in. However, I was already sucked in and watched the whole thing. He was all chipper in the morning, and I was tired and grumpy. Same thing happened with Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Today, I watched The Terminator, which was quite a wonderful ride! I cannot believe that I waited so long to watch it. I also watched Curse of the Aztec Mummy which raised two questions: 1) how can such an attractive box set with such awesome poster art contain such terrible films? 2) what the fuck, Mexican Hollywood?

I grew up with this book as a kid



The ones I read the most were the early years, which I happily discovered had been reprinted in this volume:



I'll have to watch the serial some day.

I took a break from Irwin Allen and movies from the sci fi classics set yesterday to watch some Godzilla. I decided to watch Godzilla X Mechagodzilla. I have the subtitled version that I got at G Fest last year.

Does 'Watch a film directed/produced...' include Executive Producer?

Generally, no. IMO, that's a pretty low level title to have. Even I have a couple Executive Producer credits, which goes to show that they don't mean much. It's the equivalent of the Good Conduct medal you get in the military that they hand out to anyone that isn't a screw up.

I finally followed up on my end with Something Weird Video. They're offering:
Battle Beyond the Sun
Destination Space
Atomic Brain/Love After Death/Incredible Petrified World

If you don't like those titles, you have me to blame since I chose them

while 'Zardoz' could have been the third film on the bill, last night I enjoyed both 'Darby O'Gill and the Little People' and 'Outland' starring Sean Connery - what was funny about the latter two films, is that both endings mirrored each other in that

I finished my checklist. Now I'm free to watch what I please; as long as it's sci-fi/fantasy.

Congrats to coyoteblue, just avoid the colorized version!

Congrats Coyoteblue

Thank you. Thank you very much.

MI4 have enough (or any) Sci-Fi elements to make it viable (or perhaps with a Wildcard)?

Nice choices! I've had my eye on the Atomic Brain disk for a while. Are the other 2 new releases? I've not seen them listed from Something Weird, only Sinister Cinema and Alpha Video.

I don't think they're new but they are DVD-R releases, so that may be why. I can't remember seeing any of their DVD-R stuff sold outside their site before.

I passed the number of films I got in last years whole challenge but looks like I am going to miss the 100 by a long shot.

*Makes mental note to scan future credits for "Mister Peepers"

I just saw it a few weeks ago and don't recall anything. As we discussed with Bond, I don't think having gadgets is enough.

I watched Star Trek: First Contact tonight. Man, Patrick Stewart works out a lot! Loved the ending when he's climbing those tubes at the end. I like how it seems like a long episode rather than a movie.

I also just got done with Little Shop of Horrors, the Roger Corman version. I liked it. It's different enough to the remake which I really enjoy that it didn't feel like I already knew the story. I know it's the original but the 2nd one I've watched so often, it's a lot more familiar. I liked the ending in this one, though I thought it was a bit abrupt. Could have drawn it out more, I think. Though, I just realized I have a movie at the library that's by Corman as well, but I'm glad I watched it as I did enjoy it.

I have 2 more categories to mark off the checklist: 2nd foreign language and written/starring the late Ray Bradbury. I also have the optional one of nc-17/x-rated, but I don't have anything that work and don't really want to watch anything x-rated. Does anyone have any suggestions for that one? The other two I have in mind already and hope to watch tomorrow. I have Once Upon a Warrior (Telugu) and The Illustrated Man which is in transit but I hope comes in tomorrow.

For ideas for next year, how about a parody? Or are there too few out there? I was watching Ice Pirates and thought about Spaceballs...or is that considered just humor?

Congratulations to Coyoteblue! That was extremely fast. Nice prize!

So I finished a second serial for this Challenge:



I'm a huge fan of the 1961 film version with Harryhausen's special effects and Herrmann's music. I've also seen the 1929 version, which is more like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. So I've always wanted to see this serial from 1951 to see what it had in common with the 1961 version. I read a synopsis of it in Serial Quarterly many decades ago and was intrigued by the addition of aliens from Mercury, including a cute girl named Rulu (Karen Randle) in some kind of Elizabethan page or squire outfit. (I guess they used whatever oddball period costume they had on the rack that fit the actress.)

So now I've finally seen it. It's not very good. It was produced for Columbia by Sam Katzman, who managed to turn out tons of B-movies and serials from the '40s to the '60s, without spending much money. The 1961 film was shot in coastal regions of Spain, with some remarkable mountain and seaside locations. This one was shot in Bronson Canyon (a stone's throw from downtown L.A.) and in some of those rocky areas outside L.A. where they shot tons of westerns. Plus a few cheap cave sets. There are four different sets of characters in the serial: the five Civil War castaways, a trio of aliens from Mercury, a group of pirates, and an island tribe that apparently lived underground for centuries. Most of the serial consists of one party or the other running frantically around the rocks or into the caves.

There's not much logic on display, nor much in the way of mental faculties. Not a hell of a lot happens except when the aliens shoot their "ray guns" and cause fire and sparks to burst out of the rocks they shoot at. The aliens are the only ones who have a real agenda, but it takes 13 chapters before we learn what it is. Captain Nemo pops up late in the proceedings--in Chapter 14--although he lurks about quite a bit as a masked "mystery man" in the early chapters.

There are a few things in common between the serial and the movie, although now I have to re-read the original book by Jules Verne to see if they're in the book, which I read most of in Junior High School. But there are no aliens in any other version I know of.

Bernie Hamilton (Captain Dobey on "Starsky and Hutch") plays Neb, the one black character in the serial and the only significant black supporting character I've seen in a serial--ever. He gets to carry things and do drudge work. And when they shoot it out with the pirates, he has to load the rifles and pass them to the white guys, who do the shooting. He also sits out most fights and has to speak in a slightly exaggerated black accent.

The other actors are generally pretty bad. I've heard of very few of them. Richard Crane, who plays the hero, Captain Harding, played Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, on TV. The one decent actor in the cast, aside from Hamilton, is Gene Roth, a stocky character actor who usually played sheriffs and gruff official types. He plays the pirate captain here and treats everyone pretty roughly, although I can't blame him. The one woman in the cast, Karen Randle, is cute, but not much of an actress.

Republic Pictures' serials were far superior. And Universal Pictures' also. Now I have to tackle CAPTAIN MARVEL and the other Flash Gordon serials. And BUCK ROGERS.

The CBS stylists/wig-weavers seem to have straightened things out by the "Mirror, Mirror" episode.