I'm glad for that, since I went to see Transformers at 6pm, just a few hours before sundown. Now I can count it!

Starting with Johnny Mnemonic (1995), which I have always felt was a totally under-rated example of 1990s "cheese" and has been a guilty pleasure of mine despite the negative critical ratings - everyone should give Johnny Mnemonic a chance...

Turned off my movie, and ran into a roadblock. I have so much I can watch, but don't know what to watch. Maybe I'll look up what's on TV, or browse Roku for something to watch. It's a problem with one of your favorite genres, you have so much, but some times you don't know what strikes your fancy at the moment. Decisions, decisions.

@Shadokitty - sometimes I just turn on mindless fluff when I'm in a unsure mood, in those cases I end up watching a bunch of bad stuff but sometimes there's a real gem.

Good idea. Ended up deciding on some Irwin Allen cheese with The Time Tunnel. Though the early episodes of that series were actually pretty decent.

We were out of town for a family reunion over the weekend so my plans were a bit thrown off. I'd taken a "safe" SF film to watch with the grandkids last night but we wound up watching Lego: The Adventures of Clutch Powers, a movie the their mom picked up at WM earlier that day. It actually wasn't too bad and I enjoyed it more than the recent Lego movie. So did my grandson.

Oddly, neither IMDB or Allmovie has SF or Fantasy as a genre on this one but I don't see how it doesn't fit as it has skeletons, magic, castles, space ships, and more from those genres. I'm going to count it unless someone objects.

I'm hoping to be able to make up for the slow start a bit over the next few days as I took the entire week off for the reunion (it was actually "over" Sunday night but we took a couple more days in the area as a mini-vacation and took the grandkids to tour the caverns a few miles from where we were staying).

I'm trying to decide just what to start with later tonight. I just purchased the newly remastered/released Gamara movies and have quite a few other films purchased over the past year that are itching to be opened...

So I have a question for the fellow x-philes among us about the episode "Post-Modern Prometheus." I know the episode is almost twenty years old but I'm going to use spoiler tags anyway because I was really confused watching the episode this time around

I'm lenient, go right ahead and count it if you think it counts.

On another note, discovered a B Movie hosted show on Roku that I had never heard of before called Cult of UHF. The host was very unobtrusive. He introduced the movie and closed it, and other than that never appeared during the movie. I just watched a Gamera movie episode of the show, Attack of the Monsters.

I finished off the Harryhausen set today with both "Earth vs the Flying Saucers" and "It Came from Beneath the Sea." I also watched the extras on both discs, one of which was a very nice documentary narrated by Leonard Nimoy. It was about an hour long and basically was a doc on Harryhausen. How he got his interest in stop motion (his aunt took him to see King Kong), how it turned into a job and a lot of the people he met along the way (Ray Bradbury, Ted Geisel). Quite a nice little bonus for the disc.

Watched "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back" tonight as well. Tomorrow will finish up with "Return of the Jedi." Fun to watch as usual. And as a nice little continuation of the earlier movies I watched, it has some stop motion action with the AT-ATs.

Going to try to fit one more in tonight-thinking about the MST3k "The Magic Sword." Not sure if I'm in the mood for it though. It'll probably take me longer to settle on a movie than to actually watch it at this rate! I'm also trying to think of the name of a film I watched last year that involved time travel. B movie, I watched it on Youtube, but I liked it so I picked it up on DVD. Problem is, I can't remember the title and it is in a 2/3 pack with a random title so I'm not sure where it is on my shelves. Grr. I may just have to sit down and go through them all and hope it's towards the beginning of the alphabet!

Yesterday I watched Now You See Me. There definitely were some elements of science fiction in it, so I am going to use my first wild card to count it. I also watched an Irish movie called Grabbers from 2012. It was on Netflix and was an unexpected delight! It had very likable characters and a nice tweak on the typical creature feature in that the monster didn't attack drunk people. (Maybe that's why the characters were so likable!) Finished off the day be seeing the new Godzilla movie in 3D again on its last day in theaters here. What an awesome movie. If they try hard enough, I guess there's nothing they can't make look real in movies now.

Started the day with a SyFy movie, Showdown at Area 51. Typical Good alien comes to earth to stop evil alien movie, but not a bad movie nonetheless. Maybe I just have a higher tolerance for bad movies though.

I'm assuming you watched it for the SF/Fantasy challenge last year. If so it would be easier to look at your list from last year. I did just for fun and came up with one film which seems to fit your description:

Prisoners of the Lost Universe

If that's not it, look at this wikipedia page of time travel films - it might be easier than digging through your collection (I know it would be for me!).

I watched the Irwin Allen version of Lost World last night. I don't believe I've ever seen that one before, which is surprising considering I watched *every* SF/Horror/Fantasy film I could as a kid in the 60s. It was quite entertaining even with the fake dinosaurs made by gluing fins, etc. onto lizards. In spite of the fake "dinosaurs" I'd have loved this one as a kid, but would have grumbled about the dinos! I read that Allen originally wanted to do stop-motion dinosaurs but it was too expensive. Considering how his films were usually budgeted it's not surprising he'd skimp on that area... I liked how a dropped dino egg that breaks at the end of the film reveals a lizard which is called a baby T-Rex when it looks *nothing* like a T-Rex. The egg from which it emerged was large enough to hold a dozen or more of that lizard! At least they used a live lizard for the role!

I have a documentary running (replacement copy of life of Mammals I picked up - mine had a few spots where it hung) while I'm doing some online stuff and need to decide if I'm going to mow my daughter's lawn or find a movie to put in the player... I'm leaning towards the movie but it's been a couple of weeks since I last mowed and it really needs a trim...

I think the next movie I screen will be the "bonus" film on the Irwin Allen set. It's a copy of the 1925 version of The Lost World which is said to be the "Eastman restoration" and the full film. The downside is it's said this copy was run at 24fps rather than the original screen speed of 18fps so it runs ~75 minutes instead of ~100. That could have significant impact and introduce the "Keystone Cops" effect (i.e. stuff moves too fast). I have a very good version, the Image release which appears to be at the correct speed, so it'll be interesting to see how this one compares.

Decided I was in the mood for some Alien, so I dug out my Alien - Predator Total Destruction Collection and put in Alien. Since I threw out the sleeve, the DVDs are loose, but now Predator 2 is missing, but even if I can't locate it, it should be easy to pick up an inexpensive replacement. I've also been looking through my cartoon sets, and realize I have a lot of sci-fi/fantasy animation, and that is good, as lately, I've been kind of hankerin' for some cartoons too. I just wish I could locate my BD/DVD Combo pack of The Last Unicorn. I bought it a couple years ago, and never watched it. Last year when I was going to watch it for this or the Animation challenge, I realized, it was not in my DVD Shelf. I imagine it is probably fallen behind a dresser somewhere, still unopened. Wish me luck in finding it.

I've looked everywhere. My only conclusion is someone might have accidentally thrown it out at one point. I guess I'll have to replace my copy of The Last Unicorn.

It was this one. Thanks for helping! It took me awhile but I eventually found it last night. I went hey-I bought it from Amazon, so I was able to look in my purchase history. It turned out to be a 20 pack, so a few choices to look through, but then I went, d'uh, look at last year's challenge and there it was. Though, there are a couple more in the pack that I'll be watching, so bonus. I swear my mind is going (or it's probably this new med I'm on) and I am totally missing the obvious. Grr.

I am glad I had the name because somehow it got miss shelved. Not too badly, but it wasn't exactly where it was supposed to be which while I don't have a GIGANTIC collection, I do have over 1200 so if it's not nearby, it can get complicated.

Ouch, that's not fun. I hate rebuying something I know I have already bought. I've been pretty lucky in not losing any movies, though I KNOW I bought "Fantastic Four" at one point and I haven't been able to find it in years-it never even made it to my cataloging program, so I have no idea where it went or when it disappeared. It's not a favorite, so I'm not rushing to replace it, but I also feel like as soon as I do, the original will show up in a box somewhere!

IMDB has Under the Dome listed as Drama | Mystery | Thriller. It's obviously Sci-Fi. Can I count it, or should I use a wildcard?

I'm going to count it. Definitely has sci-fi tones so it should be no problem counting it.

What's worse is purchasing something you've already purchased but forgot! I've done that several times when I'd see a sale on a title I'd wanted and just jump on it before checking the collection properly. A couple of times I called myself checking the unwatched piles (the biggest cause of my accidental double-dips so far) only to come up empty, order the title, and when it comes in put it right on top of the original purchase! I really need to start cataloging stuff when I make the purchase rather than after I watch it.
I'd have never considered it to *not* be SF material based on the premis. Sidereel.com (the TV side of Allmovie) adds "Fantasy" to the genre list so with that I'd say it's a given.

I've seen the commercials, so I'd say count it.

I started off with Wall-E, one of those movies that's been on my unwatched pile for quite a while. It was more cerebral than I would have expected from a kid's movie, but I enjoyed it. I then watched the "Geek Track", which was commentary provided by four of Pixar's admitted geeks.

I went from that to Troll Hunter (which also helped fulfill my "found footage" and one of my foreign language flicks). I didn't really know what to expect from this one, but I liked it.

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad was next. I thought I had seen it, but I'd probably only seen bits of it. Even in HD, Harryhausen's effects looked awesome!

Next was Dinosaur Island. This is a Fred Olen Ray movie, so you know there will be an engrossing plot, great characterizations, and spectacular special effects. (Stupid auto-correct. That should have said, "This is a Fred Olen Ray movie, so you know there will be boobies. Lots and lots of boobies.")

I'm now starting the double feature of Invasion of the Body Snatchers from 1956 followed by the 1978 version. Should be fun!

You know, a real completist would also watch Body Snatchers from 1993 (a fair reimagining WITH boobies, albeit brief) and The Invasion from 2007 with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.

Highly depressed today, so I want something that doesn't take a lot of concentration. Maybe a scifi cartoon day today. If anyone cares, here is the story of why I am so sad today. We have two outdoor cats, a gray tiger female and a black male. The other day we discovered that Mama had had a couple of kittens. Last night every time I stepped outside, she was just sitting and laying on the porch like she was sad. And since we hadn't seen the kittens in a couple days, I just got this sad feeling with a tightness in my chest wash over me. I just know the kittens were killed or somehow didn't make it.

While browsing my Roku, I took a look at a private channel I had added quite a while ago, but never paid much attention to. Today however, I found two sub channels on that channel with good programming for this challenge. The channel if anyone is interested is called FilmOn. And the two channels are Bloodzillathon, a kaiju and Japanese sci fi channel. Earlier I saw Johnny Sokko was airing on it. The other channel is Sci-Fi Telly. I just caught the tail end of a Crash Corrigan serial chapter, Undersea Kingdom, Ch 3, and after that, One Step Beyond came on.

In case anyone is wondering about the prizes, on Monday I made a last minute prize switch, and am just waiting for Goldenwheels to get back to me, saying he has pulled the final prize, before I list them.

I'm trying to watch stuff from the unopened piles first - so far it's going well and, because I took the week off for a family reunion last weekend, I've been able to work in a fair number of films so far.

I watched the new version of The Lost World (1925) that came as a bonus feature with the 1962 film. Honestly I didn't see too much difference in what I recall from the Legend copy I already own. But I'm not too familiar with the film and would need to screen both simultaneously to see the differences. No matter - it's still a good film and better than the 1960 version.

After that I sucked it up and put in the copy of Catwoman (2004) I'd picked up on sale at BL over the winter. Yes... I purchased a copy in spite of all the bad reviews and comments. Kind of like a train wreck - I had to see for myself so picked up a copy for ~$1. I was expecting the worst and got a little better than my expectations - as long as I didn't think too much. If you strip away that it's supposedly based on the DC comics character it's a passable, although generic and cliched, super hero type origin story. I kept thinking how the back story seemed more similar to Spider-Man than Catwoman but had to remind myself that she didn't get her abilities from dropping in the goop in the factory but rather from this mystical cat who has seemingly lived since ancient Egyptian times. There were several what I'd consider to be plot holes but, again, if you don't think too hard they are easily overlooked. I gave it 4 stars out of 10 and would watch it again if someone came over and really wanted to see it. Still... It's pretty much a dog of a film if you watch with a critical eye.

After that: Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013). I really wanted to like this more than I did. While it was enjoyable it's just another attempt to spice up a gothic type horror tale with "modern" weapons and fighting styles. I've really grown tired of the current trend to turn everything into some type of action flick with endless ninja style fights. Had this been done in a more "traditional" style I think they'd have had a really good film. As it is, it's a fun diversion but nothing really memorable.

I started this morning with The World's End (2013), a Simon Pegg film. This is another blind buy based on reviews and liking very much Shaun of the Dead. About 30 minutes into the film I stopped it to check IMDB to make sure it qualified for the challenge. At that point it was all about Pegg's character getting his buddies getting back together to finally do "The Golden Mile" and I just didn't see any SF trappings. Yup... it has SF as a genre tag so unpause and keep going. Ahhh... SF mode finally kicks in and it's a insane Invasion of the Body Snatchers run to the finish. While I didn't find it as funny as Shaun... it was still a fun ride.

Then Sunshine (2007), a film I'd never heard of and stumbled across reading reviews of other films. It's a basic "The world is going to end because the sun is going out" type film. When I read a few reviews I was thinking "Oh... another Armageddon type disaster film and about as plausible." Then I read Roger Ebert's review where he said:
OK... it's not just another "let's throw a bomb at the sun to re-ignite it" scenario but has a somewhat plausible scientific basis. Still I don't recall getting that explanation from the film. Maybe I missed it... my wife *did* walk through sometime during the first 5-10 minutes and made a comment.

I had really high hopes for this one but it let me down a bit. In spite of the excellent characterizations and suspense in the film I felt it falls into the trap of using several SF tropes/cliches:


And the apparent need for lots and lots of empty space on a ship of that type. You would think it would have just enough space for the immediate needs of the crew but there are areas that are huge and seemingly empty. Part of that is the "bomb," but would the bomb's core have *that* large a space? Yes, it's a long mission and the crew would need *some* space for moving about and exercise but *that* much?

OK... maybe some of that isn't fair. The film is still very good and has some excellent moments. One that sticks out was when one of the crew was in a observation room viewing the sun at *2%* light level and asked for 4% only to be told it would burn out his eyes in seconds so he settled for the maximum 3.1%. The parts that work best are those which deal with the psychological aspects of the mission on the crew.

My grandson came over so I switched gears to be more kid-friendly. We watched The Three Stooges in Orbit (1962). I saw this one in the theater when it first came out and recall being somewhat unimpressed back then, mainly because of the special effects. I also recalled thinking the alien makeup job really looked fake. It also didn't help that many scenes are reworked bits taken from skits in their early years. So... It's been 10-20 years since I've seen this one and it was better than I'd recalled. While still not on a par with their earlier work it's still superior to the late 50s material with Joe Besser. My grandson laughed a couple of times which is a good indication that he considers it passable.