Category: Entertainment

UFO: Some Campy Good Sci-Fi Fun

In the distant future of 1980 mysterious aliens are making missions to Earth and kidnapping people. Absolutely nothing is known about them. American Air Force Colonel Ed Straker is put in command of the secret organization SHADO which includes a lunar base with space fighters, a submarine that launches a jet that shoots down UFOs and a secret base located underneath a movie studio in England where Straker poses as a movie producer. To keep up appearances Straker and his paramilitary staff have to look the part. Fancy cars, and campy mod outfits for everyone. The kind of thing that inspired Austin Powers.

Interestingly enough, while you are recovering from laughing at the early 1970s/last 1960s styles, you will get engrossed in strong plots, strong scripts and strong acting.

This isn’t a space opera. The stories revolve around the dearth of information about the aliens, the palpable desperation of SHADO to find out why they are here and some strongly cerebral cloak and dagger plots.

UFO on IMDB.com

The Rolling Stones Rice Crispie Commercial

During a recent episode of Mad Men, the gritty realistic soap opera about Maidson Avenue advertising people in the early 1960s, one of the characters mentioned getting The Rolling Stones to perform a commercial for Heinz Baked Beans. They thought they had a chance, as The Rolling Stones had previously agreed to do a Rice Krispies commercial in the UK. It turns out that the Rolling Stones really did make a commercial for Rice Krispies. I’ve watched it several times. I have to admit, it is quite catchy :).

Five Million Years To Earth

Some of the most fun science fiction movies to watch are sci-fi movies made a long time ago or in another country. These movies have a very different look and feel to them that really adds to the sense of escapism. Such is the case with this film “Five Million Years To Earth” (1967). The original clunky British title was “Quatermass and the Pit”. It is a very good movie adaption of a 1950s British Sci-Fi series ( I didn’t even know there were such things ).

The movie opens with workers digging underground as part of a project to expand the “Hobbs End” subway station. The workers discover a number of oddly shaped human skulls. An archeologist is called in. The skulls resemble an early ape-like ancestor to human beings, but 5 million years older than other such fossils and with a much larger brain case.

Strange paranormal events start happening. It is discovered that “Hobbs End” was originally spelled “Hobs End”, an old word for the devil. Going through old records, that spot was discovered to be the site of many paranormal events going back to Roman times. Apparently digging in the ground there, as with the subway station expansion, has always set strange events into motion.

More digging unearths an extraterrestrial space ship with the corpses of large intelligent insect like creatures.

The scene in the poster above is never in the movie. No sex at all in this movie. Most of the movie is fascinating, very intelligent supposition discussed among various experts called in to investigate the site. The movie successfully blends together many interesting ideas into a sugary imagination candy treat for people who like their science fiction to be a bit of mind-fuck.

Highly recommended!