When it comes to scifi flicks, space isn't the only final frontier. The genre also explores alternate realities (The Matrix), time travel (Back to the Future), and artificial intelligence (Blade Runner). With so many imaginative takes of the future, it's easy to get swept up by each unique fantasy. But it's time to focus, people! Tell your fellow earthlings which is the greatest scifi flick of them all.

AMC Celebrates Blade Runner's 30th Anniversary on Fri., Feb. 10 at 8/7c.

After 40 years of reading his books and seeing his movies, everyone thinks they know Stephen King. The majority of his stories are set in Maine because he's from there. Misery's partly based on an accident that left him for dead; an encounter with a mechanic's Saint Bernard produced Cujo. But there are probably things you don't know about this master of the macabre. For instance...

1. He'll Sell You the Rights to His Short Stories for $1
Are you an aspiring filmmaker who's a King fan? Well, you're in luck. The writer will let you adapt one of his short stories and the rights will only cost you a buck. He also asks that you send him a copy of the completed flick so he can add it to his shelf of other "Dollar Babies."

2. He Made a Music Video With Michael Jackson
In the mid-'90s, the King of Pop teamed up with the King of Horror to make Ghosts, a 40-minute video in which angry villagers assail Jackson for corrupting their children. After Jackson's death, King wrote about the whole experience for Entertainment Weekly.

Continue reading "Six Things You Didn't Know About Stephen King" »

Cinema has always had a thing for aliens. In fact, one of the first silent movies ever, A Trip to the Moon (1902), featured astronauts battling a lunar species called the Selenites. Since then, alien encounters have run the gamut from heartwarming (E.T.) to thought-provoking (District 9) to downright terrifying (Alien). Of course, one would hope that if you had a choice in real life, choosing a benevolent intergalactic meeting would be best. But which extra-terrestrial encounter from the movies would you rank as the greatest?

Established Hollywood icon John Travolta has had his ups and downs. '70s hits like Grease and Saturday Night Fever made him a superstar; '80s flicks like Staying Alive and The Experts are now all but forgotten. So what made director Quentin Tarantino decide take a chance on the actor with Pulp Fiction? Consider the range of his early work -- which also includes Carrie and Urban Cowboy -- then vote for which Travolta movie you think ranks as his most inspiring.

AMC Celebrates Saturday Night Fever's 35th Anniversary on Sat., Feb. 4 at 8/7c.

Teen flicks have had a rep for being fluff since the days when Annette and Frankie were playing beach blanket bingo. But there are many adolescent movies that are far more than teenybopper fare. Sophisticated humor, adult situations, and cerebral subject matter make the following five flicks equally suitable for mature audiences.

Clueless (1995)
In this hilarious adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma, Alicia Silverstone is a rich, teenage airhead who plays matchmaker -- until she realizes she wants a love of her own.
Why teens like it: Alicia Silverstone is adorable! Girls want to be her. Boys want to date her.
Why adults like it, too: Hysterical one-liners mocking pubescence, most of which are lost on your average teen viewer.

Heathers (1989)
Wynona Ryder and Christian Slater headline this black comedy about social conformity, serial killing, and an insane high-school feudal system.
Why teens like it: What kid hasn't dream of taking down bullies or bitchy cliques? Unless you're one of the in-crowd, revenge here is sweet.
Why adults like it, too: What a great reminder to grown-ups that their best years are not behind them.

Continue reading "Just Because You're Not a Teen Doesn't Mean You Can't Love WarGames, Heathers and..." »

The problem with Superman is that he's so super that it's hard to come up with equal adversaries. And yet screenwriters have been doing it for close to 70 years, drawing equally on characters who debuted in the comics and their own evil inventions. The result is an eclectic rogue's gallery that ranges from shady ladies to fellow Kryptonians.Who's his fiercest foe?

10. The Mole Men, Superman and the Mole Men (1951)
These stunted, underground humanoids with furry bodies and bald heads glow in the dark and crawl out of oil shafts. Yuck! But they're really just misunderstood creatures who don't start brandishing a weapon (that looks like a Stanley Cup) unless working to rescue a comrade attacked and injured by an angry mob. All Superman has to do is mediate.

9. Perry White Superman: The Movie (1978), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), Superman Returns (2006)
On the one hand, Daily Planet editor Perry White is a puny human: Superman could squash him like a bug. On the other, he's Clark Kent's boss, berating him constantly for his failures as a reporter. Superman has to suck it up because he needs an alter ego: That's gotta hurt at least a little.Is Perry a villain? Clark might think so.

Continue reading "It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's Superman's Top Ten Supervillains!" »

You may think that getting a flashy part in an action movie would typecast a woman, brand her as nothing more than a Bond Girl. Flash some cleavage, go to bed with the movie's star, and never be heard from again. But that's not always the case. Some women have gone action-pic eye-candy to Oscar-winning artistes. Consider the following...

Sandra Bullock, Speed (1994) to The Blind Side (2009)
Before becoming the comeback kid with her highly lauded turn in The Blind Side, Bullock was known as America's sweetheart thanks to playing that hot young thing co-starring with Keanu Reeves in Speed. Of course, Bullock's ability to be more than easy on the eyes was never the question. She had Miss Congeniality, Traffic, and A Time to Kill all to her credit. But who knew she'd rise this high? 

Rachel Weisz, The Mummy (1999) to The Constant Gardener (2005)
She inevitably caught your attention as the beautiful love interest in this '90s blockbuster. Who else could steal the show from Brendan Fraser and a CGI monster? Yet less than a decade later, she also brought home the Oscar for The Constant Gardner. Is her achievement that surprising? Not really. Even in The Mummy, she's no damsel in distress. She's a powerful woman who can swashbuckle with the best of them.

Continue reading "From '90s Action Girl to New Millennium Oscar Winner - A Not-So-Uncommon Trajectory" »

The Amazing Spider-Man, which reboots the 2002-07 Spider-Man trilogy starring Tobey Maguire, is shooting while new movies intended to revitalize everything from Robocop to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are in the works. Before proceeding further, Hollywood might consider which franchises were successfully raised from the dead, thanks to these well-conceived updates...

1. Sherlock Holmes (2009)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) kicked off a series of fourteen B&W movies with Basil Rathbone as a reserved Sherlock and Nigel Bruce as his dim Dr. Watson. Rathbone's performance set the pattern for subsequent Holmes until 2009's larky Sherlock Holmes, a steampunk action pic featuring an eccentric detective (Robert Downey, Jr.) and his square-but-sharp assistant (Jude Law). Even with a successful sequel, Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows (2011), purists are divided. But it's certainly made one 19th-century detective appealing to 21st-century audiences

2. Star Trek (2009)
The big screen spin-off from the small screen series got off to a rocky start with Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979, but found its footing with its sequel, the The Wrath of Khan. Come 2009, the new Star Trek took the characters to an "alternate timeline" that, thanks to a sharp script and savvy casting, gave vigor to the original concept while satisfying longtime fans via unobtrusive allusions. Having Leonard Nimoy's elderly Spock counsel his conflicted younger self (Zachary Quinto) was pure genius. Thank you, time travel!

Continue reading "The Amazing Spider-Man Isn't the Only Movie Franchise Reboot to Amaze in the Last Ten Years" »

"I never considered myself a cowboy," Clint Eastwood once said in that uniquely scratchy voice, "because I wasn't." But he sure looks like one -- a rangy, angular six feet and four inches of lean legs and ropy muscle. (Sometimes anatomy is destiny.) Indeed, Eastwood's breakout role was on the TV Western Rawhide, while his first Oscar win came with his Western update Unforgiven. Eastwood's rise from TV star to Hollywood auteur can be attributed to his ability to adapt with the genre for over five decades. How did he do it?

The Man With No Name for the Sixties
A drifter whose past is nobody's business but his own, Eastwood in the Dollars trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) is an opportunistic loner marching to the beat of his own drum. He's a moral man who doesn't need to explain himself and, as such, emerges as an icon in step with the era's counterculture.

The Avenging Angel for the Seventies
Any sense of detachment is gone come the seventies, as Eastwood's characters -- much like his Dirty Harry persona of the time -- are more like vigilantes. In The Outlaw Josey Wales, he's a Missouri farmer willing to throw in with marauders if that's what it takes to punish his family's killers. In High Plains Drifter, he's the Devil come to exact his due in a mining town where the citizens must own up to their own worst deeds.

Continue reading "Clint Eastwood Defines the Western - Past, Present, and Future" »

Red River. Rio Bravo. The Searchers. They're surefire John Wayne classics. But with a half-century in Hollywood and more than 100 films to his credit, this actor's legacy includes more than the usual suspects. Time to rectify things with a list of five great Wayne flicks that you probably haven't seen but should.

1. The Cowboys (1972)
As a hard-driving rancher playing surrogate father to a group of young bucks, Wayne passes the torch of Western tradition. But don't expect Little House on the Prairie. Things get brutal when Wayne meets an insane Bruce Dern. After a riveting intergenerational fistfight, there's a plot twist that turns this into one of Wayne's most disarming movies ever.

2. Big Jake (1971)
In the era of violent Westerns, the Duke takes the reigns from trigger-happy young guns like Clint Eastwood and ups the ante. Wayne may show his age as a pistol-packing granddaddy, but he's angry about more than just rising Medicare costs: some varmints have kidnapped his grandson. Wayne has never been this bloodthirsty, making this one a must-see.

Continue reading "The Five Greatest John Wayne Movies You Haven't Seen Yet" »