The history of science fiction is littered with satire. Here are three underappreciated films which approached satire in relatively different, but hilarious ways.

Starship Troopers
Paul Verhoeven's 1997 war flick is probably the best English language movie the director has ever made. A perfect fusing of clueless actors, a brilliant script, and pitch perfect direction, Starship Troopers coalesced a number of the ideas Verhoeven had seeded throughout previous films. The dystopian future and sly satire of Robocop and Total Recall, the over-the-top sexuality of Basic Instinct and Showgirls, all came together in one beautiful, ridiculous package. When a bunch of pretty boys and girls go to war against the evil Bug menace, it's implied, but never said, that the Bugs are, in fact, the good guys, and we're the evil invading force. This is never clearer than when Neil Patrick Harris essentially enters towards the end of the movie wearing a Nazi uniform. The upcoming Starship Troopers 3 is looking to recapture its progenitor's tone, but so far, seems to be missing Verhoeven's sly, subversive touch. 

Continue reading "Three Underappreciated SciFi Satires - Demolition Man, Idiocracy and Starship Troopers" »

Entertainment Weekly published a ridiculous list called The 20 Worst Comic Book Movies Ever -- and I know I'm taking the bait, but I have to disagree with their choices. For one thing, they left out some really awful movies: I'm thinking Nick Fury, starring David Hasselhoff. For another, I must defend Swamp Thing.

Tom Blunt gave Swamp Thing a nice shout-out, earlier this week, but I have to give it more love. When I was a kid I watched it all the time, not even knowing it was based on a comic book. When I was in college, I appreciated the depth and humanity of Swamp Thing; his loneliness really resonated with me. I once led an audience in a sing-a-long, where the Troggs' "Wild Thing" was replaced with lyrics about Swamp Thing. Today I appreciate the movie as a departure film for Wes Craven, much like 1999's overlooked Music of the Heart.

Finally, I'd like to run a correction of sorts. In a previous episode of The Sci Fi Department we listed some movies not on Netflix. The first one mentioned is Swamp Thing -- and I'm happy to report that it's now included in the library. I will humbly chalk that up as a personal victory.

Before Mystery Science Theater 3000, cable TV's best ironic viewing was a 1982 movie that was in heavy rotation on HBO: It Came From Hollywood, a retrospective of B-movies with wrap-arounds by Gilda Radner, John Candy, Dan Aykroyd and Cheech & Chong.

Their commentary covers everything from Monster movies to animal-attack films, and from stories about brains and alien invasions to bad movie musicals.

Looking back, the jokes aren't all that funny--though it still makes me laugh to see a stoned Tommy Chong get the giant popcorn. (Stranger still is the knowledge that the stars panning these awful films would go on to make movies like Haunted Honeymoon and Blues Brothers 2000.)

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Who would win in a futuristic pit match between fleshless cybernetic endoskeletons? In one corner, the obsolete, Austrian-accented T-800, currently on break from its gubernatorial duties. In another, the amorphous alloy blob of the T-1000, followed by the jack-of-all-trades T-X and the waif-like Cameron model from The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Oh, it's a contest of speculative fan boy fantasy, but Popular Mechanics was not satisfied with arguing with other dorks near the racks of the local comic book store over which Terminator was the toughest. They decided to analyze them all with science...

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