by Dan Persons

Come to scenic, Mars-based Neo-Venezia, where beautiful, female gondoliers paddle… gondolas and… look beautiful. That’s essentially the gist of the trailer you’ll find here, promoting Rightstuf’s upcoming release of ARIA THE ANIMATION (click the tabs at the left to start the video). Sure looks pretty, in any case.

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by Dan Persons

It’s online, it’s free (until Sunday), and man, is it cool. Spawned from a desire to keep people working during the writer’s strike, Joss Whedon’s serialized, musical, low-budget, love-starved supervillain vs. asshole superhero watchamacallit, DR. HORRIBLE’S SING-ALONG BLOG is being debuted all this week. Act I is now up, with Act II being released July 17 and Act III on July 19. (Past Sunday, you’ll have to pony up to watch, either through download or eventual DVD release.)

Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, and Felicia Day star & sing their hearts out. Catch it here.

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Vancourver24Hours.com offers an interview with UBC professor C. W. Marshall, who has edited a book of academic papers title Cylons in America”Critical Studies in Battlestar Galactica. The papers offer a scholarly examination of issues raised in the current television series BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, particularly those relating to living in post-9/11 America.

“The discussions that go on about contemporary issues are much more sophisticated and nuanced and are given much more time than they’re given on 24-hour news stations,” says Marshall. “I think we get a better examination of the psychology of what’s going on in Iraq and Afghanistan in the science fiction setting than we do watching CNN.”

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Sam Raimi’s upcoming syndicated series WIZARD’S FIRST RULE has added Kenneth Biller as showrunner. Mike Sussman (STAR TREK: VOYAGER) is negotiating to come on board as a producer. The 60-minute scripted show, produced by ABC Studios, derives from Terry Goodkind’s novel of the same title. Craig Horner and Bridget Regan co-star as a woodsman and a mysterious woman who join forces to oppose an evil ruler. Twenty-two episodes are planned, which should begin airing this fall.

Paul Campbell (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) has signed on to play the role of a research technician in NBC’s upcoming KNIGHT RIDER, a sequel to the 1980s series about a talking car.

Levin Rambin (ALL MY CHILDREN) will join TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES as Becky, who may become romantically involved with John Connor (Thomas Dekker).

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[EDITOR’S NOTE: In memory of Stan Winston, who died this weekend, here is a little interview I conducted with him back in June of 2001 when  he was happily producing a series of modestly budgeted monster movies for cable television.]

In honor of the Halloween season, Cinemax will be bringing you a series of five Creature Features this October: DAY THE WORLD ENDED, TEENAGE CAVEMAN, EARTH VS. THE SPIDER, HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER, and MERMAID CHRONICLES PART 1: SHE CREATURE. The titles may sound familiar, but the stories and characters will be brand new. Each takes its name from one of the low-budget sci-fi flicks turned out by American International Pictures in the 1950s, and uses that as a jumping off point for an original film. Continue Reading »

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This 1967 series, created by Larry Cohen, featured Roy Thinnes as “architect David Vincent,” who takes a wrong turn on a lonely road one night and ends up witnessing the landing of a flying saucer - vanguard of an alien invasion. The rest of the series follows Vincent’s attempts to track down the aliens and find enough proof to convince the world that he is not a crackpot. Despite the science fiction trappings, THE INVADERS is more a study in paranoia than a traditional space opera: it is about a lone man convinced of a danger that everyone else refuses to recognize, and the stealth invasion by emotionless aliens (rather like the scenario of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS) could easily stand in for the Red Scare of the 1950s. Continue Reading »

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by Dan Persons

Just where exactly in The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbookdoes it say that, if you get a pedestrian lodged in your car’s windshield, you should drive straight home, get high, and fret over taking the poor bastard — still jammed on your hood and bleeding into the glove compartment — to the emergency room? That’s the actual scenario that one not-necessarily-Einstein-caliber motorist found herself in a few years ago, and it’s the core predicament of STUCK, Stuart Gordon’s newest melding of social satire, black comedy, brooding horror, and patented Gordon splooshiness. Casting Mena Suvari as the driver and Stephen Rea as her unfortunate victim, the director has managed to cross-fertilize a snapshot of life in these Bush-ravaged times with the bad decisions that sometimes ensue. Cinefantastique Online’s Dan Persons had a chance to speak to Gordon by phone:

Continue Reading »

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Originally commissioned by the Sci-Fi Channel but then bumped up to A&E as a “television event,” the new version of THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN, based on Michael Crichton’s bestseller, will be broadcast over two nights this Memorial Day weekend. I have fond memories of Robert Wise’s film version, which I first saw in the theater in 1971. Wise was a master of using space.  In films such as THE SOUND OF MUSIC, WEST SIDE STORY and STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE his camera revealed a world of wide vistas and soaring grandeur. However, he could go the other way as well and confine us in a frame that was extremely insular and claustrophobic. Watching films such as RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP and THE HAUNTING this unseen side of the frame helped him create a unrelenting sense of menace. His version of THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN contained both.  The film begins with high angle wide screen views of the infected town Continue Reading »

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Wired.com has an interview with Mark Stern, executive vice president of original programming at Sci Fi Channel, who discusses BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and the pilot for the prequel (which is currently being developed, now that BSG is in its last season).

Of the decision to bring BSG to a close, Stern says:

[…] I respect [BSGexecutive producers] Ron [Moore] and David [Eick]’s decision to end it, because there’s nothing worse than to suck it dry and have it limp along after you’ve done the best of the best.

But it has given us the courage to say, “OK, but let’s find another show that does take on the more serious issues of science fiction” […]. And what’s interesting about Caprica is that it does that. We’re doing the pilot right now called “Revolution,” which is an allegory for the American Revolution, that has its own opportunities for character and depth and discussion. It’s about finding things that are worthy successors, not just rip-offs.

Stern also explains the advantages of using science-fiction to discuss serious issues:

[…] the great thing about the genre is that it allows you to talk about issues that would be too polarizing if you really were talking about, say, the occupation of Iraq and the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo. First of all, I don’t want to watch that show, cause I’m watching it on the news every day, and it’s too close to us. It doesn’t allow you to speak allegorically and explore things that resonate with you the way Galactica does. So the fact that you’re dealing with a speculative fantastical premise about robots that look like us that attack and destroy, that allows you into other great themes because in the back of your mind you can say, “Yes, but that’s not us. That’s them.”

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IllusionTV tells us that Ronald D. Moore (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) will write and produce VIRTUALITY, a two-hour back-door pilot for Fox.

The plot involves the 12-member crew of Phaeton, Earth’s first starship, which is equipped with a virtual reality system to keep the crew’s minds occupied during its 10-year journey. A bug in the system creates a problem resulting in the general theme of the series, which explores the nature of reality. Moore brought with him BSG writer and producer Michael Taylor.

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Actress Katee Sackhoff, who stars as Starbuck in Sci Fi Channel’s revamped BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, gave a conference call interview about the show last week, in which she stated that the strength of the program is that it eschews science-fiction:

We never relied on the science fiction of the show,” said Sackhoff, who probably reached more viewers playing wacko villain Sarah Corvus on NBC’s failed Bionic Woman reboot than on the Sci Fi Channel’s underwatched gem, which begins its fourth and final season Friday.

“Most science fiction shows rely way too much on the bells and whistles,” she added, speaking to journalists last week on a conference call. “It kind of opened doors in science fiction to realize . . . it’s just a setting. . . . It’s not, (and) it should never have been what the show is.”

Jason Sanford begs to differ:

Sackhoff is correct that the show’s amazing character development is a major factor in why BG is so successful, but she’s wrong to imply that the show’s setting is irrelevant to this success. If Battlestar Galactica had been set in present day America, the show would have simply been an over-wrought soap opera. Instead, the space setting, combined with the desparate race for survival by this last group of human survivors, allows the show to explore complex issues with a depth and resonance that other TV dramas lack. Yes, the characters make the show great. But without the setting, no one would care about any of that character drama. Great science fiction is a merging of setting and drama and character. And it takes all three of those legs to support a great story like Battlestar Galactica.

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Since the current version of Cinefantastique Online went live last August, we have concentrated mostly on current news and reviews, while only occasionally dipping into the vast reservoir of material available in back issues of the magazine. Gradually, we plan to post more of that material into our online archives, making it accessible to fans who have not been able to find their favorite back issues in used book stores. When possible, we may include updated or extended versions of the articles, including material that had to be cut for length when printed.

Today, we take our first step in this direction with “FARSCAPE: Season Three.” Anna L. Kaplan’s in-depth article, which details the trials and travails of the Sci Fi Channel series, was originally intended as a cover story, but appeared in the June 2002 issue of Cinefantastique (Volume 34, Numbers 3-4), with Spider-Man on the the cover. Enjoy!

UPDATES: We had added this interview with actress Claudia Black, who played Aeryn Sun on the show. And this interview with actor Ben Browder, who played John Crichton. And this interview with executive producer David Kemper. You can find more in the Archives for June 2002.

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Actor Joshua Jackson (DAWSON’S CREEK) was at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood on Friday, promoting his new horror film SHUTTER, which opens March 21. While discussing the challenges of shooting an English-language remake of a Thai ghost story, shot in Tokyo with a Japanese director, Jackson offered some comments on FRINGE, the upcoming sci-fi television series that earned a bit of buzz last year when Fox plunked down big bucks to purchase the spec script for the pilot. Written by J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci, all of whom serve as executive producers, the $10-million, two-hour opener of FRINGE stars Jackson as Peter Bishop, the estranged son of Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble), who is described as a cross between Albert Einstein and Dr. Frankenstein. The show, which will combine elements of horror, science-fiction, action, and comedy, will focus on a female FBI investigator who teams up with the brilliant but possibly unstable doctor to find rational explanations for apparently preternatural phenomena. FRINGE also pays homage to ALTERED STATES, David Cronenberg’s SCANNERS, and medical science thrillers of Michael Crichton and Robin Cook, with a “slight TWILIGHT ZONE vibe” according to Abrams. Alex Graves directed the pilot. The cast also includes Charlotte Rampling, Kirk Acevedo, Lance Reddick, Mark Valley, and Blair Brown. Continue Reading »

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Bear McCreary seemingly came out of nowhere to invest the 2004 television reincarnation of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA with a rich and imaginative scoring palette. His music for the cable TV series quickly garnered him assignments on the films REST STOP and WRONG TURN 2. He has continued to score GALACTICA as well as TV’s small town fantasy series, EUREKA and, most recently, the Fox’s new TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES. McCreary entered film music through an apprenticeship with composer Elmer Bernstein (GHOSTBUSTERS). “I’ve always loved film music, but it’s probably because I’ve always loved music and I’ve always loved movies, so sort of the obvious mix of the two,” McCreary said. “Ever since I was a kid I was always paying very close attention to the music in movies. Whenever I’d go to movies with my friends, all I’d be talking about afterward was ‘Did you hear that French horn line that Jerry Goldsmith used in that one scene?’ All my friends – well, they didn’t know what I was talking about!” Continue Reading »

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The Hollywood Reporter tells us that NBC is prepping an anthology show for this summer, titled FEAR ITSELF. The 13-episode run will include segments directed by John Landis, Stuart Gordon, Darren Bouseman, Ronny Yu, Ernest Dickerson, and Mary Haron. Lionsgate will produce the show along with Industry Entertainment, the entity behind the Showtime series MASTERS OF HORROR.

 ”We’ve teamed up with some of the most illustrious writers, actors and directors to create a distinctive, scare-filled series that will push the boundaries of this classic genre,” NBC Entertainment executive vp Teri Weinberg said.

As with the “Masters” duo, the Emmy-winning team of Keith Addis and Andrew Deane are on board to executive produce. Joining the team is Lionsgate executive Peter Block, who oversaw development on the “Saw” films. 

Addis said partners Lionsgate and NBC have brought a new level expertise and excitement to the latest project.

“This is a world Lionsgate knows a lot about,” he said. “They have a proven track record in this genre and understand the marketing of it. NBC saw this as a great opportunity to bring a genre to commercial television that nobody else is doing … (this time) the partners have a very different level of enthusiasm.”

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