Topic: science fiction

‘The Andromeda Strain’ revisted in slick A&E miniseries, now on DVD

By Christine Anne Piesyk | June 27, 2008 |

I’m not usually a fan of remakes, especially for a film I loved in its original form. The 2008 A&E production of Michael Crichton’s The Adromeda Strain overcame the odds to be at least as good as the original, if not better. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Crichton’s best novel of the same name was a taunt, tense, pre-computer age sci-fi thriller with Dustin Hoffman as scientist and protagonist Jeremy Stone, head of the Wildfire Biohazard Response team.

In this upgraded version, Director Mikael Salamon stuck to the story (Wow, what a concept!) and used 40 years of improved and expanded technology to rev up the action and adapt the film to 21st century science. It’s a place where the fiction is less improbable, the fantasy more believable, and, in the age of conspiracy theorists, corruption, terrorist threats and a new thrust toward space exploration are easily interjected into the film. «Read the rest of this article»

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Not so long ago in a theater near you …

By Christine Anne Piesyk | May 24, 2007 |

Once upon a time there was a handsome young man from a broken family, living on a planetary wasteland with an aunt and uncle…he races around his lunar-like landscape on a landspeeder, running errands for his uncle — things like buying androids and robots from very short creatures wearing inter-galactic versions of monks robes — but in one violent afternoon, he finds himself en route to becoming an inter-gallactic hero …

Welcome to world of Luke Skywalker, Director George Lucas’s ground-breaking fantasy that would rev up the imaginations of millions of moviegoers. That was 30 years ago (May 25, 1977). Where were you when Star Wars changed the face of movies? «Read the rest of this article»

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