!# Worst SF / Horror Movie Titles

Xnewsman sent me in this hilarious article from Time / Entertainment that concerns some less than thought out or just wrong movie titles from SF & Horror. 

Here are the titles, but you really should read the copy and the poster pics.--

From the article here :

• Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)
• The Astro-Zombies (1968)
• The Incredibly Strange CreatureWho Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?
• The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (1959)
• Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)
• Orgy of the Dead (1965)
• Frankenstein Conquers the World (1966)
• Robot Monster (1953)
• Sssssss (1973)
• Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (1977)
• I Dismember Mama (1974)
• Attack of the Puppet People (1958)
• House II: The Second Story (1987)

You just have to say, "What were these people thinking?"  Really, read the copy from Time, it is just
a hoot!

Bob Hoskins Retires Due to Illness

Airlock Alpha has listed an article concerning Bob Hoskins. For you that might be in the dark about Hoskins, He was responsible for bringing to life Eddie Valiant, a rough, angry and hard drinking private eye in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" an animated live action film.
And his role as Smee in the movie Hook in which he stared with Robin Williams and Dustan Hoffman.

Hoskins has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and instead of continuing on a reduced schedule he has opted to retire and spend more time with his family.

Beam Me Up episode 303 now online

Strange and creepy are the cornerstones of this week’s Beam Me Up broadcast. I start off first with T. Fox Dunham’s spin on a well worn science fiction theme. I read his “Freedom Day” Where a long lost space traveler only to find humans enslaved by mechanical overlords. Upon freeing the oppressed human race our stalwart traveler garners a reward that was far beyond anything he could have imagined.

Next from Earth Sky - news on the VLA telescope soon to be fully operational in Chile called Alma and feathers caught in ancient tree sap helps demonstrate that early flightless dinosaurs and ancient birds both used feathers but for varying purposes.

From there I head over to the Beam Me Up blog to discover that dinosaurs themselves were plagued by fleas just as much as modern animals, but these were no ordinary fleas! Next I review the blu-ray Batman: year one which follows the genesis of the Batman mystique from the comic book history time line, Hubble has detected a gas cloud thought to be the precursor to a supernova that could happen at any moment, Some voice over actors find it difficult to drop their assumed personas once the project is finished. Watch Ben Shelton's web series The Daly Show - I have a link and the mentioned video - funny just can not describe it! The most distant object in the visible universe had been discovered. Light from the GRB has been traveling to us for 13.2 billion years, that makes it 96% of the age of the Universe itself. I find another Darwin hopeful....this brain trust is not to be believed! And finally from the blog comes one of the most disturbing ideas yet to improve on meat production. You will not believe your ears!

And finally part two of Nancy Fulda’s story Movement which is up for the Nebula this year in the short story department. Good Luck Nancy!

Science Fiction Tear Jerkers

From IO9 is a list of science fiction themed movies or tv shows, designed to get the waterworks going. Is the list definitive or can you add or would you remove a listing?

WALL*E
THE IRON GIANT
STARMAN
LOST: "The Constant"
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: "The Gift"
E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
CHARLY (Keys - Flowers for Algernon)
KING KONG
STAR TREK: "City on the Edge of Forever"
SERENITY
EDWARD SCISSORHANDS
DOCTOR WHO: "Father's Day"
WINGS OF DESIRE (inspiration for the remake City of Angels)
STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN
DOCTOR WHO: "Doomsday"

Ok, where is Testament? the William Devaine, Jane Alexander movie about a post nuclear war that will rip you a new one? The movie Moon has its' moments, One the Beach? Damn I would put these up there before I would BUFFY! WTF

Suggestions?

50 Great Movies Every Science Geek Needs to See

Amber Johnson sends in a post on the Online Degree Programs blog, with an interesting theme. Not just the top 50 science fiction films, but a broader list of movies that would appeal to the science geek in all of us.

From the article:

• The fifty films ... whether documentaries or pure flights of fancy, delve into the often complex issues surrounding scientific discovery, exploration and alteration, educating as they entertain.

Coooooooool! Check it out...movies like

• Gattaca
• Andromeda Strain
• Fantastic Voyage
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
  

just to name a few of the listed (and ummm ahhhh some of my all time favs)

But its not just science fiction

• Life Story Watson and Crick’s journey to unraveling DNA
• A Beautiful Mind brilliant mathematician John Nash struggle with mental illness
  

and so many more. I love just browsing through the titles....there is a curious lack of some that I feel would have made a great addition to the list:

• Flowers for Algernon (the movie was called Charlie with Cliff Robertson) and
• Testament
  

to name two and that is a conversation I would really like to start. Look through the complete list. Be honest, just because a movie entertained you doesn't make it a great movie. I saw both Transformers and all the Terminator movies...I wouldn't put them on the list however. The two that I did add were a couple of movies that I found extraordinarily upsetting and moving, but not high on action or special effects but movies that you find yourself saying....please...make it stop.

So suggestions for additions? Subtractions?

AMC to do sci-fi - Watch out Sci-Fi channel!

In an effort to one up the Sci-fi channel, AMC is looking to, as general manager Charlie Collier puts it, actively looking to mine classic genre TV shows and SF movies for miniseries, movies and remakes that would appeal to viewers in their 40s or 50s...

As an example one can look to their upcoming project, the remake of The Prisoner miniseries. The thinking is solid. The shows that those 40+ grew up on are a virtually untapped goldmine resource that can be updated and served to a new and older audience alike. Collier said that the network is looking into the acquisitions of past science fiction, both movies and television.

Sounds good to me and no wraslin! woooooooo hoooooooooooo

Check out the article on Dvice