The website of John C. Snider
It’s hard to impress upon fans born in the twenty-first century just what deserts television networks and movie theaters were for science fiction in the twentieth century. This is not to say those media were devoid of sci-fi, but with only three networks and five major studios, fans were lucky if there were more than …
While doing a little background research a few weeks ago for my review of The World, the Flesh and the Devil (Harry Belafonte’s provocative 1959 post-nuclear-Armageddon drama), I discovered just how hard it can be sometimes to nail down what was “the first” of something. It turns out that TWTFATD, while a very early cinematic depiction of …
If you haven’t been watching Apple TV+’s new drama series Severance, you’re really missing out on an unsettling, thoughtful, and rewarding sci-fi mystery. Severance centers around Mark S (Adam Scott), an employee of Lumon, an enigmatic technology corporation. Lumon offers select employees the option to “sever” their work selves from their off-duty selves via a computer chip implanted …
This review contains spoilers. French writer/director Julia Ducournau made a splash with her first feature film, 2016’s meaty psychological horror-thriller Raw. (Full disclosure: I have not yet seen this film.) Her sophomore effort—Titane—has also made a splash, winning the coveted Palme d’Or at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Titane falls undeniably and unapologetically into the category of “body …
The end of the world is big business nowadays. Between streaming and broadcasting and movie theaters (which are themselves dying), hardly a month goes by that we aren’t introduced to some apocalypse or Armageddon or what-have-you. If it’s not zombies, it’s a vicious pandemic; if it’s not a giant meteor, it’s an alien invasion. Americans, …
I have been inspired lately to revisit the question of the “great” sci-fi films. (See my previous posts on the Top 10 Sci-Fi Films of the 2000s and Top 10 Sci-Fi Films of the 2010s.) Others online have taken some pretty good recent stabs at this (see, e.g., “Moid Moidelhoff” at Media Death Cult, who …
It’s hard to believe it’s been over twenty-two years since the Wachowskis (then brothers Larry and Andy; now sisters Lana and Lilly—long story) introduced the world to Neo (Keanu Reeves), a hapless hacker who discovers he and most of the rest of humanity are really living in the Matrix, a virtual reality created by Machines …
Looking back at my “Top 10 Sci-Fi Films of the 2000s” inspired me to similarly revisit the 2010s. In 500 words or less. Here goes: 1. Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) / Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) / War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) – It’s cheating to name all three legs of …
[A review of writer/director Adam McKay’s new sci-fi farce, now streaming on Netflix.] We may very well be in the last days of the American Republic. America has been dysfunctional and divided before (see: the Civil War; the Civil Rights Movement), but our current era of partisan rancor seems unprecedented. The internet promised to bring …
You may be aware that 2018 is the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a book widely considered to be the first proper science fiction novel. I had not read it in many, many years, but I thought it would be a good opportunity to revisit it. Here are my thoughts: The …