Quantcast

Call for Feature Essays About Any Aspect of Popular Culture, Present or Past

Articles tagged science fiction

Friday, September 2 2011

‘The Twilight Zone Season 5’: A Superb Presentation of a Classic Television Series

The Image Entertainment Blu-Ray release of The Twilight Zone is a must-have for fans of the series and scholars of science fiction and the history of television.


Friday, August 26 2011

Comedian Albert Brooks Proclaims Some Dead Serious Divinations in ‘2030’

Despite Albert Brooks’ background in comedy, 2030, particularly in its last third, is a bit of a dour book and is meant as both a warning and a prophecy if the world continues to turn unchecked.


Wednesday, August 10 2011

The 10 Greatest Sci-Fi Film Comedies of All Time

With today's release of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's Paul on DVD, we thought this was the perfect time to run down our choices for the funniest future shock sci-fi genre films of all time.


Wednesday, August 3 2011

The 10 Worst Sci-Fi Films of All Time

Intelligent? Forward Thinking? Epic? Not these 10 Sci-Fi Titles, a collection of speculative crap that is more fetid schlock than future shock.


Getting ‘Spacey-Wacey’ Has Never Been Scarier—or More Fun: ‘Doctor Who: Series 6, Part 1’

Looking for a cool way to spend a few hours while waiting for the Doctor to return this August? Borrow a TARDIS, see where and why Demons Run, and meet the Doctor’s wife.


Tuesday, March 22 2011

The Death of Utopia: ‘Firefly’ and the Return to Human Realism in TV Sci-Fi

Joss Whedon's science fiction western Firefly was revolutionary in several ways, not least its embrace of a degree of realism regarding human motivation, in contrast to the utopianism of earlier TV sci-fi such as Star Trek.


Monday, March 21 2011

Botticelli, Sandwiches Outside and Dreams of Bradbury’s ‘Dandelion Wine’

Boxed in by bandage-colored cubicle walls in downtown Manhattan, my thoughts drift to sweet days in Florence and Rome, and to lines in Ray Bradbury’s ‘Dandelion Wine’.


Tuesday, March 15 2011

‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ at 34: Still Thrilling After All These Years

What makes Close Encounters of the Third Kind stand out to this day is that it isn’t the usual UFO tale of “us vs them”, like Spielberg’s later remake of War of the Worlds; rather, it's very much a story about Earthlings.


Monday, November 1 2010

Ray Bradbury Wrote Me Back

My affinity for Ray Bradbury's work is rooted in his "accidental novels", as well as in the collections that plunder what is seemingly a limitless vault of manuscripts.


Wednesday, October 20 2010

‘Super Sad True Love Story’, Or, The Unbearable Lightness of Being Lenny Abramov

This story depicts a world that is completely absurd and out of control, which brings a lot of dark humor into it. Yet its truly scary -- you have to wonder if this is the slippery slope the real world is headed down.


Veracity by Laura Bynum (Reviews) [1.Mar.10]
Has ‘Fringe’ Lost Its Way? (Channel Surfing) [25.Jan.10]
Blue World: James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ (Short Ends and Leader) [17.Dec.09]
A Doctor Who Christmas! In June… (Channel Surfing) [28.Jun.09]
The Host (Reviews) [30.Jul.08]
Spook Country by William Gibson (Reviews) [24.Oct.07]
Now on PopMatters
A Painting Come to Life: 'The Mill & the Cross' (Short Ends and Leader) [Fri, 4:00 pm]
A Far Too Safe... and Strained... 'House' (Short Ends and Leader) [Fri, 9:00 am]
'Safe House' Is Ersatz Edgy (Reviews) [Fri, 8:06 am]
The 10 Greatest Shakespeare Film Adaptations of All Time (Short Ends and Leader) [Fri, 7:50 am]
  1. 'Nebraska': Bruce Springsteen's 'Heart of Darkness' (Columns)
  2. The 10 Greatest Shakespeare Film Adaptations of All Time (Short Ends and Leader)
  3. Slipped Discs 2011 - Part 1: From 13Ghosts to Friendly Fires (Features)
  4. The Best Games of 2011 (Features)
  5. Not-So-Central Casting: Kevin Smith and the Birth of the Reality Podcast (Features)
  6. The 10 Greatest Movie Spies Ever (Short Ends and Leader)
  7. Slipped Discs 2011 - Part 2: From the Go! Team to the Phoenix Foundation (Features)
  8. Slipped Discs 2011 - Part 3: From Real Estate to Youth Lagoon (Features)
  9. Lana Del Rey: Born to Die (Reviews)
  10. The Top 15 Madonna Singles of All Time (Sound Affects)
  11. Get Off of My Cloud!: 'Collecting' Music in the Digital Age (Features)
  12. Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas (Reviews)
  13. Google and the Production of Curiosity (Marginal Utility)
  14. Carole E. Barrowman’s Authorial Journey to Hollow Earth (Features)
  15. “Don’t Let Me Fall”: Hip-Hop in the Age of Austerity (Features)
  16. Tower Songs: Townes Van Zandt (Columns)
  17. Black Bananas: Rad Times Xpress IV (Reviews)
  18. The Gay Ole Countryside (Columns)
  19. Paul McCartney: Kisses on the Bottom (Reviews)
  20. Of Montreal: Paralytic Stalks (Reviews)
  21. Counterbalance No. 67: John Coltrane’s 'A Love Supreme' (Sound Affects)
  22. The 10 Best John Coltrane Solos (Sound Affects)
  23. A Look to the Past, An Insight Into the Present: The Use of Gender in 'Mad Men' (Features)
  24. A Tale of How Great Journalism Became Revisionist History: Grambling State U Football (Columns)
  25. Chairlift: Something (Reviews)
  26. Nick Cave’s The Death of Bunny Munro: A Rock Star’s Midlife Crisis or Valid Literature? (Features)
  27. The Asteroids Galaxy Tour - "Heart Attack" (Cosmic Kids Remix) (PopMatters Premiere) (Mixed Media)
  28. Mark Lanegan Band: Blues Funeral (Reviews)
  29. The Barbaric (and Poetic) Yawp of Shelby Lynne (Notes from the Road)
  30. After Cease to Exist: The Far-from-Final Report of Throbbing Gristle (Features)
PM Picks
Music Archive
Announcements
Ratings

10 - The Best of the Best

9 - Very Nearly Perfect

8 - Excellent

7 - Damn Good

6 - Good

5 - Average

4 - Unexceptional

3 - Weak

2 - Seriously Flawed

1 - Terrible

© 1999-2012 PopMatters.com. All rights reserved.
PopMatters.com™ and PopMatters™ are trademarks
of PopMatters Media, Inc.

PopMatters is wholly independently owned and operated.
PopMatters is a member of BUZZMEDIA Music, MOG and Guardian Select.