The Twilight Zone (1959) -- Season 1 Episode 26 (Execution)

There seem to be two motivations for using a time machine.  In Back to the Future, Doc Brown builds a time machine with the intent of furthering our knowledge of history and humanity.  He can see how we’ll progress.  Biff Tannen, on the other hand, has no problem using the modified DMC-12 for his own use.  He steals Marty’s idea and makes himself rich and powerful.

Execution starts with the execution of Joe Caswell way back in 1880.  Just before Caswell can be hanged, he’s pulled to 1960 by Professor Manion.  By all accounts, Professor Manion is more like Doc than Biff.  He built the time machine to study people.  Caswell is his first attempt.  The problem is that Manion has no idea what Caswell is like.  He could be a saint or the devil.  Given that he’s admitted his guilt and lack of remorse to his would-be executioners lets us know that Manion is more like Biff than Doc.

One thing I’ll say about The Twilight Zone is that it seemed to have mastered brevity early on.  It did this by finding good writers.  Either Rod Serling adapted a short story or he let another writer pen the episode directly.  David Orrick McDearmon seems to have made a decent career directing for television.  This would be the first of three Twilight Zone episodes he’d direct.  IMDb also lists credits for Bonanza, Gilligan's Island and Bewitched.

Like other Twilight Zone offerings, this one doesn’t deal much with the mechanics of time travel.  We see the time machine, but the professor doesn’t mention how it works.  He’s more interested in questioning Caswell.  It takes Manion a few minutes to realize that he may have made a mistake.

What strikes me as odd is that Manion was smart enough to build a working time machine, but didn’t see fit to hire security or build some sort holding cell.  It’s one of those minor details that are forgivable.  Without it, we wouldn’t have a story and it believable that someone focused on the science wouldn’t consider the risks until it was too late.  If someone did invent a time machine, I would think that they’d be more prudent about it, though.

My big concern is that Manion doesn’t seem to have any control over who he brings forward.  It was lucky that he found someone on the verge of being killed.  Even though there were three people who noticed that he vanished, Caswell would likely be little more than a footnote in some county courthouse.  There would be little risk of influencing history.

This was the beauty of The Twilight Zone.  Many of the important details were there, even if they were subtle.  I’d recommend watching this episode if you can get it streaming.

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The Twilight Zone (1959) -- Season 1 Episode 25 (People Are Alike All Over)

It occurred to me once that if life did develop elsewhere, there’s no reason to believe that it would look anything like life on Earth.  Just look at how diverse stuff is here.  We have plants, single-celled organisms, fish, primates and all manner of other carbon-based life forms.  Life elsewhere could look like anything.  It doesn’t even necessarily have to use DNA.  The reason TV and movies often have humanoid life, of course, is that it’s usually easier to hire a human actor and use that form as a template.

Sam Conrad is worried about going into space.  He’s a biologist, after all, and only going because of his scientific background.  Marcusson, a career astronaut and fellow passenger, tries to reassure him by saying that people are the same all over.  If they do exist on Mars, they’d probably be just as friendly as people on Earth.

Their voyage to Mars ends with a crash landing.  Conrad survives; Marcusson isn’t so lucky.   Moments after Marcusson dies, the hatch opens revealing Martians.  They happen to look just like humans.  In fact, Conrad assumes that they speak English.  (They assure him that he’s actually speaking their language.)  They offer to put Conrad up in a house and to fix the ship..  They also offer to bury Marcusson.

The Martians are so kind that Conrad forgets all about being scared.  The house is exactly what one would expect of an Earth house, or at least what Conrad would expect.  The Martians were able to read his mind.  Being that Conrad is a scientist, his mind was very clear and easy to read.

It’s somewhat difficult to review the episode without giving away the ending, but the episode does rely on you not knowing.  The beauty of the episode is that it shows us how bad things can be even when we’re right on.  Even though Marcusson was correct in his assessment of people he’d never met, Conrad’s fears were also warranted.

One of the disadvantages of watching on Netflix is the lack of commentary.  While some of the episodes of The Twilight Zone seem to be ageless, others seem rely on social commentary.  I’m not sure if there’s something that I’m missing.  It would be useful to have something, like a book or commentary track, to explain some of the meaning or context.

This isn’t to say that it’s a bad episode.  It’s still enjoyable to people who like The Twilight Zone  To me, the ending just seems like a cruel twist of fate and the episode works on that level.  It also looks like there could very well be some form of criticism or satire that I’m missing.  It would be interesting to see how the episodes would have been written in today’s context.

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The Twilight Zone (1959) -- Season 1 Episode 15 (I Shot an Arrow into the Air)

WARNING: I’m going to give away the ending to the episode.  If you haven’t seen it and want to be surprised, you might want to hold off on reading this review.


It seems like space exploration was a popular theme for television back in the 1960s.  This was especially true of The Twilight Zone, which seems to have had its fair share of episodes about leaving Earth.  I Shot an Arrow into the Air is about eight men sent into outer space only to be lost very quickly.  (Ground control doesn’t know what happened to them, not that they have communications anyway.)

Four of the men survive the crash, although one dies quickly.  This leaves Col. Bob Donlin, Pierson and Corey to figure out what happened to the failed flight.  They assume that they’ve landed on an asteroid, although the atmosphere is breathable and the intensity of the sun is about what they’d find on Earth.

Either way, it’s hot and they don’t have much water.  Donlin, being the commanding officer, insists on maintaining order.  The big question, of course, is how to survive.  It took over four years to build the ship, so rescue might not come for at least that long, assuming anyone figures out where they are.  He sends Pierson and Corey out to have a look at the surrounding area, hoping to find something along the lines of shelter or food.

This episode, like many others, comes with a twist ending.  I’m conflicted about revealing it.  On the one hand, isn’t’ that why you watch the show?  Everyone wants to be surprised by the ending.  On the other hand, we’ve become a little more savvy about things like science.  It’s kind of hard not to question certain things.

That being said, you’ve been warned.  I’m going to divulge the ending:  They landed on Earth.  Corey kills the other two survivors for their water only to find out that he’s not too far from Reno.  It’s odd that several trained professionals sent into space would miss this rather obvious possibility.  For starters, they couldn’t have flown that far.  Space is vast.  The Apollo missions took several days to get to the moon.  I’m not sure where they thought this asteroid was.

Speaking of which, The Twilight Zone is either misuses the term asteroid or is  severely overestimating an asteroid’s gravity.  Anything that small shouldn’t have anything resembling strong gravity or an atmosphere, let alone mountains.  (I’ve noticed this in at least one other episode.)  An asteroid shouldn’t be that big.

My big issue was Corey.  He was kind of a jerk, constantly whining about not having water.  He even wants to refuse water to a dying man because the rest of them need it.  I’d normally say that it’s a fair point, but you don’t deny a dying man something like that.  How did Corey make it through training?  Don’t they do some sort of psychological evaluation or something?

It’s a good episode, but it’s not a great episode.  It’s one of those episodes I’ll watch if it comes on a marathon, but I don’t know that I’d pay rent it.  If you can watch it streaming on Netflix, go for it.

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The Twilight Zone (1959) -- Season 1 Episode 14 (Third from the Sun)

 WARNING:  Im going to give away the ending of the episode.  If you haven't seen it yet, you've been warned.

I remember reading about the 2004 version of Battlestar Galactica and their decision to use things that we’d recognize.  This was particularly evident with clothing.  Someone wearing a nice suit probably means that he’s probably a lawyer.  If it looks like they’re wearing a uniform, they’re probably military.  I thought of this when I watched Third From the Sun.

The episode takes place on a planet that looks a lot like Earth.  They have factories with workers that go home to houses with wives and, possibly, children.  They play card games and have telephones.  In fact, two of the factory workers talk about all-out war being realized within the next 48 hours.  One of those men, Will Sturka, has a plan to steal a spaceship along with coworker Jerry Riden.  They’ll take their respective wives and Sturka’s daughter to a new planet, some 11,000,000 miles away, which happens to be called Earth.

It’s strange how some of the Twilight Zone episodes can seem somewhat dated whereas others, like this one, still seem relevant.  Consider that Hawaii just hat a threat of an inbound missile.  Such threats have always existed.  If you knew that a civilization-ending attack was coming, wouldn’t you want to get off the planet?

It may seem a little odd that the buildings look so familiar or that they have playing cards much as we do, but Most Twilight Zone episodes had less than 30 minutes to work with.  There’s not much time to waste on figuring out what’s what.  Those escaping go from factory to house to ship to Earth in short order.

This is why I’m a little hesitant to call out the fact that Earth is supposed to be so close to this other planet.  The distance from the Earth to the Sun is about 93,000,000 miles.  We don’t know that their mile is the same as ours, but we can assume that they’re similar insofar as this episode is concerned.  It seemed that The Twilight Zone wasn’t so good with astronomical distances.

When the wife serves chocolate cake and lemonade, it seems odd that they would have lemons and chocolate.  However, these details are minor.  What we call the refreshments is unimportant.  In all the major respects, the societies are similar.  So much so that we realize that the group of five people haven’t really escaped disaster.  At best, they’ve only delayed it.

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The Twilight Zone (1959) -- Season 1 Episode 12 (What You Need)

As The Rolling Stones said, you can’t always get what you want.  Sometimes, fate gives you want you need.  If you’re lucky enough to meet a street vendor named Mr. Pedott, he may have just the item you need to get you out of a tight spot.  For instance, he gives an ex-baseball player a bus ticket to Scranton, Pennsylvania.  Moments later, the baseball player gets a call to go to Scranton.  If only he had a way to get there…

It isn’t long before Fred Renard picks up on Pedott’s skill.  Whereas Pedott is happy to give people what they need, Renard has no problem taking what he wants.  This means using strong-arm to get items out of Pedott.  At first, it’s a pair of scissors that he can use to cut off a scarf.  The second item is a pen that can predict the winner of a horse race.  The third time is it for Renard, though, as Pedott gives him a pair of slippery shoes.

Not much is said about Pedott’s gift.  He claims that he can see a probable future and give assistance based on that.  It’s not specified exactly how Pedott gets his information or how much he’s given.  It’s also not clear where the items come from.  Is the case magical or is Pedott smart enough to have items that would be of great use to a great number of people?  The bus ticket seems rather specific, but a pair of scissors has a great many potential uses.  Also, why would a street vendor have a pair of shoes?

It’s an interesting episode in that the two men are opposites.  Renard is ambitious to the point of it being his undoing.  Pedott is a nice person who you would think might be taken advantage of.  Renard certainly thought so.  However, there’s nothing about Pedott’s ability that precludes him from using it for his own benefit.  It’s just that he’s usually happy to help other people.  Perhaps we could take a lesson from Mr. Pedott.


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The Twilight Zone (1959) -- Season 1 Episode 11 (And When the Sky Was Opened)

I remember seeing And When the Sky Was Opened as a kid.  There was something unsettling about the plot.  It was a solid, understandable story.  Three pilots return from a mission in space, except now there are two.  Then, there’s one.  Finally, the last one disappears from existence.  There was just something that never really sat well with me.  I couldn’t articulate it until now.

The story begins with Lieutenant Colonel Clegg Forbes visiting Major William Gart in the hospital.  Forbes is already most of the way to a nervous breakdown.  Forbes asks Gart if he remembers Colonel Ed Harrington.  You might ask who Harrington is.  Gart certainly does.  Harrington was the first person from the space flight to disappear.

Forbes is the only person that can remember him.  People that have known him for years suddenly have no memory of him.  Mr. and Mrs. Harrington claimed not to have a son moments before Ed disappeared.  Even the newspaper shows only Gart and Forbes having returned from space.  Forbes recalls his version of events since the crash to Gart.  It isn’t until Forbes runs from the room that Gart realizes it was all true.  Forbes disappears.  Shortly thereafter, so do Gart and the plane.  It’s as if none of them ever existed.

Here’s what I couldn’t ask as a kid:  Why?  It’s never explained why the three men had to be erased from history.  It’s implied that they may have come into contact with something, but they blacked out.  If they can’t remember, there’s no real threat.  If something did happen and covering it up is that important, why not just erase the ship?  It seems a bit harsh to erase three men from history, as well.

If they are being erased, that would imply a conscious effort.  There’s no real speculation as to who or what that might be.  We don’t see a ship in orbit.  There’s no post-credit scene of two aliens talking to each other.  The episode ends with an empty bedroom where a test pilot should have been.

The episode seems designed more to instill fear than to impart some great moral.  This might have made more sense if the episode had aired on or near Halloween, but it first aired on December 11, 1959.  Despite having first seen it decades ago, there’s no I-get-it moment.  I’ve seen movies and TV episodes where some new piece of information puts the plot into perspective.

The only thing I can think of here is that there’s some historical context that I’m missing.  Perhaps there’s something about the late 50s that I’m not understanding.  In 1959, we hadn’t been to the moon yet.  This could simply be a way of playing on the fear of eventually leaving Earth.

This episode isn’t going to make my top-ten list.  It is enjoyable.  I might consider it for the top 30 or so.  It just leaves too many unanswered questions.  It would be interesting to see what Rod Serling would have done with more time.  As it is, it’s a somewhat lacking episode.


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The Twilight Zone (1959) -- Season 1 Episode 9 (Perchance to Dream)

Edward Hall knows that he’s a dead man.  He has a heart condition that allows for no excitement and little stress.  The episode takes place in the office of Dr. Eliot Rathmann, a psychiatrist.  Edward wants pills to stay awake.  He’s been having dreams of a woman that would have him go on a roller coaster, thus ensuring his demise sooner rather than later.  Edward knows that he’s going to have to fall asleep eventually, but he wants to put that off as long as possible.

Edward recounts recent events to Dr. Rathmann, telling of how he could make a picture of a boat look like it was moving.  He even tells of the woman, Maya, who’s very attractive, but won’t leave him alone.  Dr. Rathmann points out that it’s just a dream, but it doesn’t matter.  Edward asks if pain is any less painful if it’s imagined.

When Edward eventually realizes he’s not getting any help from the doctor, he leaves only to find Maya is the receptionist.  He turns around and jumps out the window.  We cut to Dr. Rathmann calling said receptionist into the room where Edward is lying on the couch, having laid down and screamed two second later.  Dr. Rathmann says that at least Edward went peacefully in his sleep.

This is one of those episodes that I didn’t quite get as a small child.  It seemed like just a basic story with the twist ending.  What I’ve come to realize in time is that we all are Edward.  We’re all trying to avoid the inevitable.  We all feel like we’re about to die.

The thing is that it never comes the way we expect.  We spend so much time worrying about the obvious things, like taking our vitamins and exercising, that we never see the bus we’re about to step in front of.  Granted, Edward does have a rather immediate threat.  He has a real dilemma in that both options will lead to an immediate demise.  Still, no one gets out of life alive.  The question is how you spend what time you have.

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The Twilight Zone (1959) -- Season 1 Episode 8 (Time Enough at Last)

Henry is a man who likes to read.  That wouldn’t be a problem except that he’s surrounded himself with people who don’t like to read.  His wife crosses out all the words in a book of poetry.  His boss reprimands him for reading on the job.  He even has really thick glasses.  Henry Bemis just can’t catch a break.

Then, one day, he hides in the bank vault at work to read.  Suddenly, the ground shakes.  When Henry picks himself up and dusts himself off, he comes to realize that the bomb has been dropped -- and he seems to be the only survivor.  Henry starts to bemoan his bad luck until he stumbles upon the library.  That’s when it hits him:  He now has nothing to stop him from reading.  Alas, this is The Twilight Zone.  Is it ever that simple?

Time Enough at Last is one of the better-known episodes.  I remember the final scene being parodied in an episode of The Drew Carey Show.  Why is this episode so widely viewed?  I think that stems from simplicity and accessibility.  Henry is a man that wants one thing:  To read.

Even if you don’t like reading, you can relate to having something that you love doing, even if it’s not popular.  I’ve noticed that bombs tend to be popular for wiping out populations.  I’ve always found it odd when a small group survives.  No one else happened to find shelter?  Still, it’s what the story needs.  Henry finally has time for what he wants.

This is what makes the ending so cruel.  It’s as if there’s some conscious force that wants Henry to suffer.  Why else would he be surrounded by so many people that hate reading?  I can see taking a job at a bank as an act of necessity.  You would think a job at a library would better suit him, but you can’t always get the job you want.

As for his wife, you’d think Henry would find someone with a similar love of reading.  I get the impression that his love of reading isn’t anything new.  How did he end up with someone who would actually deface a book of poetry to spite her husband?

The only major concern for younger viewers would be the annihilation of the surrounding population.  No deaths are shown, nor are there any bodies shown.  The actual act is only implied, but Henry still has to deal with some of the aftermath.

There’s also the running theme of life not being fair, but I’d say that’s a minor point that most children can handle.  When I first saw the episode, it struck me that Henry was practically left with nothing at the end.  Henry Bemis just can’t catch a break.


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Extraordinary Tales (2013)

Edgar Allan Poe is one of those names everyone knows on some level.  For most people, it’s probably from having to read one of his stories in high school.  Works like The Raven and The Tell-Tale Heart are known by enough people that references can be found in popular culture.  His is exactly the sort of work you could make a short film from.

Extraordinary Tales takes five of Poe’s works and makes them into animated shorts.  Their tied together by scenes of a raven, representing Poe, in a graveyard, which represents Death.  Before each segment, Poe and Death have a conversation which leads into the various stories.

The first is The Fall of the House of Usher, narrated by Christopher Lee.  Of the five stories, this is the only one I remember having to read in school.  From what I remember, the segment follows the story pretty closely.  The animation tended to be pretty angular, but was done well.

The second segment was Bela Lugosi reciting The Tell-Tale Heart.  Yes, this is the same Bela Lugosi that was almost featured in Plan 9 from Outer Space.  Given the quality of the audio and that Lugosi died years prior to the release of the film, I’d assume that it was simply a lucky coincidence that someone had him on tape.  The animation here is strictly black and white.

The Facts of the Case of M. Valtemar is narrated by Julian Sands.  This one was set up more like a comic book.  It’s also one of the more eerie ones, about a doctor who tries to study death with unintended consequences.   I think of the five stories, this might be the most scary to children, as it deals with someone on the verge of death.

Guillermo del Toro provides the narration for The Pit and the Pendulum, which is about a condemned prisoner.  This one was probably the most realistic of the five segments.  It looks almost like they shot actual actors and applied some sort of special effect to make it look like animation.

The last segment is The Mask of the Red Death and features one line of dialogue spoken by Roger Corman.  Other than that, it’s silent.  This one also might be too much for children, as it features people suddenly experiencing pain.  Then again, this is Edgar Allan Poe.  I don’t know that there’s any real expectation that any of them will be suitable for children.

Most of the names are ones that I recognize.  Julian Sands was the only one of the narrators I had to look up; he’s been in things like 24 and Stargate: The Ark of Truth.  (If you go to his IMDb page, you might recognize the face.)  Roger Corman is recognizable only in that he’s a prolific producer.  (I’ll be using his name as a tag.  It should be associated with a few other titles that I’ve reviewed.)  Similarly, I know Guillermo del Toro as a director.

Stephen Hughes voiced the Raven and Cornelia Funke voiced Death.  Neither is a name I recognized.  Hughes has other acting credits, but I don’t recognize any of the titles.  This is Funke’s only acting credit; most of her credits are for writing or as herself.  The interstitial segments weren’t great, but they didn’t really take away from the movie at all.  It was something to introduce the next segment.

I would say that the most recognizable name would belong to Edgar Allan Poe.  If you’re reading this review, that’s probably how you got here.  I would say that the movie is going for a more common audience.  It seems like it’s meant for people that aren’t part of the literary scene, but may know of his work.  It’s the kind of thing that a high-school teacher or college professor might show in class.  At 73 minutes, it’s just short enough that you could squeeze it into a single class period.

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The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

I used to rent a lot of movies, TV series and other stuff through Netflix.  One of the miniseries that I got was one called The Infinite Worlds of H. G. Wells.  It didn’t look great, but I figured it was worth a shot.  It wasn’t so much that I ran out of things to rent.  I think it was more that I needed something different.

The miniseries starts with a woman claiming to be a reporter approaching an elderly H. G. Wells for information on a story she’s writing.  Soon, he realizes that she’s part of a government program that knows bits and pieces of his past.   Each of the three stories is based on two short stories that Wells wrote.  They’re presented as if the events of the story happened to Wells when he was much younger, who then later incorporated the events into a story.

In the first episode, Wells recalls how someone made a potion that would accelerate his biological functions, but the acceleration became permanent after a few uses.  This became the basis for The New Accelerator.    He also recalls the events of meeting a man who travels back in time one week, taking with him a newspaper.  When things go horribly wrong, he has to do what he can to fix things.  This became the basis for The Queer Story of Brownlow's Newspaper.

The second episode tells of a mysterious rock that falls from the sky, allowing a person to be transported to Mars in the first half and a man who can see a shipwrecked naval officer in the second half.  These become The Crystal Egg and The Remarkable Case of Davidson’s Eyes.

The third episode shows two men who get exactly what they ask for in the first half.  One wants more hair and the other wants to lose weight.  They make the mistake of not stating exactly what they mean, leaving room for interpretation.   The second half is about a serum that goes missing.  At first, it’s assumed to be something dangerous in the sense of deadly, as most of the collection it came from is deadly diseases.  It turns out to be a truth serum, which can be just as dangerous.

When I first started watching the miniseries, I had thought it was just a movie.  It wasn’t until I looked it up until I realized what I had.  The running time says that it’s 4:00, but that’s not exactly true.  Each episode is 1:28, bringing the total running time closer to 4:30.  I was worried more about having to rent a second disc, but that wasn’t a problem; all three episodes are on one disc.  The picture quality was about on par with what you get for other TV programs.

I don’t get the impression that it’s meant to be historically accurate.  I was looking up some of the short stories and came across information on the miniseries as a result.  Aside from the fact that Wells didn’t necessarily live through most of the events, I don’t think he was in college when they portrayed him as being in college nor was he single at the time.

This is a Hallmark production.  As such, their priorities are going to be a little different.  It does have that kind of sappy ending that you might expect.  It’s also not too reliant on the sci-fi aspect of the stories.  You do have certain elements, but it’s more like Wells was inspired by certain events that were maybe more mundane.  In the case of the truth serum being delivered to an unsuspecting populace, it’s more about what people would do if they were compelled to tell no lies.

The only thing that may be a downside is that there are no bonus features, at least on the version that I got from Netflix.  I didn’t really expect any, though.  It looks like miniseries was made in 2001.  This would have been a few years after DVDs became available, so I don’t think a lot of production companies were thinking along those lines yet.

I can’t say that I loved it.  I am familiar with the work of H. G. Wells and was curious to see what this was about, but I can’t say that I would have rented it had it not been for Netflix.  I also don’t know that I would have finished it had it not been for Epinions.  I’ll admit that I was curious to see how it ended, but the last two stories sounded like the least interesting.

It’s generic enough that children could watch it.  Barring time considerations, it’s the kind of thing that a teacher could show a class when they don’t want to teach, such as the last day of school before Winter break.  While I might recommend it to a few people, I don’t know that I would give it as a gift.  It’s good, but it’s not great.  Basically, it’s a good way to waste a few 90-minute stretches of time here or there.


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Predestination (2014)

It can be difficult to alter the sequence of events in a story.  In the case of Memento, it makes sense.  Telling the story backwards mimics the main character’s amnesia.  We get insight into the character by not knowing what came before.  I don’t always like stories told in flashback, but it works in Forest Gump.  Lost also used it to give background on the characters.  Sometimes, a linear format doesn’t really make sense.  You have to pick somewhere to start and tell the story from there.

Predestination starts with a temporal agent (played by Ethan Hawke) trying to stop a fugitive called The Fizzle Bomber.  The agent fails to apprehend the bomber, but at least mitigates the effects of one of his bombs.  He has surgery to repair his face and is reassigned.  He now works as a barkeeper.  This is how he meets The Unmarried Mother, who’s played by Sarah Snook.  Barkeep and The Unmarried Mother start talking.  She writes confession stories for a magazine.

She’s got a heck of a story of her own, which Barkeep is perfectly willing to listen to.  Not only was she put up for adoption at an early age, but she has a child of her own that was taken from her a few days after the child’s birth.  The latter ordeal really affects her, as she can’t mother a child any more and the father of the child hurt her.  It’s not all bad news, though.  Barkeep may be able to help her in more ways than one.

I don’t want to go into a lot of detail.  Explaining the plot is a slippery slope.  The more I explain, the more I have to tell to explain that.  It’s one of those mysteries that unravels itself as the story goes along. Everyone has a secret and everyone has their own perspective and context.  When you figure all of that out, the story becomes clear.  (In that regard, you have to pay attention.  It’s a lot to take in.)

The movie is based on the story All You Zombies by Robert A. Heinlein.  The movie seems to stay pretty close to the source material.  If you’ve read the story, there shouldn‘t be any surprises.   This isn’t to say it’s not worth watching.  I’ve always liked stories with a twisted plot.  I enjoy waiting for the next piece to fall into place.

I’m not sure if it’s that I knew the story coming in, but the movie seemed well paced.  It wasn’t rushed and I wasn’t overly eager to find out what happened next.  There were a few aspects that seemed odd, but not to the point of being confusing or contradictory.  For instance, the Unmarried Mother had applied to be in a space program.  I don‘t recall such a program existing, but it wasn‘t distracting.  Overall, it was a great movie. 


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Impostor (2001)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

I remember someone saying that Saturday Night Live skits tended not to make good movies.  The problem was that you were taking something that did well as a short skit and trying to stretch it out into a feature-length film.  Blues Brothers and Wayne’s World both did well.  Both even had sequels.  However, there were a lot of movies that didn’t fare so well with the critics.  Does anyone even remember It’s Pat: the Movie or Stuart Saves His Family?  (It’s Pat was one of the few movies I couldn’t watch all the way through.)

We tend to have a similar problem turning short stories into movies.  Philip K. Dick provided the source for this one.  There have been other movies made from his work, including two based on We‘ll Remember it for you Wholesale.  (They were both called Total Recall.)  It’s understandable, given these movies and others like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which became Blade Runner, that people would love to get the movie rights to his work.  Impostor doesn’t seem to fare as well as the other titles.

The movie is based on a short story of the same name.  In the movie, Gary Sinise plays Spencer Olham.  Olham is a scientist working on a bomb to help destroy an alien threat from Alpha Centauri.  The aliens have a pretty powerful weapon of their own. They can replicate a person, give the replicant the memories of the original and send them off with a bomb that doesn’t assemble until the replicant is close enough to the target.  Since the replicant thinks that they’re the original, it’s extremely difficult to detect them.  Olham is suspected of being just such a weapon.

He’s taken from work one day and is about to be killed by Hathaway, but Olham escapes.  With some help, Olham makes it back to the city to get a scan that could prove his innocence, but that doesn’t work.  So, he makes one last-ditch effort to prove he’s really who he says he is.  I’m not going to say what happens, as there’s no point in ruining the movie.

I will say that this would have worked much better as a short movie or as part of an anthology like The Outer Limits.  This is primarily about Olham trying to prove that he’s not a fake.  This can end one of two ways:  Either he’s revealed to be Olham or he’s revealed to be the fake.  You could explore the aspect of what makes a person.  Is it their memories?  Is it biology?  Hathaway even points out that the aliens can’t copy a soul.  As much as a fake might think that they’re real, they can never be the authentic item.

The movie touches on this only briefly.  Instead, we have Hathaway chasing Olham and Olham trying to throw a few curve balls, many of which are kind of weak.  Olham takes an implant that can be used to track him.  It’s been surgically removed to prevent scanners from reading him, but he’s not shown to be given a new one.  I’ll admit it’s possible that only important people, like government employees are given one.  However, the government can still use it to track Olham almost in real time.  He gives it to Hathaway, who eventually realizes that he’s only chasing himself.

Notice that I described the plot in one paragraph, and a short one at that.  There’s really not that much to the movie.  The concept of what’s real and a person’s identity and nature has been done before and has been done better.  I don’t recall this movie being released in theaters.  It came out a little over ten years ago, in 2001.  This was back when I was going to movies more regularly.  Maybe it just wasn’t shown in any major theaters.  Maybe it was just that forgettable.

IMDb page

Minority Report (2002)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

Before I start, I should warn you that I’m going to be giving away some details that you might not want to hear. Some of them are gross and some of them are plot details. I’ll also be mentioning where the movie’s name comes from. Read on at your own risk.


It’s 2054 and a special program, known as Precrime, has been in existence for six years. Lamar Burgess, played by Max von Sydow, is precrime’s leader. John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, is the lead officer. It’s only a trial run in Washington, D.C., but there’s soon going to be a vote on whether or not to take it national. (This is why a federal agent, played by Colin Farrell, comes in to see how everything works.) The results have been great. Murder was cut by 90% initially, and then eliminated. Since most people know of its success, premeditated murders in the D.C. area are rarely predicted. Precrime gets mostly crimes of passion.

The movie opens with Precrime being shown a vision of a man about to kill two people. Three precogs generate the vision. (I’ll explain what a precog is later.) Each one generates their own image and the three images are worked into a composite. All the police have to work with is this image. With enough of a vision, the police can garner clues like a merry-go-round or the style of houses.

The precogs are the result of pregnancies during which the mothers were addicted to drugs. I’m not sure if it’s the nature of the drug or the nature of the treatment that does it to them, but the result is that they can see murders while they sleep. I have no idea why it’s limited to such a violent crime. It would have been just as likely for them to come up with jaywalking or next weeks Lotto numbers. (It was mentioned that the precogs were known to have these violent dreams, but I don’t know if they were referring to all precogs or just the three used by the police. The details of how it worked weren’t mentioned.)

Now, I know what you’re thinking. I’ve mentioned this in any review on time travel and precognitive ability and other reviewers have mentioned this about this movie. How can the precogs predict a murder and thus allow the police to stop it? The movie gives an example. Anderton rolls a ball down a table. It falls off the edge, but the federal agent catches it before it hits the ground. Was the ball really going to hit the ground?

Sometimes, the police catch the people actually attempting the murder. However, there is some doubt in many of the cases. Sometimes, one precog sees alternate future, thus generating what is called a minority report, hence the name of the movie. (One such minority report plays a big role in the movie.)

The action begins when Anderton starts digging into an old vision. Agatha, the ‘lead’ precog, can’t seem to get the image out of her head. Before Anderton can do much about it, a new crime is predicted. John Anderton’s name comes up as that of the criminal’s. He’s supposed to murder a man he hasn’t met yet and he’s supposed to do it in a part of town he has no business in.

Here’s where it gets confusing. (I’m going to have to tell you part of the plot to explain it as clearly as I can.) The murder that Anderton is supposed to commit is actually a setup. By looking into the old murder that Agatha was replaying, he was going to figure something out. However, on its face, it seems that the course of events leading up to the murder is set in motion by the prediction of the murder itself. Had the prediction not come through, there’s no way of telling if Anderton would have known to look for the person. However, if the murder had been set up and was going to occur, that might have been enough to cause the prediction. It seems as though Anderton’s committing the murder is predicated on him being in a position to see the prediction and to do something about it.

Like I said, it’s confusing. All I can say is that you have to pay attention.

The central question seems to be whether or not you can change the future. Like I said, there is room for two futures to be predicted. Also, the police can stop the murder from happening. How certain is the future?

Another thing to consider is that D.C. seems to have found the perfect system. There is no perfect system. There’s always a way to cheat it or to manipulate it to your advantage. This comes up a few times in the movie.

The movie has a 1984 feel to it. There are retinal scanners and customer databases that keep track of your purchases. There’s a ton of product placement. Futuristic billboards advertise Pepsi and Aquafina. Anderton walks into The Gap to get some clothing for Agatha.

It can be an enjoyable movie if you don’t think about it. If you do think about it, you’ll probably want to watch the movie several times.

IMDb page

Total Recall (2012)

I tend not to like remakes.  Rarely do they add anything except make it look modern.  In this case, we have two movies based on a short story.  (Both versions of Total Recall owe very basic elements to the story “We Can Remember it For You Wholesale” by Philip K. Dick.)  The short story is about a man who comes to realize that there‘s more to his life than what he thinks he remembers.  That’s where the similarity ends.

Here, we have a dystopian future where most of the planet is uninhabitable.  The two remaining areas are the United Federation of Britain and The Colony.  (The Colony is actually just Australia.  Why they couldn’t just call it Australia, I don’t know.)   A man named Doug Quaid is thinking about going to Rekall.  Quaid is a lowly factory worker.  He can’t afford to go on vacation, so Rekall will “remember it for him” as their ad goes.  A coworker warns him not to do it; Rekall has a reputation for lobotomizing people.  Another coworker tells Quaid not to worry about it.  He even recommends one of the technicians.

Well, the implantation goes bad when a SWAT team breaks into the Rekall lab.  Amazingly, Quaid is able to escape.  It turns out that he’s not really Doug Quaid and his lovely wife of several years is actually his handler.  His memories were erased and he was given a new life.  He manages to find out that he was part of a resistance.  People in The Colony are the lower class while the UFB is basically the upper-class people.  The UFB has some nefarious plan that Quaid’s former self didn’t want to see come to fruition.  Or did he?  Either way, it’s up to Quaid to stop it unless he’s not going to, assuming that was the plan all along.  Or was it?

I think this is one of those cases where if you saw and liked the 1990 version, you’re probably not going to be thrilled with this one.  The 1990 version was much better.  We had the issue of identity, which is brought up briefly here.  There’s the issue of what’s real and what’s an illusion, which is mentioned only in passing.  (It comes across mostly as a reference to the 1990 version, but more on that later.)

I remember hearing about the remake and wanting to see it.  I knew I probably wasn’t going to like it as much, but I had to see if they could improve upon it.  Not only did they not improve upon it, I think they even took something away.  Instead of being based on the same source material, this is more of a flashy action remake.  We have the same corrupt leader.  We have the same wife that’s not a wife.  There’s even a three-breasted woman and a comment on the desire for a third hand.  What we don’t have is anything to make you think about the movie.

As I mentioned, there were a few scenes that were referencing the original movie.  Quaid uses the same technology to get to The Colony, which I think was only called The Colony because there was a Martian colony in the original movie.  (Look closely when Quaid arrives in the UFB.  Pay attention to the woman going through security.)  In another scene, Quaid’s coworker is trying to talk Quaid into shooting his fellow resistance member, saying that this is all a dream back at Rekall.  If you’re thinking of seeing Total Recall, I’d recommend skipping this one and just watching the Arnold Schwarzenegger version. 

Total Recall (1990) 

Total Recall (1990)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

Douglas Quaid is a relatively boring man.  He works in construction.  He doesn’t really do much aside from go to work and go home.  He does have a rather attractive wife, played by Sharon Stone.  Lately, he’s been having these strange dreams about a mysterious brunette and has developed an itch to go to Mars.

His wife isn’t too big on the idea.  There’s not much to do there and the political instability doesn’t make for a safe trip.  After all, Mars was colonized basically to mine material.  Yes, they have things to do, but it’s really not much of a resort destination.  He considers a company called Rekall, which specializes in fake vacations.   It sounds nice, but one of Quaid’s coworkers advises against it.  He heard that the lobotomized someone not to long ago.

Despite the coworker’s advice, Quaid checks it out.  They have the ability to implant memories of any trip you want to go on.  For a little extra, you can assume a different identity, such as a spy or a millionaire.  They will even give you some trinkets to take home as souvenirs.  Sounds great.  Quaid signs up.  Problem is that he starts freaking out, saying all sorts of crazy stuff.

He eventually escapes only to find that nothing is as it seems.  The aforementioned coworker tries to abduct Quaid at gunpoint.  It also looks like his beautiful wife was actually sent there to keep tabs on him.  Plus, Quaid may really be someone named Hauser.  Quaid finds a metal briefcase with all sorts of money and documents.  There’s also a message from Hauser telling Quaid what to do in case someone comes after him.  He’s to get to Mars and look for some members of the uprising there.

There’s one small problem:  Cohaagen, the CEO/dictator of Mars, is after him.  Quaid has some information that Cohaagen doesn’t want getting out.  It could hurt Cohaagen’s hold on power.  His company does supply a lot of material to Earth.  It would be a shame if he lost it all.  Cohaagen sends some of his hired guns after Quaid, but Quaid manages to make it to Mars and meet the woman that he was dreaming about.

I remember first seeing this a long time ago.  It’s one of those movies that seems to hold up on later viewings.  It’s one of those movies that you can watch several times and see it different ways each time.  The big theme is reality versus perception.  Did Quaid really get his fake vacation or did it go horribly wrong?  If it was fake, how was it that Quaid was already dreaming about the woman he met?  Yes, it could be that he had dreams about some random woman and the fake vacation simply incorporated it, but there are a lot of other clues that would indicate that the trip was imagined.

This is not a movie for small children.  For starters, it’s very violent.  When Quaid goes nuts in the Rekall lab, he kills and/or injures most of the staff there.  When Cohaagen’s men go after Quaid, they will shoot anyone in the way.  (Quaid even uses one of the casualties as a shield.)  According to IMDb, the death count is somewhere around 73.  Many of the deaths weren’t incredibly bloody, but there are a lot of deaths.

Another thing that you might want to know about before viewing the movie is that Mars has all sorts of mutants.  This comes from the fact that Mars has no natural atmosphere, thus letting in all of the radiation that causes our DNA to change rapidly.  Many look freakish, but you do end up with some interesting mutations.  (It seems that a lot of people remember the prostitute with three breasts.)

I bought Total Recall through iTunes to watch while going on vacation.  (My parents and I were going from Miami to the Tampa area and back, so I had some time on my hands.)  The only reason I bought it was that it was on sale.  I could definitely see watching it again with someone else in the near future, though.  It doesn’t seem that long at 113 minutes.  I’d definitely recommend watching it.