science fiction — Happy Place — It Turns Out the Naming Rights! Membership Option Was For Real and Someone Is Now Five Hundred Bucks Poorer Presents Nat

In Its Notorious Season Season, Baywatch Nights Shamelessly and Ineptly Ripped Off The X-Files as It Pivoted Nonsensically to Supernatural Mystery

In a desperate bid to stay on the air Baywatch Nights turned into an X-Files clone in its second season.

It did not go well.

Literary excerpt, My World Of Flops, The Joy of TrashNathan RabinApril 17, 2023Baywatch, Baywatch Nights, The X-Files, David Hasselhoff, Angie Harmon, flop, 1990s, mystery, monsters, horror, science fiction

Take a Groovy Trip to Space Jail with Luc Besson's Wildly Derivative Escape From New York Knock-Off Lockout

2012’s Lockout got busted in French courts for plagiarizing Escape from New York and Escape from Los Angeles but is a whole lot of guilty fun all the same.

Control Nathan Rabin 4.0Nathan RabinDecember 22, 2022Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Luc Besson, John Carpenter, Peter Stormare, Nick Castle, knockoff, science fiction

The Lawnmower Man and the Weird Charm of Getting It Early, Getting It Wrong

Why are movies that get the future of technology bizarrely wrong, like The Lawnmower Man, so weirdly charming and fun?

Big-ass articlesNathan RabinNovember 28, 2022Virtual reality, science fiction, The Lawnmower Man, Blockbuster, Nostalgia

The Cannes Cut of Southland Tales is a Warped Masterpiece

I finally got around to watching the Cannes Cut of Southland Tales, which I was at one point supposed to write the liner notes for, and holy shit is it great.

The Apocalyptic 2009 Science Fiction Melodrama Knowing is Bonkers in the Best Possible Way

This movie is NUTS!

Travolta/Cage, The Travolta/Cage ProjectNathan RabinMay 11, 2022Nicolas Cage, Ben Mendelson, Alex Proyas, science fiction, Rose Byrne

Our Exploration of the Seven Movies Bruce Willis Released in 2021 Comes to an End with the Staggeringly, Surreally Awful Science-Fiction Stinker Cosmic Sin

Our journey through the seven movies Bruce Willis released in 2021 comes to a close with the hilariously terrible space opera Cosmic Sin.

A Year in the Life of BW, Talking About BrunoNathan RabinMarch 21, 2022Frank Grillo, Lochlyn Munro, science fiction, A Year in the Life of Bruce Willis

The 1978 Star Wars Knock-Off Starcrash Has Sex, Country-Fried Robots, Christopher Plummer and a VERY Young David Hasselhoff

One of you kind souls paid me to experience the glorious madness of the 1978 Star Wars knockoff Star Crash, starring Marjoe Gortner, Christopher Plummer and Baywatch Nights star David Hasselhoff in his first major film role.

Control Nathan Rabin 4.0Nathan RabinFebruary 3, 2022Marjoe Gortner, Christopher Plummer, Star Wars, David Hasselhoff, science fiction, knock off

The Fractured Mirror 2.0 #64: Jodorowsky's Dune

What if a mad genius were to adapt Dune? Other than David Lynch, of course?

Fractured Mirror 2.0Nathan RabinNovember 15, 2021Salvador Dali, Mick Jagger, Frank Herbert, Dune, cult, LSD, Pink Floyd, science fiction

Rando! Americathon (1979)

John Ritter leads an all-star cast in a muddled science fiction satire about a futuristic telethon to bail out a failing organization known as “The United States.”

Rando!, Movies About TV MonthNathan RabinMay 11, 2021Film, John Ritter, Jay Leno, Elvis Costello, George Carlin, Fireside Theater, satire, Peter Riegert, Chief Dan George, Meat Loaf, science fiction, Harvey Korman, Fred Willard, Neal Israel, Monica Johnson

The Travolta/Cage Project #45 Phenomenon (1996)

John Travolta becomes the smartest man in the world, then uses his incredible powers to woo a pretty single mother and help his buddy grow larger vegetables in 1996’s Phenomenon, a well-worn denim jacket of a movie.

Travolta/Cage, The Travolta/Cage ProjectNathan RabinNovember 17, 2020John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, Kyra Sedgwick, Forest Whitaker, Robert Duvall, science fiction