#walterhill

Supernova is a joke. Its endless problems compel you to nitpick it to death. Unfortunately, it's also completely forgettable so watch out; you might watch it once, hate it, and then accidentally see it again down the line.

In the early 22nd century, violent cartoons have been banned, robots and artificial intelligence are commonplace, and mankind has mastered light-speed travel. On the medical search-and-rescue- ship Nightingale 229, Captain A.J. Marley (Robert Forster), co-pilot Nick (James Spader), medical officer Kaela (Angela Bassett), medical technician Yerzy (Lou Diamond Phillips), paramedic Danika (Robin Tunney), and technician Benjamin (Wilson Cruz) receive a distress signal from Titan 37 - 3,000 light-years away. Teleporting there, the ship suffers heavy damages. With the man responsible for the distress signal (Peter Facinelli), the crew discovers a mysterious alien artifact.

I’ll get my biggest nitpick out of the way first. The Nightingale 229 is the most ill-conceived rescue vessel I’ve ever seen. The way the transdimensional jump system works is that everyone has to get into these capsules before the jump. If they don’t… did you see The Fly? I can buy that. The problem is that the ship only has 6 capsules!

On paper, this plot sounds like it could make sense, or be good. In execution, it feels like stuff just happens. The characters are flat and the performances are awful. It never feels like the events of Supernova are happening in a living breathing world, instead, it’s just some half-baked, hackneyed script that’s been chopped up and re-written over and over, held together with some flashy special effects and pseudo-science that raises more questions than answers. The only way to properly explain the film's stupidity is to spoil certain plot points but believe me, you still won't truly understand what it feels like to sit down and watch this accident in space.

That mysterious artifact I mentioned? It’s a bomb. Not just a regular bomb, an explosive created by 9th-dimensional aliens to destroy everything in our universe. Why? Two theories are proposed. 1) They fear us. A ridiculous supposition. 2) They want to “enable humankind to achieve a new level of existence”. I’d buy that one, except for the fact that the artifact makes people go insane and go kill-crazy!

Here’s where I start asking questions. These aliens have developed a weapon that will destroy all matter in our 3-dimensional Universe - for kicks. Why hide it in the middle of some moon orbiting a blue sun? Why hide it at all? Just drop it in our galaxy and activate it right away. We’re told the device manipulates peoples’ minds into making them want to bring it to Earth, where it will detonate. That makes no sense. If you went through all the trouble to acquire an atomic bomb so you could kill Mike Schneider, director of “Night of the Living Dead Reanimated”, and instead of just dropping it onto the city where he lived, you spent days tracking down their home. It’s overkill and a waste of effort. What if someone figured out what the device did and found a way to disarm it, or better yet, sent it back to those 9th-dimensional hamster raisins and blew them up?!

Supernova is kind of fascinating, the kind of picture you’d love to see with the director so they could explain to you what went wrong. Except no one would bother documenting this catastrophe. This is just another obscure, crappy science fiction movie that reminds you of other, better works. (On VHS, January 21, 2016)

James Coblentz, Freeman A. Davies, Michael Ripps is the team of editors the cult film Streets of Fire, directed by Walter Hill.

Street of Fire tells the story of Tom (Michael Paré), an ex-soldier who is brought back home to rescue Ellen Aim (Diane Lane), lead singer of Ellen Aim and the Attackers who was kidnaped by The Bombers, a biker gang, led by Raven Shaddock (Willem Dafoe)

The movie became a source of inspiration to David Fincher and Paul Verhoeven as well as other filmmakers for the visual style and the soundtrack.

Aliens is a rare sequel that’s as good, if not better than the original. For fans of science fiction, it’s a must-see. Even if you don’t have an affinity for the genre, it’s terrific.

We left our heroine, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), and her cat Jones drifting in space. They barely survived the events that took place on the Nostromo. When Aliens begins, Ripley has spent 57 years in stasis. None of her superiors believe her story of an alien egg discovered on LV-426. When all contact between the exomoon and Earth suddenly stops, Ripley (Sans Jones) joins a small army of Colonial Marines to investigate.

Sigourney Weaver returns as Ellen Ripley and she gives a powerful performance. Her tough exterior hides a vulnerable, troubled, and traumatized woman. No one believes her story. She's all alone - everyone she knew is now dead and the company blames the ship's loss on her. Even when things look awry on the exomoon, Weyland-Yutani doesn’t even take her warnings seriously. They just send a small group of marines to deal with the threat. Seeing these injustices, you want her to succeed that much more; just to show those jerks who’s right.  In some ways, our protagonist feels like the alien. Ripley is all alone, a simple pilot surrounded by a tight-knit group of military officers and Carter Burke (Paul Reiser) a corporate suit more concerned about dollars and PR than her well-being. Despite her experience with the xenomorphs, she's an underdog all over again.

The new characters introduced are just as memorable, interesting to follow, and (aside from the villainous Weyland-Yutani people who discredit Ripley at every turn) likable. The marines are a unit. They’ve all been through thick and thin together. These guys (and girls) look like Vietnam veterans, with their armors, helmets, and weapons decorated with slogans and illustrations. They harass each other, joke about mundane things, and are frustrated at the “bogus” mission they've been sent on... at first. I’ve got two favorites. The first is Private Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein) who’s got some terrific lines and a gun that'll make you fall in love. She’s a tough woman but unlike Ripley, she's not the main character. You don't know if she'll survive. My second has got to be Private Hudson (Bill Paxton). He’s got the funniest lines in the movie, without devolving into a total clown. Can I pick another favorite? It's got to be Lance Henriksen as the android Bishop. He's not the same kind of robot as the one we saw last time. It's nice to see things mixed up. I know he’s just a robot, devoid of any feelings but he feels strangely like a sad little boy, desperate to prove himself and eager to win the approval of everyone else. You get the sense that maybe he does have feelings and isn’t just a machine.

Everything great about Alien is back. We’ve got the feelings of isolation, the fear of being alone, the overwhelming odds, and that whole unknown terror thing. One alien gave you cold sweats. Now? The creatures are still just as deadly as before, but this time they’ve got hometeam advantage. Maybe the high-powered weapons will even out the odds. Maybe.

From Alien to Aliens, everything's been amped up. The special effects, characters, monsters, drama, and scares are back. You can’t go wrong with this movie as a way to pass 2 hours of your time. It’s solid entertainment, packed with thrills and it only gets better with subsequent views. (Theatrical version on the big screen, February 2, 2015)