Category: Movies

Jim MacQuarrie, Movies, Rummaging & Ruminating, Science Fiction

‘Battle Beyond the Stars’ – The ‘Citizen Kane’ of Schlock Sci-fi

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When Star Wars exploded on movie screens in 1977, it elevated sci-fi out of the low-budget B-movie ghetto in a way that 2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes had tried to do and didn’t quite achieve. While those two films had the spectacular visuals, humanist allegories, and deep thoughts about the meaning of man, they lacked the slam-bang action of a great 1940s Flash Gordon movie. Star Wars showed that people would go for big dumb fun, and the race was on for the next one. In the years that followed, many studios attempted to join the “Me Too” Chorus, with Star Trek grabbing the high-end market and the original Battlestar Galactica locking up the TV audience. The low end was filled with cheesy movies featuring clumsy alien make-up and iffy blue-screen effects. 30-odd years later, one movie stands above them all as the greatest film in the crowded “cheap Star Wars knockoff” genre: ‘Battle Beyond the Stars.’

Culture, Jim MacQuarrie, Movies, Rummaging & Ruminating

Masculinity in the Movies

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This year has seen a lot of long-overdue discussion of (and action against) sexual harassment, and with it a focus on the “toxic masculinity” that underlies it and other societal ills. In some ways, the world has almost always skewed toward the patriarchy, but there are some elements of the culture that are actually fairly recent developments, which a look back through recent history will serve to illustrate. We’ll start with my central thesis: the modern American model of masculine and feminine roles is a post-World War II invention.

Jim MacQuarrie, Movies, Rummaging & Ruminating

Hell Plaza 2: Electric Boogaloo, the Heretic

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It turns out that everybody has a list of truly bad movies and wants to share. Again, we’re not talking “so bad it’s good” movies; we mean movies more in the category of “drunkenly calling an ex is a better idea than watching this.” The numbingly bad movies that you can’t even laugh at. Let’s see what we’ve got this time…

Jim MacQuarrie, Movies, Review

‘Black Panther’: It’s About Damn Time

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Once in a while, the studio machine gets it right, and what was supposed to be a typical genre picture hits all the right notes and becomes a timeless classic that transcends genre. The audience, or at least a segment of the audience, responds on a visceral level to the film, and it becomes a landmark in their lives. I believe Black Panther is one such film.