Category Archives: Skiffy Flix

Skiffy Flix: The War of the Worlds

Posted on Friday 10 April 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

This is about the 1953 movie, surely one of the best known and highly-regarded SF movies of the ’50s, along with THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, FORBIDDEN PLANET, and perhaps INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. I wrote about the … Continue reading →

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Skiffy Flix: The Thing From Another World

Posted on Sunday 5 April 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

This is a 1951 black & white science fiction movie set in the Arctic, and it’s one of the most famous of the 1950s science fiction films. (This original version has been eclipsed over the decades by a 1982 remake … Continue reading →

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The New Space Race

Posted on Wednesday 1 April 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Today’s launch of Artemis II, and my background supporting the space program; A revelation about Bill Warren’s KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES! Noting the popularity of Project Hail Mary; Noting a GoodReads list; Radiohead’s The Gloaming. – – – So America’s … Continue reading →

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Skiffy Flix: Red Planet Mars

Posted on Sunday 29 March 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Now we come to one of the strangest SF movies of the early 1950s, and ultimately the most risible. This is a 1952 movie about an American astronomer — played by Peter Graves, later of Mission: Impossible and Airplane fame … Continue reading →

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Skiffy Flix: Invaders from Mars

Posted on Wednesday 25 March 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

This is a 1953 film that holds special significance for me since it was likely the first science fiction movie I ever saw, even if I saw it only in part at the time, which would be 1965 or 1966. … Continue reading →

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Skiffy Flix: It Came from Outer Space

Posted on Sunday 22 March 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Returning to our ongoing series. It Came from Outer Space is a 1953 film directed by Jack Arnold (who did some similar movies in the same era) and based on a story treatment by Ray Bradbury (not a published short story). … Continue reading →

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Latter Day Skiffy Flix: STTNG: Encounter at Farpoint

Posted on Thursday 19 March 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

A couple evenings ago I rewatched the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, called “Encounter at Farpoint,” for the first time since I watched it as the series premiere back in 1987.

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Tyson & Walker, TO INFINITY AND BEYOND

Posted on Saturday 8 March 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Neil deGrasse Tyson and Lindsey Nyx Walker Subtitled “A Journey of Cosmic Discovery” (National Geographic, Sep. 2023, 319pp, including 16pp acknowledgements, further reading, illustrations credits, and index.) This is literally a heavier-than-usual book that is nevertheless a light-weight read (even … Continue reading →

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Skiffy Flix: The Day the Earth Stood Still

Posted on Wednesday 9 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Of all the 1950s science fiction films, this one is arguably the most profound, the least typical, and the most liberal. It involves an alien arriving on Earth, but he is not hostile, despite the knee-jerk fears of the military … Continue reading →

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Skiffy Flix: When Worlds Collide

Posted on Wednesday 2 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Next of up my intermittent revisiting of 1950s science fiction movies is this one, one of the more popular and well-regarded of its era. It was produced by George Pal, who also did Destination Moon the previous year, and his … Continue reading →

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