Category Archives: Skiffy Flix

Some Sciency Bits

Richard Dawkins on the ancestral language of DNA; How humans have interpreted fossils throughout history; Recalling the scientifically inaccurate and intellectually hostile movie Armageddon, from 1998; How an article about a refinement to our understanding of human evolution overstates its … Continue reading

Posted in Evolution, Music, Science, Skiffy Flix | Leave a comment

Skiffy Flix: Flight to Mars

It’s been a while since I’ve watched and posted about a “skiffy flick,” that is, a science fiction movie from the 1950s, plus or minus a decade, when science fiction movies were very popular — or at least, a lot … Continue reading

Posted in Skiffy Flix | Leave a comment

Link and Comments: From McCarthyism to the Assault on the Capitol, via 1951 SF movies

Slate: What UFOs and Joe McCarthy Have to Do With the Assault on the Capitol. Who knew?

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Movies, Politics, Skiffy Flix | Leave a comment

Skiffy Flix: Destination Moon

This 1951 film was the first prestigious science fiction film, its script inspired or perhaps partially written, by Robert A. Heinlein. The credits say “from a novel by” Heinlein but that’s not accurate. Heinlein had written a juvenile novel about … Continue reading

Posted in Movies, Skiffy Flix | Comments Off on Skiffy Flix: Destination Moon

Skiffy Flix: Rocketship X-M

Now the fun starts. Having dutifully watched the precursors of science fiction films in the mostly horror films of the 1930s and ‘40s (with just two SF films from before 1950, Metropolis from 1927 and Things to Come from 1936), … Continue reading

Posted in Movies, Skiffy Flix | Comments Off on Skiffy Flix: Rocketship X-M

Skiffy Flix: Things to Come

This is an ambitious film from 1936, based on a treatment by H.G. Wells depicting future history from 1950 to 2036. Again, Wikipedia has a fairly detailed plot at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_to_Come. I’ve read that for decades after, Things to Come was … Continue reading

Posted in Movies, Skiffy Flix | Comments Off on Skiffy Flix: Things to Come

Skiffy Flix: King Kong

This very famous and popular film, from 1933, isn’t exactly science fiction, but somewhat adjacent to SF: a variation of the “lost world” story popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when there were still unexplored areas of the … Continue reading

Posted in Films, Skiffy Flix | Comments Off on Skiffy Flix: King Kong

Skiffy Flix: Son of Frankenstein

This third Frankenstein film, Son of Frankenstein, from 1939 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Frankenstein), again features Boris Karloff as the monster. I saw this film decades ago, likely in the 1990s when there was a fine, independent video rental store around the corner from … Continue reading

Posted in Films, Movies, Skiffy Flix | Comments Off on Skiffy Flix: Son of Frankenstein

Skiffy Flix: The Wolf Man

As I’ve said, the basis for these posts, and for my taking the time to watch these rather primitive films from the dawn of the movie era, is to revisit the predecessors of the earliest science fiction films; I have … Continue reading

Posted in Movies, Skiffy Flix | Comments Off on Skiffy Flix: The Wolf Man

Skiffy Flix: The Picture of Dorian Gray

In the Fall of 2019, September and October, I began a systematic review of early science fiction films, and adjacent horror films, going all the way back to the beginning of modern film, so to speak–excepting the many silent-movie era … Continue reading

Posted in Movies, Skiffy Flix | Comments Off on Skiffy Flix: The Picture of Dorian Gray