Category Archives: Movies

Greatest Science Fiction Film Tournament Update

Voting on weeks 1-10 is now closed, and voting on week 11 will close late Thursday. The initial eliminations are in, as are the tentative titles. We are using Bayesian statistics, meaning a movie needs to receive a minimum number of votes to qualify, so the films that receive fewer votes than that are considered “tentative” titles. Below you will find two lists. One list is of the 20 titles which have been outvoted by other titles from the first ten weeks, and the other is of the films that did not receive enough votes to qualify. In week 24, which ends round one, there will be the regular list of 16 titles, as well as a list of the 2012 releases and a list of the tentative titles in case anyone watches them in the interim.

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Holiday Review: Carol for Another Christmas (1964)

The End of the World has, once more, come and gone, but the fear that bred the most recent bit of apocalyptic silliness comes from someplace real, even if worrying about old calendars misplaces that fear entirely. Apocalyptic terror informs this weekend’s review which, as in the past few years, examines an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”

This most-bizarre twist on the familiar tale plays in 2012 for the first time in more than forty years (on TCM). Rod Serling wrote the script; the Cold War provided the context. Daniel Grudge replaces Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit becomes a servant named Charles, and a maniacal Peter Sellers presides over a Twilight Zonesque future.

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Greatest Science Fiction Film Tournament Week 9: Round 1

Our ninth round of voting is here. As you probably know, the 24 week first round is designed to winnow 384 options down to 128 contenders for tournament style eliminations. We are days away from having clear eliminations from the tournament. Once we reach that stage, should we announce those eliminations here, or keep those results quiet until round two begins in week 25?

Weekend Review: White Zombie

The first zombie feature was an independent based heavily on the actual Haitian legend—a legend which, in the present zombie-haunted era, has been forgotten by (or remains unknown to) most fans. White Zombie stars Bela Lugosi, features sets pirated from more famous pictures, and it set the tone for all future pre-George A. Romero zombie movies. While far from perfect, it’s worth seeing, in order to understand what a zombie was, prior to the Night of the Living Dead.

As we countdown to The Walking Dead‘s mid-third-season finale, we offer White Zombie up as our Weekend Review.

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