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Ready Player One, a review by Tom

Ready Player One (2018/United States) IMDb | Wikipedia Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (Germany) Director: Steven Spielberg Writing: Zak Penn (Screenwriter), Ernest Cline (Screenwriter), Ernest Cline (Original Material By) Length: 140 min. Video: Widescreen 2.40 Audio: English: Dolby Atmos 3D, English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, German: Dolby Atmos 3D, German: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Subtitles: English, German

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Stars:
Tye Sheridan as Parzival / Wade
Olivia Cooke as Art3mis / Samantha
Ben Mendelsohn as Sorrento
Lena Waithe as Aech / Helen
T.J. Miller as I-ROk

Plot:Awards:
Nominated:

Academy Award (2018)

Best Visual Effects (Roger Guyett, Grady Cofer, Matthew Butler, David Shirk)

Extras:

• Scene Access
• Featurettes
• Digital Copy
• Wendecover

I haven't read the book. But I enjoyed this movie. I know the movie is not that critically acclaimed, but I really like it. I have seen it in the past on streaming services. And I decided to add it to my collection recently and still enjoyed this movie the second time around. But that may be mostly because of the 80s nostalgia in this movie.

Rating:

(From Tom's Random Reviews on March 20th, 2023)

The Day Mars Invaded Earth, a review by GSyren

The Day Mars Invaded Earth (024543-104995)

United States 1963 | Released 2015-03-17 on DVD from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

70 minutes | Aspect ratio Anamorphic 2.20:1 | Audio: English Dolby Digital Mono

Directed by Maury Dexter and starring Kent Taylor, Marie Windsor, William Mims, Betty Beall, Lowell Brown

Martian invaders are in the process of making exact doubles of an entire town and then killing the original models. The terrifying facts are discovered by a scientist working at Cape Canaveral who is trying to figure out why a recent Martian probe simply exploded after landing on the Red Planet. He has been in Florida working on the project for so long that his wife in California is about to divorce him. Wanting to save his marriage and see his family, he goes home and suddenly ends up fighting for not only his own life, but for all humanity.

My thoughts about The Day Mars Invaded Earth:

I am a big fan of fifties and sixties science fiction and horror movies, so I was very surprised to find one that had gone totally below my radar. It's Invasion of the Body Snatchers without any pods, or Invaders from Mars without any martians. In fact, no real monster at all. It's a really low budget movie , so it's a bit surprising that it was filmed in CinemaScope. The movie is slow but creepy, and it has a twist ending that I did not see coming. The thing that bothered me most about the script is that the characters seem to accept a totally unbelievable situation without any questioning whatever. That's more unbelievable than the the unbelievable situation itself. The contrived story and the slow pacing drags the movie down, but the surprise ending makes up for it to some extent.

I rate this title

(From Reviews and ramblings by Gunnar on June 3rd, 2015)

"Battlestar Galactica" Marathon (1978-2009), a review by DJ Doena

Synopsis: Troy and Dillon are called back to the Galactica for an important mission. But it's a trick of Xaviar's and now they are sitting in a disabled Viper somewhere between Earth and the fleet. Meanwhile Jamie has to care for the scouts and to protect them both from the US military as well as Xaviar who wants to use them as bargaining chip. Jamie hides them in a baseball camp.

My Opinion: Don't win! Win! Don't win! Win! Jamie's constant change of minds were a bit annoying, especially since the point of this episode was totally lost on me. There was nothing in it but to show some special effects of super-kids playing baseball.

Synopsis: A Galactica patrol has encountered a new and improved Cylon Raider and engaged it. Both ships were damaged but the Raider is drifting towards Earth and will crash north of New York City. Troy and Dillon travel by plane there but they assume their patrol ship will crash there. Only two Cylons survive the crash but one of them is an advanced model who looks like a Human. And it's Halloween...

My Opinion: Together with the first part of this series, Galactica Discovers Earth, this and the following episode were re-cut to form the movie Galactica III: Conquest of the Earth. And I have to say that I like them. I thought it was an ingenious idea to hide two Cylons in plain sight, but since it's Halloween no one questions their appearance. And although these human Cylons are fully mechanical they are obviously the template for the human Cylons in the next series.
And it seems to have become a running gag that no matter where Troy and Dillon go, they get in some kind of trouble with the local law enforcement and that they steal a police car.

Synopsis: The Cylons were invited to a Halloween party and the famous radio moderator Wolfman Jack will be there. They want to capture him in order to get to the "communication center". From there they will send a distress signal and reveal Earth's position. Dillon and Troy have to prevent that at any cost. But they are not only the chaser, they are also the chased.

My Opinion: It was only years later that I learned that Wolfman Jack was a real person but I liked the character from the start. What I didn't like about this episode (and what wasn't in the movie) were Troy's and Dillon's "super jumps". But I really liked how the (seriously damaged) Centurion tried to protect the Cylon Andromus and jumped from that skyscraper and landed in the dumpster.

Synopsis: The Cylons have destroyed the agricultural ships and the fleet needs new crops. The Cylons hope that it will finally lead them to Earth. Dillon and Troy buy a piece of land from a farmer and try to grow plants there. But the farmer (and now they) are harassed by their neighbour who owns pretty much all land there and he controls the water reservoirs. But people who can fly through space can also make it rain.

My Opinion: I can't remember ever seeing this episode before. And to be honest: When they were harassed by their neighbour (played by MacGyver's Dana Elcar) I expected to see a certain black van with a red bar on it: "If you have a problem. If no one else can help. Maybe you can hire - The A-Team."
Since the scout kids were back, they used "super jumps" to spread the seeds and used the "flying saucer" to make it rain. ship I didn't like this episode very much.

Synopsis: Doctor Zee tells Commander Adama about a dream he had. It includes a great battle and a great warrior called Starbuck who had to be left behind on a lonely planet. There he repairs on of the Cylons who crashed there with him in order to have some company. But soon they are not only 2, but 3.5: Cy has found a pregnant woman and Starbuck has to get her off the planet because soon other Cylons will come looking for their patrol.

My Opinion: That was a great episode. It was well told and had great characters in it. I loved to see the developing friendship between Starbuck and Cy. It was a bit like Enemy Mine and I was really sad when Cy "died" because he protected Starbuck from these other Cylons. And it's pretty ironic that this episode worked very well and didn't need many FX shots (except for the re-used battle scenes in the beginning where Boomer has to say goodbye to his friend).

The Series - My Opinion: Let's face it: The series isn't that good. The special effects were basically reduced to "super jumps", to cloak each and everything and to make their motorcycles fly. And while it maybe OK to destroy the same Raider in the upper right corner over and over again, it looks odd when your motorcycles always fly over the same skyline no matter in which countryside you had been before - especially when you do it in nearly every episode.
It was a good idea to bring the fleet to Earth - they had told many space stories in the original series - but they didn't make anything out of it. Instead four out of ten episodes revolved around a bunch of kids and the main characters were reduced to kindergarten teachers.

(From "Battlestar Galactica" Marathon (1978-2009) on April 19th, 2009)