SUPERNOVA

Thank you Supernova! You did not let me down! You were tacky, had plot holes the size of the planet, included several gratuitous explosions, and your sex scenes were anything but tasteful.

I won't ruin the plot (or what little there is of one..) with details, but I will make a list. So, some things I learned from Supernova:

1. James Spader used to be kind of hot. Hot enough that Angela Bassett would actually consent to have sex with his character. Kudos to space for being the great equalizer in terms of an interracial couple getting it on on-screen...but really, James Spader?

2. In the future we will have warp drives and will be able to jump through space..but nobody is smart enough to figure out how to involve clothing in this process. Yep, everytime you go into warp speed or whatever all of your crew has to strip down to their skivvies and jump into clear booths. Apparently frosted glass would also interfere with the space travel.

3. Have sex with more than 1 man? You're toast. Silly Robin Tunney. Clearly you did not read the disaster movie survival handbook. Having sex is bad enough..having sex with the bad guy & having sex with your boyfriend*? Recipe for a painful death.

4. The guy who wrote Supernova definitely watched Alien/s a few too many times.
Strong female character w/baggage? Check.
Relationship between 2 minor characters=death? Check
Doomed captain? Check
Blowing the evil alien thing out of the spaceship? Check
Half-naked space travel? Check
....and the list goes on! really Supernova is kind of like an homage to Alien, with less chest-bursting and way crappier acting. Basically, my favorite type of disaster movie!




*It would be really easy to start ranting about the concept of purity and disaster movies..but I will try and refrain because it warrants much more than a few snarky lines. But really, as much as I make fun of characters who break the 'rules,' you have to think about who codified these ideas that the women characters who defy our expectations of sexual purity are punished by death/terror etc.

Supernova

Phallic ship? CHECK
A-listers(-ish)?CHECK
Stock footage of space? CHECK
Creepy robot voice? CHECK
Sex in opening sequence? CHECK

Oh yes. I think Supernova is going to be fun...

Things I learned from Robinson Crusoe on Mars

1) Mars isn't really that hot, as long as you have a nice space suit with removable gloves. In fact, you just might need to make a fire using some handy crystals you've found in a cave and your previous (and limited) supply of oxygen. I get that you might need it at night.. but he ran all over the place during the Martian day without any gloves or cover!

2) Almost suffocating is gross. But you can breathe right from a metal tube of compressed air if you start to run short.

3) Clue: Mona the monkey goes off every day and never needs any water. Hmmmmmmm.. I wonder if Mona might know something. It's 40 minutes in, and I'm betting that Draper will figure it out by 50 minutes.

Update: I was off by 3 minutes. It's 46 minutes in and he's followed Mona (the monkey) down to an underground cavern (filled with more stupid looking crystals!) with water. On such a hot planet, wouldn't it at least be warm??

4) Remind me to have someone else survive the end of the world/crash onto Mars with me. Going bat-shit crazy due to isolation seems to be a pretty consistent point in these movies.



ps. NOOOOOO.. my movie skipped and I can't get it to play 5 minutes! Of course I am missing the most important part of the entire movie, because after I've skipped past the bad part there is another person on Mars! And he's wearing stupid clothing! Where did he come from???

Robinson Crusoe on Mars.. I kid you not

I think I have been straying too far from my real disaster movie base recently. I'm only a few minutes in and I can already tell that Robinson Crusoe on Mars is going to be fantabulous. It was made in 1969 and looks like it shares the original Lost in Space special effects, which are pretty much limited to a little cartoon ship flying through space and lots of really cheesy costumes.

Awesome.