Adam Selvidge's Website Blog
Hi, Nellie: Directed by Mervyn LeRoy. With Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Ned Sparks, Robert Barrat. The managing editor for a newspaper, in hot water with his boss, is demoted to writing the “Nellie Nelson” heart throb column, where he gets the unexpected opportunity to crack a major story. Another Glenda Farrell movie, this one is volume 8 of the Forbidden Hollywood series, one of four or five movies included in the collection. They’re all supposed to be movies that were released before the Hays code and were “forbidden” to be shown, but in reality most of the films in this...
Lucy in the Sky: Directed by Noah Hawley. With Natalie Portman, Jon Hamm, Zazie Beetz, Dan Stevens. Astronaut Lucy Cola returns to Earth after a transcendent experience during a mission to space, and begins to lose touch with reality in a world that now seems too small. Loosely based on the story of Lisa Nowak, astronaut who had an unfortunate break from reality after she returned from space and ended up being arrested at an Orlando airport. woman in space needs just a couple more minutes, then returns to earth, picks up her neice from school, has dinner with her...
Predestination: Directed by Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig. With Ethan Hawke, Sarah Snook, Christopher Kirby, Christopher Sommers. For his final assignment, a top temporal agent must pursue the one criminal that has eluded him throughout time. The chase turns into a unique, surprising and mind-bending exploration of love, fate, identity and time travel taboos. Time cop has his face melted off, so he’s given a new face and a new voice, then put back on the time cop job, where he’s now a bartender who’s checking his scifi watch when a mysterious stranger walks in. The mysterious stranger turns out to...
Station Eleven: Created by Patrick Somerville. With Mackenzie Davis, Himesh Patel, Matilda Lawler, David Wilmot. A post apocalyptic saga spanning multiple timelines, telling the stories of survivors of a devastating flu as they attempt to rebuild and reimagine the world anew while holding on to the best of what’s been lost. I went in knowing nearly nothing about the story or how it would end, so I assumed it was going to be like most other post-apocalyptic stories, filled with horror, violence and a condemnation of humanity as it is today. While there was a bit of condemnation, that isn’t...
Children of Dune: With Alec Newman, Julie Cox, Ian McNeice, Steven Berkoff. The twins of Paul “Muad’dib” Atreides become embroiled in the political landscape of Arrakis (“Dune”) and the rest of the universe. Even James McAvoy and Susan Sarandon couldn’t hold my attention on this adaptation. True, the special effects are somewhat better and the spice eyes are much improved, but the base story is just so bland and boring. I remember this was the book that I decided that I wasn’t going to read any more of them because of how impossibly slow the entire things is. Buy On...
900,000 years ago, something wiped out the Amarantin. For the human colonists settling the Amarantin homeworld Resurgam, it’s of little more than academic inter The first of the “Inhibitor” series, I’ve read books by Reynolds before, but I don’t think any of them were in this main series. As a start to the series, this is a great book, though the ended with the neutron star was bonkers and I think I only slightly understood exactly why they were turning into atom thin pancakes. Buy On Amazon!
The Expanse: Created by Daniel Abraham, Mark Fergus, Ty Franck, Hawk Ostby. With Steven Strait, Dominique Tipper, Wes Chatham, Shohreh Aghdashloo. In the 24th century, a group of humans untangle a vast plot which threatens the Solar System’s fragile state of detente. Well the show is done and while there were no major missteps, this last episode had about 3 seasons worth of material in it, it’s a shame they didn’t get the time to either edit this down to something with a tighter story or give it just another season to follow through on the promises they were making....
Moonbase 8: Created by Fred Armisen, Tim Heidecker, Jonathan Krisel, John C. Reilly. With John C. Reilly, Tim Heidecker, Fred Armisen, Joshua Davis. Fred Armisen, Tim Heidecker and John C. Reilly star in this new comedy series as three astronauts trying to qualify for their first lunar mission. They encounter obstacles along the way including loneliness, self-doubt and incompetence. Cringe worthy in all the wrong ways, I stayed with the first season because it was weird. Turns out the entire thing is just delightfully and wholesomely weird through and through. It’s more of a “Fred Armisen” weird than a “John...
*batteries not included: Directed by Matthew Robbins. With Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Frank McRae, Elizabeth Peña. Aliens help a feisty old New York couple in their battle against the ruthless land developer who’s out to evict them. A corny love story of two alien robots, who are summoned by the psionic cries for help from a building being threatened by an over eager corporate thug who’s employed a gang of actual thugs to harass the property owners to sell their beloved homes. It’s corny, campy, and everything amazing you could hope for in a retro future alien robot movie. Buy...
Chaos Walking: Directed by Doug Liman. With Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley, Demián Bichir, David Oyelowo. Two unlikely companions embark on a perilous adventure through the badlands of an unexplored planet as they try to escape a dangerous and disorienting reality where all thoughts are seen and heard by everyone. I threatened to buy this for my home collection, and this last week that’s what I did. I was super excited to get my wife to watch it, but she was only half interested in seeing it, so there was a lot of the “move explains a thing” then 20 minutes...
