Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner

City on the Edge of Forever Star Trek Review

McCoy goes sweaty crazy, Kirk falls for Joan Collins, and Spock does his best Michael Nesmith impression. That’s right, it’s what many consider to be the greatest of the original “Star Trek” episodes, “The City on the Edge of Forever” (1967).

Roy and I will be slumming it in a Depression-era soup kitchen with our esteemed colleagues, Mike and Marybeth of SciFi Distilled, as we mop up the minutiae of this fan favorite.

We’ll search for “Bones” in a time-displacing doughnut, on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Construct your mnemonic memory devices using stone knives and bear skins in the comments section. It will be a “flop,” even if the show’s a hit, when we livestream on Facebook, this Friday evening at 7:00 EDT!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

April 22, 2022
Somewhere in Time Secrets Revealed

We lost all track of time last night, as we discussed “Somewhere in Time” (1980). I suppose it’s only appropriate, given the subject matter. Still, the show ran to three hours! Then we stopped the stream on the assumption that everyone had had enough, and we wound up talking for another hour, until 11:00 pm!

Thank you, Jo Addie, for sharing your recollections of working on the film. Jo is president of INSITE, the International Network of Somewhere In Time Enthusiasts. In that capacity, she has done great things for the film’s legacy – getting it restored and reissued on home video, getting it back into theaters for a limited run, producing documentaries, keeping up with the cast and crew, overseeing the newsletter, and hosting annual “Somewhere in Time” weekends on Mackinac Island.

You can learn all about it and her amazing journey, and marvel at how spontaneity and serendipity can literally change the course of one’s life, by listening to her story here:

Then definitely do check out the INSITE website, where you’ll find lots more great anecdotes and information:

https://www.somewhereintime.tv/

Ironically, in three hours, there was very little time to actually discuss the content of the movie itself, so maybe we’ll have to go back in time and address it again at some point.

For the immediate future, Roy’s got another special guest lined up for tomorrow: actress and dancer Tanya Lemani. Fans of the original “Star Trek” television series will remember Lemani from the episode “Wolf in the Fold” (1967).

Wolf down your dinner and make the trek to the comments section for an out-of-this-world conversation. You’ll be howling for more, on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, when they livestream on Facebook, this Sunday evening at 7:00 EDT!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

PHOTO: Jo Addie with Christopher Reeve on the set of “Somewhere in Time”

https://www.somewhereintime.tv/

April 9, 2022
Roy’s Sci-Fi Corner Two Years of Bond & Beyond

104 weeks of Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

Last night, Roy and I celebrated two years of delving into a shared nostalgia for science-fiction film and television of the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, with a conversation about “Dr. No” (1962), the first of the James Bond films – not coincidentally marking its 60th anniversary this year.

Technically, I didn’t join the show until June 2020 (more to celebrate in June), but the series was initiated by Roy in April, with Phil Merkel the first guest, as a means of bringing everyone together during the doldrums of pandemic isolation.

We’ve had plenty of laughs along the way. Thank you to all of you in our loyal audience, who show up week after week to share your wisecracks and insights. It’s always a great way to launch a weekend. Most amazingly, Roy and I had not seen one another for a good 35 years, prior to our Zoom reunion.

You can watch two April fools blather about Bond at the link. We’ll do it again next week, once we decide on our next topic. Mix yourself a Vesper Martini (shaken, not stirred) and join us for the Facebook livestream, next Friday evening at 7:00 EDT.

April 2, 2022
Shatner’s Kingdom of Spiders with a Spider Expert

Nothing brightens an eight-legged apocalypse like a visit from a good friend. Especially one who knows how to make you laugh.

Yesterday, when I posted about tonight’s episode of “Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner,” on which Roy and I will observe the 91st birthday of William Shatner with a discussion of his magnum opus, “Kingdom of the Spiders” (1977), I was remiss in not mentioning that our very special guest this evening will be my lifelong friend, Matt Anthony. Matt and I were basically inseparable from the 7th grade up through college. (I could tell you bloodcurdling tales.)

In the meantime, he’s become quite the arachnologist. So Matt will be on-hand to tell us all we need to know about the scientific accuracy of the movie, to show us around his own little kingdom of the spiders (which he now raises), to play us a number or two on the ukulele (he also busks), and to cook us up a burger from William Shatner’s own special recipe. My mom introduced us to this 40 years ago, after she found it in a magazine in the early ‘80s.

All in all, it’s shaping up to be a Shat-tacular evening. It will be a Matt Matt Matt Matt world, on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Observe it slack-jawed in the comments section, when we livestream on Facebook, this Friday evening at 7:00 EDT!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

PHOTO: Flanked by Matt (in stylish Sasquatch t-shirt) and Roy in October

March 25, 2022
Kingdom of the Spiders Shatner’s 70s Horror

In the “Kingdom of the Spiders” (1977), the man with one idea is king.

Too bad that one idea is transparently lifted from “Jaws.”

William Shatner stars as a Southwestern veterinarian who teams up with an arachnologist from Flagstaff to grapple with a natural threat, even as the mayor (predictably) is determined to keep the town open for the county fair.

The film also plays into the whole ‘70s environmental horror sub-genre (cf. “Frogs,” “Night of the Lepus,” “Orca,” “Prophecy,” etc.), by positing that it’s man’s rapaciousness and stupidity that’s at the true root of his own peril. This of course has its antecedents in the atomic horror movies of the 1950s. If only those idiots hadn’t been spraying DDT.

It takes a mighty suspension of disbelief to accept notoriously shy, solitary tarantulas working together to turn a county fair into a buffet. “Land of the Daddy Long-legs” would be about as threatening.

And poor Woody Strode. A longtime favorite of John Ford, who got to fight Kirk Douglas under Stanley Kubrick’s direction in “Spartacus,” and he’s reduced to this.

At any rate, Roy and I will be discussing it as a belated birthday tribute to Mr. Shatner, who turned 91 on Tuesday. So burn your offerings at the altar of Shat in the comments section. We’ll be dancing the tarantella to emolliate the effects of spider-bite, on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, when we livestream on Facebook, this Friday evening at 7:00 EDT!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

March 24, 2022

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