Category: Sci Fi

Classic Films · Sci Fi

2001: A Space Odyssey

LizLocke2 Comments
Image credit: 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968

As my tiny part of the world loses its mind over the impending solar eclipse this week, it seems like a great time to revisit a movie that forced us to think about the infinite cosmos. Watching Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey (Disc/Download) is a little like gazing at that suddenly-dark sky in the middle of the day—it makes you realize there’s a whole universe swirling around our tiny little planet, but most people never take the time to look up.

Before I get to the murderous computer, or the Eero Saarinen tables, I should mention this is a film that absolutely must be seen on the big screen at least once in your lifetime. However, home viewing does give you the option for a proper cocktail, so let’s not totally discount the small screen experience. With very little dialogue and very little plot, 2001 relies mostly on stunning visuals to convey the story of a mysterious monolith and its effect on those who encounter it. Told in four parts, the action really picks up when two astronauts head to Jupiter (and unknowingly, the monolith) with a computer that’s starting to go a little insane. When people talk about the dangers of A.I. now, a lot of it comes back to HAL. If a computer is designed to be smarter and more intuitive than the humans who control it, what’s to stop it from taking over? From the online chess match, to the tablet screens, to the seat back entertainment on the space shuttle, to the video calls, 2001 predicted a lot about how humans would one day interact with technology. Let’s just hope we don’t have more HALs coming out of the ChatGPT pipeline.

Because the film opens with an eclipse and features many beautiful shots of orbiting planets and moons, this is a great time to break out your spherical ice molds. I filled mine with fresh-squeezed orange juice, which really stands out against a dark beverage. Also, HAL’s creepy rendition of “Daisy Bell” makes me want something related to the Daisy family of cocktails. While watching 2001: A Space Odyssey, I recommend drinking this Monolith Margarita.

Monolith Margarita

2 oz silver tequila

1 oz Cointreau

1 oz fresh-squeezed lime juice

1/2 oz charcoal simple syrup

Orange juice ice sphere

Orange twist

Make simple syrup by heating 2 Tbsp suger + 2 Tbsp water + 1/2 tsp activated charcoal powder. Simmer until sugar and charcoal are dissolved, then cool. Combine tequila, Cointreau, lime juice, and charcoal syrup in a shaker with ice. Shake to chill, then strain over a glass filled with ice. Drop in orange juice ice sphere and twist of orange.

The visuals of this movie are particularly impressive when you think about the fact that computers weren’t used in the way they would have been today. Kubrick achieved his cinema magic with practical effects, and to me, those weightless astronauts and floating space shuttles look more real than anything we see in today’s science fiction landscape. Watching 2001, it’s a wonder filmmakers moved toward almost total reliance on technology, unless the unthinkable has already happened and HAL began steering Hollywood without anybody realizing. Something to think about as darkness descends… Cheers!

Sci Fi · Uncategorized

Starman

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Image credit: Starman, 1984

If typical romantic fare has you rolling your eyes with boredom, and you just cannot stand to see How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days show up in your watch suggestions yet again*, then maybe you’re ready for John Carpenter’s Starman (Disc/Download), a bonkers sci-fi romance featuring a naked Jeff Bridges, a creepy CGI baby, and love on the run.

Starring Karen Allen as the recently widowed Jenny Hayden, and Jeff Bridges as the alien who crashes into her Wisconsin backyard and adopts the physical body of her recently deceased husband (thanks to an old photo album, a lock of his baby hair, and some truly bizarre special effects), this movie has similar visual elements to other campy Carpenter classics like They Live, The Thing, and The Fog, but it also manages to tell a moving story about grief and connection. Although I laugh pretty hard at Bridges’ halting alien voice, my heart twists when Jenny is forced to reckon with this terrifying stranger who happens to look exactly like the love of her life, as though even the memories of his face and smile aren’t sacred anymore. Carpenter may be known for horror, but honestly, I can’t think of anything scarier than the place our heroine inhabits at the start of this movie.

A fun element to this story is the collection of “energy balls” our alien uses to start fires, heal the dead or dying, and send interplanetary messages. Basically, any task you would need a bit of magic to accomplish. I don’t have any of these silver balls myself, but I do have a bottle of Fireball Whiskey. While watching Starman, make a little magic of your own with this Fireball Old Fashioned.

Fireball Old Fashioned

1 part Fireball Whisky

1 part Bourbon

2-3 Dashes Angostura Bitters

½ tsp Sugar

Orange twist

Muddle sugar with bitters in the bottom of a glass. Add ice, bourbon, and Fireball, and stir to combine. Twist the orange peel over the glass, then drop in.

This movie definitely has some soap opera elements to it, which is probably why I like it so much. Yes, there are the typical scary government guys chasing Bridges to a crater in Arizona, and the standard bumbling scientist who realizes it’s better to let the interplanetary traveler go home than see him get hurt on Earth, but there’s also a terrific pie scene and a secret alien baby that may or may not turn up in a sequel. It’s been forty years, and I am ready for that sequel. Cheers!

*Note to Netflix/Hulu/Amazon, et al.: I do not want to watch How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. It’s never going to happen, stop trying to make it happen.

Sci Fi

Escape from the Planet of the Apes

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Image credit: Escape from the Planet of the Apes, 1971

To quote Romy and Michele, “I just get really happy when they finally let her shop.”

The “her” in this case is Dr. Zira, one of the greatest heroines in cinema history, and star of my favorite chapter within the Planet of the Apes franchise, Escape from the Planet of the Apes (Disc/Download). I’ve written about my love of these films before, but this week I’d like to go into more detail about why I’m so darn crazy about this particular one. Let’s unpack.

In my mind, I’ve given all the Apes movies simple descriptors. #1 is “the Charlton Heston”, #2 is “the weird one”, #4 is “the prison one”, and #5 is “the one with all the battles”. But #3 is the best of all because it’s “the Rege-Bev-Wilsh one”. That’s right, just like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, the Apes travel to Los Angeles, and somehow land themselves a cushy suite at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, a limo, and a fabulous shopping spree. Was Garry Marshall a secret Dr. Zira fan?? We’ll never know. But I like to think Zira and Vivian are cosmically linked in a more general sense. Both are strong, smart, and independent. Both have incredible fashion sense. Both drink too much champagne and get a little giggly. And both of them know how to love fiercely, with their whole hearts. Indeed, it’s this fierce love that makes #3 the most emotionally poignant Apes film in the series. Having fled Future Earth with her husband Cornelius (Roddy McDowall) before a nuclear explosion destroys the planet, Zira arrives in the past having all the answers about what’s to come. And what’s to come is not good for humans. The biggest threat arrives in the form of the unborn child of Zira and Cornelius, who is destined to be the link between humans and intelligent apes. The US government wants to destroy that link to save their own species, and thus Zira and Cornelius must take drastic measures to protect her pregnancy. Throw in Ricardo Montalbán as a kindhearted circus owner, plus a switched-at-birth plotline, and you’ve got one riveting soap opera of a movie.

Before you go thinking of this movie as a Sci-Fi Shakespearean tragedy, let me reassure you- it’s definitely got its silly moments. Such as the ’70s sitcom music playing over shopping montages, or the time Zira goes to a cocktail party and gets drunk on “Grape Juice Plus” (aka, champagne). For some reason, the humans seem to think apes love oranges, so maybe that’s the “plus” they’re referring to? Let’s try it and see. While watching Escape from the Planet of the Apes, I recommend drinking Grape Juice Plus.

Grape Juice Plus

1 oz Cointreau

3 oz Champagne

Orange twist or dried orange for garnish

Build drink in a champagne flute. Garnish with an orange twist or wheel.

It’s become a bit of a tradition in my house to watch the Apes movies over a long weekend in January, and it almost feels like the New Year doesn’t officially start until Dr. Zira shows up in a pink cape like some sort of brilliant psychology superhero. I’ve had a lot on my plate the last month (such as finishing a major home renovation, plus editing and promoting my upcoming novel!), so taking the opportunity to relax with a glass of bubbly and a great movie feels almost decadent. Dr. Zira, let’s just go ahead and reserve next year’s stay at the Rege-Bev-Wilsh now. I’ll bring the grape juice. Cheers!

Action/Adventure/Heist · Sci Fi

The Matrix

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Image credit: The Matrix, 1999

I’ll be the first to admit—I am decades late to The Matrix party. When this movie (Disc/Download) came out in 1999, to me it was only a poster on a wall, hanging in the video store where I worked after school. I must have glanced at that picture of Keanu Reeves in a trench coat a thousand times, restocked the tape boxes triple that amount, but never felt tempted to see what all the fuss was about. Well, let’s just say my indifference ended this year thanks to pandemic boredom, a reboot, and one exceptionally good trailer.

The trailer I’m referring to is that of The Matrix: Resurrections, the most recent installment of this franchise which enjoyed a buzzy streaming release last winter. One whiff of a Jefferson Airplane song and the gracefully aging face of Keanu Reeves, and I was hooked. I wanted to see what these red and blue pills were all about. But to do that, I had to watch the original Matrix, a movie I’d successfully avoided for the past twenty-three years. So… I watched it. And I got lost. And then more lost. And then I gave up around the time Joe Pantoliano was gulping his wine. “What the hell is happening in this movie?” I shouted. “What is even real???”

My husband urged me to watch it again, this time with no distractions and my smart phone out of reach. And you know what? He was right. With nothing dividing my focus, I finally understood it. In the world of The Matrix, robots have taken over, sucking energy from humans, placing them in a weird dream state while they power the grid. A few humans have broken out of the Matrix, but then they go back in, but must escape again before either their real version or their Matrix version gets killed. There are also some giant robotic squids attacking a ship at one point??? Oh, hell, maybe I still don’t get it. But the pleather costumes are glorious.

There are a lot of references to Alice in Wonderland in The Matrix, so if you’re having a watch party, it might be fun to make White Rabbits with red and blue rimming sugar. Let your guests decide which one they want!

White Rabbit

1 ½ oz Gin

¾ oz Amaretto

¾ oz Vanilla non-dairy creamer

¼ oz Lemon cream liqueur

Red and blue rimming sugar

Run a lemon around the edge of a glass, then dip in rimming sugar. Add gin, Amaretto, creamer, and lemon cream liqueur to a shaker with ice. Shake until chilled then strain into prepared glass.

This might feel like a slightly heavy cocktail (in truth it tastes like a lemon meringue pie!), but this is a heavy movie in my opinion. It plays on our fears that we are doomed to be cogs in the machine, urging us to rise up and make a change; to be “The One” in our own lives. To believe we have the power to stop bullets and stand up to those who see us as nothing more than an expendable vessel.

I think.

Sci Fi

Logan’s Run

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Image credit: Logan’s Run, 1976

I’m stepping out of my comfort zone this week with a science fiction classic, a genre I rarely cover on Cinema Sips. But in 1976, there was a massively popular film that appealed to both miniature enthusiasts and future Plato’s Retreat patrons—Logan’s Run (Disc/Download). How could I resist?

Dubbed “the sexiest movie ever” by Friends’ Ross Geller, Logan’s Run is a pure escapist fantasy that practically screams disco era. From caftans to holograms, from Farrah Fawcett’s shag haircut to a domed city model straight out of Epcot, this movie relies on practical effects almost as much as it relies on our ability to be distracted by shiny objects. The central theme of a futuristic society where nobody is allowed to live past the age of thirty is almost overshadowed by the impressive visual achievements, which garnered the film a special Academy Award. Why is Logan running? Because he’s been forced to infiltrate and destroy a sanctuary for “olds”. If he’d asked me, I could have pointed him in the direction of Palm Springs. But instead, he goes to Washington DC, where the buildings are crumbling and Congress is basically an abandoned litter box. Sounds about right.

One truly bizarre scene (and there are a lot of truly bizarre scenes in this movie) involves a gold robot called Box that captures and freezes food from outside the domed city for use by the privileged young’uns. It also captures… PEOPLE. Cue the Soylent Green comparisons. While watching Logan’s Run, take a fun trip around the Carrousel with this futuristic frozen cocktail, the Saturn.

Saturn

 1 ¼ oz Gin

½ oz Lemon Juice

½ oz Passion Fruit Syrup

¼ oz Falernum

¼ oz Orgeat

2 cups crushed ice

Orange Twist

Add gin, lemon juice, passion fruit syrup, falernum, and orgeat to a blender filled with crushed ice. Blend until smooth, then pour into a hurricane glass. Garnish with an orange twist.

Is America really headed for a Logan’s Run-type existence? I guess we’ve got about two hundred and fifty years left to either fix all the problems or sentence ourselves to a version of doom that looks like a Florida theme park. But if feral cats really do take control of Congress, and somehow our society reverts back to being centered around shopping malls, I have one request: feathered Farrah Fawcett hair and a glittery tunic for all. Cheers!

Action/Adventure/Heist · Classic Films · Sci Fi

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

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Image credit: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Sometimes, you just need a good excuse for a Tiki cocktail. And what better excuse than Walt Disney’s CinemaScope extravaganza 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Disc/Download)? With island names like Vulcania, and talk of “grog”, this movie seems like a perfect match for drinks involving fire and rum. Let’s climb aboard the Nautilus and pour one out!

Starring James Mason as Captain Nemo, with Peter Lorre, Paul Lukas, and Kirk Douglas as the men tasked with investigating a mysterious “sea monster”, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is based on the Jules Verne novel about the adventures of a futuristic underwater ship in the 19th century. What makes this such a joy to watch is the sheer opulence of the production design, with pipe organs, circular viewing portals, and grand salons not often found below deck. Additionally, the cinematic practical effects make this a true fantasy experience. You can practically taste the saltwater coming off that giant attacking squid, or feel the warmth of a lush, blue, tropical isle thirty seconds before the natives attack.

Speaking of tropical, with location shooting taking place in the Bahamas and Jamaica, a rum-based drink is practically required. This one is a slight variation of the Sea Serpent’s Embrace, served at Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar in Disneyland. In a fun twist, I’m setting it on fire by using a hollowed-out lime filled with overproof rum. When watching 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, I recommend drinking this Vulcania cocktail.

Vulcania

1 ½ oz Dark Rum

1 ½ oz Gold Rum

¾ oz Gin

¾ oz Brandy

¾ oz Falernum

½ oz Passionfruit Syrup

1 oz Lime Juice

1 oz Orange Juice

1 oz Pineapple Juice

16 oz Crushed Ice, divided

½ Hollowed-out lime

½ oz Overproof Rum

Combine all ingredients with a cup of ice in a shaker. Shake until chilled, then strain over a glass filled with a fresh cup of ice. Top with half a hollowed-out lime filled with overproof rum. Light it on fire.

If sexy, bearded James Mason in a tight knit turtleneck does it for you, then you’ll definitely want to give this film a watch. Even if you’re not into sci-fi, there’s enough adventure in this to make 20,000 Leagues worth your time. It is, indeed, a whale of a tale. Cheers!

Classic Films · Sci Fi

Planet of the Apes

LizLocke1 Comment
Image credit: Planet of the Apes, 1968

I have no idea how this happened, but somehow, I’ve become a massive fan of the Planet of the Apes franchise (Disc/Download). Watching the original 1968 film for my weekly “Bad Movie Friday” tradition turned into a lost weekend of Ape movies, including the original five as well as the more-recent four. You’d think I would have gotten tired of watching man and “beast” clash after a few of these, but nope! I was riveted by superior storytelling, endings that left me wanting more, and thought-provoking social commentary.

When an astronaut (Charlton Heston) crash-lands on a distant planet approximately 2,000 years in the future, he’s probably just hoping for a fresh water supply and breathable air. What he gets instead is a topsy-turvy world where primates walk, talk, and hunt the nonverbal humans roaming the barren land like wild animals. Kudos to the special effects teams for making the apes look equal parts cheesy and realistic, like something from a Disney ride that will haunt your nightmares. It wouldn’t be the 1960s if we didn’t also throw in a beautiful woman with teased hair and ripped-to-shreds clothing, a la Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C. (played here by Linda Harrison as Nova). The movie raises a lot of interesting questions, such as what constitutes humanity, and how enlightened can a society ever be while there is still one group at the top and a different group at the bottom, but it’s also an action-packed flick of pure escapism. In other words, exactly what I need right now.

Although Dr. Zira rejects bananas in Escape From the Planet of the Apes, it’s still a common stereotype for primates to be seen eating them. And after viewing a parched nuclear wasteland for several hours, I need a frozen cocktail. While watching Planet of the Apes, I recommend drinking a Banana Daiquiri.

Banana Daiquiri

2 oz Gold Rum

1 fresh banana, sliced

1 oz Cointreau

1 oz Lime Juice

1/2 oz Coconut Cream

1 cup Ice

1/2 oz Dark Rum

Combine first six ingredients in a blender, and blend until chilled. Pour into a hurricane glass, and top with a floater of dark rum.

If you’re looking for a fun way to spend a weekend, I cannot recommend these movies enough. They were practically designed for our modern binge culture, most clocking in at around 90-100 minutes each, and always with a “WTF??!!!“-ending that leads immediately into the next installment. Part of me wishes I’d stopped at the fifth movie Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) without sullying the experience with the Tim Burton iteration, but pushing through allowed me to get to Rise of the Planet of the Apes, one of the most successful reboots I’ve had the pleasure of watching. These apes have something to say, and thankfully, this film made me want to stay and listen till the bitter end. Cheers!

Action/Adventure/Heist · Sci Fi

Tremors

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Image Credit: Tremors, 1990

If you follow along with Cinema Sips on social media, then you know the pandemic ushered in a new weekly tradition in my house: Bad Movie Friday. While I may have started out watching disaster movies in an attempt to make myself feel better about the actual disaster happening just outside my door, eventually this evolved into a weekly date with a pepperoni pizza and so-bad-it’s-good cinema, covering everything from Armageddon to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, to The Stuff. To be clear, I actually love most of the movies I’ve watched on BMF, including this week’s blog pick, Tremors (Disc/Download). Just because it’s “bad” doesn’t mean it can’t be entertaining.

Believe it or not, I’d never actually seen Tremors before last week. But now… I’m hooked! Thank goodness my library copy came with Tremors I, II, III, AND IV because I absolutely must find out what happens to the residents of Perfection, Nevada and their subterranean killer worms. Had I known Kevin Bacon had a starring role as Valentine McKee, or that Reba McEntire plays a survivalist badass, I probably would have watched this movie a long time ago. Also, with its string of laugh-out-loud lines and Kevin’s hillbilly accent, I was in deep danger of snorting my drink. Standout quote? “I found the ass end!” Cinema gold, I tell you.

Speaking of drinks, a little bit of research yielded the interesting fact that this movie’s original concept title was “Land Sharks” because these worm/snake Graboid creatures behaved like sharks on dry land. Autumn is the perfect time for a beer shandy cocktail, so I’m combining a little Landshark Lager with a twist on the classic Nevada cocktail. While watching Tremors, I recommend drinking a Landshark Bite.

Landshark Bite

6 oz Landshark Beer

2 oz Grapefruit Juice

1 oz Gold Rum

1/2 oz Lime Juice

1/2 oz Simple Syrup

Grapefruit Bitters

Gummy Worm (for garnish)

Build drink over ice, stirring gently to combine. Garnish with a gummy worm.

If, like me, you feel like collapsing by the end of the work week, I highly recommend the Bad Movie Friday tradition. It’s nice to shut the brain off for a couple hours, not think about whether a plot or a character makes sense, and just let the special effects and campy acting carry you away. And if you need an excuse to have that extra drink, just know a little more alcohol can only make these movies better. Cheers!

Action/Adventure/Heist · Sci Fi

Snowpiercer

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Image credit: Snowpiercer, 2013

It takes a lot to suck me into a story where everyone is cold, dirty, and unhappy, so it goes without saying that I was not expecting to love this week’s film Snowpiercer (Disc/Download). But after my initial watch, I remember turning the television off, staring at the blank screen, and breathing a single word- “Wow.”

Recently adapted for the small screen, Bong Joon-ho’s dystopian sci-fi action film has many similar themes to his 2019 hit, Parasite (which I also loved). Class warfare takes center stage as Chris Evans leads an army of peasants from the back of a continuously moving train, to the front section where rich folks enjoy such luxuries as sushi and saunas. This locomotive carries the last remaining humans on earth (after climate change and man’s follies have turned it into a subzero wasteland), and instead of a peaceful egalitarian community of survivors, overlord Wilfred has created a closed loop ecosystem of haves and have-nots. With a cast that includes Tilda Swinton, Octavia Spencer, Jamie Bell, and Ed Harris, just to name a few, Snowpiercer is that rare movie that keeps me on my toes from beginning to end. But beyond the flashy action sequences, there’s a real sense of pain and hope and desperation to these characters that makes me want to keep watching. I’ve got to see if there’s an end to this terrible trip.

Throughout Snowpiercer, food is used as a metaphor for the characters’ privilege, or lack thereof. From Ed Harris’s steaks to Tilda’s rare sushi, down to the gelatinous bug bars that the tailies consume (sorry, “protein bars”), this train’s menu is all over the place. I had a little fun this week with the protein bar theme, making a snack fit for us alcoholic peasants. While watching Snowpiercer, I recommend trying a Boozy Bar.

Boozy Bar

3/4 cup Water

1/3 cup Vodka

1/2 cup Jell-O (any flavor)

1 tsp Activated Charcoal Powder

Boil water and vodka together, then stir in charcoal powder and Jell-O. Remove from heat, and stir until gelatin is dissolved- about 2 minutes. Pour into block molds, and chill overnight. When firm, carefully run a knife around the inside of the molds and turn the blocks out onto a plate. Slice and enjoy!

This film always leaves me with a lot to think about, such as how castes can have a symbiotic relationship, each of us relying on the other to survive, whether we realize it or not. I have no idea which section I’d be relegated to on this train, but dear God let’s hope it’s not the nursery school. Now that would truly be my dystopian nightmare. Cheers!

Comedies · Sci Fi

Spaceballs

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spaceballs
Image credit: Spaceballs, 1987

I’m just going to say it- Donald Trump stole his hair from Barf.  If you’re like me and searching desperately for a fun Halloween costume, this wisecracking Mog might be your best option. Half man, half dog- he’s his own best friend. Trump wigs are easy to procure these days, and the allusion to this cult classic Star Wars parody will make you the coolest trick-or-treater on the block.

I’ve never been a big Star Wars fan, but I am a huge Mel Brooks fan. His mastery of the art of puns is unparalleled, and Spaceballs (DVD/Download) is no exception. A robot named Dot Matrix? “Combing” the desert?? Pizza the Hut??? Genius. The plot rambles and the acting is deliciously campy, but that script is just magic. And with all the pop culture references, I feel like I’m watching a 2 hour joke crafted for entertainment geeks like me.  And with 80’s comedy greats like Joan Rivers, Rick Moranis, and John Candy populating the cast, it’s hard not to have a good time watching this.

Although this is a cocktail blog, I have to make an exception this week. Lone Starr is just too good a name to slip by. While watching Spaceballs, I recommend drinking the favorite beer of cheap Texans: Lone Star.

lone-star

Mel Brooks is one of those comedy greats whose work will still be relevant and funny long after he’s gone. I love that he is still working on projects, even in his 90’s! I know I’ve said in the past that I despise sequels, but even I would love to see Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money. May the Schwartz be with you, Mr. Brooks. Cheers!