Movies

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers

Sci-Fi Spectacular

May 8, 2008

Movieside and the Music Box present their second annual sci-fi marathon, which lifts off Saturday, May 10 at noon and reenters the earth's atmosphere around 2 AM. Scheduled are Erle C. Kenton's rarely screened H.G. Wells adaptation Island of Lost Souls (1932), with Charles Laughton as the genetic scientist Dr. Moreau and Bela Lugosi as one of his ghastly creations (noon); Fred Sears's Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), whose animated Ray Harryhausen space craft are more convincing than the actors (1:45 PM); Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), with Kevin McCarthy running scared from encroaching commies--sorry, pod people (3:35 PM); Nicholas Meyer's unintentional gay masterpiece Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982), in which repressed lovers Kirk and Spock battle a beefcake Ricardo Montalban (5:30 PM); Paul Bartel's camp classic Death Race 2000 (1975), with Keith Carradine, Sylvester Stallone, and Mary Woronov competing in a futuristic cross-country drag race (7:40 PM); George Miller's The Road Warrior (1981), which is responsible for all the Mel Gibson movies in the world (10 PM); and Paul Verhoeven's peerless action satire Robocop (1987), with Peter Weller as a metallic policeman cleaning up Detroit (12:15 AM). But the highlight of the evening will undoubtedly be around 9 PM, when Woronov will appear in person to discuss Death Race 2000, Rock 'n' Roll High School, Eating Raoul, and maybe even her career as a go-go dancer with Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable. Music Box, 3733 N. Southport, 773-871-6604. --J.R. Jones

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From the Reader blogs

On Film Ed M. Koziarski: "Mustachioed perverts in a spaceship fire upon a deformed, nude woman daily" in Lale Westvind's "Flesh Gun," screening in Chi(a)nimation All-Stars Sunday at Nightingale.
Friday at 11:37 am