// Category Archive for: Top Five Lists

The Five Scariest Robots In Movies

By Jeffery X Martin

Science fiction gets short shrift in the Halloween season, with so many slashers and bashers running about through summer camps and the dreams of teenagers. Truth is, there’s some pretty creepy sci-fi out there. On an existential level, what’s scarier than something pretending to be human? The concept of mechanical creations with feelings, some of them homicidal, is strangely abhorrent. Humans can’t bear the thought of obsolescence. Take a gander at some terrifying robots. How do you say “trick or treat” in binary?
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Five Amazing Horror Movie Soundtracks That Aren’t The Music From John Carpenter’s Halloween

By Jeffery X Martin

If Halloween has a theme song, it’s probably the familiar interval-switching chromatic scale from the seminal 1978 horror film, Halloween. Even people who haven’t seen the movie recognize that music as soon as they hear it. It ushers in autumn and signals the beginning of Trick-or-Treatery. But the Halloween soundtrack isn’t the only one you can use for your holiday mood setting. Give these other soundtracks a listen! They’ll either warm your cockles or raise your hackles.
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Old Italian Horror Movies? Yes, Please!

By Jeffery X Martin

Halloween is coming. You will watch horror movies. You will do so for reasons you yourself do not comprehend. You will do so because the leaves have turned colors. You will do so because fear is now a corporate commodity. You will do so because it is what society demands.

This year, make a small stand. Put some effort into your scary movie watching. Do not pretend an unkillable man-child in a hockey mask is scary. Do not act like slow zombies are a threat to you in any way. Seek out something new, even if it is a few years old.

This year, go Italian.

The great New Wave of Italian Horror has been over for a while, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some great movies in there that a lot of people haven’t seen. Here are some I think you’ll enjoy, because I personally know you so well and have all of your best interests in mind.
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Five Reasons We Love Nathan Fillion

By Lisa Anderson

Nathan Fillion as
Mal Reynolds on Firefly

Few Canadian actors have been as beloved in the 21st century than Nathan Fillion. He’s perhaps best known for his role as spaceship smuggler captain and war veteran Malcolm Reynolds, in Joss Whedon’s short-lived but influential Firefly series. It’s true enough that Browncoats (Firefly fans) still love their Captain; he even unintentionally set off an online fundraising firestorm last year by suggesting that he would buy the rights to the show and distribute it for free if he had enough money. There are many other reasons that Nathan Fillion has as many fans as he does, though—even aside from being handsome and seeming friendly and funny in interviews and at conventions. Here are are just a few.
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My Five Favorite Controversial and Hilarious Pop Culture Moments on TV

By Ann Clarke

I rarely care about what the famous (and the infamous) do that stirs up controversy or awkwardness . . . but sometimes that shit is just hilarious! I am not talking about “Reality TV” either; I’m talking about the stuff that you weren’t really expecting—but were NOT surprised once it happened—and over which you had a good laugh. There have been plenty of moments like this in pop culture, but I’m only going to list the ones that I could watch over and over again and still laugh at hysterically. In fact, some of these things get funnier upon multiple viewings!
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They Came From The ’70s: Five Faves I Still Enjoy

By Julie Finley

Although for some of these artists, fame came before or after the 1970s, I am solely focusing on their 1970s stuff.
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Top Five 1970s Films Directed by Women

By Chelsea Spear

If your knowledge of the American New Wave begins and ends with the studio films of the era and Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, you may regard 1970s Hollywood as a roiling cauldron of testosterone. The pictures of the day may have featured more complex female protagonists, and may have ushered in an era of unconventional actresses like Shelley Duvall, Ellyn Burstyn, and Barbara Streisand. However, the exploits of Altman, Bogdanovich, Hopper, and Scorsese and their second-string peers left little room for emerging distaff talent.

As any good artist does, however, the female directors of the 1970s found a way around the system and were able to make feature films. Many of these saw distribution at mainstream houses, while others languished, undiscovered until recently. Here are five features helmed by intrepid lady lensers during the Easy Riders/Raging Bulls era.
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Five 1970s Ads That Make Me Facepalm

By Emily Carney

Apparently in the 1970s, taste and class were elements not yet added to advertising pitches. I have several interesting books related to 1970s ads including some truly classy ones. I actually bought these when I briefly studied ad writing in college. I am just going to provide a brief capsule summary of “the best” and I will allow you, dear reader, to write the rest of the scenarios depicted in your skull. Good luck and have fun.
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Five Ubiquitous Scents From The Seventies

By Emily Carney

I was born in 1978, at the tail-end of the 1970s. Most of my formative memories stem from the early 1980s, which were basically an extension of the 1970s well into 1984 (at least in Florida—culturally we got it together kind of late, save for the space shuttle maybe). Many of the most ubiquitous scents from the 1970s still wafted around into the 1980s and beyond. Hell, you can probably walk into any Bealls Outlet store and find these scents on sale. Without further ado, here are some smells you couldn’t escape during the heady times of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
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Five Things You Should Know About NASA Fandom

By Emily Carney

The 30-year-old Space Shuttle program is winding down to its end, scheduled for a last launch of the shuttle Atlantis in June. Sadly, NASA currently has few plans to extend space travel after the shuttle is phased out.

Given this bleak situation, a few loyal “space hipsters” on Blogger and Tumblr have put together some rather unique, often completely hilarious tributes which hearken back to the Good Old Days of Space Flight, specifically from 1961—beginning with the first Mercury missions—through the early days of the shuttle program.

Internet memes which originally were created about cats have now been carried over to legendary astronauts such as Gus Grissom, Alan Shepard, and John Young. Without further ado, here are five things you should probably familiarize yourself with if you’d like to acquaint yourself with the new fandom, the NASA Fandom.
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