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In the Terminator films, the audience is often treated to the perspective of these cybernetic organisms sent from the future to change the past. This red-hued vision makes assessments and executes routines faster than the human eye can perceive — but if you watch a certain scene in the first movie frame-by-frame, you may spot some familiar algorithms.

Read the rest of this entry at Computerworld.com »

This weekend, RiffTrax presented its fans with a new gift: RiffTrax DIY. Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett have recorded hundreds of sound clips that you can drag and drop to any time index in any video, using their Web-based editing tool. This free product creates the potential for fans to apply the style and wit of Mike, Kevin, and Bill to design MST3K-style parodies of any practically video in existence! Budding artists have already used it to riff on everything from Batman & Robin to Sailor Moon. (Me, I just used it to mock my brother) Any riff made through September 6th is also eligible for fantastic prizes!

The genius of the tool is that it can import any YouTube video. In fact, this is required to use RiffTrax DIY, as stated in their FAQ: "RiffTrax DIY does not store or host any videos. All videos are provided courtesy of other websites. If you wish to Riff your own video, you need to host it on YouTube and come back to RiffTrax DIY with the URL." Apparently, what RiffTrax does is save your custom audio overlays and play them with someone else's video track — just like a real RiffTrax! And completely free of copyright infringement, too. The downside is that the site currently does not check to see if a video has any riffs enabled before saving it to the DIY directory, creating the potential for the site to become cluttered with YouTubers looking for a new distribution channel.

The site is currently in beta. The designers are aware of bugs such as the longer riffs cutting off during preview; also, I hope in later versions, watching your own movies when logged in as yourself will not count toward its number of views. More sound effects are also coming, which is great: even the hundreds currently available don't take long to hear.

Features still to come include the ability to upload your own audio riffs, and to export your final product. I question the value of either of these options. First, anyone who can record and upload their own audio probably has the hardware and software to be doing their own editing, without the need for RiffTrax DIY. Second, YouTube doesn't allow video exportation; why should RiffTrax? Not only that, but I'm such a fan of RiffTrax that I want people to have to go to this site to watch these riffs. The traffic is well-deserved!

So go ahead and get riffing — and reply here with your favorites!

Thus begins one of the most kickass films of all time.

I may be perceived as a stereotypical, testosterone-driven ape when I declare the explosion-laden Terminator 2 to be one of my favorite movies ever, but only the superficial viewer would make such a judgment. T2 is a film about perseverance, courage, family, and free will. It has moments of introspection that are both poignant and terrifying, not just for the audience but for the characters, leading our female protagonist to break down in tears when she realizes she has become that which she most abhors. She is not alone, as we all see our own fears played out in this film: not only our own internal struggles, but also that artifact of the Cold War: the futility of resistance against total annihilation, depicted in what several U.S. federal nuclear testing labs unofficially declared "the most accurate depiction of a nuclear blast ever created for a fictional motion picture."

Even now that the film's special effects are not as groundbreaking as they were in 1991, or now that the jaw-dropping twist — when the hero and villain reveal their identities, shattering our expectation of who to root for — is well-known, this film still stands the test of time, with a title character who is both a hero and villain for all ages.

So happy tenth anniversary to the realization of your worst nightmare. May you live only to face a new horror…

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Considered "the zenith of the Trek feature films", I agree this film began the even-numbered successes that persisted until Nemesis. The tie-in to the original series, Ricardo Montalban as the villain, and the ending were all fantastic facets… but for all that, I still think I prefer the more lighthearted The Voyage Home.

Blade Runner
I confess that the one time I tried watching this was a decade ago and I just couldn't get into it; I turned it off probably before it got interesting. (Confession #2: I was bored by Tolkien's books, too.) Without lambasting me, could someone tell me what I'm missing?

TRON
What more can I say about this film, other than my previous recollections and my own 25th anniversary commemoration? Though I do wish I could combine this film with one of my favorite geek shows:

In 2004, I was witness to a theatrical screening of TRON as Chris Hanel (occasionally of TheForce.net and The Truly Dangerous Company; now of Geekza) and his cronies performed a live MST3K lampoon. I've been wanting to get my hands on that script ever since. Considering his podcast recently interviewed Mike Nelson of RiffTrax, I'd think some sort of collaborative MP3 should be possible.

The Dark Crystal
I haven't seen this film since my age could be counted without taking off my shoes. My parents thought this Muppet movie perfectly palatable to a young, impressionable mind (similar to their misinformed opinion on Watership Down: "Oh, a cartoon about talking bunnies!"). In hindsight, The Dark Crystal may've been one of the films that engendered my preference for dark, edgy stories. It's a wonder my mother didn't worry when her third-grade son brought home from the library every book he could find on vampires and werewolves; nowadays, that'd be grounds to see the school counselor. (Course, in my day, schools didn't have counselors…)

Look for a sequel next year.

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
Another movie not seen in a score of years — though anything scored by local-boy-done-good John Williams is okay by me. Funny that Drew Barrymore went on to become a household name (and one of my co-stars); whereas Elliott did not. Who even knows the actor's name? (Psst — it's Henry Thomas.) Too bad — he's still quite a prolific actor.

Conan the Barbarian
I've not read Robert E. Howard's original pulp series, nor the Marvel comic books, both of which this Arnold Schwarzenegger film is based on. But I'll be in the minority of preferring the film's sequel, Conan the Destroyer, to the original; I found the follow-up to be a more classic Dungeons & Dragons romp.

Either way, the film's success warranted slapping its name on an otherwise unrelated gaming property. Conan: Hall of Volta supplied many happy hours of Apple II gaming.

Also featured in Geek Monthly but which I've never seen:

• Poltergeist
• Cat People
• The Thing
• The Road Warrior

And other anniversaries this year:

• Close Encounters of the Third Kind: 30 years
• Masters of the Universe: 20 years
• Robocop: 20 years
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: 20 years

What films or occasions are you observing this year?

I made a point of watching the film on August 29th, 1997, the supposed Judgment Day. If only the franchise had ended there: Terminator 3 is best summed up in the final words of my review. "A great movie? Yes. A great Terminator film? No."

Now, the blasphemy continues: the tenth anniversary of the war against the machines will be commemorated with The Sarah Connor Chronicles, a television series detailing the years between the second and third films. (News courtesy of StarTrek.com)

I question Terminator's capacity to exist in this medium. Are we looking at an Incredible Hulk-type "wandering hero" format, with Sarah and John Connor, on the lam from the future, doing good deeds until a robotic Mr. McGee catches up with them? Will it have the budget for action sequences that made the first two films so legendary? How will the show tie into next year's supposed Terminator 4 film? Never mind that this show will be the first incarnation of the series to omit Arnold Schwarzenegger. But hey, it worked for Predator, right? Err…

I can't think of any movie that has successfully spun off into a television series: My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Uncle Buck… well, okay, there's Buffy. So maybe the rule of thumb is that, between a movie and a TV show, at least one will bite. If so, Terminator passed that threshold long ago.

Though I'm thrilled at (and jealous of) the opportunity of an actress from my hometown to attach her name to as geeky a franchise as this, I'd rather the series had been terminated gracefully sixteen years ago.