John Muir

Charlotte, North Carolina

Critic and Contributor at Freelance

Award-winning creator of the audio drama Enter The House Between (2023), and the new web series, Abnormal Fixation, coming soon. Author of The X-Files FAQ.

Articles

John Muir: My Boyhood

3 days ago | theatlantic.com | John Muir

I. When I was a boy in Scotland I was fond of everything that was wild, and all my life I’ve been growing fonder and fonder of wild places and wild creatures. Fortunately, around my native town of Dunbar, by the stormy North Sea, there was no lack of wildness, though most of the land lay in smooth cultivation.
John Kenneth Muir's Reflections on Cult Movies and Classic TV

6 days ago | reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.com | John Muir

Historically-speaking, the science fiction and fantasy cinema has battled high camp -- a form of art notable because of its exaggerated or over-the-top attributes -- for over six decades. That long battle is definitively lost in Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975), a tongue-in-cheek film adaptation of the pulp magazine hero (or superhero) created by Henry W. Ralston and story editor John L. Nanovi (with additional material from Lester Dent) in the 1930s.
John Kenneth Muir's Reflections on Cult Movies and Classic TV

2 weeks ago | reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.com | John Muir

Roger Moore’s final cinematic outing as James Bond, A View to a Kill (1985), is not generally considered one of the better titles in the 007 canon. In fact, the critical consensus suggests precisely the opposite. Most aficionados consider the film to be Moore’s worst title, and place it in the (dreadful) company of Diamonds are Forever (1971), Sean Connery’s last canon film, and Die Another Die (2002), Pierce Brosnan’s final Bond film.
John Kenneth Muir's Reflections on Cult Movies and Classic TV

2 weeks ago | reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.com | John Muir

The third Die Hard film re-establishes the action franchise’s reputation for excellence…with a vengeance. The highest grossing American film of 1995, Die Hard with a Vengeance -- directed by John McTiernan -- thrives so fully as a work of art and a splendid entertainment because it lets go of many of the series’ past-their-prime characters, settings, and ideas.
20 Years Later: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)

2 weeks ago | reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.com | John Muir

Revenge of the Sith (2005)finds the Galactic Republic embroiled in a Civil War with Separatists. Indeed, "War" is the very first word that appears in the film, on that famous yellow crawl. Chancellor Palpatine (in office long past his term...) has been captured by the Separatists, and after an incredible space battle, Jedi Knights Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) board the craft of General Grievous and Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) to rescue him.
John Kenneth Muir's Reflections on Cult Movies and Classic TV

1 month ago | reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.com | John Muir

[This post is #7 on our Top 10 JKM Posts in 20 Years Countdown. This one has been read 20, 820 times as of this re-post. Originally published November 12, 2010.]Today, we turn our attention to 1984's quirky and heart-felt The NeverEnding Story (1984), a child-like, innocent fantasy film made in Germany by director Wolfgang Peterson. His is a name you will recognize immediately for his efforts in the genre like Enemy Mine (1985) and those outside it too, such as Das Boot (1981).
John Kenneth Muir's Reflections on Cult Movies and Classic TV

1 month ago | reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.com | John Muir

I first saw director George Lucas’s blockbuster space opera when I was seven years-old. Up to that point, I had never witnessed a fantasy/sci-fi/monster movie crafted on such a grand scale, or one presented with such an incredible, unshakable sense of reality.
20 Years/Top 10 JKM Posts: #9: Space:1999 Eagle 1 Spaceship; Mattel (1976)

1 month ago | reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.com | John Muir

[This post originally ran on July 11, 2012 and is the 9th most read article on the site at the 20 year anniversary point.]This Mattel Eagle 1 Spaceship (1976) remains my all-time favorite toy, hands-down. In part, I favor this 1970's Mattel toy because it comes from my all-time favorite science fiction TV series, Space: 1999 (1975 – 1977). But in part it is also because the toy is downright colossal: over 2.5 feet long, as the box trumpets.
John Kenneth Muir's Reflections on Cult Movies and Classic TV

1 month ago | reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.com | John Muir

"God said let us make man in our own image after our likeness. But image does not mean outer image, or every statue or photograph would be man. It means the inner image, the spirit, the soul...but what of those in our midst who do not have individual souls or spirits?...They have the look of man, but not the nature of mankind."- Reverend George (Mark Hamill) discusses "the children" of Midwich in John Carpenter's Village of the Damned.
John Kenneth Muir's Reflections on Cult Movies and Classic TV

1 month ago | reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.com | John Muir

Fifty years after it was produced, Paul Bartel and Roger Corman's Death Race 2000 (1975) remains an example of exhilarating, go-for-broke, low-budget science fiction film making. Of course, the "futuristic" film is undeniably brutal and bloody too, so much so that Roger Ebert awarded the film "zero stars" and contemplated leaving a screening early upon the film's initial release. Yet the decades have been kind to Death Race 2000.