Cross The Streams: Defiance, Starship Troopers, And Lynchian Shorts Go Online
Find out what's new on Netflix, Hulu, and more.
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To stream, or not to stream? It’s not even a question. Here’s this week’s limited round-up of what hit the Internet this week.
Defiance (Hulu)
We’ve talked about it in the past, and it recently debuted to pretty solid ratings. This Syfy series from Rockne S. O’Bannon, Kevin Murphy, and Michael Taylor, which also has its own online FPS video game, tells the futuristic story of a badass and his charge who arrive in the border town Defiance 30 years after an war with aliens left Earth a very different place. You’ll be able to follow along with this one weekly if you miss the live viewing and your DVR is clogged.
Starship Troopers (Crackle)
This CGI bug fest is adapted from Robert A. Heinlein novel in a manner that is looser than the women of the red light district, but it still manages to be a decent popcorn movie that makes a good time of watching a ragtag group of bug killers killing bugs. Honestly, the thing I remember most about this movie is the fact that Casper Van Dien’s career has often scraped the gutter ever since. I was very close to featuring noobz, a video game-focused film he was in that just hit Netflix Instant, but it didn’t warrant its own paragraph. Booyah.
The Short Films of David Lynch (Hulu)
While these six films don’t exactly count as science or science fiction, Lynch is such a surreal guy that doesn’t quite fit into any other genre — except possibly paranoid fantasy — and there’s a definite crossover in fan of both Lynch and sci-fi, so there you go. Except for the 34-minute The Grandmother, whose dark vision is the most famous of this bunch, the films are all under five minutes, and while The Alphabet may cause nightmares, Six Men Getting Sick will undoubtedly bring about some fun daydreams.
Storage 24 (Netflix Instant)
From vaguely horrific things to actual sci-fi horror. Storage 24 is a UK film, focusing on the after-effects of a military plane crash in London. A group of people get trapped inside of a storage building with said after-effects. No one is safe! Not a bad premise, and Doctor Who‘s Noel Clarke, who also co-wrote, is decent enough in it, but the story and most of the characters are kind of a drag. It’s like Super 8, if Super 8 were written and directed by the people that brought you Storage 24.
The Best of Red Vs. Blue (Hulu)
This spot-on parody of FPS video games, science fiction films, and war life is the creation of indie filmmaker Bernie Burns and Rooster Teeth Productions. It pits — oddly enough — the Reds against the Blues in a mass civil war, only it might not even be that. While The Best of… compilations aren’t usually the greatest fun for fans, it could be a good way for noobs to join in on the gamer-inspired fun.
Ancient Alien Question & Alien From Area-51 (Redbox Instant)
Get a double dose of non-critical thinking from these two documentaries that are sure to change your mind completely about whatever you thought wasn’t more important than watching these. Redbox Instant is full of this kind of garbage, but rare occasions call for this kind of thing. Also see: Aliens, UFOs, & Mutilations: Are We Next?
Rise of the Zombies (Netflix Instant)
If you’re looking for a zombie film that’s about as smart as those alien documentaries, this is the one for you. Go ahead and let yourself be fooled by a cast list that includes Danny Trejo, LeVar Burton, Ethan Supplee, French Stewart, and Mariel Hemingway, and a plot that involves a zombie attack at Alcatraz. What could go wrong? There isn’t enough time to get into that answer.
For a better zombie tie-in, how about this College Humor skit, “The Walking Dead Meets Congress,” even though it came out a little over a week ago. Where was my brain last week?
