More things to ID...

[John]

 Ok, here are some more movies I saw and can't remember the names of;

1. A Japanese SF movie (I think it was Japanese, asian at least), that used to turn up on creature features a lot. I think it was in B/W and it started with some aliens holding a meeting on what looked like the surface of the moon. They were really strange looking and had things like cones for heads and motioned with their arms a lot. I believe a narrator says that they decide to send a superhero to Earth to help fight an alien threat. The only other thing I remember is a fight on a train with some creatures that looked like guys in body stockings with claws, fangs and cheesy masks and I believe they could turn into smoke to pass under doors.

2. This one was a made for TV movie from the past decade or so. It was a drama set in a base on the moon and the problems faced by the colonists. In one scene they demonstrate the lower gravity by stepping off a ledge and dropping about 20 feet. I think there was a scene outside with a moon buggy too.

3. A TV movie from a few years ago that was done as a series of news reports. It started with a meteor hitting the Earth and the discussion of whether it was an accident or an attack. Then a second meteor is spotted heading toward the Earth, they manage to destroy it and the movie ends with hundreds of meteors headed toward us.

4. This last one, I'm not sure if it was a movie or an episode of a TV series, possibly even British. Thinking back, I realize that a lot of things turned up on various local channels for a few episodes only to disappear without a trace. Anyway, all I remember is someone (a kid I think) riding a bicycle on a small town road and carrying little people in a basket or box on the back of the bike. I *THINK* they end up falling out without the kid realizing it. It was set in modern times, and I'm pretyy sure it wasn't any version of The Borrowers. I seem to recall that it was a fairly light-hearted movie/show. This would have been some time in the 1980s.

[J.R.]

3. A TV movie from a few years ago that was done as a series of news reports. It started with a meteor hitting the Earth and the discussion of whether it was an accident or an attack. Then a second meteor is spotted heading toward the Earth, they manage to destroy it and the movie ends with hundreds of meteors headed toward us.

I remember that! It was in '94 or '95. It was pretty good. It started looking like a mystery show, with a guy walking toward someone with a knife, then the news reports broke in. It had me fooled until the first commercial break when they said it was staged. I especially remember the meteor being destroyed and the young newscaster saying that tomorrow is his birthday, and the other anchors wish him a happy one, then the barrage of meteors destroys the Earth. Good stuff. I think it was called Meteor or Fire from the sky or something, either really simple or really overblown.

[Cullen]

"1. A Japanese SF movie (I think it was Japanese, asian at least), that used to turn up on creature features a lot. I think it was in B/W and it started with some aliens holding a meeting on what looked like the surface of the moon. They were really strange looking and had things like cones for heads and motioned with their arms a lot. I believe a narrator says that they decide to send a superhero to Earth to help fight an alien threat. The only other thing I remember is a fight on a train with some creatures that looked like guys in body stockings with claws, fangs and cheesy masks and I believe they could turn into smoke to pass under doors."

That might be a Starman/Supergiant movie.  If I've seen one, then it was when I was very young for I don't remember it now.


"3. A TV movie from a few years ago that was done as a series of news reports. It started with a meteor hitting the Earth and the discussion of whether it was an accident or an attack. Then a second meteor is spotted heading toward the Earth, they manage to destroy it and the movie ends with hundreds of meteors headed toward us."


This little bit of nonsense was called Without Warning .  Check out its IMDB entry here .

[Flangepart]

I just read the synopsis on the link. It sounds like a movie i've seen before. A stupid movie! Was there a "Report" about a town disappearing? If i'm right, this thing was a loser.
....Alien's trying to "Communicate" with us...by dropping rocks on us? Hello! Does the word "attack" spring to mind? Another example of illogic poseing as profundity.
....It do sound unplesently familure...........

[John]

>That might be a Starman/Supergiant movie.

 Possibly. Anyone have a link to reviews of these movies? The part about the bad guys doing backflips rings a bell.

>This little bit of nonsense was called Without Warning .

 Thank you! One down, one possible and 2 to go.

>I just read the synopsis on the link. It sounds like a movie i've seen before. A
>stupid movie! Was there a "Report" about a town disappearing?

 Yup, that's the one, but I believe it was just that the people were missing. I was disappointed that that angle was never followed up on.

>....Alien's trying to "Communicate" with us...by dropping rocks on us? Hello!
>Does the word "attack" spring to mind?

 It does to us, but who knows what it would mean to aliens. I often like to think about how different aliens might be and for all we know, offering your open hand might be considered a reason to go to war, while smacking them up side the head might be considered a friendly greeting.

[Cullen]

Dr. Freex has one on The Evil Brain From Outer Space .  I don't think it's the Starman/Supergiant you're looking for - I'd have mentioned it earlier otherwise - but check it out.  Some of the screen captures might ring a bell.

The review is here .

[Squishy]

Heh heh heh. "Without Warning"--done as a "live news report," similar to fellow TV-disaster epic "Special Bulletin"--was indeed a howler. Hey, aliens, here's a tip: if you want to communicate peacefully with us, don't disguise your ships as giant asteroids and burn kids. Just a suggestion. I try to imagine a culture that thinks that's a GOOD thing, but it doesn't work.

Ort: "Ah! A giant asteroid is heading toward our planet! It will impact in minutes!!"
Bort: "Hooray!"
Ort: "Yes! Hooray! Let us celebrate by burning the kids!"

Starman/SuperGiant also appeared in "Atomic Rulers of the World." It's the only one I've seen. Like "Prince of Space" and "Invasion of the Neptune Men," it is a stew made of hashed-up TV episodes. Unfortunately, "Evil Brain" looks like a LOT more fun than the boring "Atomic Rulers;" "Rulers" is all about gangsters and spies chasing little kids in upsetting shorts--no silly-costume kung-fu monsters.

Although, at one point, Starman gets soaking wet and we realize he ain't wearin' nothin' under his thin cotton superhero-jammies. Wow, them's some hairy nipples ya got there, Star. Joel Schumacher sends his love, by the way.

There might be a third Starman/SuperGiant movie out there; I seem to remember hearing of it, but can't remember and nothing on the IMDB rings a bell. The two or three that exist today are available through Something Weird Video (use Google, I'm tired), but frankly, their online site SUCKS. The whole thing is ugly, the buttons stop working almost immediately, and the search engine is the worst I've ever seen. Makes you really appreciate the time and effort that Andrew puts into this place...

[Cullen]

I think in Without Warining there is a line from a scientist claming that humanity was the most violent spieces in the universe, and that, by implication, we brought all of this on ourselves.

It was that soapbox "message" that irritated me the most.

[jmc]

I've discovered that the best way to navigate the SW site is to turn the images off on your browser.  That way it won't timeout while it's trying to load all the boxcover images.

[Flangepart]

Yup.
...."Withour warning". Without sense! I'm sorry....but if the aliens are so smart...woulden't they ALSO have realised the "They might not react as we do to approaching asteroids" reasoning applys to them!
....The "Message" Cullen mentioned. Yeah, that one realy frosted my shorts.
....Hey, lets kidnap a bunch of aliens just reaching out to space, not explain why we are doing it,(Assuming we know their language), and see if they try to nuke our butts, when we approach their planet.
....Yup, makes sense to me.

[Ken Begg]

Murder by Moonlight, a murder mystery set on a Moon base.  (Oddly, the Soviet Union is still extant.)

[John]

>Dr. Freex has one on The Evil Brain From Outer Space . I don't think it's the
>Starman/Supergiant you're looking for - I'd have mentioned it earlier otherwise -
>but check it out. Some of the screen captures might ring a bell.

 The screen caps are exactly what I was remembering, but the title doesn't ring a bell. The info I've found on the net says that those films were edited together from a Japanese serial, so perhaps those scenes were used in other films in the series. Maybe they all start with the alien meeting and have a scene with the fanged spandex mutant. Attack from Space sounds like a more likely title.
Thanks for the info, at least that narrows it down to a particular movie series and given that I can't remember any other details of the movie I saw, maybe it doesn't matter if that's the exact one or not.

>Murder by Moonlight, a murder mystery set on a Moon base. (Oddly, the Soviet >Union is still extant.)

 Nope. The movie I saw didn't have Brigette Neilson in it. AI also don't remember any murder plot.

[Cullen]

Glad I could help.

[Nathan Shumate]

Dear heavens, I think I remember this.  It would have to have been late'70's at the latest, though.

A British serialized story.  A professor and his young protege accidentally put the cubes of shrinking formula into their tea instead of sugar cubes; their adventures included the requisite "giant" spider.

In the bicycle scene, they were trying to throw things out of the basket to pop the tires of a car following them.  They used a mirror, and thumbtacks.

Anyone know what we're talking about?

(In Canada, it was serialized as part of an after-school program block that also ran "Duso [?] the Rain Maker," about a creepy little shrunken head that would open its eyes and start singing and, yup, making rain.)

Nathan

[John]

>Dear heavens, I think I remember this. It would have to have been late'70's at the
>latest, though.

 Might have been shown later here or I might have the time period mixed up.

>A British serialized story. A professor and his young protege accidentally put the
>cubes of shrinking formula into their tea instead of sugar cubes; their adventures
>included the requisite "giant" spider.
>
>In the bicycle scene, they were trying to throw things out of the basket to pop the >tires of a car following them. They used a mirror, and thumbtacks.

 Hmm, that MIGHT be what I saw. I don't recall a chase though.