I wasn't crazy about this movie the first time I saw it. On a visual level, it's stunningly psychedelic, but I guess I was expecting something more, being that my two favorite movies of all time - 2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes - are both also from 1968. Then again, so was Astro Zombies, so maybe I should have given Barbarella more slack.

On second viewing, I found myself enjoying Barbarella a lot more. It's essentially…

Barbarian movies have been hard to come by since the days of Conan the Barbarian, Beastmaster, Deathstalker, Ator the Fighting Eagle, and the like, so I had high hopes for this movie when I saw the trailer, and it did not disappoint.

I remember seeing a lot of people clowning on the trailer, saying it looked cheap and corny, and I thought, what do you expect from a barbarian movie? I guess they knew it was based on a comic…

It isn't the best sci-fi film of the '50, not by a longshot, but it's my personal favorite, mainly because it takes all the best tropes from all the best '50s sci-fi movies and combines them all in one package. From It Came from Outer Space, you get the alien crashing its saucer in the desert, hiding in a cave, and controlling residents of a nearby town. From The Day the Earth Stood Still, you get the alien stopping all…

I won't go so far as to say that this is the best superhero movie I've ever seen, though it's definitely in the conversation. I won't even say it's the best Superman movie I've ever seen, though it's certainly in the top 3 along with Superman: The Movie and Superman II. What I will say is that this movie "gets" the superhero genre in general, and the Superman character in particular, better than any movie I've seen.

The cast was…