DESTINATION MARS Review

In the tradition of great film documentaries like FORGOTTEN SILVER, there comes a new Documentary and accompanying film entitled DESTINATION MARS

I keep forgetting to write this baby up, not because it is forgettable... quite the contrary, I've just been insane mad busy and lazy forgetful.

Do you love 50's Sci Fi?

Does the thought of watching a new 50's Sci Fi film get you all wet and juicy?

Are you tired of so much work going into movies that you don't get to use your own imagination any more?

Tired of on-location shooting? Do you crave cardboard sets? Do robots with accordian tubing arms make you pop wood?

Well then DESTINATION MARS is the movie for ya. It is for me too. I don't look at those old sci-fi flicks and think... HA HA, LOOK HOW BAD THAT IS!! HA HA!!! Instead I have a genuine reverence for the world of fifties sci-fi.

Why can't aliens from outer space all be women wanting a man to play with? Why can't a boy and his Boy Scout morse code flashing flashlight communicate with flying saucers (missing the coffee cups atop that is)?

This long lost treasure of cinema has languished too long in the vaults of the FBI... This isn't Red Propaganda... this is a film about our own morbid fascination with death leading to the annihilation of every living thing on the planet Earth!

This is DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, but with everything that made that film great gone!!! And in its place we find Klaatu with tits!!! And they are covered in some sort of space sequined looking thing... And she has a cut bob hair cut with the Sue Storm upturns on the end... Sigh...

Basically the long forgotten filmmaker of DESTINATION MARS was making a DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL meets PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE meets EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS flick... and really... when you think about that... can you imagine anything more fun to watch with an assload of your best friends... Hurling back fermented oats and grain and becoming one with the 50's Sci-Fi.... Don't fight it... Become 50's Sci Fi.... You can do it....

The documentary at the beginning that precedes this long lost treasure really shows how painfully hard filmmaking has been... for quite some time.... Not only that, but the fact that you could finish the film and have the United States Government confiscate it and declare it a work of Communism, when the very concept of the film was to CAPITALIZE on the film world to make a PROFIT!!! Sound like Communism to you? Me Neither....

I have no idea what is going on with DESTINATION MARS... or how the rest of you good folks in the world can see it, but DARK HORSE (yes the comic company) picked up the rights and so it is in their court now... Will we see a straight to Video release? Be a shame if this forgotten classic never saw the interior of Mann's Chinese... ya know? Well folks... I'll find out where this flick is, and let you know...

At BUTT-NUMB-A-THON last year, this was the film that folks kept reminding me of... all night and next day long... I'd get up to talk about the next film and they'd remind me by various vocalizations all about DESTINATION MARS... It definitely follows in the tradition of Ed Wood Jr...