The Gymnasium, wow. Either they really didn’t put any effort into this or they just wanted us to feel super nostalgic. I turn to the sign-in table and pick up my name tag attaching it to my shirt.

This is easily one of my favorite films we’ve had at Other Worlds, and not just because of the simple nostalgic trappings. It’s clear a lot of love for the horror genre went into this; no trope is left unused, every cliché and contradiction is questioned and embraced.

Let's talk about my slight backless stairs phobia. I HATE THEM. They creep me out. I always assume something is going to be hiding behind them ready to grab my ankles.

There are some real clickbait-worthy celebrity gossip stories floating around the internet that are so easy to dismiss in the light of day. That said, once you lay down and your brain casually is like “hey Robyn remember that Twitter thread about how Avril Lavigne died in between the release of her first and second album and was replaced by her body double Melissa Vandella?”, all of a sudden it’s 2am and you’re down the rabbit hole with no hope of escape.

Did you know that the original Ultimate Warrior died in 1991? And he was replaced by an impostor Ultimate Warrior portayed by Kerry Von Erich starting in 1992? Because it totally happened.

Back in 1947, something completely unremarkable happened. Our tiny little insignificant planet was visited by an interstellar voyager.

He went on to create iconic worlds full of memorable music, scenes, comedy bits, and characters. His humor was wholesome, silly, and full of word play. If you ever want any insight to what Jim Henson was like, just look to Kermit the Frog: Kermit was Jim.

Once the realization set in, all I could do was cry and listen to the beloved Bowie songs I grew up with. That night I joined a packed theater at Alamo Drafthouse Lakeline thanks to James Pound who threw together an impromptu David Bowie dance party.

My reaction when hearing of a celebrity death is typically “Oh. Well that’s a shame.” And then Anthony Bourdain killed himself.

Reactions to the deaths of celebrities are strange when you stop to think about them. These are people we didn’t know. When one does pass on, we usually celebrate their work… So what do you do when one passes on in a horrific way that doesn’t call for celebration?

To this day, I see posts reminding me and others who may be suffering with their own mental health issues, that “Space Mom would want us to take our meds and take care of ourselves.”

I think one of the things I subconsciously appreciated the most about the artist was the way he often took on a female voice in his songs, singing from a perspective that was rarely heard in rock and roll. His was an ambiguous, androgynous, amorphous sexuality in the same way David Bowie’s had been in the decade prior.

The movies got it all wrong when it comes to traveling through a wormhole. I wasn’t in an empty space, and there were no crazy lights flashing. No, it was me and a bunch of worms. Who knew?

I’ll discuss some of the most dynamite scenes in SciFi that blew up our imagination, in no particular order. (Most of these films are over 20 years old and I shouldn't worry about people crying about spoilers, but we live in a society where people blame me for their not watching classics. So, here is a warning for potential explosive spoilers ahead).

In David Levy’s book Love and Sex with Robots, he predicts by 2025 “at the latest, artificial-emotion technologies” will allow robots to be more emotionally available than the typical American human male (though that bar is fairly low). This just proves my point — sex/love robot stories should always be about male robots! Why don’t we have any of those?!

We get alter-egos, ambitious storylines, and style to boot. I've compiled a grouping of videos that run the gamut from robots to aliens to scientists.

Back in the day, we waited in line because we had to. That was the only way to see the show. By contrast, a month before its release, THE FORCE AWAKENS had already surpassed $50 million in advanced ticket sales, breaking the overall record more than eight times over.

In THE TRIBE, director Roxy Shih explores the "post-apocalyptic wasteland" setting with a new type of hero: the teenage girl.

Revisiting the band M83’s “Hurry Up We’re Dreaming” Trilogy: three music videos over which unfolds a tale of the escape, chase, and subsequent freedom of a group supernaturally gifted children. It is awesome.

Happy Independence Day, also known as the anniversary of the day Will Smith saved the entire human race in 1996. While hardly the most prolific actor working, Will Smith does seem to save the world more than his fair share of times.