It’s time to pick on babies and monkeys, because
The Andromeda Strain is the Greatest Movie EVER!
This movie contains:
One Unfortunate Monkey.
SCIENCE!
Pyramid Head?
Your Tax Dollars at Work.
Radiation-Munching Space Germs!
The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast
Reviewing only the finest films in the history of cinema. And robots, too.
The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast 
I remember the film with fondness–good ensemble cast too. James Olsen, Kate Reid give terrific performances. Not as stupid as most cinematic SF–and another good one from that time was “Phase IV”. An under-appreciated little gem. Thanks for this…
Cool. MOM is going to wine country. Any way she can bring me back a good bottle of Merlot?
I think that “Epic” by Faith No More is the song you were thinking about.
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How would they not know that she was epileptic? It’s not as though blinking red lights are uncommon in the world.
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I’m surprised that you didn’t mention “Jurassic Park”, which had that same Crichton theme of a disaster happening because people placed all their trust in a dysfunctional system.
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In the new “Andromeda Strain” miniseries, the space virus turns people into zombies. Yeeeeah.
Actually, if those scientists work in a bioweapons facility they’ve probably seen some pretty nasty stuff. A convulsing monkey wouldn’t even faze them, when they’ve watched the effects of weaponised Ebola, airborne gangrene, enhanced tuberculosis…
Yeah, the song I was thinking of is “Epic” by Faith No More. I even thought so at the time, but I held back because I was uncertain and didn’t want to come off as a poser. I should have gone with my gut instinct.
To Eduardo,
Anything for you, Eddie. Just caught you last night on Burn Notice. We taped the whole series and play “Where’s Eduardo? I enjoy it, miss Miami. M.O.M.
I’m surprised there was no mention at the references in Evangelion to this movie. There’s tons of them. When I belonged to the EvaML, I had a whole section of the Eva FAQ devoted to them. Some are obvious like the “601” error and the flashes on light in the sky, while others are subtle, like the telephone call being intercepted for “national security”.
One of the things that’s amazing about Michael Crichton is how faithful to the books movies made based on his works are. They’re not always good movies (Sphere, Timeline), but they’re always surprisingly faithful, and Andromeda Strain is a poster child for this. The only real difference between book and movie is the “military bio-weapons” subplot, which wasn’t in the book at all.
Curses! Beaten to a review of one of my all-time favorite films!
Good episode, this. It hit upon all of the high points that I enjoy, from its extended hard sci-fi decontamination sequence (it’s almost fetishistic in its loving detail) to the amounts of bureaucratic red tape through which the scientists must cut before they can get anything done outside Wildfire.
Only thing not mentioned that I would have is the scene where Dr. Hall comments on the sexy automated voice the base uses.
Truth be told, I don’t think I could’ve done much better than what Goob and MOM produced. Excellent job!
RAGWEED POLLEN.
[blockquote]Only thing not mentioned that I would have is the scene where Dr. Hall comments on the sexy automated voice the base uses.[/blockquote]
I love that scene, too. It looks like Dr. Hall has a total bonerkill when he hears the truth about the voice. You could almost hear the “wah-wah-waaaaah” on the soundtrack.
The Bible is my favorite film adaptation of one of Michael Crichton’s works. It’s a good movie. In fact, it’s THE Good Movie. And it keeps me regular.
The Andromeda Strain is good in its own right, but its most tragic symptom is the fact that once infected, you can no longer play the sliiiiiiiiide…tromboooooone.
MOM loves me! cool. Maybe I can convince the Burn Notice guys to let me bring a “hi MOM” sign next time I do it.