Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-Review by Professor Popinjay

I’m still working on an arduous humor article but I grow ever more satisfied with it as I research and write. It’s taking a while though so I thought I’d take a break and do something easy and mindless. So here’s another Non-review!

It’s Spaced Invaders! A film about little green men from outer space who happen to land on our planet during Halloween, just in time to not be taken seriously by anyone.

It’s a hilarious premise and the execution is pretty dang good. The one liners are a bit pithy and dated, even for 1990. Stealing the show in my opinion is little J.J. Anderson who was doing a superb Daffy Duck impression even while not fully dressed as a duck. The kid just never stopped being Daffy Duck. I’d bet his mother made the duck costume for him to match his assumed personality and Halloween is the one day he can go into public without being tracked by befuddled hunters.

There’s some debate as to whether or not this is Ariana Richard’s (of Jurrasic Park fame) first credited role or first name on the poster role or something like that mainly because this film was in post production for a long time.

I love the throw away line explaining why Ariana’s Halloween costume was way better than everyone else’s. “Oh my uncle works in movie special effects” or something to that effect. It’s always hilarious to me to see the Halloween Costumes people have in movies. Either they’re blowing a ton of money or someone’s mom is going above and beyond. Or dad. I probably went above and beyond a bit with my kiddos back when I had the time. Still, the costumes I made didn’t hold a candle to the ones people supposedly just whipped together in movies. Ain’t nobody got that kind of time and money.

Here’s me as the Green Gerblin. Just tore up a purple hoodie basically. I only got the top half assembled. It’s a work in progress.

My absolute favorite role was that of the mind controlled guy dressed as Zorro, who gets put in charge building “the distraction”. I don’t think he ever goes back to normal. He’s just stuck that way and nobody realizes or seems to care. He reminded me a bit of Arty, the strongest MaAaAaAN??? (in the world), from The Adventures of Pete and Pete. That was such a weird show. Loved it.

The alien’s reaction to hearing War of the World’s over the radio and the radio DeeJay’s reaction to the aliens is pretty great too.

The heads the aliens had to wear rendered vision almost impossible which added to their bungling. It made total sense for their characters.

Fun movie. Great one for the kids and a good pick for Halloween.

Whelp, back to the grindstone for me.