The History Of Product Placement In Science Fiction

Science fiction is all about showing us new and startling worlds — and it doesn't hurt to sell a few widgets along the way. Like Eureka, which recently proved that you can save the world using Degree antiperspirant. Or the Sarah Connor Chronicles, which showed on Monday that a certain brand of car is the official vehicle of the anti-robot resistance. Product placement has been a part of science fiction for decades, but it's grown as the genre has become big business. Here's our history of the phenomenon since the beginning. More »

Indiana Jones Delivers the Best X-Files Movie of Summer

It's not necessarily a good sign when you can only describe the latest entry in one summer franchise, Indiana Jones, by reference to another franchise, X-Files. that is also pumping out a summer movie. And yet the whole time I was watching Steven Spielberg's serviceable little action flick, full of Harrison Ford's trademark lopsided smile (still cute) and jungle chases (still pulptastic), all I could think about was how this was the movie X-Files: I Want to Believe should be. It had exotic locales, new agey aliens, marvelously bad pseudo-science, and a plucky male-female team at its heart. I mean, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is X-Files with monkey jokes instead of paraphilias. But is that a good thing? Weirdly, yes. More »