Get out the popcorn. It's November.

It's been a whole week since our last science fiction film. It's time for another. This time, we're going to look at misapplied genres. To get you into the mood, let's have some inappropriate music.

Today's Short Subject: Mel Tormé (1925-1999), aka 'The Velvet Fog', was a remarkable jazz singer. He composed 'Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire'. This son of Russian Jewish immigrants was undoubtedly a gifted musician. But did he have to do this rendition of Sunshine Superman? We think not.

Ouch.

Today's Feature Film: First off, Turkish film wasn't exactly at its height in 1982. Heck, nobody's film industry was at its height in 1982. But Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam, or 'The Man Who Saved the World', is a classic in its own right. Also called 'Turkish Star Wars' for reasons which will become instantly obvious, this epic of time and space travel features thrills, spills, actor girl-fights, and completely misplaced philosophical musings on an unimaginably vast scale. All on a limited Turkish budget.

The star of this film, Cüneyt Arkın (no relation to Alan or his son Adam), is sort of a cross between an older Ricardo Montalban (check the hair) and Chuck Norris. He's a martial artist of renown, and a medical doctor. Talk about talented. He has starred in an estimated 248 movies. This guy is really famous in Turkey.

The film gets our personal Gheorgheniplex Award for Most Intriguing Use of Bootlegged Footage. It gets another award for Most Original Use of Hijacked Theme Music. The Indiana Jones bits are particularly satisfying. The score is a real toe-tapper.

To quote an online reviewer: 'Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam is not simply a landmark work of culture-jamming genius…. Neither Roger Corman nor Ed Wood, Jr. ever dreamed of crafting such a magnificent space opera.' (bilim kurgu 2000) How true.

We're bringing this to you because a kind soul on Youtube finally got us a properly subtitled version. None of that 'auto-generated' captioning for this baby. No sirree. This is the ACTUAL dialogue from this epic. And it's worth it. Some of it is even thought-provoking: personally, I agree with Arkin when he says that it was taking themselves so seriously that caused humans to build so many atomic weapons. He's got a point. Bring on more bad Turkish jokes. Turkish jokes for peace, man.

You might feel so good after watching Arkin save the world through philosophy and strategically placed kicks, that you'll want to go back and listen to a decent rendition of Sunshine Superman. This is the real thing: it's got a kitty in.