The Sci-Fi List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

[therewillbeblus]

Apparently. I never felt the levels of empathy my friends did when animals died in movies as part of the fictional narrative, probably because I never having had a pet myself growing up, but since parenting cats over the last two years I've quickly acclimated to comprehend that emotional connection. However, I've always been disturbed by real animals being tortured on film- something about the powerlessness of their position yet being sentient beings bothers me to no end. The only movie that has made me feel ill while watching was Cannibal Holocaust, when the turtle is torn apart while alive in real life on camera. I'm not exactly an animal rights activist, but this stuff just feels objectively unethical, and I barely believe in objective morality to begin with.

[colinr0380]

Imagine it being okay to put a human actor through that. Is there a difference because it's a monkey?

That is an interesting point because I think that the monkey's seizures as it loses consciousness are kind of intentionally meant to parallel with Dr Leavitt's epilepsy and own seizure in the final act of the film. Presumably in Kate Reid's case that was all acting though!

Perhaps the primary theme of The Andromeda Strain however (as in all of Critchton's work really) is that tension between cool, clinical (callous?) detachment and the irrationalities and failings of the living being, prone to disease, disorder and fatal system collapse. With of course the irony that the (treated as infallible) computer systems, and eventually the scientific complex and even the film itself in the final moments, collapses due to the overwhelming mass of data that it is unable to process; and that the breakthrough in understanding the transmission of the disease comes about less through detached clinical analysis than understanding the outside factors better, such as why only the 'extremists' survive exposure, or the way that the 'human flaws' within the scientists themselves become key to understanding the situation (and which applies just as much to the handling of the disease as to the working environment and the failures of the bureaucracy that almost causes a larger crisis by its casual application of nuclear weaponry as a cleansing agent!)

Failure to take into account human (or animal, or virus) nature breaking all of the rules and surprisingly evolving to adapt to alien environments is usually the thing that could have been avoided with a bit of forethrought and flexibility in designing and setting up a social structure but often leads to inevitable disaster in everything from Westworld and The Terminal Man to this film and Jurassic Park. It is even present in Rising Sun to some extent, where the rigid system of Japanese corporate culture almost gets undermined from within by the murder occurring within the seemingly infallible walls (and literally on the boardroom table) that requires a huge amount of cutting edge technological ingenuity to attempt to cover up. Whilst our American investigators, used to living within a compromised and messy world, are able to come at the investigation from a different and perhaps more humane angle less concerned with upholding honour, social roles and proper cultural etiquette in order to root out the perpetrator (who perhaps has been corrupted by living in the West for too long into taking things too far?). Even if they can never bring their suspect to justice as ranks quickly close again and, just as no failure is brooked, neither is any admission of any inherent fallibility of 'the system'. So in the end nothing changes and if there are lessons to be 'learnt', they are quickly brushed aside, if not consciously ignored to carry on with business as usual. Maybe this time the failings were just an aberration and next time we try it (or in Dr Leavitt terms, if I can just run those samples one more time maybe I won't have a seizure!), it will all work out just fine!

(This all actually makes me curious to see Timeline now, which I had written off at the time a bit as being A Sound of Thunder-lite, since I cannot imagine a group of Critchton protagonists not completely messing up the space-time continuum by experimenting with time travel!)

[Rayon Vert]

Countdown (Altman 1967). (1st viewing) One of the very few films by the director I hadn’t seen yet. The Americans learn the Russians are about to send men on the moon and given the Apollo program isn’t ready they hurriedly devise a plan to send a single astronaut up on a one-way rocket and find a shelter pod until the rest of the team can join him months later. The international ego battle is mirrored by the conflicts over designating the lead astronaut (James Cann or Robert Duvall), as well as over balancing safety vs. time concerns. The rest plays a bit like Howard’s Apollo 13, with the mission facing potentially deadly technical failures. There’s nothing recognizably Altmanesque here in the style of the film, who apparently was fired because he was including overlapping dialogue (which isn’t in the finished product). Both the drama and suspense dimensions are merely adequate, while the moon sequences stand out a little badly for not figuring in gravity that’s different to Earth’s! The ending is also pretty weak. Quite forgettable on the whole… which makes it still a lot better than Quintet! (And of course a very young Michael Murphy had to be here as well, as he is in seemingly every film by the director.)


Soylent Green (Fleischer 1973). (1st viewing) It’s a bit like Planet of the Apes in terms of heading towards a key moment at the end when Charlton Heston making a shocking discovery. Yeah I didn’t think too much of the film, which for a lot of it is this pretty dull police procedural, with not much in the way of good acting - apart from Robinson, that is, who’s likeable as usual. Pretty undistinguished visuals too.


Frankenstein (Whale 1931). (revisit) Quick rewatch for potential inclusion and ranking purposes. You could make a list project probably just out of all the adaptations of Shelley’s novel, and so many other sci fi film are variations on that basic story (Upgrade, Ex Machina, Blade Runner are a few I’ve seen in this project that come to mind). A few things I noticed this time that I wonder if they’re in the source novel I haven’t read: that electromagnetic radiation wavelength Dr. Frankenstein has discovered (a “ray” beyond ultraviolet) that is supposedly the key element in the “creation” process; and the fact that apparently the rebooting of this previous-user’s brain only turns on the hardware but none of its software (language, memories, sense of preexisting self, i.e. the monster reacting to things as if he’s experiencing them for the first time).


Under the Skin (Glazer 2013). (1st viewing) I feel kind of silly sometimes writing-up these great films everyone’s seen and commented on for years already. Anyway, I’ll echo twbb’s comments earlier about the formal achievement this is (and I agree on his reading of the themes). I was completely taken by the magic of cinema on display here, what the photography, acting, editing and score is able to create, and I wasn’t expecting such an art film made up as much of visual lyricism as narrative - really a perfect blend in this sense -, but it becomes obvious evident that that was the best way to create the proper sense of complete otherness and detachment. (The fact that dialogue is kept at a minimum seems part of the recipe there as well.) It’s remarkable how the filmmakers are able to sustain this deeply felt sense through the film’s entirely. An often breathtakingly beautiful film as well in terms of its images of cities and landscapes (with the feeling of early 80s Godard at times), as if it takes an alien consciousness to reveal to us the beauty of the world. It goes without saying this makes my list.


Sexmission (Machulski 1984). (1st viewing) A Polish satirical comedy where a hibernation experiment for two men that was supposed to last three years has them waking up instead fifty-three years later, in a totalitarian world now populated only by women (reproducing through parthenogenesis). Placing the film in the historical context, it’s not that hard to read the political critique, but with the pronounced gender angle that’s at the heart of the film it obviously has other satirical targets as well. The comedy is very broad and it’s not always hysterically funny but it has its moments and it’s very likeable overall, in no small part due to the performance of Jerzy Stuhr.


The Host (Bong 2006). (1st viewing) Pretty impressive for the monster flick genre, and it’s interesting how it mixes so many disparate elements: big action, family drama, comedy, satire. My favorite scene was the moment when the family comes together (in all its disunity!) for the mass funeral and how that sequence of melodramatic distress is staged and played: it’s so highly pitched, à la Rocco and His Brothers, that it’s somehow both poignant and funny at the same time. Perhaps a little overambitious though and despite the quality of the script and direction it ended up feeling a bit long at the end, and in its resolution still left with some of the predictability of these kinds of films.

[Mr Sausage]

None of those bits from Frankenstein are in the novel. The novel is vague about the actual process of reanimation, and there’s nothing about dead brains maintaining characteristics from their previous owners.

I recommend the novel. It holds up much better than Dracula.

[Rayon Vert]

I should read both of those someday.

[Michael Kerpan]

One of the things I love about Host is the fact that it teams BAE Doo-na and her young friend (and mentee) GO Ah-sung (who starred as aunt and niece in a woefully under-appreciated 6-TV-movie series a year or two earlier (Beating Heart a/k/a Six Love Stories).

[therewillbeblus]

For what it's worth, Frankenstein was the only novel I read in pre-college English classes that I recall thoroughly enjoying both the book and the subsequent discussions on the themes (I wish I could remember the specifics of that fire/ice weeks-long analysis!) - I was a voracious reader but hated being told what to read and how to process its content (until higher ed), and yet Shelley's work surprised me, even though I'd seen the movie(s) already and thought I knew the story. It was much, much better and different than I expected (prompting me to start a screenplay that would be a more faithful adaptation, but that didn't pan out). That's a long way of saying it's well worth your time, and I think about the book often- more often than any cinematic iteration of it.

I still have Dracula on my shelf unread.

[Mr Sausage]

Another Earth (Mike Cahill, 2011)
This is a painful movie. It’s so hard to watch this woman, with the best of intentions, allow herself into a position where she can wreck a vulnerable man all over again. It’s appalling on one level, but so understandable on another. She’s still a child; she never had a chance to gain wisdom. The need to atone for sins, seek forgiveness, but also seek happiness within despair blur together into a mess of emotional responses. The second Earth seems to offer an escape, a world where the mistakes of the past may never have occurred--an Eden of a kind.

Spoiler

Rhoda makes the mature decision to allow John the freedom from her mistakes rather than seeking her own escape, a real owning up to what she owes. The question is: why does her own double make the trip? Some here theorized that Rhoda 2 showing up meant the crash must’ve happened, Rhoda 2 made the selfish choice, and the ending has Rhoda reckoning with the enormity of her sins in the figure of her worser self. There are two other options, tho’. One: the crash happened, but Rhoda never got into a relationship with John. Less thematically pointed, but it does mean what Rhoda 1 faces at the end is not the extent of her guilt, past and present, but a more ambiguous space (while Rhoda 2 escapes only to find there is no escape). Two: the crash never happened, but John arrived on Earth 2; he met up with Rhoda at some point, she learned of her own double’s sad life, and sought herself on Earth 1 (Rhoda 2 is certainly much better dressed and made up). In which case Rhoda has to reckon with her sins in an especially painful manner, by being confronted with everything she’d lost in the figure of the person she was meant to be. But, then again, perhaps she can offer herself some forgiveness, or take some solace in seeing a version of herself be happy and successful.

This is a profound and moving film, and I wanted to say something profound in response, but find myself unable to do it. I think what I find myself with after the viewing are less ideas than emotional states, which are hard to talk about. The experience was meaningful for me, but I’m having trouble communicating it. Between this, The OA, and The Keeping Room, I’m about ready to see anything with Marling in it. She’s an interesting talent.

Terminator: Dark Fate (Tim Miller, 2019)
Refining the series back to the low stakes of the first movie while preserving the giant blockbuster filmmaking methods of the later entries makes everything so much more threadbare. An advanced terminator comes back to kill some random Hispanic girl in Mexico; a soldier from the future comes back to stop it. That’s it. It’s the essence of the other movies, just without wit, style, or emotion. The characters are grouchy and bicker endlessly; the bad guy doesn’t register; the film is blandly shot and overlit; the action scenes have some inventive set pieces, but little drama or stakes. It’s just a nothing movie. There is one interesting idea, what a terminator does once it has accomplished its mission and is now stuck living in the past. It shouldn't surprise you to learn the movie does nothing with it. A lot of interesting character moments are latent in the idea, including a fascinating potential conversation between terminators from mutually exclusive timelines. But you don’t get them because no one really talks to each other in this movie; they just bicker and grumble between explosions. One thing Cameron’s Terminator movies did so well was allow their characters to talk to each other, build relationships, and express emotions about what was happening. The pathos at the end of Terminator 2 was earned because the film spent its time tracing a developing relationship. This film attempts the same thing, but it falls flat because the characters never build any relationships. They mostly just almost die in each other’s vicinity before moving on to grumble at each other.

The Untamed (Amat Escalante, 2016)
There are some parallels with L’annulaire: a building in the woods where strange experiments draw people, a story in which the fantastical and the sexual is bound together, and an atmosphere of the inexplicable and the ambiguous. Both films, too, seem allegorical without quite revealing what the referents are. The Untamed's hesitancy to explain anything makes it hard to know what to say. It’s beautiful and chilling; the atmospherics are perfect in their unease; and much is communicated about the characters and their relationships without explaining them or having them explain themselves. Whether or not its themes—the necessity of communing with primal needs, be they sexual or violent or both, the repressive strictures of society in Mexico, class conflicts—whether they cohere, I don’t know. For a film using its science fiction content as a symbolic vehicle, the film spells out surprisingly little. Perhaps on a rewatch it’ll turn out to be empty. But this first experience was entrancing and moving. It’ll go on my list.

[therewillbeblus]

Those proposed readings were profound to me, Sausage, so thanks for posting. Definitely check out Sound of My Voice for this project, and The East just because it's fun.

[domino harvey]

Re: Marling: Apart from the films she had a hand in writing and those you've already seen, I'll put in a good word for the (not eligible for this list) Arbitrage, in which she plays a role that I suspect would be hard to divorce from the image of Ivanka Trump if I were to rewatch it now. A very good Rich People Are Awful and Get Away With Everything movie, with a strong lead from the shoulda been nominated Richard Gere.

[therewillbeblus]

Her other Cahill collab, I Origins is eligible, though I remember liking it drastically less than the others (maybe her absence from a writing cred is cause for concern). It's still worth checking out, but I should probably rewatch it since I remember very little except the use of Radiohead's Motion Picture Soundtrack at the end, a soundtrack inclusion I had always thought would be a good idea in theory, but was just kinda obnoxious in execution.

[domino harvey]

I still have that one in my unwatched pile, it's the only Marling-starring film I haven't seen! Yes, I've seen Posthumous so no one else has to

[therewillbeblus]

I was so high on Marling through The East and found it disappointing after her near-perfect co-writer/actor trifecta, but there were definitely some interesting ideas and I recall it being thematically dense like the others, so maybe it's better than I remember. I still need to see the second season of The OA

[bottled spider]

Marjorie Prime (Almereyda, 2017)
Chekhov with robots. A chamber drama, undisguisedly adapted from a stage play, set among holographic AI simulcra (or “Primes”) of departed family members and the bereaved humans they are designed to console. Whether these Primes really are a help, or ultimately a hindrance, in coping with loss remains an open question. The Primes mimic the personalities of their late originals according the information and feedback supplied them by those they companion. So these literal, physical projections may also be projections figuratively speaking (if not, indeed, travesties), and more than one character worries that interacting with a Prime amounts to talking to oneself. A rich piece. There’s no real plot, but there’s structure and a satisfying emotional arc.

I watched Under the Skin for the first time a couple days ago too. Not having liked Sexy Beast very much, I was going to give it a miss, but the seal of approval by my favourite Trump supporting critic changed my mind. My initial reaction to the film was that it was boring where it wasn't unpleasant or silly, but I started to warm to it about nine-tenths of the way through. The ending is phenomenal. One thing I liked about "The Female" was just how basic her pickup patter was. Nothing very seductive, but I could imagine being disarmed by it even as my suspicions were aroused.

She becomes increasingly mute toward the end -- does she lose her capacity for language altogether as she become more humanized?

[Rayon Vert]

Prophecy (Frankenheimer 1979). (1st viewing)

Starring Talia Shire and a guy who looks like he wants to sing AM Gold soft rock, this tale of environmentalists versus industry baddies is a failure from the start, in that I hated both the warring sides and the “impartial” arbitrators! And then of course the giant mutant bear shows up, literally blows the roof off, and characters do the requisite stupid things they always do in movies like this. No idea what Frankenheimer saw in this project.

Yeah this is basically The Food of the Gods with better production values, although that doesn’t make it a better film. Actually, given that the creatures’ mutations and size are the result of human pollution, the lineage is more with later films like The Host and The Bay. This didn’t start off badly, establishing Dr. Verne’s humanistic credentials working in the rat-infested slums of Washington DC, and then the set-up in the confrontation with the Maine Native Americans (actually filmed in B.C., and there’s a shot where you can clearly see a mountain in the background you wouldn’t find in Maine!). But that first scene with a crazed raccoon plainly announces those qualities are going to be thrown out the window. I wouldn’t say it’s only the project that’s problematic; the way this was written and directed, especially in the second half, is just so conventional and dull, and whatever interest built early on in the characters is quickly jettisoned. And some of those mutated monster bear effects and scenes were also laughably bad for a film with this budget - literally sometimes it looked a guy in a bear suit running in the forest. On an amusing trivia note, Richard Dysart getting a close look at those thing-ish critters is a precursor to the Carpenter film three years later!


Lunopolis (Avant 2010). (1st viewing) I searched the forum and didn’t find a mention of this film. It’s a low-budget, found footage indie that starts off with two documentary filmmakers following the trail of a caller on a paranormal show claiming to work at Area 51 and having knowledge of a civilization on the moon that is also peopling and controlling Earth. They’re spurred on by impossible-seeming evidence into a story that gets dizzyingly grand, complex and metaphysical, involving everything from cults, shadowy organizational forces and vast conspiracies, the 2012 prophecies, time travel, Roswell, UFOs, Atlantis, multidimensional realities and timelines, and the cyclical remaking of human history. That description makes it sound like a satire about our modern subcultures of paranormal/conspiratorial belief, but it’s actually a straightly played film that’s impressive in its ambition in terms of ideas and plot, and execution as well, in part in its playfulness with form. The long section in the middle with talking heads may feels like sapping the narrative a bit, but I could forgive it I saw it as part of that formal creativity. The film as a whole felt like inspired (ahem) lunacy, and was definitely engrossing. Recommended as least just for a watch. (Available to rent on Amazon prime and youtube.)


Advantageous (Phang 2015). (1st viewing) Another film that hasn’t been previously brought up on the forum. In a future society that’s gotten even more competitive and economically challenging as it’s become more advanced and affluent, a middle-aged, high-performing Asian American professional woman loses her job because her public face is no longer hitting the company’s “target demographics”. In order to ensure her own daughter’s future will be viable in this exacting society she’s faced with the desperate choice to undergo an experimental procedure where she’ll be “moved” to a more suitable body. Beyond those social themes, the narrative’s development from there goes into more existential themes and notions of identity. A smart, meditatively-paced psychological drama, skillfully visualized, that engages several interesting ideas, but where I didn’t find the result in the latter half fully realized the potential there was in the story. I can easily imagine though that some here might be moved more than I was by the themes and find the film’s shortcomings weighing a lot less in the balance.

(The IMDB synopsis states it takes place in a “near-future society”, but because a character mentions studying in school the 20th and 21st centuries and the “bubble of 2033”, not to mention all those flying vehicles, I’m guessing at the very least this is supposed to be taking place a fair bit later in our century.)


Aliens (Cameron 1986). (revisit) I hesitated watching this again, because my memory from the last time was how dumbed down of an action film this was compared to the original. I’m glad I did though. I still have my reservations about some of the action film clichés (e.g. all those scenes with the seconds running out and of course they’ll make it just on time), the typically Reagan 80s gung-ho Marines stuff with the occasional crude humor (Paxton’s character isn’t that far off from Chet in Weird Science!) and of course none of the visual precision of the original, but it ended up winning me over again with the effectiveness of the suspense and the action beats. The ending is also pretty impressive with all those spectacular endings upon endings. And of course Weaver’s performance brings gravitas to what could have been more of a cartoon character. Not a bad story too, with Ripley attaching to this lost child because her own has died after her 57 years of space sleep. I watched the longer special edition for the first time, and some of those scenes flesh out the movie very well, especially in regards to that crucial meaningful element that explains more Weaver’s bonding with Newt, and also getting a better sense of life on the colony.


The Man Who Thought Life (Manden der tænkte ting) (Ravn 1969). (1st viewing) A Danish film that was entered into the Cannes festival. A neurophysician is confronted at the psych ward with a new patient who tells him he can manifest objects from his mind into physical reality but needs his help for a brain operation to increase those powers to create longer-sustaining living organisms. When the doctor refuses, the patient takes revenge in a unique way. This seems to be a little known film that hasn’t appeared on disc as far as I can tell, but it’s quite delightful and definitely should get a release. It’s artfully directed and photographed in anamorphic B&W. Someone’s put it up on vimeo, which is where I saw it. (You can download it too with along the subtitles.) Recommended also.


Mr. Nobody (Van Dormael 2009). (1st viewing) This really wasn’t for me. I was severely put off by the fantastical and especially overbusy and hyperkinetic manner of the film with its constant rapid changes of alternate lifelines, the surreal pop loudness of the style (including the annoying repetition of the unsubtle pop songs - including Mr. Sandman, already cemented forever in our consciousness to Back to the Future - like really? there was nothing else to use?) despite the obvious care devoted to the craft. To the point that after 40 minutes I was exhausted and starting to hate it and had a really hard time envisioning how I could stand another 1h50 of this. Then the film settled, in relative terms, for the teenage scenes that were suddenly a lot more interesting and allowed you to start to care for the characters, especially the Nemo and Anna scenes. Unfortunately that lasted only for a certain time before the film resumed its earlier pace and chaos and I went back to feeling completely indifferent and numb to Nemo and everything going on the screen (although in a state of agitated restlessness for it to be over), and therefore unable to be motivated to give much thought to, or feel much interest in, the complex philosophical ideas explored in this overheated, rambling and overly long (!) mess.

[therewillbeblus]

I think there’s a profoundly great movie buried somewhere in Mr. Nobody, which plays with some really important ideas in an audacious way and yet.. doesn’t quite work even if it’s partially messy by design. I admire the film, but I’ve seen it three times now expecting to be wow’d and every time come away frustrated that I’m not. It’s probably time to stop forcing the love.

[knives]

Franenheimer was drunk out of his gourd during Prophesy and would soon go into rehab. The film’s production in a lot of ways was an absolute low point for him though I still like the movie.

Mr. Nobody was my first van Dormael, whose influence on the indie style knows no exaggeration, and it’s proven to be his weakest. He was working in a new language and was piling on decades of thought into one movie. His follow up is a lot better and if I remember correctly one of the UK labels recently announced his masterpiece Toto the Hero.

[therewillbeblus]

Arrow Academy released Toto the Hero earlier this year, and I agree it’s a much better film

[Rayon Vert]

I'm surprised to see that Mr. Nobody racked up that many awards and glowing praise when it came out, although yes I agree the ideas are complex, and that it's both really ambitious and executed with a lot of care.

I'd be curious to hear anyone's thoughts who might've seen (or will come to see) the less well-known and lower-budgeted films on my log this week, especially Lunopolis! It was released straight to video after being shown at sci fi festivals, but won awards. Here are a couple of sorta trailers, to give a taste.

[Mr Sausage]

I still have my reservations about some of the action film clichés (e.g. all those scenes with the seconds running out and of course they’ll make it just on time), the typically Reagan 80s gung-ho Marines stuff with the occasional crude humor

I wouldn’t call that one an actual Reaganist cliche, because unlike all those 80s films that valourized the military and other policing institutions, Aliens is setting up the punchline that the cocky, gung ho, uber-manly marines are woefully ill-equipped to handle the situation and frankly need saving. The real heroism is actually placed on the unlikely: a traumatized woman, a gentle android, and a child. This culminates in The Abyss, where the marines are the villains from the start and are depicted with a refreshing absence of reverence.

I assume Cameron’s Canadian heritage is at work, since we don’t get the same overpowering pro-military messages as Americans do. It wouldn’t last, tho’. By True Lies you see it creeping in, and by the time Avatar rolled around, Cameron was so enamoured with the gruff, sturdy, badass image of the military that he couldn’t help presenting them as admirable and heroic even tho’ they’re ostensibly the villains of the story.

[Rayon Vert]

Your judicious nuances are well-taken.

[Rayon Vert]

And of course I remember also how (rightfully so) a big deal was made in the media at the time about the progressive twist on the action hero stereotype the film presented. The film received a lot of coverage.

[Rayon Vert]

Pandorum (Alvart 2009). (1st viewing) Colin has expressed his liking for this one in a few threads. The initial premise is close to Aniara’s: Earth is f’d and a huge spaceship is bringing colonists to a new planet. But the film starts with just two characters who wake up improperly from hypersleep, suffering from partial amnesia, and discovering that the ship is malfunctioning. When one of them ventures out to repair the problem, he encounters deadly fast-zombie-like cannibalistic creatures, along with a few other human survivors. The rest of the film is trying to solve the mystery of what’s going on, fix the vessel before it blows up, and constantly escaping and battling these beings. Playing into the plot is also this “pandorum”, a psychotic state potentially afflicting deep space travelers. This is very horror gore action-heavy and I found the film merely decent for much of it. But the narrative twists in the last act were definitely surprising and captivating and happily elevated the movie to a superior level.


When Worlds Collide (Maté 1951). (revisit) Interesting how bleak the story is for this time period. However the film seems to leave behind any caring for the Earth and almost all of its population dying when it eventually starts to focus in exclusively on who will pile in the rocket ship! Fun film for most of the running, despite some cheesiness, and everything that’s especially silly towards the end (let’s just aim to land on this planet where we just hope there’s oxygen!).


Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel (Kromanov 1979). (1st viewing) An Estonian film about a police inspector arriving at an isolated snowbound mountain hotel (no, not the Overlook), mingling with the eccentric occupants until a murder occurs. His investigation into the mystery leads him to confront layers of additional strangeness, ultimately perhaps non-human… The film emphasizes film noir conventions, played almost like clichés, which fits with the way the detective’s rigid worldview crucially affects the film’s denouement. It didn’t completely win me over but it’s got an intriguing mood. It’s up on youtube if anybody’s interested.


10 Cloverfield Lane (Trachtenberg 2016). (1st viewing) Another one I’m late to the party for. Once the premise sets in, it’s brilliant but of course in a way it seemed like such an obvious story idea and you wonder why no one came up with it before (unless someone did and I missed it). Anyway from that point on I was expecting the film to stay in the basic savior-or-abuser? set-up for maybe the rest of the film but thankfully it goes to several different places after that, all the while playing with a lot of genres. An A+ in terms of sheer entertainment value, and of course the actors are terrific, especially Winstead. An easy list-maker, as TW says. Does anyone have anything good to say about the third chapter?


The 10th Victim (Petri 1965). (1st viewing) For those who may not already know, this is about a future society where government-endorsed human hunting games channel our violent tendencies so as to prevent wars. It’s a satirical comedy thriller with the accent on the romantic entanglement between hunter Ursula Andress and victim Marcello Mastroianni. It’s stylish and can look good but the satire isn’t that biting and unfortunately overall it’s pretty dull.


Contact (Zemeckis 1997). (revisit) This film sure tries to pack a lot in. That first hour or so of receiving and decoding the signal is still thrilling and wondrous, recreating a bit of the magic of Close Encounters. But seeing it again now it strikes me how the rest of the film is so weighed down in its thematics and story-telling by the inclusion and focus on the hoary, sanctimonious argument between science and faith (everything about the McConaughey character, just to name one thing) - it says something a bit depressing about America that the film feels necessary to engage this cultural obsession when Spielberg’s similar movie of twenty years earlier didn’t give a moment of thought to it. And the dialogue between the characters on that topic is pretty vapid. Zemeckis’ style also occasionally tends to get obvious and overly cute (e.g. the Forrest Gump-ish footage of Clinton).

[knives]

You seem like such a brave viewer Rayon. I’ve often scrolled around to see what to watch and been scared off by some not so great sounding titles. Here’s some viewings with something to recommend though.

Of Stars and Men (dir. the Hubleys)
A fantastic and amazing film covering the scope of human knowledge with an optimism in science as a rationalizing force. The Information Age has scuttled my ability to believe in such optimism, but the Hubley’s show why that was such an attractive perspective for so long. The Hubley’s had a small revolution across their decades of filmmaking.

It’s also a fun way to approach this idea of genre as the film is more a philosophical look at our then current understanding of science bordering on the level of documentary, but that utopian feeling of hope gives it a feeling of sci-fi. Is it possible for a documentary to also be a fiction?

Carriers (dir. two Pastors)
This pre-fame post-jerk Chris Pine vehicle definitely has some stuff added to it with our good friend quarantine. For an example a shot of a lynched body saying ‘the chinks brought it’ is too familiar to be comfortable. What I guess I’m saying is that COVID has at least made one terrible movie interesting.

Meloni does his SVU best to bring gravitas to the film and even in these overwritten sub-28 Days Later scenes of melodrama he elevates the movie to something special. Too bad he’s not the lead.

Redline (dir. Koike)
What a gorgeous and mad final throw to the hand drawn ideas over logic approach of ‘80s and ‘90s blood and guts anime. The story really just exists to hold up the images. Want to have a ridiculous mecha and cyborg punch each other out? Let’s move the race to roboworld. Even angles and edits seem built around what effect the visuals will induce.

This whole approach is unlike anything else going on in 2009. Instead it’s like a cleaned up, you can tell Madhouse really thought this as a kind of prestige pic, Battle Angel or Kawajiri film. This kind of loose approach to quality can easily fail, again Kawajiri, but fortunately Koike seems aware of that and makes sure the aesthetics is that continuously impressive, just the constant display of colors left me in awe, and the world building compensates for the F-Zero worthy plot to maintain a more critical interest. I’m truly curious to learn more about this universe.

[Rayon Vert]

I don't know that I'm that brave, knives! I'm hitting a lot of well-known titles I missed (many of which are pretty good!), what tends to score higher on IMDB per decade, as well as a lot of the films on the many internet top obscure/underrated/overlooked sci film lists I've scoured.

On that topic, I'm maxed out on the number of films on my to-watch list for the rest of the project, but you made think to post here a list of some titles I've seen mentioned from the latter that I won't get to, and maybe others feel brave enough (!) to do so or may have seen them already and can give their thoughts.

(I've added the IMDB synopsis for each.)

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Comet (Sam Esmail, 2014, U.S.)

Set in a parallel universe, Comet bounces back and forth over the course of an unlikely but perfectly paired couple's six-year relationship.


Liquid Sky (Slava Tsukerman, 1982, U.S.)

A small, heroin seeking UFO lands on a Manhattan roof, observes a bizarre, drug addicted fashion model and sucks endorphin from her sexual encounters' brains.


The Signal (William Eubank, 2014, U.S.)

On a road trip, Nic and two friends are drawn to an isolated area by a computer genius. When everything suddenly goes dark, Nic regains consciousness - only to find himself in a waking nightmare.


Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (Gareth Carrivick, 2009, UK)

While drinking at their local pub, three social outcasts attempt to navigate a time-travel conundrum.


Death Ray on Coral Island (Hongmei Zhang, 1980, China)

Scientists protect a high efficiency atomic battery from being used as an ultimate weapon.


La Cité des enfants perdus (The City of Lost Children) (Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1995, France)

A scientist in a surrealist society kidnaps children to steal their dreams, hoping that they slow his aging process.


Strange Days (Kathryn Bigelow, 1995, U.S.)

A former cop turned street-hustler accidentally uncovers a conspiracy in Los Angeles in 1999.


Orion’s Loop (Petlya Oriona) (Vasili Levin, 1981, USSR)

A strange phenomenon has been noticed on the outskirts of our Solar system that quickly approaches the Earth. It's called "Orion's Loop." A spaceship with a crew of people and androids identical to them is sent to intercept the anomaly. But strange events start happening as the spaceship approaches the mysterious loop.


In Time (Andrew Niccol, 2011, U.S.)

In a future where people stop aging at 25, but are engineered to live only one more year, having the means to buy your way out of the situation is a shot at immortal youth. Here, Will Salas finds himself accused of murder and on the run with a hostage - a connection that becomes an important part of the way against the system.


Outland (Peter Hyams, 1981, UK)

A federal marshal stationed at a mining colony on the Jupiter moon of Io uncovers a drug-smuggling conspiracy. He gets no help from the workers or authorities when he finds himself marked for murder. (With Sean Connery.)


Time After Time (Nicholas Meyer, 1979, U.S.)

H.G. Wells pursues Jack the Ripper to the 20th Century when the serial murderer uses the future writer's time machine to escape his time period.


Slipstream (Steven Lisberger, 1989, UK)

In the near future, where Earth has been devastated by natural disasters, and giant winds rule the planet, bounty hunter Matt kidnaps a murderer out of the hands of two police officers, planning to get the bounty himself. These in turn try to hunt the two men down.


The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (Robert Butler, 1969, US)

At Medfield College, an accident with a donated computer gives Dexter Riley the ability to remember any knowledge learned instantly and perfectly.


Equilibrium (Kurt Wimmer, 2002, U.S.)

In an oppressive future where all forms of feeling are illegal, a man in charge of enforcing the law rises to overthrow the system and state.


Robot & Frank (Jake Schreier, 2012, U.S.)

In the near future, an ex-jewel thief receives a gift from his son: a robot butler programmed to look after him. But soon the two companions try their luck as a heist team.


I Want To (Sengoku jieitai) (Kosei Saito, 1979, Japan)

A squadron of Japanese Self-Defense Force soldiers find themselves transported through time to their country's warring states era, when rival samurai clans were battling to become the supreme Shogun. The squad leader, Lt. Iba, sees this as the perfect opportunity to realize his dream of becoming the ruler of Japan. To achieve this, he teams his troops up with those of Kagatori, a samurai daimyo who also aspires to become Shogun. Are either of these power-hungry warriors to be trusted?


Mysterious Island (Cy Endfield, 1961, UK-U.S.)

During the Civil War a group of Union soldiers and two Confederates escape the stockade using a hot air balloon and end up on a strange Pacific island.


Millennium (Michael Anderson, 1989, U.S.)

An NTSB investigator seeking the cause of an airline disaster meets a warrior woman from 1000 years in the future. She replaces the people from airplanes before they crash with corpses with the same features.


The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky, 2006, U.S.)

As a modern-day scientist, Tommy is struggling with mortality, desperately searching for the medical breakthrough that will save the life of his cancer-stricken wife, Izzi.


Paul (Greg Mottola, 2011, U.S.)

Two English comic book geeks traveling across the U.S. encounter an alien outside Area 51.


Alien Raiders (Ben Rock, 2008, U.S.)

A group enters a supermarket at closing time, shoots around and takes hostages. They believe aliens have arrived there then. Cops arrive outside.


The Terminal Man (Mike Hodges, 1974, U.S.)

Hoping to cure his violent seizures, a man agrees to a series of experimental microcomputers inserted into his brain but inadvertently discovers that violence now triggers a pleasurable response his brain.