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

[therewillbeblus]

The more revisits I give to Stalker, the more I find myself drawn to the details in how, as these men physically move farther from the comforts of their own complacent lives, they become unnerved and ungrounded, revealing innate vulnerabilities like slow onion layers peeling back. The silent ride to the Zone area tracks the two novices' facial expressions staring off, uncomfortable and alone; and on either side of this part of the expedition, they question their own motives and desires. They seek definitive answers once they get there, and the stalker muses about man's trajectory to become hard and inflexible as symptoms of death. The subsequent tests are rooted in humanity's fallibility trying to assert agency against enigmatic threats (when the Writer goes off course, it's not a flashy bit of "sci-fi" aggression that stops him, but something invisible, unclear and thus even more insidious). The presentation of how mankind copes with their powerlessness to comprehend intangible content, without producing any visual stimuli to signify a fantastical world outside of our familiar and banal existence, is science-fiction stripped down to bare the raw truths of the human condition's impotence and the endless opportunities to reclaim the soul and find humility if that can be accepted. The example of music- with its inexplicable paradox of nebulous connection and still intense ability to penetrate the soul- to explain the meaning of life is a wonderful example of the optimistic side of this troubling existential discovery, while the poem about nothing being "enough" represents the tragedy of mankind. Fear dominates these men: fear of hope, of essence, of loss of self-constructed purpose; and then the wife delivers the final monologue that declares acceptance and embraces hope and gratitude in the face of compromise, grief, and fear. This is the one of the most insightful studies on the relationship between psychology and philosophy, as well as the most spiritual sci-fi film, the most devolved illustration of the genre's themes, and perhaps the greatest ever made.

[DarkImbecile]

Robocop (Paul Verhoeven, 1987)

I've been trying to think of something worthwhile to add about this movie as an excuse for mentioning how excellent Mr Sausage's write-up is, but since I failed in that endeavor, I'll just say that a really good deep-dive Mr Sausage review — like those from Sloper, mfunk, domino harvey, swo17, feihong, twbb, Brian C, zedz, and about a dozen other people — really makes this particular cinephile's day, and are a huge part of what make this site so valuable.

[Michael Kerpan]

I don't think I've seen any mention of Bong's Host -- which I consider a much better science fiction film than Snowpiercer. Also, how about Kaneko's 1990s neo-Gamera films, especially the final film of his trilogy (which is probably my favorite film of this sort). In addition to being a good film, it had an especially good score (by Kou O'otani). Finally, I wonder whether anyone else has seen Shiota's hard-to-classify Yomigaeri (Resurrection) -- a meteor strike triggers the resurrection (on a local basis) of persons who died in its vicinity -- not as zombies but as they were before they died.

[therewillbeblus]

I don't think I've seen any mention of Bong's Host -- which I consider a much better science fiction film than Snowpiercer.

I mentioned it in my shortlist/guide on the first page! I don't know if I'll have room for it, but I also prefer it to Snowpiercer

[domino harvey]

I found the Host pretty awful myself. Luckily Bong has moved on past stuff like that crosseyed anglo scientist

[Michael Kerpan]

Sorry, TWBB, I meant to say any discussion, not any mention.

Domino -- that was a pretty miniscule portion of Host. (And aren't some of the caricatures in Okja just as extreme).

[Rayon Vert]

I wrote it up on page 21, Michael, and you made a comment.

[Michael Kerpan]

I wrote it up on page 21, Michael, and you made a comment.

Jeez -- I just spent an hour going through every page of this thread (trying to figure out if there was any conceivable way to pick 50 films), maybe I somehow accidentally skipped that page.

[therewillbeblus]

I found the Host pretty awful myself. Luckily Bong has moved on past stuff like that crosseyed anglo scientist

I really liked it in college and was much less impressed on a second viewing a few years ago, but I also revisited Snowpiercer a few weeks ago and that too decreased significantly in my esteem, so both solid three star movies with The Host's merits associating more fondly for the time being.

I thought Okja was terrible and easily his worst, but I should give it another go someday

[domino harvey]

I haven’t seen Okja and it will likely stay that way. But the Host is just a film with a restraining order on subtlety in its political meaning and allegory. It’s a great relief films like Snowpiercer and Parasite show him capable of more complex entertainments, even though there is a weird Bizarro work effect on this board wherein those two films are far more unevenly greeted by members here than prob anywhere else online

[therewillbeblus]

I don't think either of those films are subtle in their allegories whatsoever, but that doesn't mean they aren't also complex! Parasite is a great movie that I can't bring myself to fall in love with, while still finding increased respect for each viewing. Memories of Murder is still his best work by a country mile, but I find all but Okja to be digestible, intricately provocative pulp entertainment.

[Michael Kerpan]

Okja has some good moments -- but overall seems sort of "misconceived". I've had my say on Parasite already...

[therewillbeblus]

There has always seemed little point in explaining why a classic like Jurassic Park is a perfect movie, but on an nth revisit I found myself picking up on a grand versatility, the kind of eclectic assemblage that Spielberg makes feel effortless with his skills at blending diversity into a coherent and pleasurable product.

Spielberg manages to retain his playful tone even when going through basically every genre and superficial mood shift with cinematic language. I never fully appreciated how he begins with comedy, mystery, and romantic adventure, transforms into a combination of hard sci-fi and philosophical sci-fi, and then goes for a heist thriller spy subplot, relentless Hitchockian action setpieces, fantasy horror, road movie movement, and uses these narrative and imagery expositions to develop the domestic melodrama. The later scenes culminate in homages to the claustrophobic indoor slasher kind of ‘survival horror’, after pressing the limits of that genre 'on the run' outdoors; and of course the film recontextualizes the monster movie and the mad scientist subgenres as well, with the latter being humanized so kindly that we hardly detect its roots.

I’ll also freely admit that only as I age do I become emotional when Grant proves himself to be a stable, safe adult to these children, identifying both with the children looking for that security and with Grant, as a man who isn’t confident in his ability to step up but reflects most emerging-adults' desire to believe they could. It’s such an economical demonstration of human intimacy’s relationship with individualized existential harmony, based on old-fashioned but true values of altruistic caretaking as proof of strength and worth. I could go on and on, but this amalgamation of ideas and (tones) is a love letter to cinema and its history, using not only sci-fi but establishing its fusion with adventure as the skeletal focal point to broaden this exploration into pushing the bounds of the medium’s possibilities. It's like the anti-Pierrot le Fou; a melting pot of all cinema has to offer into a digestible, non-challenging consistency of smoothness.

[therewillbeblus]

As we enter the final month of this project, I feel obligated to spotlight some titles I fear could be potential orphans:

World of Tomorrow Episode Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime: The latest installment of the WoT series is also quite possibly the best. It will certainly please fans of silent comedy with at-times Tati-esque visual gags filling all corners of the frame, and will certainly reward those who wanted more road-movie type action in these films to complement its complex time travel ideas.

Maniac: This miniseries is on Netflix, will take you a little over six hours to watch, but is endlessly gratifying fun, thought-provoking, emotionally cathartic, and most importantly- so poignant about the ocean-floor depths of the human condition rarely explored. I won't post my writeup because it's almost entirely in a spoiler box, but this should generate a lot of enthusiasm for fans of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and makes some bold and conscientious calls to become one of the most honest depictions of the therapeutic process, and commentaries on our valid yet problematic drives to bypass the hard work of self-discovery in western cultures, that I've ever seen. Fun fact (well, for me anyways): This was one of the first films that, after years of lurking in fear, I felt so charged up with passion for that I swallowed my anxiety and posted my thoughts on the forum. I wouldn't become an active member til six+ months later, but it means something to me that a work of art could affect me so much as to initiate change against the friction of all my psychological barriers. Then again, that's the kind of inspiration this film is about, so it makes a lick of sense!

Brand Upon the Brain! I don't love all Guy Maddin films, but this is my favorite, and one of the strangest sci-fi films- a worthwhile reason to make any list.

Idiocracy and Galaxy Quest: Two great sci-fi comedies not to be overlooked.

[bottled spider]

Spring (Moorhead & Benson, 2014). Possibly an allegory for the horrors of menstruation. Who knows? There are a lot of good things that could be said for this movie, but in the end it doesn't quite overcome the silliness of its premise, and doesn't, in any case, really count as science fiction in my book. For all the scientific explanation invoked, I'd call this horror, and a distant cousin to magical realism.

I Origins (Cahill, 2014). Mr Sausage's notes prompted me to give this a whirl. I liked it quite a bit, and will vote for it, regardless of such flaws as a degree of pretentiousness, or characters that are too much representative types. (The scientists wear glasses, the wild child does not).

If nothing else, I learned the word 'psychoppannychia', which comes up in a throw away joke, but turns out to have some thematic relevance. Quite the smartypants, Mr Cahill.

Having basically liked the film, I now have to vent about the stupendous badness of the ending:

Spoiler

• No reasonably intelligent middle aged Caucasian man would be so imprudent as to lead an unaccompanied Indian minor into his hotel room. Somebody would have called the cops. Nor would a decent person, who has effectively placed himself in locus parentis, be so grossly irresponsible as to teach a child that it is safe to accept offers of ice cream from strange men. All he had to do to safeguard propriety was enlist Priya Varma (the teacher/community worker) as a chaperone.

• You don't need to know any science to appreciate that Salomina's test must be administered blind to have any validity. And fucking duh no feedback while the test is underway! Priya Varma, who should have been present anyway, should have administered the questionnaire without Ian in the room, and without sight of the answer key until after the answers are recorded. Simple.

• After the disappointingly inconclusive test, Ian takes Salomina to the elevator, triggering the traumatic past-life memory. But this piece of drama requires the entirely arbitrary contrivance of Ian taking the stairs on the way up, the elevator down. He might just as easily have taken the stairs both ways, or the elevator up.

Avoid the Easter turd that follows the end credits.

[Rayon Vert]

Journey to the Far Side of the Sun aka Doppelgänger (Parrish 1969). (1st viewing) This is apparently where Another Earth got its premise. After a sun probe discovers another planet on the “far side” which is on the exact same orbit as Earth, a manned flight is sent, and a confounding, bizarro world mystery is confronted by our astronaut. The section of the film involving this aspect is somewhat interesting (coming in at around an hour in an 1h41 film), but not really worth the film voyage that it takes to get there. It’s a really oddly scripted and badly directed movie that goes from one narrative focus to another and none of it very interesting: international spying to find out what the discovery is, finding the money to fund the mission, then training and launching, with asides like conjugal fighting over the astronaut’s space work-induced low sperm count! Most of this is incredibly tedious, including the Kubrick-influenced acid trippy sequences, and the special effects throughout are incredibly cheap-looking. A cool idea that was in need of much better realization.


THX 1138 (Lucas 1971). (1st viewing) The authoritarian society here shares bits in common with Fahrenheit 451 in terms of the use of drugs and television to promote mindlessness. The contrast is surprising with the Star Wars series in terms of the despairing tone. But even more unexpected for me was how abstract and art film-y this gets, starting with the protracted scenes in an empty white space once TXH is sentenced (I wasn’t sure if some of this was meant to be hallucinatory, especially when LUX joins him again). Really absorbing performance by Duvall. Unfortunately I felt the film lost a bit of its dramatic poignancy in the more action-oriented back end, despite the daring visuals.


The Man with Two Brains (Reiner 1983). (revisit) A guilty pleasure. Almost by definition you could say, the slapstick absurdist farces of this era are pretty thin as films, and this one is no different, but the sci-fi storyline possesses a wacky charm. The movie spoofs films like Donovan’s Brain (this one explicitly referenced) but it’s also got its own unique ponderings on the romantic implications of being in a relationship with a disembodied voice (I noted in the write-up for Her how that film explored similar territory, especially in the scene trying to find a surrogate body). More than that, I just find the film hilarious, consistently peppered with LOL moments - (alongside of course with the usual quota of gags that fall flat, and a few really morally dubious ones). I’m a fan of Martin’s “early funny ones”, but this one clearly stands out as the funniest. And Kathleen Turner isn’t only terrifically sexy, but just plain terrific here.


Life (Espinosa 2017). (1st viewing) Nothing very original in the premise of an alien life form brought onboard! The extent to which this stays in the Alien universe is surprising though - it’s basically astronauts on the space station running from a face hugger (or leg hugger?) for the duration. Despite all that, I still liked this though, just in terms of a very suspenseful, entertaining space actioner. There’s some fun also in the setup of this life form being cultivated from a cell discovered from Mars soil samples - predicting this seemingly benign thing will manage to get out of its containment but experiencing the fun of watching it happen (in this way, this calls to mind what happens with the innocent-seeming moon rocks in Apollo 18) -, and the film is pretty effective on a visceral, horror gross-out level with the ghastly body intrusions.

Spoiler

I should dislike the film too for the way it outrageously cheats in the end. As the pods separated, the idea sprang in my mind thinking about what if they were reversed, but quickly thinking there was no way the film would go there, especially given how it wouldn’t make any sense from what we were shown on screen - but that is indeed what happened. But after absorbing the shock, I just sorta dug the film for going in that darker route (which is quite the 180-degree turn from the film’s start with all of that cheery Earth celebrating the discovery of extraterrestrial life), cheating and all.

Deep Impact (Leder 1998). (1st viewing) I’ve never seen Armageddon and I’m not tempted to just to make the comparison. This was pretty decent overall, a clear quasi-remake of When Worlds Collide, especially when we get to the scenes involving the lottery of who’s going to get saved. The film was surprisingly engaging on the front end, with the story involving journalist Jennifer’s discovery of what’s being hidden by the government, and the mission to mine the comet with nuclear bombs. And you get an African American president ten years before Obama. The rest suffers from the typical Hollywood epic sentimentality you expect given the downbeat narrative development, although it still manages to entertain. I definitely could have seen Spielberg do this one, which luckily he didn’t have time to, because it wouldn’t have been one of the wins on his résumé.


Moon (Jones 2009). (1st viewing) This was definitely an especially intelligent, special film. Given that Sam appears to experience hallucinations early on, I was confused as hell when the other Sam showed up, and the film at that point especially plays with the viewer’s identification with the character. I was wondering if we were experiencing a psychotic break that was going to take over the whole movie, but happily the disorientation wasn’t permanent. I don’t know if it intended this, but the film succeeded extremely well in challenging our biases in ascribing different values to the original vs. the reproduction or the copy. I’d written up earlier how The Clone Returns to the Homeland investigates similar territory, but this was definitely more thorough and satisfying in that exploration. Of course there has to be a mining company in the story and it has to be evil, but the film turned the HAL concept inside out with making GERTY a friend instead of a foe. Wonderful performance(s) by Rockwell too.

[bottled spider]

I had dismissed Moon from consideration, I think because I was confusing it with another movie that was poorly reviewed. It sounds more promising than most of the other entries on my to-watch list, so I'll try to fit it in. And having just re-watched Her, The Man with Two Brains is now at the top of my watch list!

Her is fascinating, and difficult to read. I'm rather bemused by the plethora of blubbery reviews on Letterboxd, which surely take the movie in a more straight-faced vein than it could possibly have been been intended. I mean, having a bombshell like Scarjo play a disembodied AI is of itself a sly joke. And to have this billion-computations-per-second operating system run off with a virtual Alan Watts is extremely (albeit drily) funny. Less deadpan are: the installation wizard quizzing Theodore Twombly about his mother (shades of Bladerunner...); somebody naming their kid "Theodore Twombly"; the strangled-by-a-dead-cat phone-sex fantasy; the Perfect Mom video game; trying to have sex with a computer via a human proxy. The film isn't unserious, yet it's hard to gauge exactly what parts are not sardonic. Maybe I should watch it a third time.

[therewillbeblus]

I just rewatched Her last week and it'll chart highly for me, though probably not in the top ten where it was originally. I don't feel much different than my response to RV a few months ago:

Her (Jonze 2013).
As smart as this film was, though, I didn’t completely get on board with it and get to feel Theodore’s attachment and anguish. I don’t know if that says something about me or the script or other elements in the film. I know that as soon as Amy Adams shows up, she was immediately more interesting to me than Samantha and I was wondering why Theodore wasn’t choosing to go to her instead. And around three quarters into it, when things start getting complicated with the AI relationship, I just totally disengaged and couldn’t stay with Theo’s journey.

I may have more to say about this once I revisit, but Phoenix's character is one of the best examples of an emotionally-driven person rather than a logically-driven one. The human need for connection is broadened as an idea so as to be inclusive of all forms of sentient beings, but it's also specific to the trauma of heartbreak and other negative core beliefs impacting our ability to take action. This is an oversimplification of his internal processes, but he doesn't "choose" Adams because something within him says she isn't safe. This is a man who has experienced interpersonal romance and come out the other side broken, and even if Adams was absolutely transparent about her feelings and commitment to him, there is still that painful worldview Phoenix has that he is unlovable and incapable of having a successful relationship, and objective rationale isn't going to persuade those deep-rooted internal parts. I think Her is perhaps the most psychologically accurate film about this kind of internal-systems logic, at least for people who have that self-conscious concept of themselves and weigh the ramifications of the hurt against the potential for joy in a subconscious emotional risk management, only to choose avoidance for protection. I think I relate a bit too much to this character in some respects!

ScarJo was a replacement voice for Samantha Morton, added after Morton had recorded her voice and Jonze didn't like how it played. ScarJo of course has that vocal fry that signifies a human sexy idiosyncrasy, which helps break down that barrier for audiences in comprehending this relationship. Phoenix is great because he plays a character that is at once subject to objective scrutiny in his meekness, understated self-pity, and self-isolation, and yet also relatable for these same reasons. I find so much empathy for his character while also assessing it as an uncomfortable mirror into my own issues with relationships- that desire to hang on, that rejection of emotional turbulence in a partner, and the self-guided unrealistic expectations of a 'perfect' union that, when not compromised or faced openly, evolve into a disease that rots the connection. What works so well is that we see the film through his eyes, so we don't identify these deeper historical flaws until Mara shows up and we get the other perspective, and his reaction stacked along with the behavior before and after this sobering intrusion gives tons of information provoking the areas of our, and his, subconscious that he and we were comfortable refusing to traverse before this acute reminder of the unbearable.

[Rayon Vert]

And having just re-watched Her, The Man with Two Brains is now at the top of my watch list!

Go in with low expectations, and maybe you'll be pleasantly surprised. As I said, this type of film is very thin, basically a series of gags, but I happen to be a sucker for this one.

It's often this kind of humor: Dr.Hfuhruhurr (Martin) is riding in his car with a colleague and he's got a barbie doll on his dashboard that is a reminder of his dead wife Rebecca (I wonder if they used this name because of the Hitchcock film, since there's a scene where he's talking to her through her portrait). After the talks about his loss, the colleague asks about the doll, "Is that her"? Hfuhruhurr answers: "No. That's just a statue of her."

Now I roar with laughter every time at that scene, but I can imagine many others would be nonplussed.

Also, I watched with subtitles this time, and I caught a disturbing scene where Turner's character in a rage name-calls Martin with a quick string of racial slurs at one point including the n word (which of course is part of the absurdity given who she's addressing), which wouldn't fly today and shouldn't have back then.

[bottled spider]

That sounds right up my juvenile alley. Sometimes movies that are little more than a series of gags do work.

[Robin Davies]

The Man with Two Brains (Reiner 1983). (revisit) A guilty pleasure.

Why "guilty"? It's one of the best comedies ever made.

[Rayon Vert]

Well I'm happy to hear you think so, which relieves my guilt!

[L.A.]

Kathleen Turner is just super in that, not to forget Serial Mom.

The Man with Two Brains deserves a quality stacked release from a boutique label.

[Rayon Vert]

For years we only had the ratio-cropped dvd, so I was glad we finally got a proper Warner Archive blu release a few years ago.

[therewillbeblus]

The Man with Two Brains (Reiner 1983). (revisit) A guilty pleasure. Almost by definition you could say, the slapstick absurdist farces of this era are pretty thin as films, and this one is no different, but the sci-fi storyline possesses a wacky charm. The movie spoofs films like Donovan’s Brain (this one explicitly referenced) but it’s also got its own unique ponderings on the romantic implications of being in a relationship with a disembodied voice (I noted in the write-up for Her how that film explored similar territory, especially in the scene trying to find a surrogate body). More than that, I just find the film hilarious, consistently peppered with LOL moments - (alongside of course with the usual quota of gags that fall flat, and a few really morally dubious ones). I’m a fan of Martin’s “early funny ones”, but this one clearly stands out as the funniest. And Kathleen Turner isn’t only terrifically sexy, but just plain terrific here.

Maybe it's just because I grew up on Steve Martin dogmatically right along with Woody Allen, but I see nothing guilty about it either, though thank you for prompting me to return to this one that's been criminally absent from my list of go-to Martins. Right from the opening quip of "Get that cat out of there!", Turner's Daffy-Duck-level cartoonish jumping around, and RV's nod to the bobble-head wife replica (though my favorite line there is the faux-serious romantic yearning "I love how her head moves...") this had me laughing probably more than when I was a kid. Some gags are definitely troubling- none moreso than the sexual assault played for laughs early in the operating room against Turner, but in a film that goes for broke with intentional tastelessness, made in a non-PC era, I guess you can't expect a fully squeaky-clean set of jokes when they fire rounds off quicker than a ZAZ pic.

For some reason I have some personalized issue with including straight-spoofs on these lists- so I doubt this or Young Frankenstein will make appearances, while a film just as silly like Idiocracy will favor high due to its (ironic) intelligence at sociopolical commentary- and other spoofs like Planet Terror and Galaxy Quest and even Detention will too because they're more in tune with a more intricate self-reflexivity of not only the genre but the moviewatching experience. I realize this is all subjective and separated by strands of yarn, if even that, but it's an idiosyncratic criteria that somehow hinges on the themes of Sci-Fi being inclusive to the comedy, rather than the surface-level borrowings from specific references.