Dune: Part One (Denis Villeneuve, 2021)
Yes, but what about John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon (1941)?
Continue reading →Category / Sf films
Mandarin of the Rings
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Destin Daniel Cretton, 2021)
Those of you who have submitted yourselves to my shouting at clouds Marvel Universe movies know that they are not my cup of Earl Grey, nor even a guilty pleasure. Well, perhaps the first of the Spider-Men. I suspect Black Panther was the most interesting, but Martin Freeman saving the day rather undercut the thrust of the film. But, like Black Widow, I’m pleased that it exists, even if I am unlikely to rewatch more than once. And there must be several I still haven’t seen — excluding Iron Man III which I am pretty sure I have but wiped from my memory and unfortunately that presumably answers the question of Ben Kingsley.
Sssshhhhhhh!!!
A Quiet Place Part II (John Krasinski, 2020)
I confess to a bit of a hazy memory of part one — there are some kind of aliens or critters who react to sound and are menacing an American family in the wilds of New York State. Alongside bearded Lee Abbott (Krasinski) and heavily pregnant Evelyn Abbott (Emily Blunt), there are various kids, including the hearing impaired Regan Abbott (Millicent Simmonds) who is, of course, used to communicating nicely. It seemed a bit of a back to basics one damn thing after another thriller, without the tongue in cheek of Tremors or the social commentary of Blumhouse horrors.
Continue reading →Most Bogus
Bill & Ted Face the Music (Dean Parisot, 2020)
At the tail end of the 1980s was a science fiction comedy, which was just about silly enough — two Californian slacker dudes have to pass their assignment to guarantee the future and are aided in doing so by a man from the future with a time travelling phone box. Continue reading →
Peter Parker’s International Vacation
Jake Gyllenhaal has a strange look in his eyes for the first half hour — “I was nominated for a Oscar,” they say, “I used to do low budget quirky cult hits.” He’s a superhero from a parallel dimension, here to do battle with four Elementals that want to destroy this Earth as they destroy his. And it just so happens Water hits Venice when Peter Parker is on his school trip.
Oh Deeeerie Meeee
High Life (Claire Denis, 2018)
This is not alas the big screen version of the classic Alan Cumming-Forbes Masson-Siobhan Redmond sitcom, but Robert Pattison is no Alan Cumming and Juliette Binoche is no Forbes Masson. What we have is sf that suffers in the name of art, with Silent Running, Stalker and Sleeper wizzed in the blender with a crapper version of The Black Hole dribbling out of the jug.
The Antepenultimate Jedi
Have you seen it? Read on. If not, and spoilers bother you, stop.
The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson, 2017)
There’s a moment in Reign of Fire where a story is being acted out for a group of rapt children — and we in the audience should recognise the story, since it’s a version of the original Star Wars trilogy. Those first three films — episodes IV to VI — have the quality of the fairy tale, the orphan who battles monsters, who reaches the happily ever after moment and then is heard from no more, until he has to give half his kingdom and his daughter to whomever will slay the dragon. There is always another child — and it should have been more interesting than it was that Anakin was that child and grew up to be evil Darth Vader. Think reading The Magician’s Nephew after The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And then there was Rey, in The Force Awakens, of mysterious birth, a wild untutored phoenix in the ways of the Force who this time was a girl (and there was a great perturbance in the Force….)
Falling to Earth Again
Every so often, a contribution gets spiked or falls into limbo, and the text hangs around not being read on the harddrive. I ended up writing about The Man Who Fell to Earth in Solar Flares, “Unimportant Failures: The Fall and Rise of The Man Who Fell to Earth”, Science Fiction Across Media: Adaptation/Novelisation and “The Man Who Fell To Earth: The Messiah and the Amphicatastrophe”, Heroes, Monsters and Values: Science Fiction Films of the 1970s. I discuss the more famous, 1976, version here.
The Man Who Fell to Earth (David Gerber Productions/MGM Television, 1987)
Adapted from Walter Tevis, The Man Who Fell to Earth (1963)
(Dir. Bobby Roth; Sc. Richard Kitter; Pr. Christopher Chulack; Cin. Frederick Moore; P.D. John Mansbridge; SFX. Charles E. Dolan; starring Lewis Smith (John Dory); James Laurenson (Felix Hawthorne); Robert Picardo (Agent Richard Morse); Bruce McGill (Vernon Gage); Wil Wheaton (Billy Milton); Beverly D’Angelo (Eva Milton))
The Falling Man
Every so often, a contribution gets spiked or falls into limbo, and the text hangs around not being read on the harddrive. I ended up writing about The Man Who Fell to Earth in Solar Flares, “Unimportant Failures: The Fall and Rise of The Man Who Fell to Earth”, Science Fiction Across Media: Adaptation/Novelisation and “The Man Who Fell To Earth: The Messiah and the Amphicatastrophe”, Heroes, Monsters and Values: Science Fiction Films of the 1970s. I review the 1987 TV movie remake here [You’ll have to wait a few hours].
The Man Who Fell To Earth (British Lion, 1976)
Adapted from Walter Tevis, The Man Who Fell to Earth (1963)
The Ape with No Name
War for the Planet of the Apes (Matt Reeves, 2017)
The original Planet of the Apes franchise is a good example of the way in which sf film moved from radical to conservative between the late 1960s and late 1970s. Whilst the original Pierre Boulle novel presumably needs to be read in terms of French political history and colonialism, or in terms of class, the films seemed to offer an allegory for America in the civil rights era, with the apes standing in for whites, African Americans and Jews. Certainly we have the spectacle of Charlton Heston, old Moses and Ben Hur, and fellow white astronauts being subjected to the slave experience. As a sequel gave way to prequels, the films seemed to become more anxious about the politics (and there is something frankly racist about the allegory).
Subject to Change 