The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - SF Movies... and forget the Good

A new thread to continue the discussion on obscure, and not often appalling, sf films beofre it overwhelems http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=8320

Cliff: yes, Corman bought a load of Soviet sf films and cobbled together English-language films about of them. Francis Ford Coppola did one - Battle Beyond the Sun. I've yet to see it. There's also Queen of Blood, which is actually quite good. Both used footage from the Russian film Niebo Sovyet.

Ian:

I...was...kidding...

I'll get you for this. A thread like this one could keep me at it for days on end.

Can I mention a flick that I saw and had to grudgingly admit that, despite its title, it had redeeming qualities?

"Robinson Crusoe on Mars". Before you commence gagging, keep in mind it was directed by Byron Haskin, who was no slouch, and in the toffee-nosed HALLIWELL'S FILM GUIDE it actually merits two stars. That same source cites the following review from TIME: "Here comes a pleasant surprise, a piece of science fiction based on valid speculation...modest yet provocative"...and I think I'd go along with that.

The stranded astronaut has to use his pluck and ingenuity to survive and because his air is limited must devise a clever means of surviving in the poisonous atmosphere of the red planet.

I'm not claiming "Robinson Crusoe on Mars" rivals "2001" for sheer brilliance but it's miles beyond a lot of SF flicks out there. And now I turn the floor over to someone else.

Arthur? Get you butt in here and tell us why "Zardoz" deserves a second look, thirty years later...

Cliff... Robinson Crusoe on Mars was recently released by the Criterion Collection. They don't usally do that for rubbish films. Well, all right, they did for Wes Anderson's films...

Criterion?!! Really? That surprises me.

I got lucky with "Robinson Crusoe on Mars". A friend used to tape me stuff off his dish because he took pity on the fact that we don't have cable; we're a two-channel family, baby, and one of them doesn't come in very clear. He caught it late at night, left the tape running and zipped it off to me, bless him.

I was expecting a yuk-fest, was prepared to spew popcorn all over the place in abject laughter. But the film makers took the subject matter seriously and I came away impressed.

And in case people didn't pick up my link from the previous thread, I'll repost my article on old SF films from scifidimensions.com:

http://www.scifidimensions.com/Apr04/rubbersuits.htm

And, Ian, you should repost your piece from your "Just Has to be Plausible" blog for the same reason...

Well, as I've already told you (in a private message), I'm willing to give it ("Zardoz") another look. I like Connery and Charlotte Rampling is one of my all time babes so that alone sells it to me.

What's the background on the film--is it an original screenplay or adapted from another source? Does the copy you have have any "bonus" features that offer any neat tid-bits behind the making of the film?

I had the opportunity to meet Forry Ackerman when I made an ill-advised run down to California years and years ago with a friend. Too little money, too little time and we nearly got killed on the way back because we were so tired we were falling asleep as we drove. Hallucinated deer and various creatures bounding out of the ditch, the whole nine yards. Nuts. You do shit like that in your early 20's so you can get the dumbness out of the way.

Forry's "Ackermansion" was one of the spots that was a must-see on my itinerary. My friend was no sci fi fan but he tagged along anyway. Forry was very gracious, although he was clearly smitten with a woman visiting from Italy who was quite the stunner (Forry always had an eye for the ladies). He showed me up to his living room where he had original paintings by Ray Bradbury and one of my heroes, Charles Beaumont. Told me some great stories and sent me on my way with a souvenir key chain, which is still around, I suspect, though I'd likely have to dig for it.

By the way, one of my measurements for whether or not someone is a smarty-pants (like me) is if they like "2001" or, at least, admire it. To me, it is so far beyond other SF flicks, it's not really worth discussing. I think Clarke at one time said something like "MGM had no idea they were getting a $10 million dollar religious picture", which ain't a bad summation.

Enough of my blather. Let's keep this thread going and pay no mind to the likes of me...

Arthur:

Went back to my HALLIWELL'S and it had this citation for "Zardoz":

"Pompous, boring fantasy for the so-called intelligentsia."

And quoted from the NEW YORKER (Pauline Kael maybe?): "A glittering cultural trash pile...the most gloriously fatuous movie since 'The Oscar'."

But, see, that makes me want to see it all the more. I consider myself a charter member of the "so-called intelligentsia" and I treasure things that are "gloriously fatuous".

Besides, isn't Harlan Ellison one of the credited screenwriters for "The Oscar"--yup, I thought so. Seen that one? I did (God help me). Do not, repeat, NOT mention that film to Harlan. He may be getting up there in years and has a bum ticker but if he catches you in the first 10 or twenty yards, you're a dead man...

P.S. Now I definitely have to find "Targets". You bastard...

Finally got my copy of "Colossus: The Forbin Project" and that one definitely belongs on this thread too. Good but not great. With Eric Braedon giving a surprisingly good performance. Downbeat ending. Tried reading the other novels in the series but they were (doing Hunter Thompson imitating Ralph Steadman) "Teddible, just teddible..."

#10 Now I definitely have to find "Targets".

I borrowed it from ye olde Saskatoon library a few years ago, so I would assume that it's still available there. Boris Karloff owed Corman a few days shooting, so his part in the film is largely padding but he does a great closing line. Well worth a viewing.

Harry:

Ye olde Saskatoon Library (Frances Morrison) is either the first or last place we stop during our monthly trip in to the big city. I assume you mean the VHS racks, do you? I shall check. I love that place.

Arthur: I have a soft spot for crap. That's what I love about this thread. "Soylent Green", "The Omega Man", "Altered States", these aren't masterpieces but they have a special place in me jaded heart. I should also give a mention to "Silent Running"--definitely NOT crap...except for one of the absolute WORST title themes in the history of cinema, Joan Baez singing in this hideous, warbling voice. Christ!

"Gattaca" I have to watch again--didn't cause a ripple in me the first time I saw it. I have a deep and possibly irrational disdain for Ethan Hawke--he's like Keanu Reeves, a sucking black hole onscreen--and that may have caused me to view the flick with a jaundiced eye. I've seen it a couple of times in discount bins at WalMart and the next time I do...

That's what bugs me about today's video/movie stores: they give so much space to new releases (50 freakin' copies of "Spiderman 8") that the older films get bumped out. There used to be a sci fi section here in town but now everything gets lumped into drama or action. What's wrong with categorizing films like books? Here's horror, here's SF, etc. I've had to seek out on-line sources for old films and that can get expensive (especially when you factor in shipping). We own a VHS/DVD machine so at least I can go after both formats. I have a friend who has over 5,000 VHS movies and ten VCR's he bought cheap stowed away in the garage for the day when that format is no longer around. Now THERE'S a film fan...

"I assume you mean the VHS racks"

No, it's a DVD.

Harry: Gotcha, I'll have a look. My thanks.

I preferred Tarkovsky's "Solaris" to Soderbergh/Clooney's take on it...but it was still a tad, er, slow for me. One nice touch in the original is that some of the crew pin strips of papers by the air circulation units of the space station to make a sound like leaves rustling. That was BRILLIANT.

I want to see "Stalker"; I've got Tarkovsky's "The Sacrifice" (VHS) on my "to watch" pile at the top of the basement stairs.

How about "Man Facing Southeast"? An Argentinian film written and directed by Eliseo Subiela--supposed to be influenced by the writings of Philip K. Dick.

"A man named Rantes suddenly appears in a Buenos Aires psychiatric hospital expertly playing the organ. But who is he...a critically acclaimed science fiction parable of a saint-like stranger in an even stranger land--our earth."

-taken from the back of the VHS box

Re 2001 - IMO it suffers from the same problem as most of Kubrick's films - it is a technical masterpiece but there is a coldness at the heart of it. He is a director that is easier to admire than love.

Re Zardoz - the Channel 4 (UK) review of the film claims that it is Boorman's masterpiece. I can't agree with that but it is still worth a look.

If you look at the dates of the major films discussed on this thread so far, they were all released in small window between the late sixties and early seventies when the idea of intelligent sf in the movies still existed. Perhaps the expense of special effects meant that writers & directors were equally willing to concentrate on characters and story.

As regards films not mentioned so far, I have a soft spot for Trancers (although I admit watching the 5 sequels hardened it slightly) - it starred the 'great' Tim Thomerson, and some actress called Helen Hunt who may have gone onto bigger things, although not necessarily better - What Women Want anyone? It was made by Charles Band, the man who makes Roger Corman look like Cecil B. DeMille!

Another vote for Zardoz.

Mercifully, Boorman does wrap up a bunch of things at the end, but it does not give the casual viewer much of any exposition to clue them in.

You either figure it out as you go along for the ride, or it strikes you as "Pompous, boring fantasy for the so-called intelligentsia." There's very little middle ground.

Jargoneer:

You're right about the narrow time frame. And then fucking "Star Wars" came along in 1977 and screwed everything up.

Boorman's masterpiece? Er, I'd go with "Deliverance" (still powerful) and "Excalibur" (revisionist though it may be to the Arthurian legend).

And I'll agree that Kubrick's films can be cold, especially those in the latter portion of his career. Nothing cold about "Paths of Glory" though, still one of the great anti-war films ever. "2001" is pretty chilly; the Hal 9000 computer is the most three dimensional character in the film.

I liked the first "Trancers" too--it's a neat little film. And Helen Hunt is cute as a button.

Arthur: "Journey to the Far Side of the Sun" is VERY interesting crap; saw it again a couple of months ago. I like Roy Thinnes and his "Invaders" series is another one I've been watching the internet for--but it's somewhat further down my list than other items.

"Dark Star"? How about that one? An early collaboration of John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon. Fun crap. The guy who sits up in the bubble observatory, likely absorbing horrendous amounts of interstellar radiation.

Keep 'em coming, lads. We haven't even hit TV yet--the Irwin Allen abominations of the 60's (heh heh). Shit, I grew up on them, especially "Land of the Giants"...

Bob! Welcome aboard, lad...

P.S. Arthur, I followed your link to "Atomic Submarine", which I've never seen. Thirty-six bucks on Amazon...and that's USED. Yikes!

I first saw Targets some time in 1992 (back when Bravo was still an arts channel). Living in California (and driving those freeways) at the time, it scared the crap out of me! I'd recommend that one.

Zardoz... all these comments are making me want to watch it again, but oh man in my memories that one was painful... I thought the stone head vomiting rifles while going on about the penis would make a fun movie. But I remember drifting off when he hits the disco village. Isn't he in a dress at some point?

I'd agree that 2001 is cold, but the tone seemed right for that particular movie.

I don't know if I'm opening a can of worms here, but some bad sci-fi that I love is any of the Toho giant monster movies. Especially if it involves aliens in Ray-Bans or mad scientists with names like Dr. Who. Objectively, I know they're beyond terrible, but watching Godzilla kick the stuffing out of Tokyo for the upteenth time never fails for me.

Nothing wrong with gigantic things squishing cities...just as long as it isn't named "Cloverfield". The problem with these new fangled flicks is that they take themselves too seriously. The concepts are so absurd and the film-makers don't PLAY with that. Everything's so goddamned EARNEST. Matter of fact, a sense of humour and self-deprecation seems to be missing from the entire field of SF--which is why when you criticize some aspect of it, so many fan-boys get all biscuit-ersed. Annoys the hell out of me.

I like dopey old movies with silvery, pointed spaceships, bulbous-headed aliens and warrior queens in tinfoil. Come to think of it, those were the only things missing from "2001" that could've possibly made it a better flick.

Gimme "Robinson Crusoe On Mars" over fucking "Sunshine" any old day...

"Lost Skeleton of Cadavra"--for the first half hour, terrific spoof. After that it dragged like an old episode of "Dallas" but it was created with a sense of fun and real love for cheesy movies.

http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/thelostskeletonofcadavra/

By the way, when I played shinny with my nephews at Christmas time I got drilled in the nuts by a frozen tennis ball and "Eegah!" was approximately the sound I made. But I didn't go down. Canadian boys DON'T dive...

Arthur:

Those are bloody good entries. "Kronos" is on my "To Watch" list--I'd like to see it back to back with "Monolith Monsters". For some reason, those two seem to fit on a double bill together. Loved "Death Race 2000"--hmm, "Life Force". Was that based on Colin Wilson's "Space Vampires"? I think I recall a gorgeous murderous alien who walked around nude a lot. Liked "The Hidden" (years ago) but not "They Live"--John Carpenter was on the downward spiral with that one. Nowhere near as good as his remake of "The Thing" and "Escape From New York" (both of which my two sons love too).

"Earth Vs. Flying Flying Saucers" and "It Came From Outer Space"--quality crap.

Haven't seen enough "Outer Limits" episodes to do a fair comparison against "Twilight Zone". The Serling stuff tended to be treacly but the Beaumont/Matheson TZ scripts had some good stuff.

I can recall an episode of Serling's "Night Gallery" that scared me half to death as a kid. A man kills his wife and lover, buries them out in a storage shed but when he checks them later there's a hand popping out, slowly rising above the dirt. That bugger traumatized me.

Wasn't "Fiend Without A Face" the title of a Ramsey Campbell book too?

"Species" & the sequel? Good crap?

"Invaders From Mars" (forget the remake, that's crappy crap). They serialized that one after school when I was a kid. I'd rush home to catch each installment. Scared the piss out of me (the fact that no one would would believe the little boy in the film--every child knows that feeling of powerlessness and relates to it).

Do they ever still have hosts introducing old horror/SF shows, talking about some of the background, the actors and crew? On some obscure cable station, somewhere in Nebraska at two a.m. when only nighthawks, serial killers and vampires are awake? Or am I showing my age?

Cliff: here's the link you mentioned for the first 14 films from the "SciFi Classics 50-movie pack":

http://justhastobeplausible.blogspot.com/2008/02/i-did-this-so-you-dont-have-to....

And here's one for a review of Queen of Blood I wrote earlier:

http://justhastobeplausible.blogspot.com/2007/11/hideous-beyond-belief.html

And I have to mention the best worst sf film I have ever seen: Bad Channels. It's another Charles Band special. A rock DJ at a radio station is playing polka continuously in protest at the management's decision to become a country station. An alien lands nearby and takes over the station. This alien then beams heavy metal to selected attractive women in the town. The women hallucinate that the band is actually performing live before them, before being beamed back to the radio station, shrunk to 6 inches in height, and imprisoned in a glass bottle...

Also worthy of note is Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., starring David Hasselhof in the title role.

Nick Fury - another great performance from one of the true renaissance men of modern times. The highlight of the movie has to be Fury's "eye".

>30 arthurfrayn: - that's a good list of 50s movies; most of them still stand up to viewing today (unless you need everything to be CGI-ed). Watching them, it's hard not to believe that everyone in 50's America wasn't completely wired on paranoia!

Kyle MacLachlan - star of "The Hidden" - am I the only one who thinks that his hair should have received a best supporting actor Oscar by now?

Another obscure 80s film (I blame the straight-to-video market for all these cheesy movies) - "Radioactive Dreams" - a post-apocalypse film noir musical. Sample quote That was our first encounter with disco mutants. I was sure it wouldn't be our last.

How could I neglect to mention "Logan's Run"? That one sucked worse than a busted vacuum cleaner--though there are moments of unintended humour.

Michael York, in this man's view, is the worst actor to ever grace the silver screen. Tor Johnson is a thespian on the order of David Garrick compared to that guy. Not even the lovely Jenny Agutter could save "Logan's Run". And to think it actually spawned a short-lived TV series--why?

The chap who wrote the screenplay for my novella "Kept" was brought in to pitch a script for a remake for "Logan's Run" so watch for it, folks, it's in the pipeline. And it could be one of those cases where the remake is far superior to the original.

Did not see "Bad Channels" or "Nick Fury"--that would make a helluva double feature.

Jargoneer, old chap, that line you quoted was so brilliant, I had to read it twice. "Radioactive Dreams" and "Earth Girls Are Easy"? Pack your bong full and enjoy a night of truly fine (silly) viewing...

P.S. Anyone defending "Logan's Run" in any way, shape or form will be flagged to oblivion. You have been warned...

Definitely agree on Michael York.

But not on Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. That's an early Harryhausen, and quite remarkably intelligent for an early 1950s sf B-movie.

Missile to the Moon, OTOH... The rocket launch is stock footage of a V-2 launch. The rocket landing on the Moon is stock footage of V-2 launch backwards. Apparently, the sunlight on the Moon is so fierce, it will fry you to a crisp if you don't keep to the shadows. Oh, and there are rock monsters there too. They move too slowly to catch you, unless you accidentally trip over and roll around on the ground screaming...

Ray Harryhausen is practically a God to our family. We LOVE stop motion animation and his work is masterful. I even managed to beg, borrow or swindle his address in London and sent the venerable gentleman a fan letter on behalf of our family, thanking him for the many hours of entertainment his films have given us. Never got a reply back but it was still worth it. The man is a genius.

I just watched 'Planet of the Vampires' (aka: too many titles to list).

I've heard good things about Mario Bava as a director, but I don't think this is the place I should have started.

It showed promise with a pre-'Alien' story of a spaceship investigating an S.O.S. beacon on an uncharted (and suitably creepy) planet.

Alas, the good doesn't quite outweigh the bad in this one. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if this is one I rent again in a few years, just to see if I missed something.

There is something to be said for the films' colorful lighting, creative special effects, warehouse-sized spaceship control room (my house could fit in that empty space!) and most especially their bondage-inspired uniforms.

"Moon Zero Two" with James Olsen and Catherine Schell. When someone is shot on the surface of the moon, their spacesuit deflates like a burst balloon. Very funny. Roy Ward Baker directs--I seem to know that name for some reason.

Jseger9000 : Haven't seen a Bava film and, judging by your posting, I shouldn't be in any rush...

Ian: Forgot to mention I popped over and read your take on "Queen of Blood". Sounds like a lot of fun. And I'm glad I'm not the only one with a deep dark secret re: loving these old, bad SF efforts. I have a feeling there are a lot more of us out there than we would ever realize.

Moon Zero Two. Pfft. You want Moon 44... which has helicopters. On an airless moon. Directed by Roland Emmerich of Independence Day and Stargate.

You swine, Ian.

How's that for an opening?

I just spent 20 minutes in my scary basement, digging through cluttered, half-busted shelves, trying to turn up more flicks to add to the roster. Thanks for starting this irresistible thread.

I thought I should list the SF movies I genuinely like, that have redeeming aspects, just do this isn't the equivalent of potting ducks in a barrel:

2001
Forbidden Planet
Brazil
Alien, Aliens, Alien IV
The Thing (1982)
Road Warrior
Blade Runner
A Scanner Darkly
Incredible Shrinking Man
Star Trek II & VI
Day the Earth Stood Still
Day the Earth Caught Fire
Silent Running
Delicatessan
Clockwork Orange
The Abyss (ending terrible)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (orig.)
Metropolis

...and then fun but lower echelon efforts

Outland
Brainstorm
Rollerball
Andromeda Strain
Hardware
12 Monkeys
Matrix
Sky Captain & World of Tomorrow
Robinson Crusoe on Mars
Robocop
Space Truckers
Escape from New York
Destination Moon
Rocketship X-M
THX-1138
The Thing (1951--orig.)
Soylent Green
Omega Man
Man Who Fell to Earth
Pitch Black/Chronicles of Riddick
Tremors
Close Encounters of 3rd Kind (too earnest)
Man With X-Ray Eyes
Earth Vs. Flying Saucers
Soldier
Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai
It Came from Outer Space
Phase IV
Independence Day
2010: Odyssey II
Time After Time
Planet of the Apes/Beneath Planet of Apes
The Quiet Earth
This Island Earth
Mad Max
Star Wars
Village of the Damned
Starship Troopers

...heading toward silly-ville:

It! The Terror from Beyond Space
Fantastic Voyage
When Worlds Collide
Liquid Sky
Brother From Another Planet
Wild in the Streets
The Blob
War of the Worlds (not Cruise version)
Leviathan
Deep Rising
20 Million Miles To Earth
Day of the Triffids
Planet Earth/Genesis II (Roddenberry tripe)

To see:

Alphaville
Monolith Monsters
Kronos

There are some I've skipped altogether, like "Event Horizon", "Fahrenheit 451", "Tron", "Quintet", "Total Recall" and "The Black Hole", just because I didn't like them period and couldn't figure out where to slot them in (couldn't even watch them again for FUN). Others might have been previously mentioned and discussed. And, as always, there are categorization problems: is it horror? fantasy? SF? Had to put "Brazil" in with the best of the best because it defies labels, just simply a brilliant flick everyone with four working neurons should see.

Along with my reading of novels and stories about the early space exploration and the... conquest of the solar system... I've been viewing a lot of movies.
SF literature was already rich with this sort of thing in the '30s (I'm reading Eando Binder stories from the late '30s through the '40s which were assembled into the novel Puzzle of the Space Pyramids) but the movies were slow to catch on with anything beyond Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, till the '50s.

VITAL EXCEPTION: "Frau im Mond" 1929 (I'm following space exploration so "Metropolis" and "Things to Come" fall outside my selected area)

"Rocketship XM" 1950 is another film which used V2 footage for it's rocket launch... Footage which in no way matched the spaceship seen in matte painting and miniature elsewhere in the film. View the film now and this has been fixed in most prints by Wade Williams, who had new sfx shot to enhance the film back in the early '80s. It's less dull than "Destination Moon" but vastly stupider - with it's Moon mission diverted to Mars, getting "stalled" in space when the rocket malfunctions. BUT. It does get to Mars and we are treated to explorers in parkas and oxygen masks discovering ancient ruins in the Martian desert. Mars, you see, had a nuclear war ages ago and the survivors are now stone-age savages.

I mention "RXM" as the first of the space exploration films - first because it was rushed into production to beat the scheduled big studio release of "Destination Moon".

I've been enjoying (more or less) such items as:
"Fire Maidnens of Outer Space"1956 - V2 footage forward for takeoff and backward for landing - and that is FAR from the silliest thing in this movie of astronauts wandering around a park, intended to be a moon of Jupiter, interacting with ladies in short skirts and some guy in a leotard and a monster mask.

"The Wizard of Mars" 1965 - A movie I love but can not safely recommend to most people. Astronauts crash on Mars and must trek overland to reach another portion of their ship where they hope to find additional oxygen and supplies. Mostly the film is four people, in modestly nifty spacesuits, walking and sitting and pretending to row a rubber raft (which is obviously motionless) - and walking, and walking. Obvious influences on this film are "Robinson Crusoe on Mars"1964 and "Planeta Burg"1962, both vastly superior films. But this movie still works for me. The effects are not great but some are above average. The sets are iffy - Bad spaceship interior - simple but effective Martian city interiors. Oh, and John Carridine turns up to deliver a long monologue near the end.

"Countdown" 1968 - A Robert Altman film that is actually rather neat... The Russians are about to beat us to the Moon and NASA decides to do an end-run by re-purposing existing hardware and getting one man there with the intent of resupplying him on the surface and bringing him back on a later mission. It's an understated film which spends as much time on the motivations and family life of the protagonist as it does on the, somewhat hastily depicted, Moon mission.

"Mission Mars" 1968 - I have to wonder if this film wasn't inspired by "Countdown". Certainly, it must have been announced that Hank Searls The Pilgrim Project was being adapted, so they would have had the time. I'd guess it took about a week to plan, develop, shoot and assemble this movie.
Dreadful music accompanies as we learn way too muchabout the boring lives of three astonauts who finally go to Mars via stock footage and some mediocre model work. On Mars we see a mix of claustrophobically small "outdoor" sets and rather mismatched miniatures... We also see what may be the least convincing space suits in film history. BUT there is a kinda cool pop-art nightmare alien and a mysterious sphere. Space movies always get points for mysterious geometric solids.

"First Spaceship on Venus" 1962 From "Der Schweigende Stern" 1960 is based on a Stanislaw Lem novel. It's rather a neat movie with good effects and a nice exploration driven plot. Y'see an artifact recovered from the Tunguska site proves to be a piece of recording medium from which it is learned that inhabitants of Venus plan to attack the Earth. It's been 50 - 60 years since the Tunguska event and no attack has hppened yet so an expeditoin to Venus is mounted to find out what's going on. The Venusian environment is depicted as all wind and fog and jarring shapes which may be organic or may be ruined structures. All in all it's entertaining even if the message is nothing new (see Rocketship XM). The movie gets points for it's international rocketship crew, including a Japanese woman and an African man.

"The Conquest of Space" 1955 - Yee Ha! This is a step up from "Destination Moon" - in most ways. It's the film version of ideas from those famous Colliers Magazine articles of the early '50s, complete with wheel space staion and astronauts scooting around in space taxis. Unfortunately there's a bizarre character transformation as the leader of the Mars expedition undergoes a weird religious mania which makes him sabotage the mission. And the Mars landing, when it happens, is not very interesting. Beautiful looking movie though.

"Riders to the Stars" 1954 - This is a movie that succeds for me despite one of the goofiest premises in history. Early days of rocketry. Problem. Every time we shoot a rocket into space, it's metallic structure is broken down by cosmic rays. What comes back is crumbly wreckage. BUT WAIT! Meteorites of nickle/iron land on Earth all the time an they have been in space for... well... a loooong time. SO. Meteors must be covered with some outer coating which protects them form cosmic rays but which is burnt off as they pass through Earth's atmosphere. THEREFORE - We need to launch a manned rocket (only needs to be in space a very short few minutes) when there's a meteor swarm passing, and we snag a meteorite in space and return it safely to Earth! The movie is all in the earnest trappings of hard SF as a secret government project selects and trains brilliant men who have backgrounds as jet pilots for the mission. And it's pretty well done for the time. I recommend the novelization to anyone who really likes this sort of thing - Riders to the Stars.

"Men into Space" 1959-60 - I only have a handful of episodes of this half hour TV series which chronicles a fascinating fictional space program with the building of a space station and moon base and various missions and explorations. A typical episode begins and ends in a suburban house or yard as the astronauts and families discuss the mission which somehow resolves itself in the intervening 20 minutes... Neat hardware. Decent sfx. Hard SF seriousness. Unfortunately the stories I've seen are mostly dull.

"Journey to the Seventh Planet" 1962 - So named because "Journey to Uranus" was obviously not acceptable... A co-production with Denmark, this film shamelessly steals ideas from Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles and manages to waste them utterly. A space ship lands on Uranus, the surface of which transformms into a temperate forest as they touch down. The astronauts discover that the earthlike region is surrounded by a black wall, beyond which are the true conditions of Uranus. Scenes of the explorers in spacesuits (runner-ups for worst space-suit ever - See "Mission Mars") on the sets depicting the icy Uranian landscape are actually kind cool. Never mind what the secret of Uranus is. It's nothing original.

It's gonna be a long, strange trip working through all the films that fit my general criteria, and I could list dozens more, I've already seen.

Thingmaker:

Great post, man!

"Journey to the 7th Planet" I have a vague recollection of. From the late-late-LATE show, years ago. Thirty? Has it been that long? Shit...I am getting old, muchachos.

Glad you cited "Conquest of Space" because I have that one on order from eBay, along with "Tarantula".

I left the giant insect films off my list because, again, are they horror or SF?

None of the films I've seen match the beauty of those Chesley Bonestell prints from the early days of space travel. Screw accuracy, those buggers were GORGEOUS. If I could go back in time, I'd get him painting mattes, collaborating with the people who did the FX work for "Forbidden Planet". A documentary-like trip about the universe, how imagineers in the 50's pictured possible worlds out there. Sigh. Never gonna happen. More's the pity...

Anybody got any more foreign SF? Good stuff or trash?

There was one SF movie made with Canadian money in the late 70's called "Starship Invasions". Dreadful, utterly without any redeeming qualities...and that's with a cast that included Robert Vaughan, Christopher Lee and Helen Shaver. If I give any more thought to it, I'll likely break out in hives.

On behalf of the people of Canada, my apologies.

Am I the only one who thinks 2010 is a better film than 2001? It's got great tension between the Americans and Soviets, plenty of claustrophobia and vertigo that make the journey seem pretty real, and doesn't have the love-it-or-hate-it trippy ending. Instead, you find out what the monoliths are actually doing.

I don't dislike 2001, I just think 2010 is way underrated.

#47 Anybody got any more foreign SF? Good stuff or trash?

Well, there's always the Turkish versions of Star Trek and Star Wars:

http://www.bijoucafe.com/goods/bijou_store1vcd_T.htm

I quite enjoy this website--lots of, ahem, "gems". Click "view" to see the master list. "Goke, Body Snatchers from Hell", anyone?

I dunno, MonkeyRobo, I just didn't think that "2010" was as cerebral and ambitious and as technically proficient as the original. Peter Hyams is no Stanley Kubrick (as the other films in his body of work seem to prove).

It's certainly a warmer movie than "2001", with good performances by Helen Mirren, John Lithgow and, especially, Bob Balaban as Chandra, Hal's creator. But I think Roy Scheider was fatally miscast as Heywood Floyd and the politics of the film now seem really dated.

I did put "2010" in the second echelon of my movie list so I don't think it awful, just a pale imitation of the original. The special fx are first rate.

I didn't have any trouble with the ending of "2001". It was enigmatic, to be sure, but in keeping with the almost mystical feel of the picture. My only regret is that I've never seen "2001" on a big screen, in 70mm, so I could really grasp the power and immensity of Kubrick's vision, a story that really does transcend space and time...

There's this:

http://www.scifidimensions.com/Sep05/defa.htm

The Silent Star is available dubbed in English as First Spaceship on Venus.

Planeta Burg (butchered to make Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet and Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women) is apparently available in English. Sadly Nebo Sovyet (from which Queen of Blood was made) isn't.

</i>>38 CliffBurns:/39 - I'm sorry but Michael York probably isn't even in the worst fifty actors: he's not even the worst actor who looks like Michael York - that's Simon MacCorkindale (remember "Manimal"?). Just to prove York is nowhere near the worst, I have two words for you - Richard Gere; or Blinky the Actor as I refer to him. Gere angry - blink fast: Gere sad - blink slow - in fact, that's his only two expressions.

>41 jseger9000:/42 - Bava - he's a better horror/thriller director: something like "Black Sunday" would be a good place to start (and it also has Barbara Steele in it even if you don't like the story).

>42 CliffBurns: - Roy Ward Baker - he was a jobbing director for years but you probably recognise the name from his Hammer/Amicus films: he did stuff like "The Vampire Lovers" and "Asylum". He also directed possibly Hammer's best sf film - "Quatermass and the Pit".

Re foreign films - this is actually a very good one, "Alphaville".

Harry:

Thanks for that link--I'll check it out. You make it sound very enticing.

Here's another link--this one to a "mockumentary" I wrote that reflects my love of SF TV shows from the 60's. I could not place this piece with any publication, print or otherwise, because of its length and also because there was no way to pigeonhole it: fiction? Nonfiction? Neither? Both?

I mentioned this in another thread but I sent a copy of this article to Harlan Ellison, with a cover letter asking for his reminiscences on the series, since he "wrote" one of the classic episodes ("Merchants of Death"). Ten days later, I got a call from Harlan and he said "Kid, I dunno how to tell you this, I never wrote for this series and never even HEARD of it!" I explained, he chuckled and went back and read the rest.

Inspired by Roddenbery, Stefano, Serling and Irwin Allen, my article on the SF series that never was, "The Prometheus Mission" (complete with Season 1 episode guide). Presented here for my fellow fans of good/bad SF:

http://cliffjburns.files.wordpress.com/2007/03/prometheus1.pdf

Jargoneer: Gere as "Blinky the actor"--I howled. Lovely! Perfect depiction. Can't watch a Gere film. Can't watch a York film either. Call them #1 and #1A. Didn't see "Manimal" (must have been the title) but I'll take your word on MacCorkindale.

I knew I recognized Baker's (director) name from something--a real journeyman, eh?

Ian: the article in scifidimensions is quite helpful--hadn't heard of any of that stuff. Except...

I actually have a copy of "First Spaceship on Venus" on one of these DVD compilations with 13 hours of bad movies on 3 disks. Can't say I remember it, should go back downstairs--hello, again, creepy spider-filled basement--and haul it up some weekend to give it the ol' Mystery Science Theatre treatment.

Thanks for this, lads...

The first SF movie I watched was also the first (and only) Norwegian SF movie. Blindpassasjer (stow-away) from 1978 by Jon Bing and Tor Åge Bringsverd.
The story is as follows: A starship is on its way home after a long trip, they find a strange derelict ship and examines it, picking up a "Biomat", a biological robot that can imitate other lifeforms.
The alien kill one in the crew, dumping him in the waste disposal unit, and take his place. It want a ride to their base but slowly it occur to the crew that something is wrong. Who is the killer, who can you trust etc.
The alien is found out when the victims girlfriend want to make out and it has no idea how to respond (it got the mans specs from the computer and the files was lacking in this regard)
It was brilliant when it was made, but 30 years have taken their toll.

Ardagor:

Has "Blindpassasjer" been released here in North America in any format? Sounds like it might be a fun way to spend a dull Saturday night. How good were the production values--did the film have a decent budget?

Thanks for posting about this, it's interesting to hear about SF efforts from elsewhere...

#56

The budget was not exactly big...
The acting is mostly of the Stand straight and deliver your line type...
The set is quite good, I was certainly impressed at the time.
I know it has been aired in Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark. It is available on DVD in norwegian, dont know if it is translated to english.

Harry:

That Bijou Flix site you linked us to (#49) is a hoot! Very, very fun stuff...

One item of note in the early space exploration SF vein is:
"Walt Disney Treasures, Tomorrow Land - Disney in Space and Beyond"
It's one of those DVD sets in the metal box...The segments include:

"Man in Space" contains humorous animation about the history of rockets and how space travel would work and some great "realistic" animation of a rocket launch.
"Man and the Moon" is the best part. We get more humorous animation, then Dr. von Braun tells us how his plan for a multi-stage rocket would work... THEN - We get a live action space journey in one of those rockets, with an orbit of the Moon. Some of the coolest effects of the '50s!
There's a lot more stuff on the discs but "Man and the Moon" is the highlight for me.

I am a nut for astronauts and moon mission stuff. I'm sure if I ever met Neil Armstrong I would be completely gobsmacked.

That DVD box set you mention sounds lovely. Hang on to it like a miser's last silver dollar, mon.

Arthur: gotta see "Alphaville" one day--not too artsy-fartsy pretentious, is it?
I'll watch Tarkovsky's "The Sacrifice" when I have a couple of hours. Right now my schedule is tight with editing et all.

And speaking of which, I'd better get back at it or I won't finish before nine tonight...

Thanks all! This thread has really taken me back to the flea pits of my youth. I'd forgotten Rocketship XM.

You might try this -

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7038656109656489183

I've not seen a mention of Ed D Wood's classic turkey - Plan 9 from Outer Space. A contender for the title of Worst Film ever made. It is viewable on video.google in the Public Domain.

Zombies and flying saucers on strings as I remember it. It was Bela Lugosi's last movie - he died after a scene or two and was replaced by a chiropractor? dentist? who wore a big hat and covered his face with his cloak in a vain attempt to look the part.

Terrible, terrible film.

Good on you for mentioning it, we've been remiss for not dropping it in to la discussion so far. The saucers on wires...wonderful. Anybody in future ever tries to CGI them out will be committing a crime against cinema.

The movie "Ed Wood", with Martin Landau as Bela, is a lovely homage. When Bela rages about Karloff--"That Limey c---sucker," I'm rolling on the floor. And, of course, his battle to the death with the giant octopus...

Moments later: Hey, I clicked on your link. How come "Night of the Living Dead" is listed as "public domain"? That seems...odd. Why not something like Dreyer's "Vampyr" or Lang's "Metropolis"? They're much, much older. "Night of the Living Dead" seems too recent (1968) to get that designation.

Anyone?

Yes, but my problem is I saw Godard's "Breathless" and just couldn't see why the guy has gained the reputation he has. I'm a film buff, I can watch and appreciate Kurosawa, Fassbinder, Herzog, Cassavetes...but "Breathless" left me anything but.

Have to see "Alphaville", however--cause it's sci fi, I've heard about it, my curiosity is piqued...and I obsessively and compulsively pursue films I want to see until I get 'em.

Just finished watching (10 minutes ago) "Overnight", the documentary on Troy Duffy, film-maker ("Boondock Saints") who could've had it all and pissed it away. Wanted to see that one, hunted up a copy, though it took awhile and now I'm pleased as punch with myself. Same thing will happen with "Alphaville": I'll see it if it takes me a week, a year, a decade. Or I might stumble across it in a weird little art theatre somewhere, similar to what happened with Jodorowski's "Santa Sangre" (now there's a flick to put the whammy into you)...

I'll click on your link tomorrow--I'm beat and gotta get to bed.

I just stumbled into this thread by accident and have to say: Great discussion, guys!! I haven't thought of many of these movies in years!!

Cliff, I'm just going to have to let you flog me into oblivion, because I remember rather liking Logan's Run "back in the day." Of course I haven't seen it in YEARS. It came out the year I graduated high school, and it was quite the popular movie at the time. I agree about Michael York, though, and if indeed they are making a remake I hope they do a good job on it--the potential is there for it to be an excellent movie.

Someone mentioned Gattaca.... While I understand the Ethan Hawke (& as was also mentioned, Keanu Reeves) aversion, Gattaca ranks as one of my all-time favorite sci-fi movies (the others being 2001, Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, and Blade Runner). Hmm...I just realized that the soundtracks of all four of these are among my favorite soundtracks of all time, too....

Oh, and can't forget ET: The Extra-Terrestrial, and AI: Artificial Intelligence! (OK, I think people will really start flogging me now!)

Does anyone remember Slipstream, with Mark Hamill?

Or how about Altered States, or Explorers? (LOL, speaking of Ethan Hawke!)

Also mentioned were the Criterion versions of (the original) Solaris and Robinson Crusoe on Mars. I have both of these but haven't had a chance to watch them yet.... Seems like there's never enough time to see all the movies I'd like to....

Anyway, thanks again for a great thread topic!!

Spaceman: Your moniker saves you. "Calvin & Hobbes" are big, big favorites in this house so I won't "flag" you--dunno about the flogging; think I'll leave that to some of the other thugs on this thread. Watch out for Ian and jargoneer, though, they're both nasty bastids.

All I can say is, rent "Logan's Run" and watch it again. It's like re-reading those authors you used to like as a kid and wondering what the hell you were thinking.

HATED "E.T." when it came out and haven't changed that view to this day. "A.I." was dreadful but that's Spielberg trying to resurrect a project that Kubrick couldn't finish so what do you expect. There is a scene in the movie that really, really disturbs me. When the wife leads the artificial boy into the woods and in one instant he realizes that she is going to abandon him there and his face just crumples. Jesus Christ, that just about killed me. The kid NAILED it. Was that Haley Joel Osmont? Ten seconds of the flick and the only part I liked. Terrible ending, right up there with the last five or ten minutes of "The Abyss", which spoiled a pretty terrific movie.

We forgot to mention "Minority Report"--although that may have been deliberate (at least on my part). God, I hate Cruise.

And "Screamers", another bad Phil Dick adaptation. Only "A Scanner Darkly" has really done the man justice. I liked "Blade Runner" but, really, how much of that movie is derived from DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? Ten per cent?

There. I said I was going to bed and I got sucked into this discussion again. If I ever run into Ian, I'm going to pry his toenails off with a claw hammer one by one for starting this...

#63: Public domain involves not just the time period involved, but the ownership as well. If I recall correctly an heir still owns the rights to Lang's Metropolis (and there have even been recent rumors of some studios contemplating a sequel/remake, heh). As a counter example, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians has been public domain for nearly its entire life because the studio went backrupt and nobody felt like those rights were worth anything.

To add to the list of decent, but not great, contemporary sci-fi that is generally overlooked such as Gattaca: Dark City. Proyas went on to sell out and help the studios take advantage of Asimov's corpse when he reworked "Hardboiled" into "I, Robot", but Dark City at least was quite original and has a few redeeming qualities... It's interesting to compare Dark City and Lang's Metropolis. (Some artistic references/homages that are interesting to catch.) It's also interesting to compare Dark City and The Matrix. The sets designed for Dark City make much more sense in Dark City than they do when reused shamelessly in the first Matrix film. I watched Dark City after I saw The Matrix and yet I did notice that some of The Matrix's sets didn't quite match. (I'm one of the rare people that prefer The Matrix sequels to the original, and part of it is this "set schizophrenia" of the first film. The Wachowskis have an eye for interesting things, but the crow's nests they cobble together out of those shiny baubles they find generally themselves lose something in the gathering and remixing process.)

We could probably do an entire thread dissecting Roland Emmerich movies... For instance, I liked Stargate and The Thirteenth Floor and think much of the rest that I've seen is dreck, and I haven't even bothered to see the ones that I've been told are dreck (Godzilla).

Also, I like Tron, but that's possibly because I believe it to be historical fiction, rather than sci-fi. (Something of a wireframe-era steampunk, if you will.)

>65 CliffBurns: Cliff: I have Breathless some where on DVD. Couldn't see what all the fuss was about, either. Mind you, I also thought Truffaut's Jules et Jim was very dull and The Man Who Love Women was rubbish.. but I love his Fahrenheit 451.

> 67 Cliff again: well, thank you very much...

Let's see... not a fan of Gattaca, loved Dark City, hate Spielberg's films but actually think AI is under-rated, The Matrix was astonishing when it was released but the sequels were terrible...

Yet to be mentioned: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai in the Eighth Dimension ("Wherever you go, there you are"; fun, but belonged on a TV screen not in a cinema), Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (Vadim-inspired production design, Mad Max-inspired plot, filmed in a gravel pit... not a classic), Mars Attacks! (Tim Burton is the most over-rated director making films today), Battle Beyond the Stars (Seven Samurai in space, great fun), Delicatessen (a favourite), Earth Girls Are Easy (Jim Carrey's best role), The Fifth Element (pure fromage but great fun), Flash Gordon ("Flash, I love you but we've only got 14 hours to save the Earth!"), Galaxy of Terror (superior Corman rip-off of Alien)...

>69 iansales: - I thought about mentioning Buckaroo Banzai and Spacehunter before but bit my tongue.

I understand what you mean about BB being more suited to tv - the idea could make a half-decent tv series. (was it based on a comic?)

Spacehunter is the film that seems to be on UK tv more than any other film (I have no idea why). It's ok - I think when I first saw it I was going through a Molly Ringwald phase (I'm not proud of it but it's the red hair).

I remember a critic pointing out that Tim Burton had spent $60m+ on Mars Attacks to make a film that was attempting to emulate 50s b-movies that cost $18. It's not a particulary good film but the Martians are fun.

Battle Beyond the Stars also has Robert Vaughn repeating his role from The Magnificent Seven. For a Corman production it has quite an impressive cast - George Peppard, John Saxon and Richard Thomas must have made Corman cry with their wages. (He got his money back by re-using all the effects on Space Raiders - don't ask, it's rubbish). The most amazing fact about BBTS is that the main scriptwriter was John Sayles, writer-director of Matewan, Lone Star, etc - he also did a quirky sf film The Brother from Another Planet.

General question - is Corman the most important producer of the last 50 years just for the people he gave a break to?

Galaxy of Terror is worth watching just to see Joannie from 'Happy Days' get killed by a alien squid. (James Cameron worked on this film).

Re Night of the Living Dead copyright - it is in the public domain because the distributor forgot to put the copyright notice on the original release. Seemingly the title was changed at the last moment, and when they changed the title sequence a mistake was made. Metropolis was in the public domain but was allowed to brought back into copyright - there was a court case about it in the late 80s/early 90s (I think). Of course, with silent films only the print drops into the public domain, subsequent music remains under copyright. (The good news is that Vampyr is to get a decent dvd release at last - most of the prints out there are rough at best).

ps....I hate The Matrix - it's the sf movie equivalent of The Da Vinci Code; a big dumb film pretending to be clever.

Gang:

Too bloody much to comment on all at once.

I think I included "Buckaroo Banzai" on my roster--in 2nd echelon. I thought it was fun, especially if mildly, er, intoxicated.

I quite liked "Dark City"; thought it quite unique and original. My two sons are fans too. I think William Hurt is a stiff onscreen (fortunately his role was quite limited), an actor like Jeff Daniels who has little charisma. And Jennifer Connelly...one of my top 5 film babes, without a doubt. My wife always says "But she can't act"; which is hardly the point. Try explaining that to Sherron, however, without getting strangled for your efforts.

The first "Matrix" film was trippy and diverting but, my God, they got awful after that (sorry, Worldmaker). And in the finale, when Neo is drawn inside the ship in the "Jesus Christ pose"--ack! ack!

Hey, I just made a noise like the Martians in "Mars Attacks"! I agree, TERRIBLE movie except for the Martians. What the hell were they thinking when they made that one? Burton can get reams of money for his uneven, often dreadful films whereas a genius like Terry Gilliam has to go begging. Go figure. And poor Terry, he's halfway through his new film and one of his stars (Heath Ledger) "accidentally" overdoses. It's like "Lost in La Mancha" all over again (brilliant documentary, by the way).

Worldmaker: YOU do a thread on Roland Emmerich films...but I don't think I'll have much to say about them. Overblown, a few good scenes not redeeming the rest of the drek. There's a lovely moment in "Independence Day" when the shadow of the alien craft passes over the moon's surface...that was something. But, then, you've got the president giving that godawful speech, leading the squadron of jet fighters (including Randy Quaid, in one of his worst performances ever) and with that...ack! ack!

Hmmmm, that could become my new new rating system. In terms of awfulness, really bad, bad films ("Plan Nine"; "The Black Hole") get 4 "acks" and slightly bad films fewer acks...

I didn't like "Fahrenheit"--dull, dull, with dull Oskar Werner in the lead (he makes William Hurt look like DeNiro). But I found the original novel quite ponderous and over-rated (and earnest); very much prefer SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES.

Haven't seen "Spacehunter" but vaguely remember seeing "Battle Beyond the Stars" with a buddy right after "Star Wars" came out. Not completely without redeeming qualities. Ack! Ack!

"Galaxina" with Dorothy Stratton anyone? (Ack! Ack! Ack! Ack!)
"Flesh Gordon" (Ditto--what can you say about a movie that features a 'penisaurus')

"I, Robot" Really despise Will Smith, thus I'm unlikely to see the new version of "I Am Legend". But "I, Robot" was better than the novel because Asimov is the worst major writer in the history of SF...or any other genre. You couldn't POSSIBLY do a worse movie version than the original source material. Asimov's work gets that rare 5-Ack rating. Bomb! Turkey!

"Fifth Element" Not a fan of Brucie but it was fun--again, unbelievably bad ending. I hate those films where a character must sacrifice themselves and yet is somehow miraculously saved or resurrected in the end. What the hell is the point of sacrifice unless it means something?

Jargoneer: your point on Roger Corman developing some amazing talent is a good one. But if I were a producer, I'd want my legacy to be an impressive body of work and in Roger's case that just doesn't apply. Same with his old producers at AIP (Arkoff/Nicholson)--a legacy of crap with a few minor gems, the kind of stuff that ends up on those big 3-disk compilations we've been talking about. Shouldn't one's aim be higher than that?

Anyway, too much yapping from me, somebody else take over...

Coming late to this thread, so sorry, just picking up a few comments...

The last time I saw 2001 was about a year ago when the Birmingham (UK) IMAX had a special showing. With the exception of one shot (where the image of a quadrant of the Moon definitely looks like a blown-up photograph), 2001 STILL looks utterly stupendous even when shown on the giant screen. And more intelligence than most other films of the past ten years rolled into one...

Toho monster movies are always worth checking: I still love 'Godzilla vs. King Kong' (I think) which opens with the child protagonist tending his Shintoist shrine devoted to Famous Monsters of Filmland.

Recent surprising discovery - a (possibly straight-to-DVD) film called 'Wing Commander'. I had grave doubts about this, being a game spin-off; but it's actually not bad for a 'Starship Troopers' rip-off. There's some class actors in supporting roles (David Suchet, Jurgen Prochnow and the wonderful David Warner, not playing a villain for once); the effects are routinely convincing; the space war tech is looks fairly sound and doesn't break the Laws of Physics as often as some (I'm trying to find out if the set designers adapted obsolete military hardware to build the sets, as the space fighter cockpits look very real - and I've been around enough military jets to know whereof I speak); and there's even some vestige of a plot. The aliens are pretty poor, but thankfully we see little of them; but the interior of thier ship is appropriately odd and incomprehensible and their speech is in alien subtitles, which is a nice touch. It's Doc Smith stuff indeed, but surprisingly good Doc Smith stuff. And to cap it all, it was made in Luxembourg. And if that doesn't persuade you, nothing will!

In reference to "A.I.":

Brian Aldiss, who wrote the original story the flick was based on (only about 8 pages; you wonder how they could possibly translate something like that into a 2 hour movie), gave an interesting insight into the genesis of the film.

He said that Kubrick was fixated on the notion of doing a futuristic re-telling of "Pinochio" and simply couldn't be talked out of it (and Aldiss tried). Not sure the film would've worked even if Kubrick had managed to live long enough to make it. Stanley wasn't at the top of his form in the latter part of his career so maybe Spielberg can't be blamed entirely for the end result.

Although I hate letting Spielberg off the hook, I loathe the man and what he's done to contemporary cinema. He and Geroge Lucas should be cast adrift in a rowboat somewhere in the Pacific, along with a shoebox full of rabid rats...

Kubrick was working on 'A.I.' for years; at various times, both Bob Shaw and Ian Watson were invited to the Kubrick home to sit around the kitchen table, drink tea and help Kubrick work through his ideas.

Oh, yes - mention of Spielberg brings me to 'E.T.', which I too despise. I suppose it was contrasting it to 'Close Encounters', which I liked, as much as anything else for the central character having to jettison his provincial, small-town values to embrace something much bigger than himself. Then comes 'E.T.', where all those values are embraced by the child protagonist and promoted as being the things that make the human race and Earth (for which, read middle-town America) great.

>72 RobertDay: Wing Commander... three words: Freddie Prinze Jr.

>71 CliffBurns: Cliff: I love the late 1960s "future" look of Fahrenheit 451, and having Julie Christie play two roles was genius. I agree that Oskar Werner is a charisma-free zone...

But I disagree on William Hurt. Excellent actor. One of my favourites, in fact. In Dark City he delivers the line "Not again!" with an almost pitch-perfect degree of disbelief and sarcasm.

Galaxina... the only film it took me three tries to watch.

The Matrix - there wasn't really enough of the Wachowski Bros dumb philosophy in the movie to scoff at, but when they introduced it in the sequels the only sane response is laughter. I'd never heard so much inane bollocks spouted on screen before in my life.

Starship Troopers... the only sane response to the book. Verhoeven is a genius. Only Verhoeven could direct Showgirls...

> 67 Cliff: Yes, Minority Report. Sorry, but I loved that film. And I've actually always liked Cruise up until the past couple years or so, and now he gives me the heebie-jeebies. Although I guess anyone that rich and powerful can be expected to go a little bonkers. I'll still keep an open mind in terms of whatever filmwork he does, but methinks the guy is turning into / has become a freakazoid.

> 69 Ian: Speaking of "fun, but belonged on a TV screen not in a cinema"... How about "Buck Rogers" with Gil Gerard and Erin Gray? Actually, seems like I remember reading that that film was actually made for tv, but at the last minute someone thought they should try releasing it in cinemas first to see if the public would go for it. (It worked on me!) (It also has one of my favorite lines in it, where the little robot--Tweaky or whatever his name was--said, "I'm freezing my ball-bearings off." Classic! I remember seeing the movie on tv later and they actually bleeped that line out, or altered it or something).

> 73 Cliff: Actually, Brian Aldiss is going to be at a sci-fi panel/lecture here in my area (Tampa Bay) next month. Should be interesting.

But going back to the topic of bad films, here's one that every review I've ever seen has totally trashed (and I bought the DVD but haven't brought myself to watch it yet): A Sound of Thunder. Supposedly it's really horrible.

Oh, and here's a film I don't think has been brought up yet: Code 46 with Tim Robbins. I found it to be OK. Not a classic, but passable.

And, last but not least:

OK, I should know better than to jump into the foray of all the Spielberg-haters here, but suffice it to say that not everyone hates him: I happen to love practically everything the man has done. Granted, many of his films can be argued to be "streamlined-to-tug-at-the-general-public's-heartstrings," but...I just look at it as: movies are designed to entertain, and his always entertain me. Some even make me think! LOL. Anyway, as far as filmmaking goes, the man is God to me. There, I said it.

All these comments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to sign off.

>77 SpacemanSpiff: the theatrical release of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century was cobbled together from the television series. I remember seeing it at the cinema, but it was always intended to be on television.

>78 arthurfrayn: Alien3 is a good film. The director's cut in the Alien Quadrilogy is definitely worth seeing.

Buck Rogers in it's cinematic release had a James Bond influenced credit sequence where beautiful women (including Erin Gray and Pamela Hensley) loll about the screen. Let's be honest here - for every viewer watching BR for the sf there was 9 viewers watching it for Erin Gray (which actually is a very good reason....)

Agree about Alien3 - it was casting Winona Ryder as an android that finally nailed the coffin. 'Quadrilogy' - I hope the person who created that word was beaten severely with inflatable bananas.

>78 arthurfrayn: - if you see the new version of I Am Legend you will upgrade your opinion of The Omega Man.

I agree with re Spielberg - he has made some decent films. An interesting way to look at Spielberg is to look at what he has made in the last 30 years or so and compare it to 'great' directors like Kubrick, Coppola, etc. His body of work is more substantial, and much more entertaining.

Re William Hurt & Robert De Niro - to me they are very similar actors, excellent within a small range but incapable of performing well outside of it.

>71 CliffBurns: - Corman has directed at least one minor masterpiece Masque of the Red Death, although that could have been down to hiring Nicholas Roeg as cinematographer. Talking about Roeg - anyone for The Man Who Fell to Earth.

There is no possible way I can respond to all these great comments and observations. One remark stood out for me, however:

#78: Arthur: "I don't hate the third Alien installment. After people carrying on about that for years I was surprised that it was better than I expected. Niall Buggy (Arthur Frayn) is in that, BTW. He plays on of the prisoners."

Explain that comment please, Arthur. Are you saying you were in "Alien 3"?

Got some Spielberg fans in the group so I'd better lay off that topic. I agree that he had a promising beginning to his career but, er, beyond that, I dunno. He's an entertainer, not a particularly gifted film-maker. I liked the first twenty minutes or so of "Private Ryan" but the central thesis of the film--that the U.S. Army would waste time and resources on D-Day to hunt down some brother--seems incredibly stupid.

The comments on Erin Gray prove that there are a whole lot of guys on this thread--we desperately need some female input or we're going to start shorting out our keyboards by drooling on them.

I thought Jeunet's direction of "Alien IV" (Resurrection) brought some much-needed credibility back to the franchise after Fincher's effort, which really didn't work at all for me (I'm not a fan of the man's work).

Only Verhoeven could direct "Showgirls"...I'll brain you for that, Ian. I notice a couple of your comments were deleted. Makes me curious what sort of invective was contained in those messages--what nasty thoughts were you composing, you devil? I thought "Starship Troopers" the movie was miles beyond the book and didn't hide the fascism, it was right there, in the speeches from Michael Ironside (a Canadian boy, I hasten to add).

Spaceman: buy Mr. Aldiss a drink--he's a crusty bastid but he has some wonderful stories and he'd be a treat to raise the wrist with. Have a great time (I envy you).

Gotta get back to my editing--plus there are three hockey games being broadcast today so I have to pop up and down to periodically check on their progress.

Back to you, chaps...

The deleted message was because I had a random angle bracket somewhere in the post, and it mangled the whole thing. I went and refreshed the page before I noticed, and ended up with part of the comment as a separate post. So I deleted it.

On the other hand, it could have been a detailed deconstruction and appreciation of Showgirls...

Showgirls - that contained another classic performance from Kyle MacLachlan's hair.

I'm warning you both...stop bringing up "Showgirls"...

Now I can't get that stupid movie out of my head. Ugh. If that's the state of eroticism in film, we're in BIG trouble. I've always wondered why Verhoeven made it--what was the motivation, what did he think it would add to cinema?
You had that one and then, at the same time, that godawful Demi Moore vehicle--"Striptease"? I'd rather endure back to back viewings of "Zombies of the Stratosphere" and "Glen & Glenda"...

Arthur: now I get the reference! You clever bugger. You really are a fan of that show ("Zardoz"), aren't you?

Your brain is really a vast active living intelligence system, you know that?

And "Cliff Burns" is the pseudonym of a penniless hermit, living above a music store, whose only connection to the outside world is the occasional trip down the the town library to use the free internet computer. Last night, he ate his cat...

I remember Richard Burton from "Spy Who Came in..." but not Werner.

And wasn't one of the other prisoners from "Alien 3" the chap who played opposite Richard E. Grant in "Withnail & I" (the funniest film ever)? McCann...can't recall his first name and too fookin' lazy to look. Paul? George? Ringo? If Sherron and I ever want to break each other up, all we have to do is say "Are you the farmer?" or "We've come on holiday by accident" and we're in stitches.

Incidentally, before I forget: "Showgirls": Ack! Ack! Ack! Ack! Ack!

Sorry, Arthur, that was for two unnamed individuals who post on this thread and deliberately try to provoke and annoy really nice, thoughtful guys like you and me.

Bedtime here in freezing Saskatchewan--40 below with the windchill again. The last time I wrote that, Ron, a fellow LibraryThinger from Australia, dropped me a line and said it was +40 Celsius where he lives. To paraphrase Bob Dylan ("Highway 61"), the next time he sees me he'd better run...

Great chattin' wi' ye, as always, lads...

P.S. Arthur, we must really have a chinwag some time about Phil Dick. I see you've got a whole lotta his books, as do I. Are you a Guinness man, by any chance? A six pack, a smoke-filled pub, arm-waving, gesticulating, bickering over MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE (which I frankly think over-rated and nowhere near as good as THREE STIGMATA, UBIK and A SCANNER DARKLY). Some day...

By the way, you didn't answer my query re: "Zardoz" in an early post:

"What's the background on the film--is it an original screenplay or adapted from another source? Does the copy you have have any "bonus" features that offer any neat tid-bits behind the making of the film?"

> 79 iansales:

RE:
"the theatrical release of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century was cobbled together from the television series"

I disagree with your comment, which implies that the television series came first. I saw the movie in the theatre BEFORE the television series ever debuted.

Go to this link below, scroll down to Trivia (and click on "More" if it's only displaying the first line) (not sure, but you might have to log on as an IMDB member {free} to use this feature):

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077278/

It gives this quote:

"This was the pilot for the TV series that followed ("Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" (1979)). When no network chose to air it, the film debuted in theaters."

SpacemanSpiff

Well yes. But it wasn't a film that belonged on television, because it was on television. And it wasn't made with the intention of giving it theatrical release.

A bit off topic, but cliffburns mentioned Chesley Bonestell.
When I was a kid, I bought a book, "The Exploration of Mars" by Willey Ley and Werner Von Braun, with illustrations by Chesley Bonestell.
I've just found it again, on my shelves, and I can confirm that the illustrations are wonderful- proper rockets that are the right shape!
I must have bought it in the only bookshop in Hemel Hempstead, in England, where I grew up. Probably in about 1958- 1960.
It was priced at 30s (30 shillings - that's £1.50 in modern money), but remaindered at 10/6 (ten shillings and sixpence, or now 52.5 pence).
The icing on the cake is that when I googled it, I found it on sale for $399 on amazon.com.
I'd better rush out and get a burglar alarm LOL.....

If my memory is correct, the weird thing is that the "project plan" in the book (written in 1956) is not much different from NASAs latest plans!

Spaceman: I think the film for "Buck Rogers" was, essentially, as has been said, a TV pilot they just couldn't find time to squeeze in or maybe they thought they'd see how much money they could milk out of it by adding in a few risque scenes and releasing it theatrically. They did much the same thing with the "Battlestar Galactica" pilot in the late 70's-early 80's. As we know, sci fi geeks will go see ANYTHING if it's got a spaceship and an alien on the poster.

Canyon: you lucky, lucky bastid. Hang on to that Bonestell book. I've bid for a couple of his books on eBay but always have to drop out because the price soon goes through the roof. I did manage to secure a model kit for a retro-style "Mars Liner" the other day (Glencoe reproduced it, based on designs for a 50's show) and I was tickled to grab that one, new in a box, for about twenty bucks.

Jesus, Arthur, I forgot Eszterhas puked up the screenplay for "Showgirls"--explains a lot, doesn't it? Let's find him and break his fingers, one by one. We simply must make an example of hacks like that.

A bourbon drinker--ah, lad, that's wonderful. Wild Turkey and Jim Beam for me, not much of a fan of Jack Daniels. Not much of a wine drinker either--produces a LETHAL hangover. Scotch and Sam Beckett's drink of choice, Jameson's Irish Whiskey. But, really, I'm Scot-Irish so I'll drink lighter fluid if it's lying around.

HIGH CASTLE just did not appeal to me on the same level--it seems so flatly written but I do like the notion of the alternate history Dick creates (far more engaging and interesting than Philip Roth's highly touted and dull PLOT AGAINST AMERICA). I shall have to re-read it and see if my tastes have changed--it's been at least a decade. I prefer PKD's trippier efforts and I really do love A SCANNER DARKLY--the characters, the humour, the police agent/drug addict. Have you seen Linklater's adaptation? Wonderful!

Have an entire shelf crammed full of Dick's stuff, including numerous first edition paperbacks. Think I've pretty much got them all, except for the stuff that was released posthumously--DARK HAIRED GIRL, MAN WHOSE TEETH WERE ALL EXACTLY... etc.

Got my first coffee of the morning so I'm in a good frame of mind and just about ready to head upstairs to work. I have the dullest life imaginable. I take the words of Flaubert a bit too literally sometimes methinks:

“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” (Gustave Flaubert)

Sometimes I pine for a little violence and originality to break up my daily routine. As I plod upstairs, my characters already chattering to each other in my head, bickering over who deserves more lines of dialogue...

Dark City is a wonderful, wonderful film. (Of course, any movie with Riff Raff in it gets cool points from me.) It's too bad Alex Proyas became such a hack with I, Robot. Seeing Silver Surfer as his next movie isn't giving me a lot of hope for him. By the way, is it just me or is The Matrix something of a ripoff of Dark City?

I agree with SpacemanSpiff on Steven Spielberg. Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Color Purple are masterpieces. His War of the Worlds was pretty good, Tom Cruise (he's an author now!) and all. If only Spielberg would have cut out that stupid, sappy last five minutes.

It's just too bad that he's so prone to heart warming, suburban sappiness. Check out his first movie Duel sometime for Spielberg without the baggage (and without a budget).

(BTW, I quite liked A.I., but then I thought Bicentennial Man was a very good adaptation of Isaac Asimov, so there you go with that.)

Spaceman Spiff:

One of your previous posts mentioned "A Sound of Thunder". Wasn't that one directed by the aforementioned Peter Hyams, the guy who brought us "2010"? I'm sure one of the wise guys on the thread will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was.

I heard it was universally panned as well. Like I said, mon, Hyams is no Kubrick.

Based on a pretty decent story by Bradbury, a tale that sports a beauty of a resolution. How the hell the script writer intended to convert a 10-page story into a long movie (hello again "A.I") is a mystery to me. The punchline would be lost...and thus the whole point of the exercise.

Since someone asked for a womans point of view:

I loved Buck Rogers as a kid but haven't watched it since it stopped airing. However, I wouldn't mind getting the series on DVD sometime in the future.

Of course, I also really like cheese ... Which may be why I like Logan's Run even after seeing it as an adult. (Though usually I blame my appreciation of that film on being a child during The Cold War and living on/near nuclear-submarine bases. I have a weakness for apocalyptic speculative fiction. ;)

Now if you want to talk bad film... Check out what Kevin Costner did to David Brin's The Postman. *shudder* That movie massacred the best parts of that book.

...and I was never a fan of the book, which I gave about twenty pages and then practiced my freestyle frisbee toss.

But I never had the nerve to see the movie. I put Costner down there with Keanu Reeves and other sucking black holes.

Have a feeling if I watched this one it would receive the golden "Ack" treatment. But I defer to those who have stuck it in their VCR's and given it a look. I commend you for your courage.

Thank God you popped in, Trai, there was far too much testosterone on this thread. Male SF fans like the movies partially for the stories, partially for the special effects and partially (largely?) for the gals in skimpy costumes.

At least, that's what Ian says. Honestly, the man has no sense of decorum, unlike the rest of us...

P.S. I note you are a fan of "Awful Lit"--welcome to a thread on "Awful Flicks".

Kevin Costner... Waterworld. It made Mad Max 3 look good.

Never got around to seeing The Postman.

Ian: You have to wonder about a film ("Waterworld") where the first image is a guy pissing into a jar. Where's the sense of wonder? I would've started with a trip through an underwater city, old New York, fully submerged and then worked my way up to the surface. The new reality. Right from that first 5 minutes, I knew I was in trouble. Again, these assholes get a hundred million and Terry Gilliam can't raise a dime. I know the powers that be are still mad at Gilliam for embarrassing them with "Brazil" but, cripes, give the guy a break...

Best SF film that hasn't been mentioned yet:

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

For foreign movies, there's live-action, like Casshern, which is all sorts of shiny but not, I gather terribly good. But there's also, in Japan, lots and lots of SF anime. Some good, some bad, some licensed, some not. Loads of people rate Shin Sekai Evangelion, I don't. I have a soft spot for Gundam, lots of people don't.

Regarding movies already mentioned; Dark City, I liked. Sunshine was half a good film and half a shitty horror slasher crap thing.

I hear there's a movie of A Boy and His Dog, but I haven't seen it.

>101 HoldenCarver: - I don't really see Eternal Sunshine... as an sf film; it's a romcom and the sf element is only there to allow that to happen.

I remember A Boy and His Dog - Don Johnson played the dog, i mean, boy. It's years since I last saw it but it was not bad. It was also renamed at one point Psycho Boy and His Killer Dog.

Holden:

Haven't seen "Eternal Sunshine..." but I know my wife loves it and she's got pretty good tastes. As to its SF content, I defer (admitting my ignorance not for the first time on this thread).

I saw "Boy & His Dog" years and years ago and thought it pretty spotty. really marred by a low budget and poor production values, an uneven mix of drama and comedic moments. I would put it in the same company as "Dark Star"--amateurish fun.

Jargoneer: "Psycho Boy and His Killer Dog"--you're kidding, right?

Has "Runaway" w/ Tom Selleck been mentioned? "Cyborg" (Jean Claude VanDamme)? "Universal Soldier" (ditto). "Split Second" (Rutger Hauer hunting killer alien). All of them pretty spotty, if not outright stinkers in the case of the latter.

"Alien Vs. Predator"--brutally bad: "First there was the comic book, then there was..." Etc. etc. Add nausea... (What passes for clever wordplay, courtesy this master of the English language.)

I'd like to say I was making that title up but unfortunately I'm not.

Runaway with Gene Simmons as the villain. I expect when he was making this film Selleck would wake up every morning dreaming of what could have been if he had been given the chance to play Indiana Jones.

Rutger Hauer for most of the last two decades has been a one man straight-to-video industry - as well as Split Second there were other sf films like Wedlock, Salute to the Jugger, Crossworlds, etc. It is strange to think he was once a respected actor; it is also strange to think he was the man who rescued Guinness!

Cyborg - what can you say about a film in which the two male leads are called 'Gibson Rickenbacker' (Van Damme) and 'Fender Tremolo'?

I thought Universal Soldier was ok, for what it was.

Those "Cyborg" monikers are hilarious, I'm chuckling as I'm sitting here...

Jargoneer: I didn't get the reference that Rutger was "the man who rescued Guinness"--explain?

I think Hauer was given his start in one of Verhoeven's early films--"Soldier of Orange"? Am I wrong?

Have you seen any of the sequels?

Cyborg 2 has Angelina Jolie and Jack Palance in the cast but no VD. Cyborg 3 has Malcolm McDowell but I think we know he'll ham it up in any old rubbish (again no VD).

VD only appears in one Universal Soldier sequel - UV4, which just ignores 2 & 3.

Surprisingly, they are all rubbish - but they perform a useful social purpose by keeping bad actors off the streets. Who knows what they would otherwise? Become mimes, disgruntled fast food employees?

Eve of Destruction - about an out-of-control super-powered beautiful female android who is also a nuclear bomb. What more do you want from a film?

Hauer was in Soldier of Orange - Verhoeven's breakthrough film. It is certainly worth seeing. (I think they worked together before that as well).

In the 80s in the UK/Ireland Guinness was seen as an old man's drink. They then started an advertising campaign starring Hauer (dressed in black with blond hair he looked a little like a pint of Guinness) - it was spectacularly successful: Guinness became cool and sales soared.
Here's an example.

Guinness..."old man's drink"...I'm stuttering with rage. Why, it is the drink of warriors and champions!

Jargoneer: "Eve of Destruction"--imagine dredging up that one--you're good.
Mentioning Angelie Jolie and the initials V.D. in the same post was funny and likely intentional on your part. Mean-spirited, heh heh, but funny nonetheless.

Various versions of "Isle of Lost Souls"/"Island of Dr. Moreau"--SF or horror?
"Wargods of the Deep" (aka "City Under the Sea")--did you folks know it was directed by the near-great Jacques Tourneur? I didn't.

"Wizards" (Ralph Bakshi)? "Heavy Metal"? "Fantastic Planet"? Animated SF. More?

Hauer's first film with Verhoeven was Keetje Tippel. Both Verhoeven and Hauer have had odd careers. Who remembers Split Second?

Or Hardware (No Hauer, though)? Soldier? Here's a question: name a good film directed by Paul WS Anderson. Trick question - he hasn't made one: the aforementioned Soldier, Event Horizon, Mortal Kombat, AVP...

Speaking of Cyborg, has anyone seen Cyborg Cop? Robocop meets Cyborg... with a thousandth of the budget and a millionth of the talent... The sequel - called, of course, Cyborg Cop 2 - stars John Rhys Davies as a gay arms dealer from Barnsley.

Last night, in my never-ending (and foolish) quest to find the worst sf film ever made*, I watched Dead Fire. It was shit. The acting was bad, the sepcial effects were second-rate, and the central premise was bollocks. Some time in the future, the Earth in uninhabitable from over-pollution. The population now live in orbit - or rather, some do. The rest are in cryogenic storage. A scientists determines that with cunning use of the Hubble Telescope and various other satellites, she can beam energy into Earth's atmosphere and start a chain reaction which will return Earth to its inhabitable state in a matter of minutes. Unfortunately, she does not have enough energy to do this. Then a terrorist takes over the orbiting station, and plans to blow up the section holding the cryogenic sleepers in order to generate the energy required...

AVOID THIS FILM.

* Galaxina is probably in the lead...

>110 iansales: - I thought Hardware was decent film when it first came out (haven't seen it since though). The director, Richard Stanley, went on to make an interesting horror film, Dust Devil, and hasn't made a feature since. (He was fired from the 1996 version of Dr Moreau and since that, only documentaries).

>109 CliffBurns: - cliff - good to see someone else giving the thumbs up to Jacques Tourneur: he made some great little movies - The Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, Out of the Past(the UK title is better - Build My Gallows High), Night of the Demon, etc.

>110 iansales: - for no apparent reason your mention of Galaxina make me think of Star Crash, a cheapie Italian-US cash-in on Star Wars: utterly appalling but the producers weren't completely stupid - they realised if they put Caroline Munro in a bikini often enough people would watch.

>109 CliffBurns: - John Rhys Davies is a giant among actors: now Pavarotti is dead he can play the role he was born to play. (Apart from Chupacabra).

"Dead Fire" sounds completely ludicrous. Can you imagine "pitching" something like that to producers? Who in their right mind thought that would actually make a good, even passable flick?

Couldn't agree more with your sentiments re: Paul Anderson: he's Ed Wood with a big budget (only Ed's more fun to watch).

"Last night, in my never-ending (and foolish) quest to find the worst sf film ever made..."

You're wrong, Ian, you're dead wrong: this quest is an important as the one to find the holy grail. It's a lifelong effort and there will always be new candidates ("See: "Sunshine", the aforementioned Anderson, etc.).

By the way, how do you create italics? I've seen a couple of post-ers using them and I'm still stuck with capitals and swear words to make my points...

Jargoneer: And what's WRONG with Caroline Munro in a bikini? I'm hurt, my friend, it's this sort of attitude that has held back SF cinema down through the ages. Carrie Fisher nude might have redeemed "Star Wars"...and certainly made the followups more watchable. I think "Jedi" is as bad a film as those Anderson-helmed films Ian alluded to.

Big Tourneur/Lewton fan here--just ordered the last two Lewton-produced horror films I had yet to see, found on the internet cheap, cheap. No big budgets, just a lovely sense of atmosphere and menace.

"Out of the Past" is one of my two or three favorite "noir" movies. What a cast! Remade, of course, as "Against All Odds". Not nearly as good though James Woods plays sleaze better than almost anyone I can think of.

I liked "Hardware" too. The scene where the friend is having an acid-like trip, almost incapacitated and his buddy calls, telling him to get over to his girlfriend's apartment (where a re-animated robot is wreaking havoc). I thought those folks making it did a pretty good job with modest resources. And a good soundtrack--Iggy Pop as a DJ and a Ministry song to get things thumping.

Stanley had to pay off the comic 2000AD over Hardware, since he'd ripped off the story from a strip in it.

Cliff - use HTML tags for italics - i.e., angle brackets.

Dead Fire - "Who in their right mind thought that would actually make a good, even passable flick?" Strangely enough, the film is Canadian...

jargoneer - I have StarCrash. It's... stunning. Sadly, not even Caroline Munro in a skimpy costume can make it comprehensible. Mind you, it does contain one of my favourite lines from a sf film: "Imperial battleship, reverse the flow of time!"

Ian: And what, in God's name, are angle brackets?

So "Hardware" was a rip off of a comic strip? Tsk Tsk.

"Dead Fire" was Canadian? Another "Starship Invasions"? Good grief. Which means it was likely made with the assistance of the Canadian Film and Television Fund and my tax dollars were sunk into it. Y'see, no one in their right mind would put their own money into any sort of Canadian made movie or TV series since even CANADIANS don't watch them. Thus cultural poobahs insist we maintain our Canadian identity by subsidizing complete shit.

I read an article about the making of "Star Crash" in STARLOG magazine years ago. The film was made in Italy and on one day of shooting they had to stage a fight scene which, because of time/money constraints, couldn't be properly choreographed. "Don't worry," the stunt men assured the cast, "we're professionals, you can't hurt us."

Director calls "Action" and BAM! Caroline Munro knocks a guy's front teeth out and then another stunt man goes down...

Arthur: have not seen "Alien Prey" or "Inseminoid". How could a film with a title like "Inseminoid" possible be bad?

Has anyone seen Tourneur's "War Gods of the Deep" (Vincent Price; 1965)? Is it worth a look?

Unbelievable: this thread has nearly 120 comments in less than a week...

Cliff - italics like this: (removing the spaces, obviously). And don't forget to close it, with

Okay, gotcha. Lemme try it out: Ian I found your comment re: Robert Heinlein's staggeringly brilliant body of work highly offensive...

Nope. Didn't work. Try again. highly offensive

Better...but it's too many extra keystrokes. I think I prefer swearing.

#110 - Ian: Cyborg Cop 2 - stars John Rhys Davies as a gay arms dealer from Barnsley - Man, now you made me want to see Cyborg Cop 2!

Anybody ever see the 1993 Albert Pyun... err, masterpiece Nemesis? A friend and I saw it as a double feature (with

jseger9000 - no you don't. It's really bad. The title character is a bloke with bits of plastic stuck on his face. And most of the movie was filmed in and around a warehouse.

In fact, that's always a good pointer for a straight-to-video sf film: the interior of the spaceship resembles a warehouse and its engine-room looks like a chemical plant...

#121: Hey, what happened to the rest of your post?

Ian, that bit about the settings of SF flicks is bang-on.

"Hey, that's not a hyperdrive device, that's a fuel gauge from a 1978 Mustang!"

And when there's blasts of steam from some damaged piece of equipment ("Coolant leak!!") and you KNOW there's a guy with a fire extinguisher device just beneath the camera.

"Silent Running" was shot aboard a decommissioned aircraft carrier and that seemed to work pretty well.

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. was also filmed aboard an aircraft carrier...

...yes, but did it have amputees stuffed inside the carapaces of 'droids?

Aha!

No. But it had... David Hasselhof! With an eyepatch! And a cigar!

Hey, what did happen to the rest of my post?

Well, suffice to say, I saw Nemesis as a double feature at a dollar theatre. It played with Leprechaun, so it was a night of nothing but class.

All I remember about Nemesis is that there were a lot of bare asses in it. Sombody must have liked it. There have been three sequels so far.

jseger: What a double feature that would have been! Fire up the bong and off you go...

Ian: you win, hands down. Hasselhoff in an eyepatch trumps my amputees. But was there a theme song as onerous as Baez's for "Silent Running"? I thought not...

I just looked it up. Nemesis and Cyborg were directed by the same guy. Albert Pyun, an unacknowledged master?

Oh! Another lousy movie to dredge up: The Guyver starring Mark Hamill and Jimmie J.J. Walker. All I remember is seeing Jimmie turn into a monster and shout "Dyn-O-mite!" Jimmie, have you sunk so low?

Hideous!

What was the movie starring Bruce Campbell and Walter Koenig? Something to do with the moon. I heard rumblings that Koenig (Mr. Chekhov from "Star Trek") is a complete arsehole and that Campbell, one of the great utility actors kicking around, has nothing good to say about him...

Oh, wasn't that Moontrap or something like that? I'll have to go look it up.

>130 CliffBurns: - Moontrap. I must have heard the same rumblings about Koenig - not surprised though, everyone on 'Star Trek' seems to be of the opinion they are genuine superstars.
Campbell is always great fun - except in Alien Apocalypse - there is no fun in that (not even Renee O'Connor). It's another one of those sci-fi channel masterpieces which aspire to straight-to-video status.

ian - StarCrash gave me the impression of the film being edited by a madman with an axe. Not that that is just the preserve of low-budget movies, as The 13th Warrior illustrates.

The only thing I remember about Moontrap is the terrible, TERRIBLE special effects shot of an astronaut on a moon rover.

Oh, and there was a comic adaptation of Moontrap that was actually pretty good. I was looking forward to the movie after reading it and was so disappointed when I saw the movie.

Another, uh... classic: Has anyone mentioned Gunhed? Toho's attempt at cyberpunk? Man, I couldn't even enjoy that one in the way I enjoy Toho's Godzilla movies.

"Moontrap"! That was the one--haven't seen it but if I ever spotted it in a garage sale or dollar bin, I might nab it.

Jargoneer: "13th Warrior" was indeed tampered with by producers and held back from release for some time. I thought it a pretty decent little film, although historically wonky. There's a lovely scene early in the movie where Banderas, over as series of evenings before the fire, begins to decipher the dialect of his Norse companions and then, all at once, is able to answer their jabs and rejoinders in kind. Directed by action guy John McTiernan. Another of my guilty pleasures...

"Gunhed"? Nope. Cyberpunk, you say? Like "Johnny Mnemonic"?

Must confess that the whole Japanese scene went right past me. The "Godzilla" flicks are fun--my boys enjoy them too--but I've never understood, for instance, the anime stuff. 'Course, I don't read comic books and graphic novels impress me not at all. The Japanese horror scene seems to be drawing a lot of notice--"The Ring", "Dark Water", "Grudge", etc.--but I'm not into horror very much any more either. Too ugly and bleak and splattery. Nothing cerebral about it. Gimme Polanski at his best any day...

Anyone remember The Humanoid, starring Richard Kiel as the, er, humanoid? Another Italian Star Wars rip-off, although more comprehensible than most. My copy has Greek subtitles throughout, which seems weirdly appropriate. See here for more info: http://www.golobthehumanoid.com/

Gunhed is bad as Johnny Mnemonic, but different. Some nonsense regarding scavenger pirate types searching an off limits island ruled by an evil super computer (is there any other kind?) looking for the mysterius element TexMexium(!). It's almost worth a look for the over-the-top costumes and sets. They want so badly to look as good as Aliens. But the terrible editing ruins what could at least be a guilty pleasure. If for any reason you are still curious, go to YouTube and look for the Front Line Assembly music video 'Mindphaser'. It's made up of clips from Gunhed.

Ian: "Humanoid"? Nope. Sure it wasn't a remake of "Eegah!"?

JSeger: I think I accidentally ingested the element TexMexium in a burrito once. It explains why my unmentionables sometimes glow with an eerie, green light.

Front Line Assembly using footage from "Gunhed"--now that sounds like it's worth a look. Drop in a link, will you? Listened to quite a bit of their stuff about a decade ago and might still have one of their cassettes somewhere in me archives.

Have you seen (on YouTube) the Radiohead song that uses footage from "Usual Suspects"? One of my favorite bands and favorite movies. Wish they hadn't given away the ending though--it's a real spoiler for those who somehow managed to miss the movie.

Here's a link (I forget how to post a link the fancy, shmancy way): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8W6ID8jk4A

Be warned, it may make Gunhed look much better than it actually is.

I'll have to check out the Radiohead vid when I get home.

Since I'm posting YouTube links anyway, check out Zlad's 'Elektronik Supersonik'. Imagine if Borat were a member of Kraftwerk: http://pop.youtube.com/watch?v=lp_PIjc2ga4&feature=related A very spacy and melodic fusion combining hot disco rhythms with cold war rhetoric.

It's actually related to the phony Molvania: A Land Untouched By Modern Dentistry JetLag Travel Guide, so it's even book related.

Thanks for those links--I've have a peek at them when I get done editing later tonight. It'll give me something to take my mind off the work and yank my head out of my you know what...

Okay, I couldn't help myself.

You're right about the Frontline Assembly video--it's amazing what you can do with some creative editing; "Gunhed" looks not bad at all. But I shall take your word for it that it's pretty pitiful. The music sure brought back some memories for this old fart.

And I urge EVERYONE on this thread to take a look at the Zlad video. I couldn't stop laughing--forwarded it to my wife at her workplace and a friend (both fans of Borat). This one is a gem.

Thanks, man!

Some funny lyrics from 'Elektronik Supersonik'

Fly away in my space rocket
You no need put money in my pocket
The door is closed I just lock it
I put my love plug in your socket

and

Fasten your belt seats
We has commenced our descent
I trust you enjoy this flight
As much as you enjoy this accent

Okay, back to crappy movies...

Cliff,

Looks like the Radiohead 'Usual Suspects'/'No Surprises' video was a fan made thing. Pretty good though, but you're right. It does spoil the end for anyone who hasn't seen the movie.

Here's the actual video for No Surprises: http://pop.youtube.com/watch?v=qqsyXdj_p_I

>102 Jargoneer: - "the sf element is only there to allow {the story} to happen".

Well. Yes. And there's a thousand classic science-fiction stories I could point to and say exactly the same thing about.

I admit, my suggestion was a bit tongue-in-cheek, though, seeing as it lacks the spaceships and big explosions sort of thing that seems to be the common theme among the others mentioned. I would strongly disagree about it being a romcom, though. Mainly because it's not funny, and doesn't have a happy ending.

Playing fair this time, Serenity wasn't too bad (even if one has to endure the mostly awful Firefly to get the most out of it).

I hadn't seen any of "Firefly" so I knew little about "Serenity", just picked it up on a lark. Joss Whedon wrote "Alien: Resurrection" so I thought I'd give it a chance. Mildly interesting, not horrible or an insult to my intelligence. Which counts as high praise, compared to most of the drek out there.

"Titan AE" is another animated effort. Again, diverting entertainment. Hey, if we're looking for another "2001", we'll have to figure out a way to re-animate Stanley Kubrick's corpse, right?

But I wonder, sometimes, if "entertaining" will continue to be the best we can hope for from SF cinema. When do we get that sense of wonder and joy again? Making fun of the shit films out there is fine, for awhile, but I still look for those transcendent moments and when it comes to movies, I look in vain...

Cliff,

I don't exactly think of 2001 as instilling a sense of wonder and joy. To me, the movies that do that are the old heart-warming tropes like E.T.

But if you're asking about intelligent sci-fi movies that aren't about action, that's something else. Those movies may be going the way of the dodo.

I blame the general dumbing down movies have gone through since the '70's. People don't want thought provoking or intelligent sci-fi. Or at least not enough people to pay off the cost of filming one.

There are still a few bright spots here and there. Close Encounters (please don't throw things at me!), BladeRunner, 2010, Dark City, A.I. (please stop throwing stuff already!), Bicentennial Man and (arguably) V for Vendetta.

But another big budget spectacle that is cerebral and doesn't involve aliens with fangs? In a world where Paris Hilton is a celebrity and American Idol is a phenomenon, I wouldn't hold my breath.

By the way, as for animated sci-fi, it may be cheeserific, but I love Heavy Metal. I also liked Heavy Metal 2000 (though to a much lesser extent).

Titan A.E. was a big disappointment. It was like the studio wanted another Heavy Metal, but didn't have the balls to follow through. I haven't seen it in a while, but I remember it felt watered down. Like they couldn't decide who the audience was.

Another near miss (but better than Titan A.E. to me) was Disney's Treasure Planet. It suffers from being a little too cutesy, but I guess from Disney I expect that.

Disney's Atlantis isn't bad either, but is worse than Titan A.E. and Treasure Planet.

There's a bizarre French animated movie called Fantastic Planet that's worth a view. It's a bit too psychedelic for its' own good and the ending makes no sense, but other than that it isn't bad.

I'll leave Japanese animation out for the most part, because there's way too much and there's lots of arguement about what's good and what's crap.

However at least two that should be seen are Akira and The Ghost in the Shell.

Also, if you want joy and wonder in sci-fi, check out Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.

jseger: You mention "Nausicaa"--our family are huge Miyazaki fans so you can count on my vote for that one. "Howl's Moving Castle" and, especially, "Spirited Away" captivated my sons' imaginations...and they still like them to this day (Liam is 14; Sam 12).

I blame the dumbing down of SF on two people: George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. They instilled the blockbuster/sequel mentality on SF cinema and may they pay for their sins by spending an eternity in purgatory, forced to watch Michael Bay movies over and over again...

"Heavy Metal" was fun when I watched it 20 years ago but the animation was pretty crude even at that time. Now I'm sure it would look even more dated.

"Fantastic Planet" I remember being weird and confusing and not much more stayed with me.

"Titan AE" had some brilliant 3-D animation, especially the scene set in the asteroid belt, but a stock storyline and facile characterization marred it.

Trying to think of other animated SF efforts...and are there are more films from the silent age we're missed? I recall Ray Bradbury saying "Just Imagine" blew him away when he was a kid. Are any of the serials from the 30's-50's worth watching/resurrecting? I confess my absolute ignorance when it comes to the serials...

Always had a soft spot for Laputa, or Castle in the Sky, the first Miyazaki film I saw.

I think that's a bit unfair on Spielberg - his only sf films of the 70s-80s were Close Encounters... and E.T., neither of which are of the crash-bang-wallop variety.

For some obscure reason (possibly costs) the BBC used to show old serials during the school holidays so everyone of a certain age in the UK probably has fond memories of the various Flash Gordon serials: not to mention King of the Rocketmen, Crash Corrigan, etc.

Originally a silent film but remade in the early 30's is The Tunnel , the story of building the first transatlantic tunnel. It's well done for the time. (Must check if it is available in public domain).

Just Imagine is a very odd film: it's an sf musical - the story is trite but the sets are brilliant. Maureen O'Sullivan looks lovely as usual. You can tell it's pre-Hayes code: in the vision of 1980 the women were very few clothes. (Go to any city at the weekend and it turns out they were correct in that vision, only 20 years too early).

Miyazaki is a genius. I chose Nausicaa because that one and maybe Princess Mononoke are the most 'sci-fi' of his movies. I figured you call me out if I listed Castle in the Sky (Have you heard why they don't call it Laupta here? Whoops!) since it's more of a fantasy.

Honestly all I remember of the old serials is rocket ships with sparklers as the exhaust. However, if you are going to damn George Lucas and Star Wars for ruining sci-fi, then you can't defend the old serials since that's what Star Wars was based on.

By the way, I agree with jargoneer. George Lucas and Star Wars is what really started up blockbuster/sequel-itis.

Think about it. Steven Spielberg had a bunch of blockbusters, but none of them were chruned out mass produced crap. Even if you don't like his syrupy movies, the fact is that he directs movies that mean something to him.

It was George Lucas that spawned the big, dumb Star Wars trilogy and the Indiana Jones trilogy (with Spielberg I admit).

The three '70's blockbusters were Star Wars, Jaws and The Godfather. Which of these movies most resembles current Hollywood? (And might I mention the only sequel Spielberg was involved in was the terrible Lost World.)

And let us not forget that brilliant Spielberg offering "Always". Christ, that one was awful. It's the slickness of his movies that offend me, the treacle. After the first 20 minutes of "Private Ryan" the flick turns into pap and the ending with the old man in the military graveyard...ugh. "Color Purple", the black people singing and dancing down the road like a fucking MGM musical from the 40's. "Empire of the Sun": he seemed completely out of his element--the story was too bleak for him, the characters too unlikable (good early performance by Christian Bale) so the movie meanders all over the place as Spielberg seeks a redeeming purpose or theme.

As I've said, the man is an entertainer, not a brilliant film-maker or auteur. His idols and role models are folks like Frank Capra (Capra-corn) and the higher aspirations of art completely defeat him.

Lucas is a businessman, plain and simple, with the mercantilistic, mercenary instincts of an investment banker. CHOKE on your money, George...

In the category of truly bad movies, has anyone brought up "Dark Angel?" Starred (and I use the term loosely) Brian Benben and Dolph Lundgren as cops who investigate murder perpetrated by an alien who is harvesting human brains to make intergalactic heroin. You might remember it because the alien would always say "I come in peace" before he sucked out the victim's brain.

Absolute drek.

Actually, I believe the movie was released over here (North America) under the title "I Come in Peace". And when the alien is killed at the end, doesn't the hero fire back with the unforgettable riposte: "You go in pieces..."?

Some more quality sf movies...

Wedlock - another Rutger Hauer straight-to-video. Try to escape from the prison of the future, and a special collar about your neck will blow your head off.

Virus - some alien virus infects a ship's computer and builds itself a monster.

Space Truckers - Dennis Hopper. In space.

Saturn 3 - Farrah Fawcett Majors. In space. With Kirk Douglas.

Lifeforce - naked woman found in spaceship turns population of London into zombies.

#151 "Trying to think of other animated SF efforts..."

There's the Canadian Heavy Metal wannabe "Rock & Rule". I can't offer much about it--I saw the conclusion while Channel surfing about 7 years ago and had to google to find out the film's title. However it's available on DVD.

"The benefit of hindsight makes it easy to see why Rock & Rule got buried during its original release: too cute and restrained for the adult-animation set but too dark and edgy in its ideas for the kiddie set, the film manages to be only partially acceptable to either of the traditional audiences for animation in the early '80s. The same sense of hindsight also reveals why it became something of an underground favorite with the cult-movie set: Rock & Rule boasts a fantastic soundtrack, an often-stunning sense of futuristic design, and a novel combination of cel animation and computer graphics that is pleasing to the eye. The script is a bit disjointed at times (particularly the rather choppy first act), but the unique, eccentric nature of the film is likely to keep the viewer intrigued; it's constantly throwing an amusing gag, a catchy tune, or an eye-popping bit of design at the audience. When these elements click, Rock & Rule is also capable of producing some stunning set pieces that offer laughs and chills all at once; one of the most impressive is a mad dash through a downtown dance club as the heroes search for Angel amongst a crowd of bizarre revelers. Ultimately, Rock & Rule might be a little too odd in concept and storytelling style for a mass audience, but animation fans and cult-movie fanatics with a yen for music-themed features will definitely want to give it a look."

Guilty pleasures time! We've mentioned Galaxina but have we mentioned Barbarella? I watched this a few years ago--thought the novelty would wear thin after ten minutes or so but was surprised by how much I enjoyed the film. You have to love those garish 60s visuals!

Wedlock Believe it or not, I think that that was an early HBO movie. Before they decided they were classy.

Lifeforce has its' fans. Lord knows why. I've tried that one three different times. I always fall asleep a few minutes after the nudie-cutie vampire walks out of the hospital. And *each time* the beginning fools me into thinking it will be a good movie.

Space Truckers Lord help me, but that one is in my Netflix queue. Square pigs, Dennis Hopper and George Wendt in space.

Virus That one was bad, but I don't remember how bad, so it's in my Netflix queue again. Maybe I hate myself.

Saturn 3 I remember the robot was cool looking. Didn't he have a canister of human brains in his torso, or am I remembering wrong?

#151

Alas, I remember Rock & Rule. I actually bought it on DVD due to my hazy childhood memories. Let's just say it hasn't aged well. That review makes it sound much better than it is. Best part of the movie is Iggy Pop as Mok. "'Evil' spelled backwards is 'Live' and we all want to live." Like Titan A.E. it couldn't figure out what audience it wanted to play to.

Another bit of animated schlock then: Starchaser: The Legend of Orin. I haven't seen it yet. It's lurking in my Netflix queue.

Lifeforce sounds a great movie and then you see it. Look at Frank Finlay's eyes, they are alive with questions like: what is going on here? what am I doing here? where can I get a new agent?
Possibly because he had to say dialogue such as: I mean, in a sense we're all vampires. We drain energy from other life forms. The difference is one of degree. That girl was no girl. She's totally alien to this planet and our life form... and totally dangerous.

Wedlock is an sf film? I thought it was a documentary about Mimi Rogers trying to escape her marriage to the well-known scientologist Thomas Cruise!

Dennis Hopper. In space. - I think he calls those years the 70s.

"Fortress" with Christopher Lambert. Kind of an "Escape From Alcatraz" set in the future. Who directed that? Stuart Gordon? That seems right.

Haven't seen "Rock & Rule", "Wedlock" or "Virus".

The amazing zero g striptease Jane Fonda performs at the beginning of "Barbarella". A surefire testosterone booster, that one. I remember it as dopey fun too.

Really must lay my hands on a copy of "Phase IV"(1974) one of these days. Anybody else remember that one with fondness? Why do I think the score was pretty good too? A quarter century since I saw that one on the late show. Apparently it's out of circulation--there's one I hope somehow falls into the public domain.

"Space Truckers" definitely a guilty pleasure. Stupid fun (and decent visuals). Right up there (or down there, depending on your point of view) with "Outland".

"Saturn 3"--how did I let that one slip my mind? Harvey Keitel as the villain, Kirk Douglas looking old and out of his depth. The robot WAS pretty decent in that one.

The actress in "Lifeforce" has one of the most spectacular bods in SF cinema history--right up there with Natasha Hensridge ("Species").

See, this is why we need more female post-ers dropping by.

P.S. "Dennis Hopper. In space. - I think he calls those years the 70s." Another one of your gems, oh, jargoneer.

Barbarella. Pfft. I want to see Baberellas. Yes, there really is such a film - see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338754/

The only thing I can tell you about Saturn 3 is that Ian McEwan wrote the script.

Lifeforce... I saw that at the cinema on its original theatrical release. All I remember is the nude female alien - Mathilda May, according to imdb.

Then there's...

2001: A Space Travesty - essentially Police Squad! in space. The bit where Frank Drebin, er, Dick Dix breaks into the villain's office had me pissing myself laughing. Shame about the rest of the film...

Aurora - spaceship crashes on the eponymous planet and the seven crewmembers must trek across hundreds of miles of desert to reach supplies dropped by an earlier mission. Possibly the dullest sf movie ever made.

Battlefield Earth - has no one mentioned this one yet? Argh.

The Chronicles of Riddick - cor, Warhammer 40K film. I reckon they could have got the plastic figurines to do a better job than the cast, though.

Ian: Didn't Martin Amis write (if you can call it that) "Saturn 3"? Must have been down on his luck--or drunk.

Checked on that "Barabrellas" link--yowza. And the film is listed as having been banned in Singapore. Some people have no sense of humour.

Couldn't bring myself to watch "Battlefield Earth" even for FUN. Though I read the book when I was fifteen, a difficult admission to make...

Because everything is circular:

Life Force is adapted from a book called The Space Vampires

Virus is adapted from a comic published by Dark Horse called, funnily enough, Virus.

I haven't seen either film, and I haven't read the first book, but I read Virus years ago and recall it being decent enough.

Cliff,

the black people singing and dancing down the road like a fucking MGM musical from the 40's - Woah, woah. Don't start running down The Color Purple now. That is a terrific movie.

And it seems like your complaint against Saving Private Ryan is that it was unrealistic. But it was based on a true story. Also, the film takes place after D-Day when it is discovered that the other Ryan brothers were killed.

I can't defend Always or Hook.

Either way, I'm not going to make you a Spielberg fan.

Holden,

Virus started as a movie script. When the guy couldn't get it produced he went to Dark Horse and they did the Virus mini-series.

Afetr that a production company picked up the script and we learned that Virus was much better as a comic.

Fortress. There's another one that has fans. Who knows why? Since we've started on Stuart Gordon's sci-fi with Fortress and Space Truckers, let's not forget the awful Robot Jox. I always think of it as 'that movie that started the guy from the Alien Nation TV series.'

Holden: Yup, Colin Wilson wrote SPACE VAMPIRES and likely didn't recognize any elements from his book in the finished movie. Not a bad book but not great either; rather pulp-y in places.

jseger: "Color Purple" Yecchh. Better not continue that debate. You're right, you'll never convince me that Spielberg is anything but an entertainer.

I think you're mistaken: "Saving Private Ryan" was an original screenplay, not based on any other source material (and almost certainly not based on a true story). Max Allan Collins wrote a book but it was a novelization drawn from the screenplay. I might be wrong and maybe one of the other cinephiles out there will correct me.

"Robot Jox" I haven't seen. But could it be any worse than the "Transformers" movie? You'd have to convince me (be sure to bring knuckle dusters and a Taser)...

Cliff,

Saving Private Ryan was based on the case of the Niland brothers. (Doesn't The Case of the Niland Brothers sound like something Encyclopedia Brown would solve?)

Remember, it was based on the story. Much like Shogun was based on the Tokugawa period of Japan even though all the names were changed.

I have a pathological rage when it comes to the Transformers movie. I'm not sure why, but just the idea of that movie disturbed me. I mean guys, the Transformers were crap to begin with. Not every bit of '80's nostalgia needs to be dusted off and reimagined.

Thanks for the correction re: the Niland brothers. I admit my error. I "mis-spoke", as Ronnie Reagan famously said.

I'm with you on the whole IDEA that someone would spend 80-100 million dollars on a fucking toy commercial. And the same guy who wrote "The Transformers" is co-scripting the new "Star Trek" movie. The shit just keeps piling up...

Cliff- ah yes, it was Martin Amis. Don't know why I thought it was McEwan. Except, well, Amis is shite. And a twat. Whereas McEwan used to be good once...

Ian: You didn't even like DEAD BABIES by Amis? I thought it funny and brutal...and then funny again. But, I admit, I'm not M.A.'s biggest fan. KOBA THE DREAD was particularly warmed over and pointless. What do you think of his pop's work? And I agree, McEwan was more interesting in his early novels, which were pretty dark and macabre.

By the way, watch your fucking language...

Har har.

Cliff,

the whole IDEA that someone would spend 80-100 million dollars on a fucking toy commercial - Thank you! That's what bugged me so much about the Transformers movie.

And since it was a success you can bet your buttons that summer 2008 will be a battle between Thundercats starring Tom Cruise and G.I. Joe starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

There's a book called Consumed about how markets and advertising are infantilizing adults. There's been some especially harsh criticism of the book. I wonder how many people wrote a scathing review on Amazon and then headed out to watch the Steven Spielberg produced, Michael Bay helmed Transformers?

It just amazes me how people can spend money on a movie ticket, popcorn and a drink, parking, hiring a babysitter...and waste all that dough on complete shit. "300", "Cloverfield". Films you forget an hour after leaving the theater. I feel bad if I spend four bucks on a DVD or video, bring it home and dislike it. I've become very discerning, mainly watching old shows. Can't remember the last new release I watched. Don't have the time to waste and I have too much respect for the ol' grey matter to subject it to mind candy.

Movies that make you think? Not as long as 14-18 year olds determine what we watch (or those with equivalent mentalities).

Heading to bed. Have a good one, folks...

> 117 That'll teach me to post when I get back from the pub...

I read Money many years ago and neither loved nor hated it. Years later, I read Heavy Water and absolutely loathed it. I also tried Night Train, and hated that too.

As for him being a twat... Christopher Priest once described his experiences as a Grant Best og Young British Novelists in 1983 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granta#The_1983_list) and Amis apparently behaved like an arrogant arsehole. Amis has also been in the news here recently, after making various racists remarks and then trying to back out of them by saying they were a "thought experiment".

Amis pere... I think I've only read Lucky Jim by him. Memo to self: must get hold of a copy of The Alteration...

Cliff,

I had high hopes for 300 after being blown away by Sin City. They were both based on Frank Miller's stuff, they were both using green screens and digital backgrounds to preserve the look of the graphic novels (and I love the story of the 300 Spartans). Alas, 300 sucked...

I guess that's the difference a good director can make.

Ian:

Were Amis' comments with regards to "Islamicists"? Or is it another matter?

Criticizing fundamentalists OF ALL STRIPES is all right with this correspondent. Peter Watts, on one of his blog posts, makes the point that Christians can be awfully intolerant folks too--oh, yes. indeed. Anyone who thinks their narrow approach is the only way to go and everyone else is an infidel is a maniac, regardless of race or creed.

Same thing with SF Geekicists, who insist ONLY SF is relevant and important in a world of "Battlestar Galactica" action figures and sequels up the ass...

jseger: Did you read Stephen Pressfield's novel on Thermopylae, GATES OF FIRE? It is simply MAGNIFICENT, the best historical novel I've ever read. Can't commend it highly enough.

I HATED "300"--and ridiculed it brutally in a blog post. And yet I saw many other posts calling it "best film ever", "great", etc. Similar to "Cloverfield" and the viral ad campaign that had the chronic 13 years olds drooling and panting to get to the theater and be treated to a high tech "Godzilla" movie.

Every once in awhile I would pop into one of these sites and leave a dissenting opinion and be raked over the coals for my snootiness. Ah, well, it's worth it to hear the falsetto squeaks of outrage from people who still wear superhero underwear and show up at conventions wearing lates foreheads, their chubby, little bodies stuffed into some ridiculous costume...

300 was indeed pants. Until watching it, I hadn't known the Persians were ruled by a ten-foot-tall drag queen...

Cliff - Amis' comments were not directed at fundamentalists, but all Muslims. It was racism pure and simple. I grew up in, and later worked in, an Islamic country, so I know what it's about.

Also - I think you might be going to the wrong conventions, Cliff. At the ones I attend, I sit in the bar with fellow sf published and unpublished writers, magazine editors, commentators, critics, etc., and discuss such edifying subjects as Marina in Stingray and whether it's okay to have sexual fantasies about a puppet...

Although I don't agree with his recent outbursts I'm still of the opinion that Amis is a great writer, in terms of prose style at least.

Every time I think of Amis now I can't help remembering Tibor Fischer's review of Yellow Dog -
Yellow Dog isn't bad as in not very good or slightly disappointing. It's not-knowing-where-to-look bad. I was reading my copy on the Tube and I was terrified someone would look over my shoulder (not only because of the embargo, but because someone might think I was enjoying what was on the page). It's like your favourite uncle being caught in a school playground, masturbating.

Back to the important stuff: what is the general opinion - is it ok to have sexual fantasies about a puppet or not? what about cartoon characters?

If the puppet is Marina or Lady Penelope, then it's perfectly normal. The same holds true for cartoon characters such as Penelope Pitstop. However, if your sexual fantasies feature Bugs Bunny in drag, you probably need help...

Ian: I was unaware of the context of Marty's remarks. You must send me a link so I can check them out. The man is showing his roots--Kingsley made a number of disparaging remarks about Jews,etc. There was a line I read in MAD Magazine once, something along the lines of "We're not prejudiced, we hate everyone equally", which has always amused the hell out of me.

Even thinking about "300" makes me froth at the mouth. I LOVE the story of the Spartans and what they did with that magnificent account is an abomination. They didn't have to play up the fantasy shit, the story was powerful enough to stand on its own. And the sad thing is, there was a film in the works based on GATES OF FIRE which was, of course, cancelled when "300" came out. Which would you have rather seen?

I'd like to go to a good SF convention some day, one that's devoted to books and not all the attendant shit--movies, RPG/videogames, etc. Chat up colleagues and readers, have a bit too much to drink and end up insulting Ian McDonald--oh, wait, that was YOU, wasn't it, Ian? Silly bastid...

Jargoneer: I have't liked much by Amis except DEAD BABIES (vicious) and some of his short stories. Didn't like NIGHT TRAIN or INFORMATION. Not saying he's a bad writer, it's just his themes and characters don't speak to me. I'm a lower-class wonk, raised poor, no university or academic background, a self-styled autodidact with a passion of lit and history, violent sports and weird cult movies, cult music, cult books. Amis is in another class--education-wise and upbringing--and I'm willing to admit as much. Just not enough common reference points.

Erotic feelings for puppets? Hmmm. Have to think on that one. Like Phil Dick, I have a soft spot for dark-haired girls (and married one, to my eternal delight). There, that's my one tip o' the hat to Valentine's Day.

Cliff - there'sa bit in Wikipedia about Amis' mouthing off - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Amis#Political_opinions

SF cons... I've not attended any US or Canadian cons, but I've heard that Readercon (Boston) is specifically aimed at written sf. And Wiscon is too, albeit chiefly feminist sf. In the UK, we have the annual Eastercon. There also several others throughout the year - alt.fiction (one day in Derby, aimed at writers), Nocavon (West Midlands, written sf but also very fannish), New Con (Northampton, one day, written sf)... And probably many more I've not mentioned.

Ian: Thanks for the link and, you're right, his comments are intemperate and offensive to anyone who shudders at the notion of someone stopped on the street, detained and strip-searched simply because they LOOK Middle Eastern.

However, I do agree that it's important for moderate Moslems to revile and reject the extremists in their midst, police themselves in essence. Here in Canada likely the most violent minority group are the Sikhs on the west coast, some of whom were implicated and incarcerated for the bombing of Air India, which wiped out over 300 souls. I say "some" because the community has been "scared silent" by the fanatics in their midst or, worse yet, shield thugs they KNOW were involved from the long arm of justice. There have been assassinations of those who have spoken out and though the names of the killers are known, people are reluctant to come forward. As a result the entire community is stigmatized and perceived as violent, intolerant, terrorist, etc.

My remarks also extend to those who conceal their features at demonstrations, wear ski masks as they smash up a Starbucks or McDonald's as a "political act". If I was an organizer and I saw some ski masked motherfucker moving through the crowd, I'd drag him aside and beat the mortal shit out of them. If it ain't an "agent provocateur", working with the police to stir up trouble, it's some asshole outsider looking for a thrill.

My bit of spleen for the day. Better git back to work...

Cliff,

Oh hells yes I read Gates of Fire! I then recommended it to everyone I know that would listen to me. Some of the best historical fiction I've ever read.

Sliding off topic here, but have you ever read Colleen McCullough's Song of Troy?

BTW: I could almost allow the fantasy elements of 300 if the writing wasn't so godawful. When the queen said 'Freedom isn't free' I was hoping that the classic song from Team America would start up. Or that one of her slaves would walk by in the background muttering 'You're telling me!'

Jseger: Haven't read anything by McCullough--am I missing something?

Other historical fiction writers I like: Conn Iggulden, Michael Curtis Ford and David Gemmell's TROY series.

Cliff,

The only books of hers I've yet read are The Thorn Birds and The Song of Troy, but I really like what I've read. I've picked up her Masters of Rome series and On, Off based on what I've read.

The Song of Troy retells the Trojan War with each different chapter narrated by a different character. She keeps the mythological details from The Illiad, but does it in a way that allows the readers decide for themselves whether the gods are involved or no.

It's terrific, but if you live in the states you'll have to order it from Canada or the UK. I'd highly recommend taking the trouble to seek it out.

I've read Conn Iggulden's Emperor series (I wrote a review for each one here on LT). I'll be getting the rest of his books as they come out in paperback.

David Gemmell, I read Lion of Macedon. I liked it but not enough to pick up the sequel.

I have Michael Curtis Ford's first few books, but haven't read any of them yet.

You've got some excellent reading ahead of you.

And, meanwhile in terms of history, I'm reading through Gibbons' DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE and finding it surprisingly contemporary, salacious and bloody good...

>103 CliffBurns:: Cliff: I caught AvP recently on tv, and was surprised at - well, I won't say 'how good it was', but it wasn't as bad as I expected, much to my surprise.

BUT that didn't stop me sitting there and ticking off the plot tokens as they popped up. When all's said and done, it was nothing but a voyage to the bottom of two franchises, even if it was better done than I expected.

>168 CliffBurns:: Actually, I also read 'Battlefield Earth' when it came out, mainly because Dave Langford had done such a good job of trashing it for its awfulness that I thought I'd have to read it, to be guaranteed hours of fun. Alas, it wasn't even that bad: all the truly awfully funny bits were spun by Dave to sound more awful (and thus funnier) than they really were.

And I suppose I had a sense of anti-climax because I already knew about the stupid bits (like the Psychlos having a different Periodic Table to us). It taught me a valuable lesson. Let funny people have the pain of showing us the fool's gold amongst the dross, and get on with better things to do...

>184 iansales::

Ian, for me it was Lady Penelope appearing in one epsiode of Thunderbirds in a negligee and brandishing a Thompson sub-machine gun...

You people are puppet pervs...

Weren't the puppets based on real women? Sylvia Anderson for Lady Penelope; Bardot for Marina.

I have been thinking about this for a couple days but do we need a spin-off thread to deal with television? I know film is bad enough but....

Jargoneer:

Sci fi TV thread? Sounds good. I'm DYING to talk about Irwin Allen. You build it and we will come...

(And unlike the rest of you toffee-nosed types, I've actually seen episodes of "The Starlost".)

Lt. Ellis: One of the moon babes from "UFO"?

Yes. She later appeared on Crossroads, a UK soap opera renowned for its crapness.

>195 RobertDay: Robert: I knew someone who read all ten of Elron's drekology, Mission Earth. He's still on the pills...

Lt. Ellis: One of the moon babes from "UFO"?

Yes.

probably more famous for being Nick Drake's sister nowadays.

she appeared in a couple of sex (British variety of the "Confessions of a..." type) comedies at the beginning of her career.

Seems somewhat ironic that this thread - about sf films, and chiefly bad ones - has the most messages in a forum devoted to science fiction on a site devoted to books...

Ian: Well, the site is supposedly for "SF Fans"--to quote from the header:

"Description: For fans of SF, Sci-Fi, Scifi and any other abbreviation you can think of!"

--and, to me, that casts a pretty wide net. And I suppose it could be argued that a number of these shows "Destination Moon", "A.I.", "2001", etc. were based on stories or books and therefore fall under our purview. Then again, my feeling has always been you can post on whatever the hell you want and people have a choice whether or not to respond. Clearly your thread has struck a chord.

And note how there's no bickering (except of the friendly, mischievous kind), no one trying to one-up another post-er. I really, really appreciate that. We each have our opinions and can respectfully disagree without dumping on the other guy/gal.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to start a thread on SF TV because I note that jargoneer, despite his making the initial suggestion, hasn't gone ahead and done it. And because I'm DYING to talk about "The Starlost"...

I think it's because there's a smaller pool of films than books, therefore we're more likely to have all seen the same films.

And it's always fun to 'fess up to our guilty pleasures, so since the thread is devoted to bad films, that makes it better.

Good points, monsieur...

Why are most SF films original screenplays, rather than based on SF books? Any ideas? Why not go after better source material? SF screenplays are usually written by people who know fuck-all about the genre, including who they're ripping off. Harlan Ellison has made gobs off suing these people for stealing ideas or not recalling that their stories may have been influenced by a show they saw when they were kids (See: "Soldier" from "Outer Limits" and "The Terminator" films).

Just curious...

Why are most SF films original screenplays, rather than based on SF books? I've wondered the same thing about horror movies myself.

I especially wondered why they used that TERRIBLE script for I, Robot when the Harlan Ellison I, Robot script was now doable. My answer there though was in post 149:
But another big budget spectacle that is cerebral and doesn't involve aliens with fangs? In a world where Paris Hilton is a celebrity and American Idol is a phenomenon, I wouldn't hold my breath.

I can understand why they'd avoid Ellison's script... because it would mean avoiding Ellison. He's a mouthy git, liable to litigate at the drop of a hat, and his only previous screen outing was the poorly-performing A Boy and His Dog - and Ellison apparently got writer's block while doing the screenplay and it had to be handed over to someone else. Much as he likes to claim greatness in everything he touches, that record isn't going to impress Hollywood producers...

...and "The Oscar", Ian, don't forget "The Oscar"! That's not too great a track record, is it? Thank God he could turn his hand to the occasional brilliant piece of prose.

Jseger: you're right--SF books are too cerebral for translation into movies. Er, but I don't think most SF lit is cerebral ENOUGH, so what does that say about film audiences?

You know, lately I've been Netflixing a bunch of the popular movies from the '70's (pre-Star Wars). Stuff like They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, The Sting, Dog Day Afternoon, Three Days of the Condor, All the President's Men, Marathon Man, American Graffiti and The Exorcist. It makes you realize just how much dumber movies (and therefore the people seeing them) are now.

No argument from me, muchachos.

I think people get dumber with each passing year.

Conversely, I keep getting smarter...

Hey, gang:

You can bid (on eBay) on a replica of Robby the Robot from "Forbidden Planet". Bidding is up to $7800. Can anybody loan me $7750?

http://tinyurl.com/3xsztd

If I was running through a roster if my favorite movies, I'm not sure there would be one in the past 10 or fifteen years--
certainly not in sci fi and maybe not in the mainstream either. Maybe my critical faculties have improved but I think
it goes back to the corporate mentality that has overtaken film-making, the blockbuster mindset. Lots of promotion,
make sure the flick has a massive opening weekend because soon word will get around it's another piece of shit
and receipts will plummet. Er, exactly like "Cloverfield", for instance. To paraphrase Barnum: you can fool a lot
of people a lot of the time. The eternal fourteen year olds, the video gamers, the comic book crowd, lots of flashing
lights to attract them. Unevolved monkeys, easily dazzled, too stupid to learn...

Haven't seen "There Will Be Blood" or any of the Oscar nominees. I do like Daniel Day-Lewis though...

CliffBurns, would you mind editing your message 214, and stick in this short URL? http://tinyurl.com/3xsztd Because the long URL screws up the layout, and I don't really want to scroll left-right through 214 messages... Thank you :-).

RE: "Solaris". I have to admit that I am in the Soderbergh crowd. I see where Tarkovskij is good, but his take on the story just didn't do it for me like Soderbergh's did. Also, from the visual/musical standpoint, Soderbergh's version is mesmerising, at least for me. I haven't read the book, yet, so I am just comparing both film versions.

Done! And thanks.

Arthur,

It might be an illusion as we get older. If you go through the list of 70s films you'll find plenty of dogs. - I thought about that. But I'm looking at what people went in droves to see.

Of course there was crap in the '70's as anyone who's seen Airport or The Poseidon Adventure knows. (I actually enjoyed the remake... the shame! The shame!)

I'm not talking about that.

I'm saying look at the movies that were most popular; as that is an indication of what the general public considered 'good entertainment'.

As an example, below I've listed the top ten movies (by box office draw) for 1970, 1971 and 2000, 2001. Both have good and bad, but where do you see (for lack of a better phrase) the 'smarter' movies? If you had to sit through all 10 movies from one of the lists below, which year would you pick?

1970
01 Love Story
02 Airport
03 M*A*S*H
04 Patton
05 The Aristocats
06 Woodstock
07 Little Big Man
08 Ryan’s Daughter
09 Tora! Tora! Tora!
10 Catch-22

1971
01 Fiddler on the Roof
02 Billy Jack
03 The French Connection
04 Summer of ‘42
05 Diamonds Are Forever
06 Dirty Harry
07 A Clockwork Orange
08 Carnal Knowledge
09 The Last Picture Show
10 Bedknobs and Broomsticks

2000
01 Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas
02 Cast Away
03 Mission: Impossible 2
04 Gladiator
05 What Women Want
06 The Perfect Storm
07 Meet the Parents
08 X-Men
09 Scary Movie
10 What Lies Beneath

2001
01 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
02 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
03 Shrek
04 Monsters, Inc.
05 Rush Hour 2
06 The Mummy Returns
07 Pearl Harbor
08 Ocean's Eleven
09 Jurassic Park III
10 Planet of the Apes

(The '70's box office I got from http://auctionnight2008.org/2008/02/06/box-office-hits-of-the-70s/ and the 2000/1 stuff I got from http://www.the-movie-times.com/)

It's an interesting comparison to make.

Of the early films, I find about 50% worthwhile and of the latter two years probably closer to 20%.

I don't know what would happen if you veered away from the big box office flicks--what about indie films then and now? Improvement? Devolution?

I know I avoid the "New Release" section of movie stores like faceless lepers; for the last few years I've been digging up old classics/silent movies from eBay and various other on-line sources, or pillaging library collections.

I'll leave the "New Release" stuff to the comic book gits and video gamers. Let them rot their brains with mind candy if they want, I've got some mental muscles and I like to keep them well-toned...

It is almost incomprehensible to me that this thread has extended to 221 postings before mention is made of Queen of Outer Space, 1958, which stars the most combustible couple to appear in films before Richard Burton rowed up the Nile to put the moves on Elizabeth Taylor -- Zsa Zsa Gabor and Eric Fleming (the guy who played the trail boss on Rawhide.) BTW, Zsa Zsa was not the titular Queen -- she was the egghead female scientist.

...that would I would definitely categorize as a "must-see".

It's on my list, muchachos.

The most incredible thing about Queen of Outer Space is that it was the pinnacle of Zsa Zsa Gabor's film career. She was truly a modern celebrity, more famous for being famous than actually doing anything.

Have you noticed how fashion in the future and/or outer space always consists of women wearing skimpy/revealing costumes? It makes you wonder if there is a major inter-galactic textile crisis in the offing.

...or SF fandom is composed of pervs.

Oh, yeah, we already covered that with the puppets.

>219 jseger9000: - I think putting those lists side-by-side you have proven either (a) popular films are now dumber; (b) cinema audiences are now dumber; (c) a mixture of a and b.
The problem started in the late 1970s when the big production companies decided that adults didn't go to the cinema any more and that the average consumer of a blockbuster was a teenage boy.

Has anyone ever watched a "mockbuster"? For some idea of what they are see here

I'm not optimistic. The people making a splash in films nowadays have "Star Wars" and videogames in their blood. Narratives, intelligent scripts are simply beyond their background/comprehension. It's visuals they're after--hey, what sort of "character development" does a Mario Brothers game feature?

You're forgetting the introduction of "systems" and "paradigms" for screenwriting. Hollywood won't even look at scripts if they're not based upon some paradigm they know, like the three-act structure.

Well, before the '70's film schools weren't attracting students. Those guys were able to shake things up because studios were willing to take a risk. Perhaps that will happen again?

By the way, loved the mockbusters page. I've seen those in the video store, but was never sucker enough to rent one (though I'm willing to be that I would enjoy Transmorphers more than I would enjoy Transformers.

Zsa Zsa was not the titular Queen -- she was the egghead female scientist.

BTW: three points to jburlinson for the funniest use of the word titular that I have seen in a long while.

OMG, I'm away from the forum for a few days and when I come back there are 139 unread messages! Ugh! I don't think I can keep up with this thread's prolificness....

Anyway--

> 90 iansales:

Regarding "Buck Rogers" you said "But it wasn't a film that belonged on television, because it was on television." Not sure I follow this comment. Did you mean "But it wasn't a film that belonged in theatres, because it was on television"...?

Either way, regardless of whether the movie was intended for theatres or intended for television, it was still the pilot, first made, and thus not "cobbled together from the television series" as your post #79 mentioned. That's all I was trying to say.

Cliff: Let's see...so far, regarding actors, you've stated:

"Keanu Reeves, a sucking black hole onscreen" (post#17)
"God, I hate (Tom) Cruise" (post #67)
"Really despise Will Smith" (post #71)
"I think William Hurt is a stiff onscreen (...) an actor like Jeff Daniels who has little charisma" (post #71)
"Not a fan of Brucie (Willis)" (post #71)
"I put (Kevin) Costner down there with Keanu Reeves and other sucking black holes" (post #98)

And of course regarding directors, you've stated "Spielberg (...) I loathe the man" (post#73)

But back to the actors for a moment. I'm by no means trying to be a smart-ass or anything, but I'm honestly curious: It seems like you despise many of the (perceived) most successful actors of our day (at least as far as the box office goes, although there have been a few acting award nods to the lads above as well). So, I'm wondering: whom DO you like? Inquiring minds want to know.

And as for Spielberg and "Always," "Saving Private Ryan," "The Color Purple," and "Empire of the Sun" (from post #154)-- Sorry, but my opinion: all great films. (And I see that jseger9000 already commented back and clarified that "Saving Private Ryan" was indeed based on a true story).

Anyway, as I've said before: as far as directors go, the man is God to me. I am a devout member of the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Spielbergs. So I guess I'm a bit biased.

Speaking of which, I must now depart in order to go lay another moonflower upon His altar.

Cheers!

Spaceman: Re Spielberg--so you thought "Always" fine?

Good actors? I tend to favor character actor/actresses rather than leading time. Instinctive over method acting.

I think Daniel Day Lewis pretty fine. David Thewlis in "Naked" gave the single greatest screen performance ever. Richard E. Grant in "Withnail & I". Val Kilmer. Greg Kinnear. Gary Oldman. Tim Roth. Jeff Bridges. Christian Bale. Laura Linney. Joan Allen. Christopher Walken. Ben Kingsley. George Clooney effortless the way Cary Grant used to be. James Cagney always a favorite.

Those are some that come to mind...

>233 arthurfrayn: - as soon as I read Robot Jox another little flash went off in my head: Crash and Burn, which was a kind-of-sequel. I remember I saw a few of Charles Band's productions around the same time and they were all filmed in the same abandoned factory - it got so bad I probably had a working knowledge of the floor plans of the place.

>231 SpacemanSpiff: - I think you'll find quite a few people have little time for that list of actors. Of them, can't stand Cruise (the only film he's been in I've liked is Magnolia) or Smith (although just as an actor, he comes across as fairly likeable in interviews), or Reeves (as Cliff says he is a black hole; no surprise the only role he was actually good in was Bill from Bill & Ted's... - was he just playing himself?). Still of the opinion that Willis' best work was in Moonlighting. Costner, I can take - he's a made a handful of movies, I enjoyed - but he's still not a great actor.

Writing about Cruise has jogged my memory about a decent foreign sf film - Open Your Eyes: far superior to the US remake Vanilla Sky. Very much one for the fans of PKD.

Cliff: Val Kilmer?|

When he's good (Kilmer), he's very good. Witness his performance as Doc Halliday in "Tombstone". Best "Batman" except for Christian Bale (why do good actors take these stupid fucking comic book roles?). Also in "Heat" and "Wonderland", even "True Romance". And he even does a pretty good turn in an otherwise unremarkable screen version of "The Saint". Just needs to make better decisions re: the movies he's making. "Island of Dr. Moreau" and "Willow" (brrr)...

Daniels is just too bland for me. Sometimes that works, as in Demme's "Something Wild", but, for the most part, anybody could play the roles he does, with equal conviction. When I think of a good "everyman" actor, I think Greg Kinnear. He's amazing...

Bill Pullman. Bill Paxton. They are "everyman" actors. Half the time you can't remember which is in which film.

For some reason my last message wasn't posted so I'll repeat it:

I think Bill Paxton far superior to Pullman or Jeff Daniels. Witness his performances in "Aliens", "Near Dark" and, especially, a little seen gem called "One False Move" (directed by Carl Franklin). Remember his bit part at the beginning of the first "Terminator" movie?

And one last thought: maybe SF literature doesn't make the translation to the big screen because it's too downbeat. Have you read the SF of the last 10 years or so? There's some seriously depressing shit. Not exactly hopeful visions of the near or distant future. Any remarks or opinions on this point? I'm curious what you think...

#237, cliffburns: "why do good actors take these stupid fucking comic book roles?"

*g* just this afternoon I read an old Guardian interview with George Clooney, in which he proceeded to crawl under a virtual rock concerning his Batman film (well not really, but he surely didn't see it as his greatest). Clooney actually got me interested first with his performance in "Solaris" (to get back on topic;I had missed virtually everything he had done for the big screen before that).

See Clooney in "Out of Sight", a wonderful adaptation of an Elmore Leonard story, directed by his frequent collaborator Steven Soderbergh.

Clooney SHOULD be embarrassed by his two installments in the "Batman" franchise. They were abysmal.

But, then, I hate comic book crap.

All this talk of Bill Paxton reminds me: Am I the only one that thinks Aliens is a bad movie?

Don't get me wrong. Alien is a masterpiece, but that James Cameron sequel is almost unwatchable to me. 'Game over man, game over!' is a line my better half and I trade back and forth from time to time though.

Hell, I liked "Aliens"--it's got amazing pacing; this is when Cameron still had his heart in movie-making. And then "Titanic" came along and...

Well, we know what happened after that.

It's "Alien 3" that's a complete dud and I put the blame on David Fincher, one of the most over-rated directors of the past twenty years. I loved "Fight Club" but beyond that...David, go back to film school...

jseger - I too think Aliens is the worst of the bunch. Alien3 returns the franchise to its beginning - one alien stalking a bunch of people trapped in a single installation (or ship), and does it quite effectively. Alien: Resurrection just gets sillier and sillier as it progresses. And that from the two blokes who gave us Delicatessen...

There was this comedian a while ago that talked about the craziness of scheduling Wheel of Fortune after Jeopardy! He said it was like going to college and then going to kindergarten.

That is how I feel about Alien and Aliens. The Ridley Scott movie holds up thirty years later. It's still an excellent movie.

James Cameron's movie feels like an R-rated G.I. Joe episode. I liked it as a teen, but watching it now it's just so cheesy and laughable. The soldiers are all cartoon characters marching through a story that takes itself too seriously to support them.

Alien 3 commits the sin of being boring. I'm not sure if it's the fault of the over-rated David Fincher or the meddling from the studio. (I haven't watched the new directors cut yet, because I just don't care that much.) Still, Roc is in it, so it isn't all bad.

Alien: Resurrection surprised me. Only after I watched (and enjoyed) it did I realize this was from the director of the great City of Lost Children and Delicatessen. I guess it has pretty cartoony characters too, but the rest of the movie supports them in a way that the all too serious Aliens didn't.

Messrs. Ian & Seger: I can't imagine anyone liking "Alien 3"--I thought it was ponderous, the script piss poor, the movie didn't seem to go anywhere. Even the alien was pitiful, crippled because it hatched from a...dog? There's a William Gibson story treatment kicking around for "Alien 3" I'd like to have a look at--a cyberpunk "Alien" movie, sounds totally screwy.

The editing and pacing of "Aliens" (Cameron version) was tight and exciting, the dawning horror of the marines as they move through the abandoned facility, wondering where everyone is...discovering the "nest" and all hell breaking loose. Even comedian Paul Reiser does pretty well as the sleazy Carter Burke.

And I thought "Alien IV" a lot of fun. Except for Winona Ryder. Add her to my list of actors who are sucking black holes. I'm a big Ron Perlman fan too. "City of Lost Children" and "Delicatessen" are big, big favorites around Casa Burns.

Nope, don't think we'll have a meeting of minds on this one. Not unless the director's cut of "Alien 3" manages the near impossible. Someone fill me in on that, will you? How does it differ from the original? Is it worth taking a look at? Etc.

I wonder if liking Alien3 is a British thing... Many of the cast were British and Brian Glover was the warden. The director's cut... I remember thinking it improved the film, but I can't remember any specifics. Like the new final definitive version of Blade Runner - I think I'd confabulated all the improvements in memory anyway, so I never really noticed them in the new version.

Aliens - I'm definitely with jseger on this one. Ham-fisted US marines: shoot first, think second. The characters are all clichés - especially the newbie lieutenant who earns respect as he dies. And the alien, which had been scary because it was near impossible to kill... Cameron turns it in to a grown-up cockroach. Not only are thee now thousands of them, but the aforementioned idiot marines manage to kill them by blowing shit up.

The Gibson script... Not cyberpunk, I'm afraid, but set on a wooden planet populated by monks. So I am reliably informed. I have a vague memory of having seen a copy somewhere.

Alien: Resurrection - I wanted to like it, I really did. Jeunet, Caro... and it started so well. But they dropped the ball on a few details. The lab ship is out on the edge of the galaxy, where any mistake won't endanger the inhabited planets... but it can still reach Earth in a matter of hours. That'd be like testing nuclear weapons in Kent. And then Ripley decides it would be better to drop several million tons of spaceship onto an Earth city than to let one alien survive. Right. One alien versus Deep Impact. I know which one I'd choose...

Cliff,

Except for your bizarre defense of Aliens, I don't think we're too far off.

My preference list of those movies would be:

Alien
Alien: Resurrection
Aliens and Alien 3 are tied as I don't really care to watch either of them.

Looking back, the only James Cameron movie I really much enjoyed was The Terminator. The rest are okay to watch now and again, but none really stand up to repeat viewings the way a classic does.

Ian,

I have to say you are right on the money with your criticisms of Alien: Resurrection. Also they made the mistake of giving the hybrid alien a button nose and teddy bear eyes. In the end you feel more sympathy for it than anyone else.

And let's not even get started on those two(!) Alien Vs. Predator movies. Talk about raping the corpses of some franchises...

Ian:

Doesn't the lab facility blow to smithereens after they leave on the pirate vessel? The last alien, Ripley's offspring, sneaks aboard the ship with them and is hiding in the hold when she confronts it. No "Deep Imact" collision there.

I don't recall the science facility being on the edge of the universe. I thought that humans had spread far out into space and the pirate crew was coming BACK to the earth system with the frozen colonists. I imagined the science facility to be somewhere in the outer system, tucked away far from prying eyes. Ripley and the Perlman character actually react with disgust when Earth is mentioned--clearly they want to be far away from the place (likely for different reasons).

jseger: And I think feeling pity for the hybrid alien is part of the idea--Ripley grieves like a mother as she kills it (she's only partially human and is clearly torn as she watches it die). I thought the hybrid a terrifying notion: the combination of a murderous species like humanity and a malefic life form that kills or impregnates every creature it comes across. Now that's a frightening concept...

Cliff: you actually see the lab impact the earth. Makes one hell of a mushroom cloud. And I vaguely recall a mention of it being located "on the edge of inhabited space". I'm sure Dan Hedaya says as much because of the danger of their research. I could be wrong, though.

Cameron... I still have a soft spot for The Abyss, even if it turns supremely daft in the final 20 minutes.

I enjoy Alien but it is a tad over-rated (as is Ridley Scott, a man who can make any setting look beautiful but can't make any characters human) - it is effectively a version of Halloween in space, even down to Ripley as the 'final girl'.
Aliens is a decent action movie - nothing more, nothing less.
Alien 3 attempted to take the franchise back to the first film, and was partially successful. Interestingly, it is the only 1 of the 4 films to actually discuss ideas. (Didn't Gibson's script have the alien come to Earth but was too expensive/complex to film at the time?).
Alien: Resurrection was just the milking of a cash cow in my opinion, despite having a script by Joss Whedon, who usually tries harder.

Ian: I honestly don't recall the lab impacting. I thought it blows all to hell and back. Can anybody else help us out? Don't make me go down to the cellar again and confront spiders the size of my hand...

And the location of the lab--help again? I imagine there's some version of FTL but, still, you're right, they have hypersleep so that means that a journey of that length would take years.

Dan Hedaya was fun--when the alien punches through the back of his skull and he dazedly reaches behind him, plucks off a piece of his exposed brain and examines it in stupefied wonder. Wow!

And let's hear it for another great character actor, a creepy thespian who makes Anthony Perkins seem like a punk by comparison: Brad Dourif.

I couldn't agree more re: your sentiments on "The Abyss". Boy, did they fuck up the ending of that one. Again, what's wrong with the concept of sacrifice? Why can't they kill off the Ed Harris character? Grrr...

jargoneer: I'll agree, I think Ridley Scott over-rated, especially his films of late. But he does have an astonishing visual eye, present right from the very first, an odd little film called "The Duellists".

There's a challenge for this weekend - all four alien movies back-to-back. And for the masochistic, you can include the two AVP films...

Ridley Scott has made some good films, but his failures have always been more interesting than his successes... I'm not Alien is classified as a "failure", but Blade Runner initially was. Um, mind you, so was Legend, and that's pants. Black Rain I vaguely recall was good. Same with Thelma & Louise. I also enjoyed Kingdom of Heaven. The rest... not so impressive.

What about Black Hawk Down or even Gladiator?

I admit Legend was pants, but what a beautiful pair of pants it was.

I enjoyed Kingdom of Heaven, but man, Legolas... I mean what's his name sure was weak in it.

"Legend" (5 acks)
"Thelma & Louis" (dreadful--Ridley does his version of "chick lit"...women empowering themselves by screwing younger guys and behaving like adolescents; wonderful theme)
"Black Rain" (dreadful)
"Kingdom of Heaven" (didn't bother seeing)
"Blackhawk Down" (I'll take the book, thanks)
"Blade Runner" (still like it, regardless of the various superfluous versions)
"Alien" (just watched it with my eldest son and it still packs a wallop)
"Gladiator" (after first 10 minutes becomes standard soap opera)

Matchstick Men and American Gangster both look pretty good (I haven't seen either yet).

I remember that G.I. Jane was better than I was expecting (though I admit I didn't expect much).

I couldn't make it through The Duellists. I'll try it again some time.

jargoneer - Alien is effectively a version of Halloween in space, even down to Ripley as the 'final girl'. And...? Regardless it's a classic that holds up thirty years later. Would it help matters if you knew that the Ripley character was originally supposed to be male?

I loved John Carpenter's Assault On Precinct 13 and that was effectively a remake of Rio Bravo. That doesn't make it any less a good movie.

Gladiator winning the Oscar for the best film of the year was a travesty - everyone knows the award that year should have gone to Toy Story 2.

Ridley Scott's finest moment came with a Hovis commercial bread in the UK: everyone in the UK of a certain age will instantly know what I'm talking about. As I said, his films look fantastic but not much else: they are still miles ahead of brother Tony's though. RS has just produced a new tv mini-series of The Andromeda Strain.

I liked the original "Andromeda Strain" and can't see any reason to remake it. More proof that Hollywood prefers remakes to originality. ("Rollerball", anyone?)

Imagine the remake of "Casablanca": Harvey Fucking Weinstein or Jerry Asshole Bruckheimer insisting that in this version Rick (played by Ben Affleck) gets the girl.

God, I hate contemporary movies/TV.

"Assault of Precinct 13": haven't thought of that one in a LONG time. And it's been remade too. (String of wall-blistering expletives)

Didn't like Black Hawk Down. Not into all that military macho bullshit. Which is why I didn't like GI Jane either-- er, well, you know what I mean...

Gladiator - 3 hours of Russell Crowe posturing. No thanks. He was good in Curtis Hanson's LA Confidential. Never been able to watch him anything else.

Since we're slagging off Ridley Scott, how about turning it on its head and naming favourite directors? Mine:-

Alfred Hitchcock
Aki Kaurismäki
Krzysztok Kieslowski
Elia Suleiman
Andrei Tarkovsky
Paul Verhoeven

I also like a great deal:

Powell & Pressburger
John Sayles
Werner Herzog
Wim Wenders
Terry Gilliam
Ingmar Bergman
Pedro Almodóvar

Can't really disagree with most of your list. Haven't seen any Suleiman film (or any I can remember) but familiar with the rest. Never 'got' Kaurismaki though, I think he's an acquired test. I find Verhoeven and Gilliam very uneven directors: Verhoeven especially can sink to lows that few directors can follow and then bounce back with a good film. When Tideland came out I remember an interview with Gilliam discussing how difficult it was finding funding now: hence his making Brothers Grimm.

Directors I have a lot of time for include -

Hal Hartley (I admit this is a personal one)
Preston Sturges (but as much for his writing)
Akira Kurosawa
John Ford
Howard Hawks
Eric Rohmer

Am sure there are more but have to go watch Liverpool-Inter now. Will return.

Arthur,

Recommend me some Mario Bava please. So far I've only seen Planet of the Vampires. I've heard good things about Black Sunday and I got a gag gift of Hatchet for the Honeymoon. Would you recommend either of these?

Arthur: Ken Russell? I'm amazed. You are a man of decidedly eccentric tastes.

I dunno is there are directors I consistently like.

I think Hitchcock is the single most over-rated director in cinema (sorry, Ian, you'll hate me forever now). I think Ray Chandler complained to him that his plots made no sense and I have to agree. Totally contrived, frequently stupid. But, then Hitch thought Chandler a "kook" (which he was).

Another over-rated director the cinephiles pee themselves over: Terence Mallick.

Used to like Coppola and Scorsese but not any more. Good early films and then they sold their asses like a Montparnasse whore.

Love early Polanski--hate everything of late (except "The Pianist", which I'm ashamed to say I haven't seen).

Loved Sam Peckinpah's stuff--but, again, really fell off in last three or four films. Even "Cross of Iron" has its moments though. "Wild Bunch" and "Ride the High Country" two of the best westerns ever.

Some Cronenberg, others, eccchh!

Some Gilliam, others (see above).

Howard Hawks and John Ford, sure. But each had his clunkers.

Ingmar Bergman, William Friedkin, Henri Georges Clouzot, Luis Bunuel, Fritz Lang, Jacques Tourneur...

That'll do for now.

#259, jseger: "Matchstick Men and American Gangster both look pretty good (I haven't seen either yet). I remember that G.I. Jane was better than I was expecting (though I admit I didn't expect much)."

*snerk* G.I. Jane... --sometimes I watch it and I like it (because it does tell some truths about women in armies), at other times it makes me think "what the ...?". American Gangster was interesting, especially with those two heavyweights as the leads, but I thought the story wasn't really rounded (what was the point again? I asked myself at the end).

Cliff: I find Hitch the most consistently entertaining director ever. He experimented more with film and narrative techniques than anyone. He wrote the book on some of them. Yes, his plots were contrived, but what plots aren't? I mean, he made a film with an unreliable narrator, in which the hero lied to the audience. And he had a very healthy attitude towards actors...

OTOH, I can't say I've ever liked Coppola or Scorsese's films...

>266 CliffBurns: - you can't accuse Hawks and Ford of making clunkers and then choose Friedkin; he made a film with Chevy Chase - that may not be a criminal charge but it should be.

American Gangster has the most dubious moral message of any recent film (and that's quite an achievement) - along the lines of "this man may be a violent criminal who engineered the flooding of US cities with drugs but these bad policemen were worse"...eh?

I have a pet peeve about the credit directors receive - it is always film: what happened to crediting the writer who originated the idea/screenplay, or the cinematographer who shot it, etc.

Cliff, you may want to change your opinion of Hitchcock based on this piece of praise of Righteous Blood -
Burns writes like Hitchcock directs, producing gooseflesh without monsters. And that is the scariest kind of writing there is.

Jargoneer:

Using a blurb from one of my books against me--ooo, you are low. I believe I shall nurture a grudge against you for a looong time for that one. Better get someone else to start your car for awhile.

I agree that Hitch had a great attitude toward actors (one I share): they are mere fodder for film-makers and tormenting them is not only allowed but ENCOURAGED.

My perfect actor is a robot--do what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it and SHUT THE HELL UP

The story of Robert Mitchum--can't recall which film. The director tells him to crawl through a field and when they yell "Cut", Mitchum stands up and he's covered with blood. He's been crawling through a field of nettles.

Director: Why did you do that?
Mitchum: (Shrugging) Because you told me to.

That's an actor! None of this method acting bullshit.

One of my favorite films of the last five years or so (of course none of this has anything at all to do with SF but since you pricks started this digression) is "Lord of War". The opening title sequence--AMAZING (and anyone who's seen it knows EXACTLY what I'm talking about, no further prompting required).

P.S. Ian and Jargoneer, you are skating on thin ice with me right now...

Cassavettes is definitely an acquired taste. Like Bergman (and Russell) and some other bleak cartographers of the human spirit. "Chinese Bookie" is one of his more likable efforts with an wonderful performance by the under-rated Ben Gazzara. You list some of my other faves too.

Russell is completely mad--something endearing about that even though I'm not his biggest fan.

Finally saw Argento's "Suspiria" last year. Interesting without being particularly good. Another one of my least favorite actresses, the dreadful Jessica Harper. Nasty film but definitely contained a chill or two--my wife left me to it after about the 20 minute point.

Friedkin I defend for three movies: "French Connection", "Exorcist" and "Sorceror". I'll put them up against any trio of flicks by other directors of stature from the past 30 or so years.

Any other fans out there of Polanski's "The Tenant"--I think it an amazing flick. Also recommend his autobiography ROMAN, although it is disingenuous at times.

Getting late so I'll leave it there. I shall correct any other inaccuracies that may accumulate tonight in the morrow. Beware, I am watching...

I've seen Lord of War - the opening is superb. After that, well, Nicolas Cage - not a great actor. And it laid its message on a bit thick.

"I never said actors were cattle, I probably said they should be treated like cattle." How can you not admire the man who said that?

Cassavetes... I've seen The Killing of a Chinese Bookie but I can't say I enjoyed it that much.

And speaking of oddball directors, I bought the Alejandro Jodorowsky boxed set when it was released ,but so far I've only watched El Topo. It's barking mad. I haven't yet worked up the courage to watch Fando y Lis and The Holy Mountain...

And before we forget the original topic of this thread... last night, I watched Hundra, a female barbarian fantasy film starring Laurene Landon. It was... terrible. Makes Red Sonja seem like Ingmar Bergman, Well, nearly...

You know, I loved Straw Dogs, but I could never get into The Wild Bunch. I bought the DVD and have tried to watch it twice so far, but haven't completed it even once. I'll try again some day.

Dario Argento - I have most of his films on DVD. Really, none of them are particularly 'good'. I would have trouble recommending them to anybody who mainly enjoys mainstream stuff. They are beautiful though if you are looking for logic or even a solid story you're looking in the wrong place.

Is it Tenebre with that wonderful tracking shot around the house while the killer and his victim are inside?

Arthur,

I'll move Black Sunday up my Netflix queue and I'll try to check out Hatchet for... this weekend.

Have you seen anything by Michele Soavi? I'd recommend Stagefright. I actually made my wife sit through that one. The first forty-five minutes is pretty crummy, but man, the last half hour or so makes up for the beginning, bigtime.

>273 CliffBurns: - the premise of The Exorcist really bugs me: the devil finally gets onto the human realm and all he does is spin his head, walk like a crab, vomit, etc. I'm sorry but I was the devil and had waited thousands of years I'd try to make more of the situation. I put it in the same category of aliens who send a party to earth to see how easy the humans can be invaded, and are thwarted by the mad scientist and little Tommy. Why don't they just use their superior technology to destroy the earth?

Another good director, albeit another acquired taste, is Luis Bunuel - just don't expect much plot.

>275 iansales: - Ian, haven't seen Hundra but I have had the misfortune to see Barbarian Queen and it's sequel - now better known as the pinnacle of the career of Lana Clarkson, the actress murdered (allegedly ha ha ha) by Phil Spector. The 'barbarian' scenario was a good method of showing lots of breasts, etc - the genre was taken to it's logical extreme by (surprise, surprise) Verhoeven in Flash & Blood. Tanya Roberts in The Beastmaster (and then Sheena) deserves a special mention for her performance.

Barbarian Queen? I'll have to have a look out for that one. I remember The Beastmaster. They made two sequels! Mind you, they made four Deathstalker films...

Also worth - *ahem* - seeing are Hawk the Slayer and The Sword and the Sorceror.

"Sante Sangre"...(shudder). What an utterly sick and depraved movie. I kept thinking to myself as I was watching it: THIS is the guy they originally had slated to direct the movie version of DUNE? That would have been deeply weird, boys and girls.

Laurene Landon? Wasn't she the gorgeous actress who played Mike Hammer's secretary in the Armand Assante version of "I, The Jury" (a guilty pleasure, I admit).

"They made 4 Deathstalker films"...and people wonder why I have such a low opinion of film-makers (and the human race).

jargoneer: I'm not a Christian, farthest thing from it and I find the premise of "Exorcist" ludicrous too. But the picture WORKS--it instills fear in the way few films have managed. Scared the piss out of me the first time I saw it and still kicks me in the ass today.

Jseger: Give "Wild Bunch" another try--you gotta get to the smash-bang climax. William Holden is one of my three or four favorite movie actors, his performances always natural, convincing and authentic. And what a supporting cast...

Jesus, Arthur, a Jodorowsky boxed set? What a collection to have--the man was mad, no question...

I have Sante Sangre. Not watched it yet. Been meaning to get tanked up first and then watch it, but never got around to it. (The only way to watch 200 Motels is pissed; sober, it's pants.) Thing is, I love Jodorowsky's sf comics - Metabarons, The Incal, Technopriests... Completely off the wall. I also wondered if his version of Dune would be watchable...

Oh yes, I also have Jodorowsky's The Rainbow Thief. Starring Omar Sherif and Peter O'Toole. Jodorowsky allegedly disowned it because it wasn't bonkers enough. I'm surprised Sharif and O'Toole didn't wipe it from their c.v's.

Yes, I think Laurene Landon was in I, The Jury. She mentions it in a featurette on Hundra. She hasn't aged well. Looks like the plastic surgery went wrong. Her face didn't change expression once while she was talking.

I've seen The Wild Bunch. Thought it was good, but I liked The Searchers better. And I thought Rio Bravo was superb. But I'm not much of a western fan.

>278 iansales: - watched Hawk the Slayer recently: it has it's charms as you say - the glowing hula hoops or balls, for example. Essentially a fantasy version of the Seven Samurai. The director went on to make the classic Jane and the Lost City - it co-stars Jasper Carrott as a Nazi!

The Sword and the Sorceror - enjoyed it when I first saw as a kid. Starred Lee Horsley - an actor who seemed to be employed on the basis of being a Tom Selleck tribute act. (God, I can remember watching Matt Houston as well). S&S is another Pyun film.

Re Barbarian Queen - should be readily available on cheap dvd; it was released recently, possibly to the infamy of Clarkson's murder (allegedly - BTW, I keep saying allegedly because of the American legal system which seems incredibly reluctant to find celebrities guilty of any major crime, no matter how blatant the evidence is - unless you were Different Strokes, then you're damned).

>281 iansales: - there's a fair chance that Peter O'Toole doesn't remember appearing in it, or a number of other films on his cv.

I think Lee Horsely runs an internet site devoted to film noir these days. If it's the same guy...

Krull I always liked. Bernard Bresslaw as a cyclops. Inspired casting. Even if they only cast him because he's tall...

>284 iansales: - they probably saw his performance as a giant in HtS.

A strange little film from Japan - Tetsuo. The plot consists of a man turning into a metal creature and then fighting a villain with a metal fetish. Possibly even odder than Eraserhead.

"Odder than 'Eraserhead'"?

Now that I'd have to see to believe.

"Eraserhead"...brings back memories of a certain night, an altered state of awareness, something behind the radiator...

Stop it! Stop it!

Wasn't Tetsuo done by the same bloke as A Snake of June? Now that was bizarre.

Just went and checked A Snake of June on imdb - yep, same director. I now want to see this film.

Has anyone seen The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes? I suppose it is sf to an extent, dealing with automotons - not a great film in terms of plot, character, etc, but one of the most beautiful movies of recent years.

There is no chance I'll be able to find that stuff ("Tetsuo" etc) here in Saskatchewan. Maybe I'll do some checking about on YouTube after I finish my edits tonight.

I do have "Akira" and "Vampire Hunter D" and one other weird SF anime downstairs--haven't seen them in awhile.

I went by the thrift shop and picked up "The Martian Chronicles" VHS. Complete on one tape and it's 5 hours long. What the heck, it was 50 only cents. Can always donate it back to the same place afterward.

Also had "Mighty Joe Young" (1949 Harryhausen version), "Ride the High Country", "Dr. Strangelove" and "Bedlam" (Karloff/Lewton) arrive in the mail in the past two days. Some fine viewing ahead for me in the next couple of weeks, boys and girls...

Cliff, don't you dare take 'Martian Chronicles' back to the thrift shop if you don't want it! My other half would KILL for it!

See my message on the SF TV movies thread--it's yours as soon as I watch it. No problem, mate...

Robert,

Why not just buy your brother the DVD?

Er - I don't have a brother. "Other half" = "significant other". (I'd say "girlfriend" but she's older than me and I'm not a boy any more, age-wise.)

We've never seen a DVD listed for the UK, and NTSC machines aren't common over here, let alone being able to find the hidden codes that allow us to access Region 1 DVDs.

Someone once gave me the code to allow my old DVD player to access Region 1 discs - I think I had to hold one key on the remote down, punch in a code only slightly shorter than the number for the Ulan Batoor speaking clock and genuflect to the East three times.

Robert, you can buy a multi-region DVD player from Tesco for about £10. If you want a decent one, you might have to pay as much as £40. They'll play PAL and NTSC.

So there's different formats for DVD's but the VHS stuff is the same?

Man, that's weird. I've never understood why there can't be universality in all formats. And aren't your electrical outlets different from North America or something? So if I plugged in an electric razor in London, it would chase me around the room like an electrocuted pitbull.

Please apprise as I intend to visit England one day to pay back, in spades, certain individuals who have been making obnoxious assertions and vicious remarks on this and other recent threads.

Respectfully,
Y'know Who

Robert,

Doh! I read 'other' as 'brother'!

I thought you would have the same problem with a US VHS tape not being playable on a VCR in the UK. Was I misinformed?

And yeah, I hate the whole regionalization thing. The UK gets some nice two disc sets of John Carpenter movies and we get bare bones releases.

Cliff,

So if I plugged in an electric razor in London, it would chase me around the room like an electrocuted pitbull. There's a Twilight Zone where that happens! (Well, not because the protagonist travelled to the UK...) Darn, which TZ was that now?

Gang:

There's a "Gort" (from "Day the Earth Stood Still") full size replica for sale on eBay too. First the "Robbie the Robot", now Gort. There have been 12 bidders and the price is up over $4000.00

Where do people get that kind of money?

Where there's a will there's a way -people sell organs on eBay too, you know. ;)

Most televisions in the UK can now handle both PAL/SECAM and NTSC (Never Twice Same Colour, as TV engineers call it). As can VCRs. But no one uses VHS anymore - it's gone the way of the typewriter. Multi-region DVD players are also common in the UK. Supermarkets sell them for around £20. If you want a good quality one, you can get them from Amazon. This is the model I recently bought: http://tinyurl.com/379qce

Your razor would only last a minute or so before it burnt out, Cliff. I know because I did once with a drill. UK construction sites use 110V - don't ask me why, I've no idea - and I picked up a 110V drill, but it had not plug on the end. I assumed it was 240V, put the required plug on it, plugged it into a socket. It drilled three holes in a brick wall in milliseconds and then burst into flames.

from tv thread -
Tarantula - I can't watch giant spider movies since I learned that if you did increase the size of a spider it would collapse under it's own body weight.

Talking of giant spiders has reminded me of classic bad horror sf film - Night of the Lepus, an Australian movie about giant rabbits. (Australians live in fear of rabbits). All they did was blow footage of normal rabbits, and it's very hard to made a rabbit look frightening - "oh my god, it's twitching it's nose".

BTW, is it between Them and King Kong for the best GIANT insect/animal film? Any other nominations? Good or bad?

There will be a few consumers who bought expensive HD-DVD players feeling pretty pissed off now.

All this technology stuff leaves me in the dust.

Recently on this side of the big pond HD-TV basically admitted defeat and admitted the "Blue Ray" technology will be the next big thing on the home entertainment front. What is Blue Ray, you might ask (I did)? I have no idea. Last year when we bought a TV, we purchased one of the last remaining Sony models that wasn't flat screen or plasma or LCD. A big 32-inch fucker that just about broke our backs when we lugged it in. It was half the price of the others and, frankly, I didn't trust the newer stuff. I heard about something called "burn in" with the plasmas and "ghosting" with the LCD's , plus my wife said that she felt the flat screen she'd seen stretched images unnaturally.

There's my technology rant for the morning.

Last night I watched "Conquest of Space" and found it quite fun. Was disappointed they didn't have lots of Bonestell paintings/mattes but the spinning space station and flying wing ship were delightful. Acting pretty bad and some of the science stuff made you wonder if they had used Willy Ley or Bonestell as advisors, though the movie was supposed to be based on their book. Just one example: the crew are wearing spacesuits on the surface and yet one of them peels off his gloves and handles the red soil with his bare hands. Hullo! What happened to spacesuit integrity?

Then I watched the first hour or so of "Martian Chronicles" and, Robert, I dunno if your girlfriend will thank you or not if you give it to her. The acting is better--it was nice to see Darren McGavin--but the special fx were pretty appalling and, again, technical accuracy a problem. Honestly, I wouldn't judge the effects much better than "Conquest of Space" which was shot at least 25 years earlier.

What really worked for me were the scenes involving the Martian characters and settings. Some lovely, exotic alien touches. Plus there are chunks of writing Matheson took directly from the book. I found the music particularly annoying and inappropriate, a ninth rate soundtrack.

(For me, the most glaring and awful soundtrack ever was the one composed for "Ladyhawke". Watched it again about three years ago and couldn't for the life of me imagine what was going through Richard Donner's mind when he chose those compositions. Like a really, really bad Alan Parsons album--not coincidentally, he produced said soundtrack.)

'Nuff from me.

I really like giant bug movies. As long as they ain't named "Cloverfield".

"Them" is fun and I'll let you know about "Tarantula" within a week or so.

The original "King Kong" is wonderful--what I like best are its brevity, plus the film-makers didn't anthropomorphize Kong nearly to the extent the remakes did. He's still very primal and beast-like right up to the end. Stop motion photography. Love it. LOVE it.

We've got "Mighty Joe Young" to watch right away too. Ray Harryhausen showing all the learned from his hero Willis O'Brien.

And can I give a tip of the hat to Scott Carey's battle with the spider in "The Incredible Shrinking Man"?

Cliff,

technical accuracy a problem - I lump The Martian Chronicles (and really, any Ray Bradbury 'sci-fi') in with A Princess of Mars or Star Wars. Bradbury isn't Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke. He is a fantasy writer who named one of his fantasy kingdoms 'Mars'. His writing is good enough that I can dismiss accuracy.

(You've made me curious to check out that old TV version of The Martian Chronicles. I never caught it.)

When I say technical inaccuracies I meant the way the spaceship photography was handled (very crappy effects for supposedly a big budget production), even things like the lander docking with the larger ship, stuff Bradbury wouldn't have bothered with. You're right, he's not a science guy and that's one of the reasons I like him. His worlds are wholly his own, his imagination dismissing reality with nary a shrug. Leave science to the eggheads, he's got bigger fish to fry.

Oh, Rob-ert:

I finished "Martian Chronicles"--drop me a note on my LT profile page where you'd like me to send it. Did you make sure the North American VHS format is compatible? Let me know.

All they did was blow footage of normal rabbits, and it's very hard to made a rabbit look frightening - "oh my god, it's twitching it's nose".

You've never seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I guess!? :)

>308 PaulFoley: - after I clubbed a sixth person* to death for telling me that Monty Python was the greatest thing since sliced bread I got hypnotherapy to remove all traces of MP's oeuvre. Now I just wonder what the hell people are talking about.

*it is legal in English & Scottish law to defend yourself with as much force as possible from anyone who mentions, or quotes lines from, the parrot sketch.

"What? Behind the rabbit?"

Paul, you've cited a favorite in our house. My youngest son even has a t-shirt with the feral rabbit from "Holy Grail" on it.

Last night our family watched "Tarantula" and loved it. First time for my wife and sons and it had been 30+ years since I'd seen it.

What a terrific flick--great fun. The special effects were very, very good, the superimposition of the spider seamless. It comes rumbling over the horizon, looms over people and cattle, the town, and nary a line can be seen. Very sophisticated for over 50 years ago.

The acting...well, not Oscar caliber but Leo G. Carroll is always watchable, John Agar tolerable and Mara Corday lovely. This one has to be the best of the giant insect films, better than "Them", methinks. Jack Arnold was a good, solid director. Really commend this little beauty to anyone who hasn't seen it yet.

We all applauded when it was done.

And, hey, congrats to the Coen Bros. for finally nabbing an Oscar. Never watch the ceremony, have skipped in since "Ordinary People" beat out "Raging Bull" (1981?) but it was on my Yahoo news reel this morning. The lads have had some duds in their long, odd career but they'll always be aces in my book for "Miller's Crossing" and "The Big Lebowski".

Re:302 - Giant Insects

Beginning of the End starring Peter Graves has giant grasshoppers. A pretty cheesy movie.

Who acts better: the grasshoppers or Peter Graves?

Beginning of the End is terrible, but I love the MST3K episode!

Cliff, I'll have to rent Tarantula. It sounds fun.

I always liked The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo, The Big Lebowski and even The Ladykillers from the Coens. I didn't 'get' Barton Finkmyself.

Arthur:

I second your comments on Sam Raimi. Can't believe the guy is taken seriously as a director, although thanks to the "Spiderman" shit movies, we're stuck with him. I preferred him in his "Evil Dead" days.

Another HUGE Python fan here, I'm afraid. I'll take the surreal comedy of the Brits over anybody. We now own the first two seasons of "Black Books", after being able to view only parts on the web. What a scream.

I liked "Barton Fink"--a terrific look at what it would have been like to work in Hollywood in that era. Some great acting from the supporting players. Michael Lerner as the studio head is staggering. "Hudsucker Proxy" didn't work for me, despite some good performances. One of my favorite actresses, Jennifer Jason Leigh, walks around doing Kate Hepburn and only succeeds in annoying.

I've heard good things about the Brit series "Life on Mars", which has kinda a SF touch, doesn't it (cop sent back in time to the 80's)? Is it worthy?

Life On Mars is set in the 1970s. A detective inspector is hit by a car, and wakes up in 1973. It's done well - although the 1970s as depicted owe more to cop shows of that decade than to what it was actually like then.

At the moment, the BBC are showing the "sequel", Ashes to Ashes, in which a female detective inspector is shot and wakes up in the early 1980s. It's... harder to get into - right from the start Alex Drake knows that she's in a coma, and suspects that her experiences were fabricated by her dying brain. In Life on Mars Sam Tyler was never really sure.

Both are good innovative TV drama - which is pretty rare these days. Better still, they finished them when they should have done. Instead of dragging it out forever until their audience had deserted them...

>314 arthurfrayn: - I enjoyed The Hudsucker Proxy - I admit it has faults: some of the plotting is a bit off, etc - but it is a relatively intelligent comedy, and how often can you say that about a modern movie. I agree it is no Preston Sturges but then no-one matches PS at present - I happily would argue that Sullivan's Travels is one of the best American movies ever.
If you want to see the Coen Brothers lose the plot properly, watch No Country for Old Men - easily one of the worst winners of the Best Film Oscar: no coherent plot, pointless dialogue, poor acting (Javier Bardem - Best Supporting Actor???? He's an excellent actor, see The Sea Inside, but this is just another unstoppable psychopath), blah blah blah.

>315 CliffBurns: - Cliff, you are wrong about the Spiderman movies being shit - the first two are probably the best blockbusters of the last few years (I'll admit the third one is a dud): despite all the sfx they have a heart and a brain. They prove that with the right director you can make a blockbuster that is more than a piecing together of big set-pieces.

There are two ways to look at Life on Mars - either it was state of the art drama, or a very clever way to remake The Sweeney without being bombarded by accusations of sexism, etc. Ashes to Ashes - it did have the great line from Alex Drake, when entering the office, "Good morning, imaginary constructs".

"Life of Mars" sounds innerestin--I shall seek it out, maybe check the library in Saskatoon next time I visit that metropolis.

"Singing Detective" (Michael Gambon). SF elements or just screwy?

Have we mentioned "GalaxyQuest" on this thread (it's getting so long, it's tiresome to scroll back to check)?

An absolutely first-rate spoof, a wise and knowing look at Trekkie-dumb. Good cast, lots of laughs, one my whole family hooted through. I'm reminded of it because I found it for five bucks in a bargain bin last night. Hey, if I have to go along on these family shopping trips, there's gotta be something in it for dear, old dad...

So which was better, "Westworld" or "FutureWorld"?

Speaking of imaginary constructs...

'Life on Mars' (named for the Bowie song, of course) was an intreresting phenomomen in that a large portion of the UK population was glued to an sf time travel drama. The thing about it was that it was not only a remake of 'The Sweeney' but because the central character was a proper early 21st-century cop, his methods looked outrageously strange to the unreformed dinosaurs he was working with. Also, Brit audiences get seriously gooey over recent nostalgia.

In the end, not as sf-nal as we thought it might have been, but still interesting tv nonetheless.

Ah, 'Galaxy Quest' - a film which scored in two departments - the Trek fans loved it because it celebrates what they found good about Trek, whilst the Trek-haters loved it because it made fun of the aspects of Trek they dislike the most. So everyone came away happy.

Watched "Might Joe Young (1949) with the family last night. Terrific film, worthy followup to "King Kong", the stop motion torch being passed from Willis O'Brien to Ray Harryhausen. Only drawback, a monotonic performance by the female lead Terry Moore. The special effects are astonishingly good, a great deal of vitality and life force imbued in that little puppet. The Burns family was quite smitten...

Loved this film ("Joe Young"). Had that sense of wonder I always look for (usually in vain). Wasn't there an official "Kong" sequel--"Son of Kong" or something like that and it even reunited a lot of the original production team? Or am I suffering an absinthe flashback?

I just watched the Robert Zemeckis version of Beowulf last night.

I'll leave the merits of the film alone for now. It was pretty neat to watch. But as I was watching the puppet-like 'actors' I kept getting the impression that I was watching a very expensive and advanced version of an old Gerry Anderson Supermarionation show.

"Beowulf"--won't touch that one with a long stick and a taser.

I think your supermarianation analogy to be pretty near perfect. I believe I'll stick with the wonderful Heaney translation and leave the movie on the shelf beside "300" and other drek made to appeal to braindead videogamers. This one had "turkey" written all over it right from the start and like the Who song says, I "won't get fooled again".

Oh man, let's talk drek. I have the Christopher Lambert sci-fi version of Beowulf in my Netflix queue. I've seen it once years ago and remember it wasn't too good, but since I can't remember quite how bad it was I'm renting it again. Why do these things? That's a good question.

(If it helps my rep, I'm making up for the Supermarionation Beowulf by renting To Kill A Mockingbird and Sybil.)

I thought that version of Beowulf wasn't too bad - although I remember it as being mostly generic fantasy, but with a hero called Beowulf. Or something like that. I went through a period with no access to decent films about then, so I might be under-estimating its crapness.

I'm not sure that anyone has mentioned this film before Android - a very low budget piece starring Klaus Kinski as a mad scientist (possibly the only time in cinema history when an actor had to tone down his own character to play a mad scientist). It's the old story of mad scientist making androids, needing humans to help him, android wanting to be human, etc. It's years since I've seen it but at the time remember thinking that it wasn't too bad.

Funny, I was just reading an article on Kinski someone sent me--the man was completely nuts. I'd like to get my hands on his autobiography, KINSKI UNCUT. Man, that would be a page turner. Putting two lunatics like he and Herzog together was just asking for trouble. Never seen "Android" but it would have to be at LEAST as good as "Saturn 3", wouldn't it?

Kinski's last movie, which he also directed, Kinski Paganini is a jaw-dropper, a real train-wreck of a movie - worth seeing for the sheer madness of it. Kinski believed he had lived the same experiences as the violinist, but then again didn't he also believe he was Jesus Christ! (Germanic artists can be a little odd this way - Falco, singer of Rock Me Amadeus, believed he had a spiritual rapport with Mozart; he even used to buy a plane seat for the spirit!).

Have you ever looked at Klaus Kinski, then Natasha Kinski, and then wonder how good looking her mother must have been for her to be that good looking?

> 326: Cliff - I have to disagree with you on "Beowulf". It was far from perfect; but as a vehicle for introducing some of the earliest literature to an increasingly non-literate audience, it has a lot going for it. And there's a big debate in the UK right now about 'Britishness' and where the roots of the native population are (or have shrivelled away to). A populist film of "Beowulf" has a lot going for it in this context.

I saw this film in Birmingham with an ethnically-diverse audience. Much of the argument about Islam and the place of immigrants into the UK is actually about how grounded individuals are in their respective cultures. Many Muslims in particular find it strange that the British have forgotten their own culture in favour of a strange mix of mid-Atlanticism and lowest common denominator anti-intellectualism. This abandonment of the REAL British culture, which is part of the mainstream European culture, is, to me, one reason for so much hostility towards incomers at the moment; the anomie felt by many Brits adrift from their own culture without realising it is manifested in hostility towards strangers. So for me, "Beowulf" was a brave attempt to try and correct that.

Here's a review I wrote for my office newsletter. Remember, it's aimed at an audience that may never have heard of "Beowulf" or understand the background and history of this particular mythic tale. (Apologies for
length.)

+++++

The latest CGI epic from Hollywood director Robert Zemeckis is an interesting excursion into the realms of Dark Age history. At the same time, it has things in common with Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" and "Apocalypto". "Beowulf" takes us back to the beginnings of English literature and into the heroic world of Norse heroes, dragons and monsters. But this is no fantasy world like Narnia or Middle Earth. Gritty reality is the order of the day here.

"Beowulf" is drawn from the earliest and most extensive surviving example of prose writing, not only in English, but from anywhere in Western Europe. It is generally thought to date from the 8th Century, although the written version we have dates from about 1000 CE. The story, repeated down the years by successive generations of bards, tells the story of the hero Beowulf, who travels from modern-day Norway to the court of King Hrothgar in Denmark to rid him of a monster, Grendel, who has been terrorising his mead-hall and slaying his warriors. He kills Grendel but then has to face Grendel's mother; he defeats her and becomes a warrior famed in song and story. After ruling in his own land for 50 years as a wise and powerful king, he faces a final struggle against a monstrous dragon and dies a hero's death.

As originally known, "Beowulf" is written in Old English, a tongue nowadays generally incomprehensible. (....) The language is itself a mix of Scandinavian and northern German dialects; we can decipher it through religious texts and chants which have survived, as well as extrapolating backwards the changes in spoken English from the Middle English of Chaucer's time. The bardic tradition of story-tellers recounting the tales of heroes in the great halls of kings would have had access to many such tales. In Old Norse we have the Sagas; in Welsh we have the tales of the Mabinogion; but "Beowulf" pre-dates all the surviving versions of these. We have no other surviving long texts from this period.

Zemeckis' film tells the key events of the story. It also changes some parts, at times quite extensively. The British comics writer, Neil Gaiman, scripted the film and inserted sections dealing with Grendel's parentage, the death of King Hrothgar and the conflict between the new Christian religion and the older Norse beliefs which were not in the original that has come down to us. But this is all right: the bards themselves would have made such changes to the story as they saw fit as they re-told it; and we mustn't forget that the version of "Beowulf" that has come down to us is only the one out of countless re-tellings that survived.

The film has been made using the latest digital motion capture techniques and computer animation. Live actors spoke the lines and provided much of the movement acting in front of green screens; backgrounds, monsters and the whole environment were then inserted afterwards. This makes it possible to create settings that would otherwise be difficult or even impossible in live action; Angelina Jolie, for example, plays Grendel's mother and morphs from horrible monster to seductive siren (another of Gaiman's changes and a quite convincing borrowing from other mythologies). On the other hand, Beowulf himself is played by Ray Winstone, but is portrayed as a fine figure of a man with a physique that I doubt the actor has any longer! The acting is adequate; one wonders quite how the actors feel seeing versions of themselves on screen speaking the words they said but not quite matching the way they stand, move or act. The motion capture system tends to iron out the extremes of emotional delivery. But then again, characterisation and high emotion was not heavily present in the original; the Saxons and Vikings sitting in their lord's mead-hall wanted to hear tales of adventure and heroism, and weren't so worried about how people felt. The film certainly delivers on that score.

The animation is very good; just at the beginning, the movements of some of the characters in the scenes of carousing in Hrothgar's mead-hall look a little bit like "Shrek", but you soon get used to that and once Grendel has made his first attack, you are completely immersed in the world of the film and the CGI ceases to be an issue. Water – always very difficult to render properly – is exceptionally convincing.

The settings are marvellous, depicting a landscape of hard winter, but they bear no resemblance to any Denmark we would recognise. Hrothgar's hall and castle, again, are very convincing but bear no resemblance to the buildings that we know were put up at the time. Dark Age construction was mainly in timber; but the film shows great buildings of crude stone. But this is a re-telling of a myth, and in myth these things are but secondary.

The picture of the society is convincing; life was nasty, brutish and short. Although the film has been mentioned by some critics for its goriness, in truth it only attracts a 12A certificate, in that a lot of the violence is more suggested than overt. More noticeable is the earthiness of much of the conversation and actions which more justifies the certificate; but this, too, was typical of the times. Indeed, I suspect that many viewers may find it easy to identify with the characters on screen for their motivations and appetites.

One thing that the film does that the original text doesn't is depict religious tension. The text of "Beowulf", as I said, dates from 1000 CE and exists in a version recorded by monks. There are Christian references throughout; but as an older text that was really part of an oral tradition, it quickly becomes clear on reading that references to "the Lord God" were most likely changed by the person who wrote it down from "Odin" or others of the pantheon of Norse gods. I suppose that as we are now used to the concept of "search and replace", we can spot instances of it done the hard way by earlier hands more easily than before!

The film, however, makes the point that Christianity was a new religion. The screenwriter, Neil Gaiman, makes one of the lesser characters in Hrothgar's court, the thane Unferth, into a minister of the Church. His challenge to the legend of Beowulf as hero when Beowulf boasts about his swimming contest with Breca, which is in the original text, becomes a challenge based on the Christian concept of the sin of pride. In turn, Hrothgar and Beowulf feel that Christianity, with its message of peace, has weakened society to the point that men cannot stand against Grendel and true heroes are in short supply. Certainly, at this time both religions co-existed in the popular mind even if the practice of sacrifice to the old Norse gods was no longer officially sanctioned. Gaiman emphasises this by having the dragon burn down the church later in the film. In time, of course, the Christian church adopted many of the sites and festivals of the old religion, so much so that the pagan underpinnings of our society are today heavily submerged.

Perhaps the one part of the film that people might have a problem with is its 3-D effects (in selected theatres, as they say). The 3-D process itself is excellent; as I have a dominant eye, old-fashioned 3-D that relied on feeding red and green images to separate eyes didn't work for me. The new digital systems using two superimposed polarised images, combined by the special glasses for each eye (pioneered by the IMAX cinemas) is much better and gives a much more realistic effect. The drawback is that the film-makers have decided to use the same sort of visual gimmicks that they did in the 3-D 'B' moves of the 1950s ("The Creature from the Black Lagoon" is perhaps the best-known example). So spears loom towards the viewer from out of the screen; various objects are thrown directly towards the camera; galloping horses or soaring dragons are followed by the camera, skimming along the ground or swooping through the treetops. And some shots are framed in ways that exploit the 3-D process by having some objects close to the camera and others further away. After a while, you no longer notice the less obvious effects, but the obvious ones are very obvious. Anyone watching the film on a conventional flat screen (be it cinema or home television) will wonder why there are all these perspective tricks; and in time, they will merely look strange. (...)

But where the 3-D works is in giving some scenes additional presence and vibrancy. Beowulf's arrival by longboat through a stormy sea, for example, has all the more immediacy because of the 3-D with the ship's dragon prow ploughing through towering waves towards the audience.

To sum up; this is not just any film. It is an important North European myth retold. It is good to see such a story presented in a popular format. As the oldest story known in the English language, it is a key part of the history of the English and as such is essential viewing to understand who we are and some of why we are the way we are.

++++++++++

strange mix of mid-Atlanticism and lowest common denominator anti-intellectualism - yep, that's pretty much how I felt about Beowulf. The whole story was Hollywood-ised: Beowulf himself was changed from a great honorable hero to a cockney geezer with issues. Beowulf should protect the land - not steal it, nor father a demon by Grendel's mother, etc. It is not an important North European myth retold, it is an important North European myth butchered.

I wonder what kind of alternate reality I live in when Robert Zemeckis is taking a smackdown, but a Christopher Lambert movie is being defended!

(The Zemeckis one does deserve its punches and I haven't seen the Christopher Lambert one in years. It's just a funny situation is all.)

Who cares about Robert Zemeckis? He's a Spielberg wannabe to me and has contributed very little to fine cinema. The man who brought us "Forrest Gump"; need I say more?

Robert, did Grendel's mother look like Angelie Jolie in spiked heels in the original? I don't remember that part in the Heaney translation. Just how close to the source material was the movie? If this is what it takes to introduce the classics to post-literate audiences, let's leave this stuff for video games, shall we?

Have to admit a soft spot for BEOWULF. It's one of the first books I can remember reading, a kid's version of the tale that absolutely riveted me. When I see great stories like this in the hands of film makers who grew up on comic books and "Mario Bros", I break into a cold sweat...

#302

jargoneer, I was getting caught up with this thread and saw your mention of Night of the Lepus, which for my money is one of the most unintentionally funny movies ever made. That and Phantom of the Paradise are two of my favorite movies from the '70s for sheer ridiculousness.

At least Phantom of the Paradise knew it was ridiculous. I love that all the different bands were played by the same guys. Too bad they couldn't get permision to call the record company Swann Song like they intended.

I guess I have a soft spot for Robert Zemeckis because he loves horror movies. I enjoyed Forrest Gump, so maybe you do need to say more. Cast Away, Back to the Future and What Lies Beneath were also pretty good to me. He is just sort of Spielberg junior, but he's usually worth watching.

#331 - They used to show it on the SciiFi channel back when that station was actually interesting...

When was that, the first five minutes of operation? Well, they do show Stargate Atlantis and Eureka, both of which I like.

> 336: Cliff said "Robert, did Grendel's mother look like Angelie Jolie in spiked heels in the original?"

Don't know, it was a poem! She might've done. Weren't sirens supposed to be seductive? And as I said, depicting Grendel's mother that way is a borrowing from a different mythology, but wouldn't a decent bard have done that if he thought he could have got a better story out of it? Although Oscar Wilde was probably the first person to write down 'Genius is just an infinite capacity for stealing the best bits', he almost certainly wasn't the first person to think it!

It's a while since I read 'Beowulf' in any detail, but yes, I acknowledge that the Zemeckis film has variations from the text as it has come down to us. My point was that for this story at least, that's valid because when the tale of Beowulf was in the oral tradition, it would have been adapted for local circumstances by the bard who was re-telling it at the time. I suggest that any itinerant bard would have been quite comfortable with the changes that the Zemeckis film made.

I haven't read the Heaney translation yet - it's still in my 'to read' pile. When I skimmed the text and some of the academic stuff to write my review, I was surprised how much of the original DID make it into the film.

I don't know how 'Beowulf' did as box office; I just find it remarkable that a story that's at least 1300 years old can still be in popular circulation today in a format undreamt of when it was first laid down.

>342 RobertDay:: And as I said, depicting Grendel's mother that way is a borrowing from a different mythology, but wouldn't a decent bard have done that if he thought he could have got a better story out of it?

A "decent bard" might do that, but would have the decency to put a new title on it. A bard who says, "Hey, this story doesn't have any sex in it! Let's make the ravening monster a sexy woman to bring in the guys -- I mean to present a new and valid artistic interpretation" is a hack.

This conversation is getting increasingly silly.

A "decent bard" might do that, but would have the decency to put a new title on it. A bard who says, "Hey, this story doesn't have any sex in it! Let's make the ravening monster a sexy woman to bring in the guys -- I mean to present a new and valid artistic interpretation" is a hack. - I'm pretty sure you would think all bards were hacks then. Shakespeare is known (or 'believed' let's make everyone happy here) to have lifted his works from older stories. I don't remember anywhere where Shakespeare took the time to spell out what was original and what he added to 'spice things up' as it were. Intellectual property rights weren't the hot button topic they are nowadays.

I think the point of Message #343 was that if you change a work and adapt a work to the extent that it's no longer recognizable, said version isn't definitive or faithful, it's an entirely different work (for better or worse).

I'm willing to bet there ain't a whole helluva lot in common if you read the Heaney translation and watched this latest piece of shit film. Neil Gaiman is a comic book writer so if you want to do an adaptation and have it appeal to the eternally 14 year old crowd, Gaiman would be one of the people you'd tag. Shakespeare lifted his plots from other sources but did he use the same title? Did he claim his version was authoritative and accurate? And didn't he usually do a better job than whatever original history source he was borrowing from?

Cliff,

You're showing your prejudices, man.

I think you should re-evaluate your opinion of Neil Gaiman. Trust me, he isn't a Stan Lee appeal to the eternally 14 year old crowd writer. I'm not a raving fan of his, but the man deserves a helluva lot more respect than that. Have you read The Sandman? Or Violent Cases? Or Coraline? Or American Gods?

Did Zemeckis or Gaiman or Avery ever claim that their version was authoritative and accurate?

Shakespeare called his play about Julius Caesar Julius Caeser if memory serves. Zemeckis called his movie about Beowulf Beowulf.

BTW I didn't like Zemeckis' Beowulf myself. I just didn't think the post about bards respecting their source was accurate and I think Neil Gaiman deserves some respect as a writer even if Beowulf did suck.

I like some Neil Gaiman but not AMERICAN GODS, which I found almost Stephen King-like in terms of its dullness and predictability. I've written in other forums that I think Gaiman has every possibility of being a J.K. Rowling level writer just because he's so proficient in so many mediums and seems to have tapped into some kinda zeitgeist.

I think when it comes to adaptations, source material should be given a great deal of respect and be recreated with care and authenticity. There's SOMETHING about tales like BEOWULF, GILGAMESH and ODYSSEY that has sustained their power and appeal for centuries/millenia. Updating a myth or legend is one thing, but reducing it to eye candy, "dumbing" it down to appeal to a contemporary audience made up of of dough-heads doesn't exactly do the original work credit. Gaiman should be ashamed to have his name associated with such drek--in such cases it might be better for his reputation if he employed some kinda "Cordwainer Bird" type pseudonym.

If he doesn't, the folks from Stockholm are NEVER gonna call.

A derogatory pseudonym is almost pointless now - the web will make sure that we all know who is really responsible. You can run but you can't hide.

Don't really get Gaiman - more impressed by his comics than his prose; thought the film of Stardust was quite enjoyable though.

One to look forward to this year - The Day the Earth Stood Still by the director of The Exorcism of Emily Rose and starring Keanu Reeves as Klaatu.

One to look forward to this year - The Day the Earth Stood Still by the director of The Exorcism of Emily Rose and starring Keanu Reeves as Klaatu - Flashback to Army of Darkness, Ash saying "Klaatu, Barada.... hrmph..." I could see Keanu doing that for real!

You know, I used to get all bent out of shape with remakes, especially when they are terrible (Assault on Precinct 13 or The Fog for instance), but somewhere along the line I realized that there's always the chance that they will turn out to be good/better than expected (Dawn of the Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and either way they don't wind up harming the original. In very rare cases, they can even be an improvement (The Hills Have Eyes sorry, I like horror movies).

Now I'm not implying that a remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still will outshine or even equal the original, but it won't diminish the original either. In fact I've noticed that whenever a remake comes out, Netflix always has a wait time on the original, so a remake could bring the original some new fans.

The only novel by Gaiman that I have read is his collaboration with Terry Pratchett in Good Omens, and quite enjoyed it's dark humor, which Pratchett does not have.

>345 CliffBurns:
What is actually in the poem is presented pretty faithfully in the film. It is what isn't in the poem where film takes liberties. Nowhere in the poem is Grendel's mother described. Also, the poem only gives us Beowulf's word for what happens in his fight with Grendel's mother - he doesn't bring back any proof he killed her like he does have proof that he killed Grendel. Gaiman makes the reasonable and rather interesting inference that Beowulf didn't actually kill her and only says he did to improve his reputation. The rest of the film goes naturally where that premise takes you without violating what the poem actually says.

By the way Cliff, I wouldn't rely too heavily on the Heaney translation as an authoritative version. I agree that it is a very good read, but I've heard Old English scholars call him "Shameless" Heaney for the liberties he took with his translation.

Sheesh Cliff... What's with all the ad hominem hatred? Did a video game or comic book kill your dog somewhere along the line?

I think you are absolutely wrong about what would and would not have been in a bard's telling of Beowulf. A bard certainly would have had more sex in a telling to a tavern audience than to a group of Monks and a Monk certainly wouldn't care for writing down tawdriness... I certainly do think that the small smidgen of PG-13 sexiness added to the Zemeckis Beowulf isn't a huge ordeal. It didn't change any of the real substance of the work, and you can see some old bard detailing the beauty of a siren...

Bards telling tawdry tales and cavorting with the "lowest common denominator" is an old, old art form and certainly not unique to this age. One of the most amazing things about Shakespeare's plays, one of things that has kept his plays so close to the mainstream, was his way of playing both high brow and low brow audiences, often in the same breath/soliloquy. Shakespeare was a very interesting master of simultaneously telling serious dramatic tragedy and throwing off a few "fart jokes" to keep the rabble from falling asleep.

I won't even bother to start the debate that comics and video games have some amazing literary value if you bothered to give them the chance, albeit perhaps not those parts that are making through to Hollywood's silver screen...

"Comics and video games have some amazing literary value"...

Er, good luck convincing me on that one, guys.

I've heard a few quibbles of Heaney's translation of BEOWULF but I thought it read beautifully--I'm not an expert in Old English and no translation can match the power and context of the original but Heaney's version was lyrical and possessed enormous narrative verve.

Okay Cliff,

I admit video games have little to no literary value. Maybe less. I'm not exactly playing Quake (geez, I've dated myself there, no?) for its thematic content or the wonderful musings on the nature of man.

Comics however...

Sure, most of them are junk, just like most movies. But in defence of literary value, try Maus or Persepolis or Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children.

Or just pick up some Alan Moore stuff like Watchmen. V for Vendetta, Miracleman or From Hell. (Please don't judge these titles by their movies. There's a reason Alan Moore has his name removed from all movie versions.)

Love & Rockets by Jaimie and Gilbert Hernandez (once they found their legs) is wonderful stuff.

Will Eisner is another one to check out. To the Heart of the Storm, The Contract With God, Will Eisner's New York

Try giving Neil Gaiman's best comic stuff a shot. Sandman didn't get raves from mainstream book critics for nothing. Or try Violent Cases or A Signal to Noise.

I'm wondering if you've dismissed this stuff without ever giving it a fair shake.

You don't want to come off like those crusty people that would say Gene Wolfe can't have literary value because his books are sci-fi.

I'll second the Alan Moore stuff. Watchmen is superb. And Tom Strong is great fun. I'm not so keen on some of the other stuff - Albion left me cold, and I thought Ian Edginton and D'Israeli's Scarlet Traces was better than The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

I didn't recommend Tom Strong, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or 1963 because that was Alan Moore just having fun and I figured it wouldn't convince Cliff that comics can have literary value.

Since no one else really seems inclined to stand up for video games: a vault of literary video games, Grand Text Auto - one of several blogs focused on the literary content of video games, there was once an entire company dedicated to games as literature but was killed by bad business decisions (their games are still meaningful and fun to this day, classics, often in every sense of the word). Publisher/developers LucasArts and Sierra in their heydays were at war primarily over the literary/narrative aspects of their games, rather than much of today's common focuses on graphics or other shallow game aspects. Recent "AAA" games with interesting narrative structures: Bioshock, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed. Not that they are necessarily exemplary, only that I think it's coming back around for companies to actually try for some literary merit in their narratives, even in "traditional shooters/action games".

Video games stand on a frontier of narrative design that could one day surpass the literary merit of every other medium... I think there are a lot more interesting things to come.

WorldMaker,

Video games may one day come around to having some literary value, who knows? But it is way too early to claim that now. Even milestones of video games: System Shock, the Thief series, Half-Life, the Grand Theft Auto series and such, don't really have literary value.

jseger9000: I certainly don't think it is too early to claim that. I think games could have claimed that in the 1980s and I think its still true today, even if you have to go outside of the AAA multi-million dollar productions you see on store shelves.

In my previous post I particularly posited that (at the very least!) the genre of gaming referred to as "Interactive Fiction", which has a long and storied history in and out of commercial favor/success, absolutely has literary value. There are many IF classics that belong on shelves next to classic novels of their respective genres. They may even have more value than similar classic novels because of their ability to do interesting things with interaction and telling narratives with the involvement of the reader himself/herself that you cannot do in the medium of a book.

I think games could have claimed that in the 1980s and I think its still true today Can you name me three? I love computer games myself, I do. But there's a difference between 'fun' and 'literary merit'. Yes, I'm well aware of interactive fiction, but c'mon man, I could let you have Trinity and A Mind forever Voyaging, but outside of IF a game can't have literary value. It could be a work of art (I think Psychonauts was), but not literary value.

Man, I am so off track here...

I'm intrigued by the notion of "interactive" fiction. That may play a bigger and bigger role in publishing in the years to come...

Hey Cliff,

You kinda skipped over my defense of (some) comics. I was curious to see what you'd have to say. Have you read any of the stuff mentioned?

One thing this 'comics as literature' coversation has done is make me break down and add my Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore graphic novels to my library. I'd left them out before.

My Alan Moore amd Warren Ellis "graphic novels" are already in my library. While most of them are about as deep as a coat of paint, in some areas the medium is more adventurous in a literary sense than the bulk of science fiction. And some of it is even educational too - such as Warren Ellis's Crécy, or Eric Shanower's Age of Bronze...

I've read Moore and Ennis and Whedon and Gaiman, etc., etc.--graphic novels are entertaining and pretty to look at but...literature? I dunno, lads, that seems a bit of a long shot. It's a natural field for easy translation to the big (or small) screen but I've never found any of it really appeals to me more than on a curio level. I read Ellis' CROOKED LITTLE VEIN (believe that's what it was called) and was completely unimpressed.

My wife likes the Marjane Satrapi PERSEPOLIS books and I've glanced at them--seem all right but not for me. Similarly, I read the Speigelman MAUS series and while it was interesting, I just didn't think as a Holocaust memoir it came even close to Wiesel's NIGHT, Semprun's THE LONG VOYAGE or Levi's DROWNED AND THE SAVED. Just didn't have the same power and substance...

I never said they were literature, but some of them are damn sight more adventurous as fiction than a lot of science fiction. I'd rate Watchmen higher than the entire ouevres of Heinlein, Asimov and EE Doc Smith any day...

Again, I LIKED "Watchmen" but it didn't blow my socks off. Just as I liked "100 Bullets" and the Del Close scripted "Wasteland" series. Diverting, clever but no where near achieving the experience of reading a good book (sans graphics).

I'd rather read "L'il Abner" than "the entire ouevres of Heinlein, Asimov and EE Doc Smith any day". Or the back of a cereal box. Or a menu at a fast food restaurant. Or road signs written in Cantonese. Or...

Guys and gals:

Found this was I was trolling about:

http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/film/scifi.html

FYI.

Some good stuff here.

Reaching back to #67, CliffBurns: ""A.I." was dreadful but that's Spielberg trying to resurrect a project that Kubrick couldn't finish so what do you expect. There is a scene in the movie that really, really disturbs me. When the wife leads the artificial boy into the woods and in one instant he realizes that she is going to abandon him there and his face just crumples. Jesus Christ, that just about killed me. The kid NAILED it. Was that Haley Joel Osmont?"

Yes it was. I haven't seen AI so far, and am not particularly interested, but after seeing another Osment film this week, I am tempted to rent it. Any child actor that can hold his own against Kevin Spacey in a five minute dialogue scene can only improve movies (after checking him out on IMDb it seems that he has done little film work in the past years, though).

On the issue of Comics and Literary Value: I remember holding "A Scanner Darkly" in hands at the store a while back. I was intrigued by its concept but not enough to pay full price :-). I might go and try to find it.

I usually HATE child actors but Osmont is something.

P.S. D'you mean "A Scanner Darkly" the book...or the Richard Linklater movie? Both are absolutely first rate.

I meant the movie. It was obviously done with some kind of video to comic transfer software, which was what caught my attention. But since I had never heard of the story before... *walks off to check book and film now*

(Ditto on child actors. ;-) )

I don't see the connection of A Scanner Darkly and the literary value of comics. A Scanner Darkly was a novel that was turned into a rotoscoped movie. No comics involved. Maybe when you were at the store you saw the 'adaptation' of the movie where they took stills from the movie to make a comic?

BTW: Cliff, I wouldn't say the movie version of A Scanner Darkly was first rate. Though I did enjoy the druggies antics quite a bit, I thought the sci-fi elements weren't done very well. Aside from the 'multiple personality suits' it just seemed like Richard Linklater was out of his element.

Can't say I agree re: "A Scanner Darkly" (the movie). It's the absolute best PKD adaptation, nothing else even comes close. I'm a big fan of the novel and I found it uncanny how faithful Linklater could be to the original source material without seeming slavish or merely imitative. He caught the mood and paranoid atmosphere perfectly. I liked his "Waking Life" film too (also rotoscoped--PKD makes a cameo appearance in that one as well).

#372: No, I had the DVD in hand, all right. But since I had never heard of the book, nor the film, nor the "rotoscope" technique, "comic" was what came to my mind.
Oh well, another one for Mount ToBeRead.
:-)

I just came across this link. It's only partly on topic, but they're really having a go at various films, including SciFi:
http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/
They even dare to diss one of my favourite farcical movies (Armageddon)! Boo-hiss! :-D

Ah, well, "2001" found us no where near the moons of Jupiter so not even geniuses like Stan and Art are perfect...

#375 - I remember reading an interview where Trey Parker and Matt Stone said their original intention with Team America: World Police was to do an all-puppet version of Armageddon. They had been given a copy of the script and thought it was already funny as was; but thought that if they were to make it into an all-puppet movie; then it would substantially funnier.

I have watched "A Scanner Darkly", and have read the novel, and I must say that the movie was done quite well. All of the major points of the novel were there, it had all of the paranoia in the book, and some of the ideas in the book were presented better.

The only two complaints that I have (fairly minor) is that it was done in that cartoony style, because I don't think the medium suits the movie, (it was done extremely well, though) and they changed the ending.

Re #375

I love that people have the time to sit through a two-hour movie merely to say how bad the physics behind it were.

Comes with the territory (in that case of being a physicist), I think...
I was watching "United 93" yesterday, and with all the panic and fighting going on on-screen in the last minutes of the film, what did I notice?
That they inter-cut a shot of the approaching ground with a shot of the "artificial horizon" (which clearly showed the plane to be climbing). Oops.

Can't bring myself to watch "United 93" yet. Just know that one will put the whammy into me when I see it. Extrapolating the last moments of those folks before they went into that field in Pennsylvania...that would be a tough one.

In terms of scientific accuracy, I'm willing to allow leeway. I really don't care if FTL is practical or even possible--and I don't mind imperfections, those old movies where you can see the wires on the models, the zippers in the "monster's" suit. Is it a good story? Is it well-crafted? Do I care about the people?

The technical stuff is a bit further down the list...

Unless, of course, the film is Sunshine...

See, that rotten bastard Peter Watts spoiled "Sunshine" for me by pointing out all the implausibilities. Now, if I ever do see it (not in any hurry), all those points he made re: the film will jump out at me. The swine...

Cliff, no implausibilities were needed to spoil Sunshine for me. Just changing it from a 2001-ish "ain't space exploration tough" movie to a slasher flick killed it for me.

Gang:

Finally saw "Sunshine" last night--it wasn't as horrible as I thought but not exactly smashing either. The production values were quite gorgeous. Loved the look of the Icarus spaceship and its SOUND too.

But there were odd things--like the computer not telling them they had an extra crew member on board and, yeah, Peter Watts, the notion of running out of air in hours with a ship that size. Never felt any attachment or feeling for the crew, no sense of loss when they were dispatched. No depth to the characterizations, nothing that really distinguished them from each other.

There were some great scenes--the poor bastard who has to lower himself into the coolant tank over and over again, the sun "viewing" room which, at full brightness, can ignite its occupants, the family building snowmen near the Sydney opera house...

In the end, it was, with the exception of a number of nice moments, a forgettable experience...but at 107 minutes long at least it wasn't interminable (like the ridiculous fucking Bond films have been of late). My wife fell asleep halfway through and I finished the movie alone, watched some of the bonus features and tucked it back into its case.

Neither richer, poorer or wiser...merely fitfully entertained.

Here's an article written by Joe Queenan on the worst movies of all time. I post it because it mentions two of the films we've cited, "Waterworld" and "The Postman". Have a look:

http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,2267064,00.html

P.S. Cliff's nominee for worst film ever? "Titanic", hands down...

I find Queenan rather hit-and-miss. (He's incorrect saying Waterworld was a financial disaster, it actually ended up making money). Heaven's Gate is the biggest disaster of all time, destroying a studio, but it's not the worst film - it's actually relatively watchable: it's main problem is that it's fundamentally a B western with epic delusions of grandeur. Queenan mentions three movies that are worst - Gigli, Swept Away, and, Jersey Girl - all utterly, and occasionally jaw-droppingly, awful.

I wouldn't put Titanic as the worst, but it would be in my top 10/20 (depending upon mood) - I did find my IQ decreasing while watching it though, definitely one of the dumbest movies of recent times (in the sense that every time a little sense is required they ignore it).

I do agree with Queenan that you have to take films on the level they are aimed - last night I watched Jolly Roger, a (very) low budget horror movie about a a pirate who comes back from the dead to collect 16 heads (to all purposes it is a remake of The Fog. It was as good as it sounds but it is worth seeing just for the scene in a strip joint - absolutely hilarious.

I agree "Heaven's Gate" wasn't nearly the wash it was made out to be. I saw the three hour-twenty minute version about a year ago and thought the photography sumptuous and some of the performances very good. There were problems, the whole Oxford prologue should have been cut and the film just peters out at the end but some lovely tableaux in between.

#386 - Cliff, I'm right there with you on Titanic. Horrific from begining to end. Forgive me if it's already been mentioned, but what about Westworld? I couldn't sit all the way through Yul Brenner as the Gunslinger.

Gawd, I haven't seen "Futureworld" Or "Westworld" in so many years...

Yul...Yul...has anyone EVER made as much money from being bald and monotonic? I'll leave that up to our resident experts (and no one better bring up William Shatner).

>390 CliffBurns: - you have to cut him some slack, English was his fourth or fifth language.

#390 - I think Vin Diesel is trying......

Vin Diesel...good point...

> 385:

What I couldn't figure out with 'Sunshine' was why the mission designers came up with the protocols for docking the ship with its earlier version which was presumed lost. If each ship was unique, how come they had no problem thinking out how to dock it essentially with itself?

And we're assuming that the docking ports were universal rather than male-to-female (if you'll excuse the inherent engineering sexism)...

If we're back to Sunshine, I could forgive all the loopholes in logic. If we accept they can get that close to the sun, anything else isn't such a stretch. What can I say? I enjoyed Van Helsing.

The problem I had was the turn it took in the last third. I don't want to give anything away. But the *extra passenger* just seemed so out of place with the rest of the film.

Anyone seen "The Man From Earth"? It was a labour of love for the great Jerome Bixby and apparently he completed the screenplay for the film shortly before passing away in the late 90's and then it bobbed about for awhile before a small indie company made the film on a shoestring. A friend of mine sent me a copy (knowing I'm a Bixby fan).

http://www.manfromearth.com

Interesting but I'm afraid that's it. A talking head movie with lower echelon actors (like Wm. Katt and one of the ST-DS9 cast members). Seemed very dated for me, likely because the first drafts were initially written back in the 1960's, if I'm not mistaken.

Ah, well, along with "Man From Earth", my buddy also sent a copy of Jodorowski's "El Topo", which I haven't seen for 15-20 years. Looking forward to firing that baby up and immersing myself in it again...

I recently bought the Jodorowsky Collection DVD boxed set. It contains El Topo, Fando y Lis and Holy Mountain. I love Jodorowsky's sf graphic novels - Metabarons, the Incal, Megalex and Technopriests. So much so, I've even bought some of them in French because English editions aren't available yet. And my French isn't that good. But the films: so far I've only watched El Topo. It's completely barking. But in a bizarrely entertaining way.

"Sante Sangre", Ian.

That one will bake yer brain.

Didn't know the lad also did graphic novels. What has he been up to lately, I really haven't followed his career arc...

Um, I have Sante Sangre on DVD too. Picked it up cheap in a sale. I've sort of persuaded myself it's the sort of film you have to watch drunk. Like 200 Motels - which is actually entertaining if seen while pissed up. As yet, I've not bothered getting into the "right state of mind" to watch Sante Sangre...

Drinking MIGHT help.

Avoid hallucinogens, however, at all costs.

Never seen Zappa's "masterpiece". God help you...

Sunshine? I coulda thrown things at the screen. I was so looking forward to seeing it, and the sharp left turn in the last third just completely destroyed it for me.

That seems to be the consensus: promising opening half and then that last third (as you say). Dreadful.

It reminds me of when I went to see "Titanic". At one point the two leads are being chased through the sinking ship by a gun-toting Billy Zane and I leaned over to my wife and muttered: "Fifteen hundred fucking people drowning isn't enough suspense for these assholes?" She giggled and the comment was passed down the row until everyone was snickering. No theatre full of snivelling, weeping people; most were largely bored.

Similarly...Danny Boyle and Alex Garland weren't satisfied with the stress and drama of a possible suicide mission to save humanity--they have to finagle some sort of super human maniac on board. Did you see, at the end, how he picks up our surviving hero by the throat and carries him with one hand for something like fifty feet? Ever tried to do that? Know how strong you'd have to be? Like the fucking Incredible Hulk.

Another case of a good idea but then someone came along and ruined the whole thing by making a movie out of it...

I cracked the seal earlier this week on my second 50-movie pack of crap sf movies. So far I've seen two b&w films cobbled together from 1960s SuperGiants Japanese serial. The scenes of the aliens on the Emerald Planet has to be seen to be believed.




I've also seen The Alpha Incident, in which four people are infected by a germ brought back from Mars and are held in quarantine while scientists try to find a cure. It was very dull.

Ian:

I love those compilations. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to find them in a bargain bin for five bucks and from my whoops of sheer joy, you'd think I'd found the Hope diamond...

Unfortunately, most of the transfers on these compilations are appalling - I was halfway through one film before I realised it was colour and not black & white. They also contain a lot of films that are obscure simply because they are very shite and very dull. Very shite is not necessarily a bad thing - see StarCrash, or The Humanoid, or even Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (with the Hof in the title role). But shite and dull is bad.

Yes, it's a good point. These aren't high quality digital restorations, just cheap copies knocked off a shabby original. Bad enough that the films are shite and dull, they're also dark, the soundtracks muddled, colour and picture all mucked up.

Or...maybe you were just drunk?

The problem is that these films lie in the public domain therefore anyone can release them using any old print - and no-one can be bothered to clean them up because they won't get the money back from a more expensive release. You get the same issue with a lot of silents but due to their historical importance, organisations like the BFI will remaster them.

I don't want anyone to get over-excited but Anaconda 3 is being made, and has a meeting of actors that dwarves DeNiro and Pacino in Heat - the Hof and John Rhys-Davies. If only they could have gotten Brian Blessed to play JRD's brother.

I don't want anyone to get over-excited but Anaconda 3 is being made, and has a meeting of actors that dwarves DeNiro and Pacino in Heat - the Hof and John Rhys-Davies. If only they could have gotten Brian Blessed to play JRD's brother.

I'm guessing that Lorenzo Lamas had other commitments. Perhaps a TV movie follow-up to Renegade. That's the only reason I can think of for him missing out on such an obvious powerhouse of a film.

Message #407 & 408

I'm not sure, but I think I sense sarcasm here.

As you know, on this thread we believe in treating films of such high caliber with a certain amount of respect and deference. I'm very, very disappointed in both of you.

I shall give you an opportunity to repair the damage you have inflicted and recant your statements. Mr. Blessed is a fine actor and human being and I weep to read your vicious canards.

I'm waiting...

Cliff,

I will send you the two-disc Criterion edition of Anaconcda 3 once it is released.

And hey, I can't help it if I'm single-handedly trying to revive the career of that great thespian Lorenzo Lamas. I mean, sure, he's no Steve Railsback, but he still deserves better parts.

"...Criterion Edition 'Anaconda 3'..."

"...he's no Steve Railsback..."

Hee hee...

You vicious bastard.

"...he's no Steve Railsback..."

You vicious bastard.

Hee hee!

Here's a synopsis of one of Steve Railsback's latest 'gems' Plaguers: When a band of sexy space pirates hijack a fuel-transport vessel bound for Earth, an alien virus known only as "Thanatos" is accidentally released...

That the description takes the time to identify the space pirates as 'sexy' alone is enough to make me want to rent it!

That one and "Starcrash" back to back would probably cause my synapses to fuse.

"Plaguers"? Jesus Christ, who comes up with these inane titles?

What about the most recent movie incarnation of the novel "I Am Legend"? I go to the cinema, thinking that such a wonderful novel should be adapted to at least a half-decent film, (particularly considering how much money they spent of SFX)and they could not even manage a passable story? Predictable, (especially when they deviated from the novel dramatically) cheap scares, and the ending was a huge copout.

That one I won't even be renting on DVD.

I'm a Richard Matheson fan and loved the original novel. Maybe someday someone will do right by the Master.

#415

What about the other two adaptations - "Omega Man" and "I Am Legend" Are they any good, or should they be added to this thread?

I think the other adaptation (besides "Omega Man") was "Last Man on Earth", starring Vincent Price.

No, neither one is very good but either, I guarantee, is more fun to watch than the Will Smith abomination.

I know I should stop watching the Sci-Fi Channel (UK) and Zone Horror but I can't - they just go places that no other channels would even think about.

Last night's masterpiece was Boa vs. Python. A giant python escapes and goes on the rampage - in order to track it the FBI rope in a scientist who has developed a giant boa. To explain anything else would be pointless: suffice to say that it lived down to expectations. I will give the creative people some credit for being able to maintain a recent horror tradition by of setting a scene, this time the climax, in a lap-dancing/strip club. There must be a book in this - the importance of the strip club in modern cinema.

First "Plaguers" and now "Boa Vs. Python".

Jesus.

There are tons of SF movies and series out there, little seen, waiting for rediscovery. I'd love to see the German silent movie ("Airship One"? was that the title?) someone mentioned previously and I'd kill for a chance to view "Phase IV" (adapted from Barry Malzberg book) again for the first time in 25+ years. Any number of the flicks mentioned on this thread. Instead we have two giant fucking snakes wrestling.

I just...don't...get it.

Pee-Ess: This thread is getting wayyy too long and unmanageable--is it worth it to start a second one, along the same lines? "MORE of the Good, Bad & Ugly"? Thoughts?

Cliff,

I don't think it's fair to compare "Plaguers" and "Boa Vs. Python". Sure "Boa Vs. Python" had a mad scientist that for some reason thought a giant boa would be of some practical use (unless he knew the giant python was on the way?), but was he ever described as a 'sexy' scientist?

By the way, I think the Sci-Fi channel is one of the greatest wasted opportunities in television (and THAT's saying something!).

Out of all those terrible straight to cable movies that they seem to have the funding to throw together, you'd htink they would at least try to have a certain percentage that would be 'experimental' (AKA: 'quality') that they could slot in between 'Shark Attack 3' starring Casper Van Dein and 'Boa Vs. Python'

I think they should try and give the budget for one of those crappy movies to people like John Carpenter or that guy that did 'Hardware' (Richard Stanley) or Kathryn Bigelow and let them make whatever movie they want. Why not get Gerry Anderson to do a mini-series? If nothing else, they'd attract a loyal cult of fans for not much money with some of this 'offbeat' stuff.

(Maybe I should start this as a new thread?)

#420 You make a good distinction...that is, if we were both sitting in a rubber room, comparing snot bubbles.

Yeah, we need a new thread, I guess, since we've moved on to important new sub-genres: giant snake movies and Steve Railsback's real or imagined acting chops.

You go, jseger, I've started a couple of threads lately and don't wanna look like a megalomaniacal arse (er, make that MORE of an megalomaniacal arse).

Beat ya to the punch on that one, jargoneer.

>420 jseger9000: - the scientist with the giant snake wasn't sexy but there was another scientist who had developed technology that was implanted into the snake's brain so everyone could see what was happening - she was sexy, and one of the running 'jokes' was about her 'implants'.

It probably is about time for a sequel thread....

Was anyone here at the 40th anniversary screening of 2001:A Space Odyssey last night at the Motion Picture Academy? I was thrilled at the introduction of Buzz Aldrin in the audience.

Wow!

A. Seeing "2001" on the big screen
B. Being in the same audience as Buzz

I envy you...

I've always wanted to see 2001 on the big screen. I am jealous!

1. 2001 - among the most pretentious movies ever made in any genre....yes..saw it on the big screen when it came out, and on video and dvd.
2. Black Hole (disney)
3. A Scanner Darkly was immensely disappointing.
4. The Matrix...totally silly...for excellent AI/Sci-Fi the anime series, "Serial Experiments Lain" is a good place to start.
5.Ummm...yeah..Zardoz was pretty silly...For Sean in space..Outland - basically a "space western."
6. Dune (both versions..tho the made for tv one was watchable, at least).
7. oh..eXistenZ (sic) ..i like much of Cronenberg's stuff, but that was just stupid.

Bob, you better watch out! You're gonna out crank Cliff!

(Though I agree that The Matrix was pretty crappy. It reminded me an awful lot of Dark City that had come out a year earlier...)

Hey, folks, this thread is too f---ing long. Switch over to the one we've started (as a continuation to this one) titled:

"SciFi channel original movies and other bad movies..." and let the discussion continue there.

Bob, I'll deal with you over there, you dastardly individual. I love "2001" and "Scanner Darkly", though I'll agree that "Existenz" sucked (and I'm a Cronenberg fan).

But on to the newer thread...