Minor SF films

[Brundle-Fly]

[Puce Moment]

An interesting watch if you are a fan of Under the Skin as well.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

I watched this recently. It's excellent.

Me too - spooky...

[A Car With No Doors]

I watched this recently. It's excellent.

Ah, I tried to watch this numerous times. It seemed to be a fucking glorious slice of paranoia and classic Twilight Zone-esque inventiveness but then there's

Spoiler alert

the scene with those shitty hippies bathing in some wine and dancing

[close]

that seems to go on for five years. I got bored and perhaps irrationally angry and haven't returned to it since, which is obviously deeply unfair of me.

Still though.

Spoiler alert

HELLO I'M JOHN FRANKENHEIMER AND I'M GOING TO PUT IN A 20-MINUTE SCENE OF SOME NEW AGE TOSSERS MAKING DAISY CHAINS SMACK DAB IN THE MIDDLE OF MY FILM.

[close]

Thanks mate.

[Paaaaul]

That scene does go on a bit, but it is vital to the story.

[clingfilm portent]

I gave up on Seconds mere seconds into it, that fast cutting and zany soundtrack was pure shit. A shame because it does sound good...

[Brundle-Fly]

An interesting watch if you are a fan of Under the Skin as well.

And less so, The Borderlands (2013). Robin Hill's character wears an Unearthly Stranger film poster t shirt. A t shirt which is annoyingly unavailable to buy online.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

Seconds and Unearthly Stranger are indeed great.

I'm watching Gattaca right now. 2 questions:

1. Why isn't Jude Law even attempting an American accent?

2. If genetics and all that have advanced so much, why hasn't there been a fix for his spinal injury?

[Dr Syntax Head]

Europa report mentioned earlier I really liked. I found the found footage aspect perfect because a mission like that would be fully documented that way.

Is Moon considered minor? It's one of my favourite SF films and Rockwell is in fine form as always.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

Little known fact: there was a sequel to Westworld, called Futureworld. In which it is stated that events are occurring in 1985.

I feel the same about Gattaca as I did about Rollerball: nice visuals, a couple of nice ideas, but there's an underlying message exalting The Individual, who can apparently achieve anything if he tries hard enough, which is just cobblers. The final 15 minutes descend into nonsense, even though it had played its hand ok up till then.

Spoiler alert

1. If you've got dodgy eyesight and a dodgier ticker, maybe it's not a clever move to get on the crew of an interplanetary expedition? Yknow, maybe it's ok to accept limitations some times, if only for the sake of the other crew members. No indication that Jerome had a year-long supply of essential contact lenses, which he'd have to smuggle aboard since he's not supposed to need them. Just like astronauts in the old days.
2. But in any case, if it's the night before your big mission, why not go away for a rest, or be sequestered with the rest of the team? Why go off to have a silly pissing match with your long-lost brother (I saw that twist coming a mile off), who really should have had the maturity to let it all go, or at least point out point 1?
3. What are we to think of Jude Law's suicide? Is he right to realise that a mere Silver Medal aint good enough, second place is first loser, and he deserves to be got rid of?
4. With regard to the wider, vaguer ideology of the film, we should realise that selectiveness in mating and breeding wasn't invented by godless genetics, it was the order of the day amongst elite families in the good old days as well. All that this horrible future world has done is get it methodical and above-board.

[close]

[Shaky]

Little known fact: there was a sequel to Westworld, called Futureworld. In which it is stated that events are occurring in 1985.

Not a great film but worth a watch. The brief cameo from Yul Brynner is very odd, though.

[Alberon]

Little known fact: there was a sequel to Westworld, called Futureworld. In which it is stated that events are occurring in 1985.

Which reminds me there was even a TV spinoff back in 1980 called Beyond Westworld which was about an evil scientist using robots to take over the world.

Lasted three episodes before it was cancelled.

[billtheburger]

I watched this recently. It's excellent.

Sent Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys insane (again) because he thought Hollywood was invading his brain.

[billtheburger]

Little known fact: there was a sequel to Westworld, called Futureworld. In which it is stated that events are occurring in 1985.

There is also Sexworld, but I'm not sure it is an "official" sequel.

[Paaaaul]

Sent Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys insane (again) because he thought Hollywood was invading his brain.

Blimey. Just Googled the story. It is mind-twisty and very paranoid, so if any film was going to set him off, it would have been Seconds.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

Weekend viewing so far:

Triangle - very good, deserves better packaging than the cheap shocker imagery used. I did realise we'd find out more happened at the start than we initially saw. Only wrinkle:

Spoiler alert

won't the accumulation of bodies and necklaces eventually overwhelm the liner, and disrupt the repetition? Did we ever see the bit where one of her versions got facially disfigured? Also are we to take it that she originally crashed her car and the loop started and took in elements from the crash surroundings?

[close]

Timecrimes - jolly good. Though the middle-aged-peeping-tom bit was a bit unnecessary. Are we to take it that Hector went nasty and violent due to the bangs on the head he suffered? Also,

Spoiler alert

is it quite consistent about the geography - he originally passed the bin and the bike on his way to encounter the young lady, yet when he had his second car crash he was on the other side of the road, but she was walking by and fud the scream. Which side of the road is it supposed to happen on?

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Finally, The Borderlands turned out to be rubbish. Whoever thought that what BWP really needed was some Catholic investigators from the holy order of Father Ted Without Jokes, and got funding to make it that way.

Spoiler alert

Why would anyone want to have a baptism in that church, if apparently it's part of village lore that it's an evil place?

[close]

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

The Caller is interesting. Could have been better, but not outright bad.

Don't think much of Another Earth. Bland artiness, as deep as a puddle.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

Sound Of My Voice is better, though in the end it falls into the dull cliche of Sceptic Is Forced To Believe, when it could have had something more interesting. Seems that I Origins, goes that way as well, according to its blurb, so I'm not bothered.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

For a really challenging film about cults and control, try the Joaquin Phoenix/P.S.Hoffmann film The Master, but that isn't SF at all.

[Small Man Big Horse]

That scene does go on a bit, but it is vital to the story.

I watched Seconds last night and loved it, and that scene's one of the best in the film imho. And not just because of the nudity, the pure insanity of it all amused me greatly. That poster is fucking awful though, given that

Spoiler alert

it's all but the final scene from the movie.

[close]

[Tweedy]

Triangle - very good, deserves better packaging than the cheap shocker imagery used. I did realise we'd find out more happened at the start than we initially saw. Only wrinkle:

Spoiler alert

won't the accumulation of bodies and necklaces eventually overwhelm the liner, and disrupt the repetition? Did we ever see the bit where one of her versions got facially disfigured? Also are we to take it that she originally crashed her car and the loop started and took in elements from the crash surroundings?

[close]

I saw this last night on the Horror Channel - much better than I imagined it would be although it did threaten to collapse under the weight of its own logic at times.

Spoiler alert

I lost track of which version of the central character I was meant to be watching more than once. In the end, I concluded that the original Jess was killed in a car crash on her way to the harbour and that what followed was some kind of Sisyphean purgatory she created for herself (as you say, drawing inspiration from the crash site) as punishment for being a bad mother. I couldn't reconcile the final scenes any other way - her watching passers-by tending to her original self lying on the road, for example. The screen noticeably darkened at that point, suggesting something significant had happened ie the loop had begun.

[close]

Probably needs a second viewing.

[Puce Moment]

Yes, if you leave it a few weeks, a second watch is really enjoyable.

The thing I like about that film is that it spends more time on the batshit physics of this confusing new reality than explaining the supernatural logic.

[thugler]

New netflix sci-fi film Arq

Low budget groundhog day/edge of tomorrow type thing written by one of the Orphan Black writers. Reasonable-ish, but I don't think I understood the ending..