I recently asked a New Yorker if he had watched I am Legend (2007). His reply was that since 9/11, he has had no desire to watch any film that deals with the destruction of his city. While I am Legend didn’t draw obvious parallels to that fateful day seven years ago, it is however difficult to miss them in Cloverfield and to consequently not feel at times slightly uncomfortable at the sight of people dying and being trapped in situations in which they have absolutely no control over their fate.

Cloverfield is an old-fashioned 1950’s monster flick (see my post on sci-fi/horror and the city) that draws heavily on current filmmaking and social trends, especially in its depiction of a YouTube/Facebook need to document and share everything about one’s self, one’s experiences, even possibly about one’s death (everything leading up to death that is, which is clearly a lot more voyeuristic and contemporary than wanting to document what happens after death, which was the premise of the 80’s film Brainstorm (1983)). The Blair Witch Project (1999) had already caught on to these ‘self-documenting’ trends years ago, and as such, proved to be a groundbreaking film. Cloverfield, on the other hand, can only rehash what has been done before, and puts the documenting so much in the foreground that it often takes away from the believability of some of the scenes. It feels too much that the story is built around the idea of documenting whereas in The Blair Witch Project documenting was more seamlessly integrated into a solid narrative. In addition, the intensity and the wobbliness of the camera movements, while effective for the most part, can sometimes be confusing and even tiring.

Yet, Cloverfield also manages to keep us on the edge of our seat and to deliver an overall intense, and at times, frightening experience. The first half of the movie is the most effective since we are left guessing as to what exactly is terrorizing the city. One of the many things that Alien (1979) taught us (its impact on the horror/sci-fi genre has been inestimable) is that one can probably create more tension and suspense by showing less and by letting the potent powers of the imagination do the visualizing, which is most often based on one’s worst fears. Once we have become acquainted with the monster(s) of Cloverfied, the film starts to lose some of its pace and power, a fact reinforced by the increasing silliness of the protagonists’ decision-making. But a nice twist in the last ten minutes saves us from the unexpected dreadful and predictable ending.

In the end, running at a short 85 minutes, Cloverfield turns out to be a decently enjoyable viewing experience that is clearly in a higher league than recent monster films and remakes such as the dreadful Godzilla (1998).

1950’s Sci-Fi at its best.

It came from Outer Space set the standard in the early days of American cinema for serious and intelligent Sci-Fi by placing a reasonable amount of care in the writing, acting and directing of this film about a man who is rejected by his community after claiming to have seen a spaceship land in the desert where he lives.
The theme of ‘The Other’ is properly explored, as is that of the lone liberal man against a blind, unreasonable and conservative community.
It is regrettable that Universal, the studio behind many Sci-Fi flicks from that period and thus, probably the most open-minded studio in its acceptance of liberal themes, decided to nevertheless add the ‘creature’ after it concluded that the audience would not enjoy watching a 90 minutes film without ever seeing some kind of alien representation. Had they not chosen to do so, and consequently, had they not decided to incorporate this gigantic eye thingie as the terrifying monster, It Came from Outer Space would have been even more so sober and powerful, a pioneering film in ‘what you can’t see is even more creepy’ type horror and suspense cinema.

Shame i can’t find my 3D glasses…

Take a bland and decent looking actor, place a silly and useless woman at his side whose sole role it is to shriek every five minutes, pair him with a crazy and hyper, but brilliant inventor, use lots of ridiculous costumes and utterly preposterous plastic and latex things like flowers, rocks, bubbly tanks and Martians, place it all in a Victorian context, and you get an unfortunately overly used recipe for making terrible Sci-Fi B movies.

I have never read this novel by HG Wells, but I sincerely hope that this film, about that crazy threesome mentioned earlier getting to the moon long before the first astronauts, has taken plenty of freedom with the original story, as i would hate to think that Wells was capable of such silliness…

This silliness is even more so highlighted when one considers that Planet of the Apes (68) and Kubrick’s 2001 (68) both came out only four years after First Men in the Moon.
The only people who are going to enjoy this film are the ones who watched it when they were children and still remember fondly the absurd Martian latex costumes. For the rest of us, well, let us just keep an open mind.

A decent 1950’s Sci-Fi effort. The film has its share of silly moments but it tries very hard to deal seriously with a potential invasion of earth by UFOs.

Imagine Independence Day 40 years earlier, with some nasty aliens in foam suits trying to destroy earth and most of its recognizable monuments. Only the ingenuity of a human scientist keeps the invaders from succeeding with their not-very-well-thought-through plan.
The ‘special effects’ were produced by the father of stop motion in cinema, Ray Harryhausen, who would later work on the visual effects for Jason and the Argonauts, One Million Years BC and Clash of the Titans. The UFO’s and their laser beams are particularly well done. The rest is, well, it’s 50’s sci-fi. So let’s not beat a dead horse.

Many scenes reminded me of Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks. It is likely that Earth vs the Flying Saucers is one of the many films that inspired Burton to make his homage.

Isaac Asimov has published over 400 books in his lifetime. This is, apparently, more than anyone else has ever published, in any literary genre. My first reaction when I learned this, is that when someone churns out books so quickly, they are bound to come up at some point (or regularly) with less than average material. Stephen King, for example, is one of these authors whose great works are starting to become invisible in the middle of an ever-growing pile of nonsense.

The Gods Themselves is not one of Asimov’s bests (Asimov declared, however, that this was his favorite novel). It feels to me as if he came up with a great central idea but had to force himself to build a story around it.

This story revolves around the idea of parallel universes and the exchange of energy between these two universes.

‘Aliens’ in a parallel universe find a way to contact earth and to get the people of earth to build a Proton Pump. This pump allows each universe to get a free source of unlimited energy, something that, for different reasons, both sides need badly. But, in each universe, someone realizes that this will come at a cost and tries to stop the pump.

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A winner on several occasions of various ‘worst film ever’ competitions, this film does indeed live up to its reputation.

No efforts were spared for this extravagant science fiction saga in which aliens from space decide to exterminate the human race by turning its dead into zombies…

The costumes are ravishing, the acting of the highest calibre and the production design surely must have had an influence on Ridley Scott and Stanley Kubrick…

Or maybe not…it’s all bad and cheap but, perhaps because I have seen Tim Burton’s film Ed Wood, i couldn’t help but smile at the naivety of it all…

And if one watches long enough, it almost becomes…cute.

I am bewildered that this film actually received several positive reviews. And it is because of these reviews that I decided to watch it. Roger Ebert even called it ‘smart Science Fiction’. What is he smoking? I should know better than to trust him, but still, my curiosity was aroused. Yet, the film is clichés and inconsistencies-ridden and Charlie Sheen couldn’t look more out of place as the nerd who discovers the aliens’ secrets if he were playing a priest preaching abstinence. And of course, the Aliens walk on two legs, carry guns (hello?), resort to all types of absurd killing methods that never succeed (enough to make Dr Evil proud), and, last but not least, have decided that Man is a menace and must be eliminated through….the terraforming of earth. I guess these are nature loving aliens…

In the tradition of The Happiness of the Katakuris, this film is a concoction of gore, suspense, comedy, action (but no singing)…Surreal, bizarre, engaging, quirky, it is not for everyone’s taste but should please all those craving for something different and exotic (and well put together).

Winner of an academy award for best special effects in 1954, this film is a precursor to the modern day blockbuster and a brave attempt at bringing Wells’ classic novel to the screen.
As with many Sci-Fi films from the 50’s, one has to alter one’s field of judgment and critical sphere to account for the passing of time.
Yet, other films from that time such as The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Thing from Another World or Invasion of the Body Snatchers have endured much better and continue to appeal to modern audiences.

After the release of Dr. Strangelove in 1964, Kubrick set his sights on Science Fiction.

At that time, America and Russia were fully engaged in a space race that had already witnessed the first men (and woman) in space, and the first unmanned probes to the moon.

The first space walks were only one year away. But more importantly, in the context of 2001, theories abounded about extra terrestrial life and the possibility of ‘alien’ intelligence in the cosmos.

Kubrick was fascinated by this concept and decided it was time to make a serious film about the relationship between Man and the Universe.

He did not take any of the previous science fiction films seriously and was eager to create a vision that would be perfectly plausible and convincing. He enlisted the help of one of the most praised science fiction writer and scientific mind of that time, Arthur C. Clarke. They embarked on 18 months of preparation, with Clarke first writing a novel based on one of his short stories from 1948 (The Sentinel).

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In 1951, Howard Hawks’ The Thing introduced audiences to horror science fiction. While the genre would prove quite popular with the public, it would also unfortunately be too often associated with cheap and amateurish B-movies.

British efforts, frequently more serious in intent than their American counterparts, provided a few solid entries into the genre, including The Quatermass Xperiment (55), Village of the Damned (60) and Unearthly Stranger (63).

But Ridley Scott’s Alien (79) marked the first time horror and science fiction were masterfully combined to create a realistic, serious, and truly scary film.

When the film came out in 1979, Ridley Scott was a relatively unknown director. With only the magnificently atmospheric film The Duelists (77) to his credit, Scott created The horror film in space, one whose premise and style continue to be an influence on many filmmakers, writers, production designers and audiences today.

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Unearthly Stranger (63) is a remarkable example of solid and intelligent science fiction, reminding us that low budget is not always synonymous with cheap and funny.

John Krish, whose past credits included episodes of The Avengers and The Saint, was fully aware of the limitations placed on him by a low budget, and decided to do what Val Guest did in The Day the Earth Caught Fire (61), that is, to make a sci-fi film that relies on rigorous direction, serious acting, and sharp and clever dialogues.

The result is one of the best British sci-fi films of the 60’s.

The film includes superb performances by John Neville, who continued to struggle as an actor until 1988 when Terry Gilliam cast him for the lead role in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (88), thereby revitalizing Neville’s career, and by Philip Stone who worked with Stanley Kubrick three times in a career that included mostly television.
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