Before the uniqueness of Mad Max (1979), before the madness of Burning Man, and long before the flatness of Waterworld (1995), came the inventiveness of A Boy and his Dog. An unjustly forgotten apocalyptic tale of a young man and his telepathic dog wandering the desert in search of food and sex after the world has blown itself to smithereens, this film has become a cult classic and should be mandatory viewing for any Sci-Fi aficionados.

Satirical, disturbing, funny, unpleasant, anarchistic with strong macho undertones, critical of a petty middle class suburban mentality, A Boy and his Dog has got enough ammunition to rub many people the wrong way. Its social satire of the present is much more powerful than its representation of the future, and like other Sci-Fi films from the 70s, such as Logan’s Run (1976) and THX 1138 (1971), it certainly makes clear that our individual freedom and personal choice must prevail over potential collective, conservative and hygienic visions of the future.

Once in a while, one stumbles upon a work of such quality that one cannot help but to be baffled at how such a work could escape one’s notice for so long. Diaspora, written in 1997 by Greg Egan, is one of the most powerful, mind bending and far reaching book I have ever read.

As I have posted several times before, one of the drawbacks of many Sci-Fi representations and stories brought to the silver screen, is the difficulty in reaching the right balance between depicting a credible future, sometimes a distant future, while at the same time preserving some sense of ‘normality’ as well as traditional frames of references in order to not alienate the viewer. Unfortunately, this balance is rarely reached and most of Hollywood’s visualizations tend to be very limited and writers or directors seem content to show us the same old humans with the same old problems, values and physical characteristics, regardless of when in the future the story might be occurring. Just place these archaic visions of the past in front of a couple of futuristic looking buildings, add some fancy cars with doors that slide vertically and complete the package with the occasional gismo to obtain your average run-of-the-mill Sci-Fi flick.

While Sci-Fi literature offers many possibilities for more credible, fleshed out and geeky visions of the future, there has still been an over-reliance on ‘traditional’ humans as lead or even as only characters. This seems to have changed in the past few years, and the implications of Transhumanisn are increasingly being used as material for many Sci-Fi books. In Diaspora, Greg Egan describes in great detail how the ‘human race’ might split and evolve towards a post human future. While the process of becoming more than human will most likely be very gradual, with humans combining with machines and vice versa (a process that has already started with the adoption of pacemakers, Cochlear implants, prosthetic limbs, or even the mobile phone which has become a natural extension of ourselves), Egan portrays a future a few hundred years hence dominated by three main forms of beings: the Fleshers, ‘traditional’ humans with or without genetic modifications, the Gleisner Robots, robotic shells inhabited by human minds, and the Polis Citizens, the uploaded minds of humans ‘living’ in computer and simulated worlds. In addition, on rare occasions, the polis creates a new mind, a purely artificially conceived one, albeit very human in many ways.

Over a period of several thousand years, Egan traces the quest of some of these Polis Citizens as they attempt to prevent and then escape the destruction of our universe (an early consequence of this destruction is the end of the Fleshers, and thus, the end of humanity as we know it today). This quest will lead these highly advanced non-physical entities, our descendants, to some of the most far-reaching destinations the mind could possibly conceive.

Egan doesn’t shy away from grand mathematical and physical speculation, and for the average reader, his lengthy descriptions of the universe’s most innate workings will seem a bit tedious at times. But sticking through these sections is quite worth it as one is rewarded by an avalanche of fantastic and awe-inspiring concepts. There is plenty to ponder in Diaspora and anyone interested in what existence might be like as an uploaded mind, in a possible direction for the future of the human race, in parallel universes and multi-dimensions, in the potential for alien life, or simply in the infinite mystery and beauty of the cosmos, then this book is an absolute must-read.

Terrible acting, incredibly badly written script, poorly developed characters, horrendous and annoying soundtrack, total rip off of previous films, complete lack of creativity in terms of visualizing the future 25 years from now, amateurish film making…that about sums us this so-called film about a quarantined Scotland in the year 2030 after a virus has killed most of the population.

Any credibility that Neil Marshall gained with The Descent (boy am I glad that I did not join many others in praising it) should be immediately revoked and his name sent back to the depths of obscurity from which it came.

Doomsday has got to be one of the worst films in recent memory and I am very sorry I watched it.

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).

I am grateful to Francis Lawrence, who previously directed the decent comic book adaptation Constantine (2005), for bringing seriousness, darkness and sobriety to the Hollywood Sci-Fi blockbuster. In a world where the Michael Bays are working hard to reduce the global IQ and EQ levels with mind numbing big budget action, it is refreshing to see a director trying to add cleverness to escapist entertainment.

I am Legend is based on the 1954 influential novel by Richard Matheson, and it is now the third time that this apocalyptic tale of the last man on earth, somehow immune to a virus that has either killed everyone else or turned them into vampire/zombie hybrids, has been made into a film. The Last Man on Earth (1964) with Vincent Price, has become a cult classic and set the standard for all future zombie films (George A. Romero has often credited the novel as his inspiration for Night of the Living Dead (1968)) while The Omega Man (1971) with Charlton Heston, who brings to the film his Planet of the Apes (1968) / Soylent Green (1973) ’screw the world’ cynism, does the original novel less justice and suffers from several problems, least of which is the laughability of its creatures.

One of the most annoying trademarks of Hollywood blockbusters, at least to me, is the supposedly funny one-liners that the hero typically spurts out in the most improbable situations. Normally used to alleviate tension and to bring lightness where there should be none, the blockbuster funny one-liner dumbs down and cheapens the cinematic experience. I was able to count only one in I am Legend (‘I like Shrek’) which is a major improvement over the number that can be found, for example, in two of Will Smith’s previous Sci-Fi efforts, Independence Day (1996) and I, Robot (2004) or in Michael Bay’s most recent disaster, Transformers (2007).
One is also the figure I came up with for the number of really poorly scripted scenes (Bob Marley Sr.), which, again, is quite an achievement for a film this expensive and this heavily marketed.

That is not to say that I am Legend has no other flaws but, again, when measured within the greater considerations of the blockbuster, these seem fairly harmless and do not detract too much from the overall viewing experience. The sobriety is at times reminiscent of The Quiet Earth (1985) while a couple of chilling scenes will bring 28 Days Later (2002) to mind and even The Descent (2005) in one case.

This British low budget mishmash of cyberpunk, horror and exploitation has become a bit of a cult classic in certain circles. The idea was apparently entirely stolen from a story called Shock! that appeared in the 80s in the comic book 2000AD, which is a bit of a shame since it takes away from one of the film’s main attributes: its originality (in spite of several commonalities with Terminator).
Nonetheless, equipped with a meagre budget of 100,000 dollars, Richard Stanley managed to create quite a dreadful, claustrophobic and apocalyptic atmosphere that effectively captured the spirit of decay, waste and techno-paranoia associated with Cyberpunk. The film also contains several musical references that many connoisseurs will enjoy.
Unfortunately, beyond the visual and musical aspects, and with the exception of a few cheap thrills and a couple of funny cheesy lines, the film has little to offer and feels quite amateurish and boring at times.

For a certain crowd only.

Ava Gardner, Gregory Peck, Anthony Perkins and Fred Astair, in one of the bleakest films produced by Hollywood during that period.

With the exception of Australia, the entire planet has been decimated by nuclear war, the origin and details of which are adroitly never explained, and simply blamed on the absurdity and stupidity of humankind. A US submarine escaped the devastation and makes its way towards Melbourne where the locals have only a few months to live until the radiation reaches their country.

Tightly directed by Stanley Kramer, the director of Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), On the Beach maintains its serious and dark premise until the end, never letting cheap and easy sentimentalism take over and never trying to provide a false sense of hope or of a greater moral truth. In addition, and that is commendable for a film from that period, it does not choose sides and refuses to engage in ‘we are better than them’ or ‘it’s all their fault’ type messages.

Instead, the film focuses on a handful of people and how they choose to spend their last months of life and the decisions they face during that time. While the overall emotional intensity feels a bit subdued at times, a feeling reinforced by the decision to avoid showing scenes of madness, folly or desperation (unlike, for example, in The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961), another serious film from that period that deals with somewhat similar themes, where various scenes of chaos and rioting are shown, or in The Day After (1983), the made for TV film that shocked America with its realistic and disturbing scenes of apocalypse, or even in Peter Watkins’s groundbreaking docu-drama The War Game (1965)), the narrative nonetheless works effectively by keeping it all fairly understated, and, well, bleak.

Gardner and Peck are quite a charismatic couple to watch and I can only admire their liberal willingness to play in such a film.

How to begin an explanation of Illium and of Olympos, two novels published in 2003 and 2005 by Dan Simmons, the remarkable author of the Hyperion series?
Where to begin is even more problematic. Four days after finishing Olympos, i am still trying to make full sense of what i just read, and to determine if it is even worth attempting a summary. Or perhaps the only kind of summary worth attempting is a simple list of concepts and ideas that permeate the two books:

Quantum energy and teleportation. Multiple universes. Time travel. Post humans. Old style humans. Nanotechnology. Brane holes. Avatars. Logosphere. Noosphere. Marcel Proust. Shakespeare. The Tempest. Caliban. Setebos. Greek Gods. Achilles. Moravecs from Jupiter. Olympus Mons. Mars. Ariel. Odysseus. Burning Man. Technological singularity. Nuclear apocalypse. Prospero. Sycorax. ARNists. Rubicon virus. Global Caliphate. Wandering Jew. Nabokov. Pantheistic solipsism….

But whereas Illium successfully and wonderfully sets up this amazing and insane concoction of ideas, themes and concepts and made the reader hungry for more, Olympos fails to deliver and to fulfill our expectations. Too many unanswered questions, and too much delivered too early or over too many pages. Still, if you are interested in stretching your imagination and indulging in a little mind bending space opera, this is it.

With Children of Men, Alfonso Cuaron has reinvigorated the dystopic genre with a much-needed dose of seriousness and realism. Films such as 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Alphaville, and A Clockwork Orange inevitably come to mind, not only in their willingness to study the possible future consequences of current trends, but also in the gravity and sincerity with which they do so.

Children of Men potentially deserves to join this pantheon of dystopian classics. Brilliantly directed by the man who saved the Harry Potter franchise from a slow boring death, beautifully shot (side note: what is it with Mexican directors and beautiful cinematography? I have recently reviewed Babel, Pan’s Labyrinth and now Children of Men, and I find myself saying ‘beautiful cinematography’ in all 3 cases) by Emmanuel Lubezki, the DOP for Terrence Malick’s New World and for his upcoming film, Tree of Life, Children of Men explores with great care and details a near future where humanity has become sterile.

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Margaret Atwood calls her ‘futuristic’ work ‘speculative fiction’, drawing a distinction between what she sees as a possible soon-to-be here future and the more distant extrapolations of traditional Science-Fiction. And Oryx and Crake, like The Handmaid’s Tale before, does indeed feel uncomfortably close, and real.

Influenced by the author’s own fears about the state of our planet and of our society, the book presents a dystopic view of what our world could be like 20, 30 or 40 years from now. The upper-class, represented mostly in the book by individuals and families working for large scientific corporations, live in protected and luxurious compounds that shelter them from external contact with the rest of society. This ‘rest’ lives in what is perceived by the elite as a dangerous and chaotic no-man’s land, whose boundaries and exact geography remain fairly vague. Global warming related catastrophes have become so common that the ‘compounders’ have learned to adapt by changing some of their traditions and habits, such as moving the students’ graduation date to February to avoid the scorching heat of June. One of these students is Crake and he has a plan for humanity. He wants to rid human beings of their shortcomings, which he believes are responsible for the problems plaguing the world.
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Roger Corman is one of Hollywood’s most amazing personalities and a producer’s favourite case study.

Throughout the 60’s and 70’s, he was churning out films by the dozens, drawing on an ability to discern and understand public taste, trends and fears. His films cost very little to make but generated fairly high returns. He can easily be considered the father of the B movie and continues to influence a large group of filmmakers, producers, and studio execs. He also happens to have given Coppola, Scorcese, Bogdanovich and many others, at the dawn of their careers, a chance to practice, experiment and direct by using his cameras or left-over film stock from his productions.
The Day the World Ended is one of his better films, meaning that it must have taken him 2 weeks to shoot instead of 2 days. The film depicts a post nuclear world where, in addition to struggling to find non-contaminated goods and resources, survivors must also deal with some annoying and incredibly cheap looking mutated animals…

This is all terribly and poorly done and it is hard to think of Corman in a good light when watching this pile of nonsense….