Tag Archives: Movies

Sunday Night Movie:Rollerball (1975)

Jonathan E. only wants two things out of life, to have his wife back and to play Rollerball. He’s played Rollerball for the Houston team on behalf of the Energy Corporation for nearly ten years. Longer than any other man has ever player the brutal and often deadly sport. Now the Corporation, one of seven that rule in a world without nations, has told him to retire. Jonathan, one man, stands against the corporate machine in defiance and the corporation will not be defied.

Rollerball is one of the first stories that can be called cyberpunk. Made in 1975 the film depicts a world without want, without suffering, with war, and without freedom. A world where the nation-state has withered away, but communism did not rise rather corporations did. They manage the world and provide for everyone’s needs, all they ask is that people keep out of managerial decisions.

Rollerball stars James Cann as Jonathan e, the best Rollerballer the world has ever seen, and that is a danger to the corporation. The game is both gladiatorial bloodsport to keep the masses happy and entertained and symbolic message that one man can not make a difference.

This is a brand of SF filmmaking from the 70’s that I truly miss. Before Star Wars, the Sf films of the 70’s by and large had important themes and messages. They were concerned with ideas and the implications of those ideas. Thanks to ground breaking films before them. 2001, The Planet Of The Apes, The Day The Earth Stood Still, SF films were beginning to be seen as a fully adult medium for story telling. this fully matured in the 70’s until Star Wars.

Don’t get me wrong I love me my fun action filled Star Wars, but it displaced by the massive box office it generated, the idea of the small thoughtful SF movie. Science Fiction at the theater became the domain of the block buster, the wanna be blockbuster, always with more and more elaborate special effects.It is like the SF buffet was now comprised solely of Ice cream and Cookies.

We’ve seen a few thoughtful Sf films post Star Wars, but by and large the spectacle has ruled the day.

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Movie review:Megamind

So, as I mentioned in last night’s post I went out to the movies and saw Megamind, the new animated film from Dreamworks SKG starring Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, and Brad Pitt.

I am not a huge fan of Mr. Ferrells’ work, but I do know that when given a  good script and sharp direction he can turn in a wonderful performance as he did in the film Stranger Than Fiction. (You must see it if you have not.) Megamind is another film I am going to end up owning.

If you have seen the previews you can pretty much chart the overall arc of this picture.  This is not a deep dissertation into the human condition. This is a fun super-hero parody. It is the movie I wanted the Incredibles to be, but wasn’t. (I know many people really liked that film, for me it wasn’t bad it was just so-so and came of more of a Bond parody than a superhero parody.)

If you have not seen the previews, Megamind is the story of two aliens rocketed to earth as babes. One handsome and lovely who is nurtured and accept and the other blue and strange who is ostracized and shunned. The handsome child become a hero, MetroMan while the shunned child become a villain, Megamind.

Of course in a film of this nature, with an eye to the young people who will be seeing it, good must always triumph and evil punished, so Megamind suffers defeat after defeat. In many ways this reminded me of and would back a good paring with Dr Horrible’s Sing-along Blog. Both films use a villain as a hero, both explore the villain as outcast and both take their villains on journeys that both seek, but did not expect.

There are plenty of reference suitable for both adult and children in the movie. (I the picture you can see a reference to the SciFi cult film Robot Monster.) The two hours of running time passed quickly and I laughed many times. I become so engrossed int eh picture that I stopped trying to predict the plot and simply enjoyed it. That to me is the mark of a film that is well made.

I ended up seeing the film in 3D, not because I have any love for that particular schedule gimmick, but because the 3D showing fit my evening the best. That said the 3D in this film was performed flawlessly. So well in fact that I stopped marveling at the effect and simply accepted the film as it was presented. This director understood how to pace his editing for the effect so that he never strained the viewers eyes.

Overall this film is a big thumbs up and well worth the price of admission.

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Another movie purchased

I thought that the 1948 Orson Welles’ film version of Macbeth had not been released on DVD, just VHS, but I was wrong.

It turns out that there is an import (region free) DVD copy of the film, one of the last made my Orson Welles before he was ejected from the Studio System. The theatrical release of this film trimmed 20 minutes from Welles’ vision of the film and the studio forced him to re-dub ALL the dialogue.

Welles had rehearsed the actors to have them deliver the text in Scottish accents, but the studio brass found that hard to follow and replaced it with a ‘no accent’ version.

The DVD is a restored version, back to Welles’ original vision. It should arrive on Friday and I am looking forward to seeing it.

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Sunday Night Movie: Journey To The Seventh Planet

So there I was last night playing around with the Netflix instant queue on my Xbox 360 when I saw this title pop up.

Hmm, this is a 50’s SF film I had never heard of and I was in the mood for something light and fairly mindless. A badly imagined trip to the planet Uranus just was the thing.

This film from 1962 is Danish. I wonder just how many danish SF films are there? T stars John Agar who made a career out fo B-Sf films though this particular movie is several grade lower than his standard fare.

It starts with voice-over narration to let us know that it is the year 2001 and mankind has made the earth a paradise. There are no nations and no wars and all of man energies have been harnessed for peaceful and exploratory goals. To quote the narration: ‘All the planets close to the sun, including Saturn, have been explored.’ The writers were clearly using values of ‘close’ that are unfamiliar to me.

Anyway the UN has noticed regular radiation pulses coming from the planet Uranus and has dispatched an international crew to investigate and see if there is life. There is little expectation for life as they suspect that the planet has a surface temperature of negative 400 degrees. As they enter orbit and a brief period of weightlessness an alien intelligence, vast, cool, and unsympathetic —wait that’s from a better story — the evil alien mind takes over theirs and probes it for their dreams and fears. (1962? I wonder if this film was a favorite of Gene Roddenberry?)

They land and the landscape around the ship changes from bleak and frozen to lush and rich woodland. Our intrepid crew don’t realize this ’cause apparently they have no external cameras. They plan to take hours testing the suddenly hospitable atmosphere before exiting the ship. The Evil Alien Presence — as impatient as an author awaiting a rejection slip —  opens the door to their craft flooding it with rich breathable air.

Freaked beyond measure, the crew logically decided to leave and head for home. No they didn’t, they went ahead and walked outside, sans suits. I couldn’t PAY my players to be that stupid.

They quickly encounter old flames, childhood homes, and apple trees, all apparently equally loved by the repercussive crewmen. Let’s not consider where the apple-fetish might take us,

Further exploration indicates that a forcefield surrounds their landing site. A handy stick can be pushed through the field so they know it can be penetrated, but have no way to determine what the conditions are beyond. With due care and planning remote probes are sent through the barrier to ascertain the conditions. You don’t believe me do you? Well, you’re right. The German kid, on his first mission, sticks his arm through and finds out what it feels like to be a frozen TV dinner. Lucky for him the budget did not include one-arm effects and he is allowed to recover in a day with no ill effects.

The rest of the film is the crew exploring the frozen world in very thick non-pressure suits, encountering lovely ladies and accepting them as their long lost loves, fighting giant one-eyes bipedal rats,  and fighting with a Cycloptic-brain that pulses radiation at 750 roentgens.

If you are into MST3K fare, but without Joel and the Bots then this might be for you.

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Sunday Night Movie:The Exorcist

When Chris MacNeil’ s daughter Regan begin behaving strangely, Chris does what any mother would do and takes Regan to the doctors. Despite advanced technology and level of medical examination that borders on medieval torture the doctors can find no cause for Regan’s increasing bizzare and violent acts.

When Chris’s director dies mysteriously after visiting Regan Chirs is pushed out of the light of reason and enlightenment and is forced to confront the growing possibility that Reagon is possessed.

With only the help of Father Karras  a priest whose own faith has shattered, Chris must find the one person who can save Regan’s soul, The Exorcist.

Continue reading →

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Movie Review:RED

Frank Moses’s life is dull and predictable. The closest thing he has to real human contact is his monthly calls to Sarah who works distributing retirement checks. Frank perpetually destroys his check and reports them as missing so he can continue to call Sarah.

After a team of Souther African assassins try to kill Frank, he is quickly on the run trying to stay one step ahead of the assassins and not ruin whatever chances he might have at a real relationship with the quirky Sarah.

As a retired CIA agent, franks knows a thing or two about killing people and quickly re contact members of his former team. The smooth talked and smooth-voiced analysis/intel man Joe, the mentally deranged but talented combatant Marvin, and finally but not least the Femme Fatale assassin Victoria.

With time running out and ruthless and uber-competent company after them can the retired agents get to the bottom of the conspiracy against them?

One on level RED is a predictable and fairly unoriginal piece of action mayhem. If you can’t figure out how this plot is going to end then you are asleep. However this film is fun and well worth watching because it is not trying to be serious. This is a comedy and by using a plot that is well know, they devoted more time to the characters and the off-center world that they live in. This is a movie that demands you turn off your higher functions and just have fun.

It is based on a comic book, which I have never read, and the action is very unrealistic. That said, I laugher out loud many times and this film was genuinely fun to watch. The time flew by and I would watch this again in a moment.

If you go, do not test this film against how the world really works. Things like g-forces do not exist here. What does exist here is sharp dialogue and some wonderful performances.

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My Newest Acquisition

Arrived Monday, but I did not get to break the seal until last night. While this film is not everyone’s cup of tea it is one I like and getting it at a good price on Blu-ray with tons of bonus material made it a no brainer for me.

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Sunday Night Movie:FutureWorld

Two years after reporting about the massacre at he Delos owned amusement park Westworld, reporter Chuck Browning smells another story brewing. Delos has opened a new amusement park, insistent that this time the robot are fail-safe. When a man is murdered trying to get information to him, Chuck realized that not everything is as it seems at Delos.

Forced to work with a professional and personal rival, television reporter/personality Tracy Ballard, Chuck infiltrates the high-tech park Futureworld. Despite their bickering the television report and newspaper man discover this time  that more is at stake than homicidal robots. Uncovering a vast conspiracy that threatens the world, Chuck and Tracy risk more than their lives.

I’ve decided that I would start off my Sunday Night Movie posts with a pitch for the films I watched. The principle reason for this is so that I would get more practice at pitch writing. It is an important aspect of novel selling and an aspect I particularly suck at.

So the Futureworld is the squeal to the 1973 hit, Westworld starring Yul Brynner and Richard Benjamin. In Westerworld at film directed by Michael Crichton from his novel of the same name. The Delos corporation has created an adult theme-park populated with lifelike robots. People can play in artificial environments, engaging in sword fights, sex, gun fights, sex, and debauchery. (Drinking in other words.) The robots malfunction and instead of losing the fights, begin killing the guests. Technology gone awry, as you can see it was never a new theme for Mr. Crichton. Westworld was a hit and made oodles of money, that commanded a sequel.

MGM released Futureworld on 1976, Michael Crichton was not involved in this production so the technology did not go awry. Instead we have a very seventies plot of conspiracies and cynicism. Political and economic leaders from around the world are coming as guests of Delos and of course some nefarious is happening to them. This film was not as well received by either the critics or the public and is generally a forgotten SF film of the seventies. I ended up watching it last night because I was in the mood for something that would not task my brain beyond the most rudimentary concepts.

That said this film in many ways worked better for me than Westworld did. Westworld suffered from severe plot-holes that were required to create the situation that Crichton demanded of his story. For example, when the technology fails in Westworld, the powered doors all locked. Sealing the technicians, who might have resolved the plot before the main characters were in too much danger, in their underground control chambers. There are apparently no overrides, manual or otherwise on these doors. Without power it is simply impossible to open them. Furthermore, the air stops and all the tech die of suffocation. Even as far back as the seventies this is not OSHA compliant. Westworld required this so that Richard Benjamin would have to face the gunslinger alone. Truthfully, this is not very good writing.

Futureworld, by not having the plot revolve around a breakdown of technology escapes this trap. It also got one thing right about the future, the death of Newspapers. Everything else about the future is strangle contemporary to the seventies. Blythe Danner is wasted as the airhead television personality.

In the end this made a perfectly acceptable SF film for a late-night  just kick back and enjoy it viewing, but not one I’d want to own

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Sunday Night Movie:Rustlers’ Rhapsody

Many people know that I am not a big fan of the Western. If you look through my 240 plus DVD and Blu-ray collection the list of Westerns is as Elrond might put it, ‘thin.’ I have just a few in my library. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (subject of a previous Sunday Night Movie), High Noon, and Unforgiven. Given such a limited interest in Westerns it would be surprising to most to find Rustlers’ Rhapsody in my collection.

This film from 1985 is a wonderful send-up of the Western genre. While I am not a big fan of the genre I am enough of a movie buff to know it’s conventions, tropes, and cliches. Rustlers’ Rhapsody plays on these perfectly.

The film starts Tom Berenger as Rex O’Herlihan, The Singing Cowboy. Rex rides from town to town, fighting to bad guys, saving the good guys, and always, always winning. He’s an upright, straight-shooting, hand-shooting no killing kind of hero. Befriended by Peter, the town drunk of Oakridge, Rex sets about his karma of saving the poor — and foul-smelling — sheep herders from the evil cattle baron, played with more than just a swish by Andy Griffith. Rex proves more than a match for the villains as he knows all their tricks. You see, it’s the same cliched attack that happened in every western town to every hero that stands up for the good guys. This time is different though. The Bad guys have found an evilly ingenious way to foil the good guy, one that Rex  — or any western good guy — has faced before.

This film did not find an audience in 1985 and was released just this one time on DVD, but if you are a fan of the silly zany comedies that came out of the 80s and love a good poke at cliches and overused tropes, give this a Netflix spin.

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