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In Reply to: I'll play.... posted by Scott on February 04, 2000 at 12:09:35:
Saw "Bladerunner" upon initial release and liked it; didn't include it
(along with certain others) because they have been mentioned or discussed
so much here in Filmland. Also viewed "Clockwork Orange" upon it's initial
run, mixed feelings about it, tendency toward negative, but realize that
others my differ. Eyeballed "Seconds" with Rock Hudson I believe, ironic
ending if I remember - vague, but pleasant memories of the film.
A 1984 release of "Metropolis", how does it compare to the silent version?
"Robocop" was enjoyable, even if the protagonist was somewhat stiff.
I too enjoyed the British produced(?) TV series "The Prisoner" with Patrick
Whats-His-Name. Neat idea about the giant security bubbles.
Let me add "Planet of the Apes" to the pile.
Will have to think a while about the top 10 of the 90's. - AH
Interesting that you chose 1984 as your cut off date - the state of sci-fi films has been pretty dismal since then, with junk like Armageddon and Starship Troopers as the norm. It's only just lately that things have barely improved with the release of films like The Matrix.IMO sci-fi films died with the release of digital technology, which focuses on production values instead of a coherent plot.
nt
The 1984 version of Metropolis is the silent version... had some missing stuff put back in an a soundtrack by Queen, Pat Benetar, Bonnie Tylor et.al.All mentioned so far were good... will add Fantastic Voyage (followed Asimov's novel quite closely), The Thing (Carpenter's version follows John Cambell's original story "Who Goes There" much more closely than the 1950's version but but the story is still spookier), THX-1138, Andromeda Strain (same plot as the rest of Chriton's stuff, but this was the first),
Atomic Cafe' (not really Sci-fi but funny and spooky... a must for anyone who remembers the 50's), First Men in the Moon, She, Silent Running, The Man who Fell to Earth, Barbarella, A Boy and his Dog, The Power, the first Alien movie, Dune, Fantastic Planet (annimated), Laserblast and Repo Man were a hoot, Life Force, Logan's Run, Flatliners, Saturn 3, Scanners, Soylent Green, Village/Children of the Damned, WestWorld, Zardoz, Heavy Metal, and campy stuff like Attack of the Killer Tomatos, Outer Limits tv, Dr Who tv etc. and I'm sure I'm forgetting scads of others and maybe getting the wrong dates on a few.The Prisoner was Patrick McGoohan who also played the spy John Drake in the series Secret Agent (when he retired they stuck him on the island and started a new series that was filmed in Whales). He also played the bad guy in the movie Silver Streak (with Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder).
Great choices..... you are a true fan of SF. You're correct that the re-release of of Metropolis was the silent version with a new rock/pop score..... and it was colorized. Did you know that *17* reels have been missing from this film since it's initial run? It's true....... !
Yes, I'd read that somewhere. Um, I suppose I am a little more into SF than yer average... maybe it had something to do with my father dragging me off to "Invasion of the Saucer People" and scaring the you know what out of me when I was 4 or so. Or that that it was a family tradition for him, my mother and I to sit up eating cheese, smoked herring and beer while watching the SF double feature every Saturday night (most were pretty bad but sometimes there'd be a good one like Day the Earth Stood Still, War of the Worlds or Forbidden Planet, Comedy of Terror, Gojira and things like that. Um, possibly why I also hated beer by the time I became a teenager?). Then there was also the fact that they could never keep me in the "kids" section of the library and I found a couple of really neat books there (one was about an underground civilization on Mars and the other was about a group of explorers on the inside of a hollow earth taking canoes down these rivers in a prehistoric world... Unlike Journey to the Center of the Earth, this was pretty much a realistic description with stuff like volcanic ash flows blocking the river and trying to get away from the rain of pumice, getting tipped over by a pleseosaur etc.) to go along with my Space Cat Visits Venus and Space Cat Meets Mars kiddie books. Later, I found books like A Canticle for Leibowitz, Purple Cloud, Fred Hoyle's Black Cloud etc. and I was hooked (^_^)
Thanks for the feedback. See the archives, dated 10-04-99, for my thoughts
concerning Campbells story, "The Thing", and the two film adaptations.
I vaguely remember "Lifeforce" as enjoyable with good effects, especially
at the end; also enjoyed "A Boy And His Dog" with the young Don Johnson,
based on the Harlan Ellison story; I grew up as a young adolescent in the
early 60's watching "Children/Village Of The Damned"; enjoyed "Westworld"
more than the later, "Futureworld"; didn't see much of "Barbarella" at
the drive-in movie because I was preoccupied in the back seat!; "Dune" an
overproduced disappointment; "Heavy Metal" good, but needed more S&M;
"Logans Run" OK; as was "Zardoz"; enjoyed the robot in "Saturn 3"; found
"THX-1138" to be interesting at first, then tediously boring; the Original
Twilight Zone Series, The Outer Limits TV Series, The Invaders TV Series,
Dr Who Tv Series, The Avengers TV Series, among others, were staples of my early youth and manhood,
these were all modestly produced series, but featured outstanding talent.
(And what about the series with Martin Landau and Barbara Bain?)
Ok, have you seen "Liquid Sky" (1983), where the UFO lands on the main character's
penthouse patio in Manhattan? I remember standing in front of the theater
at Piedmont Mall in Atlanta GA upon initial release and deciding not to view it. Curses! Now
my curiousity has been peaked after reading two favorable reviews from two
of my main review sources, the film got a solid *** rating out of ****
from Leonard Maltin, and an excellent ***1/2 out of ***** from "The Motion
Picture Guide". To worsen matters, I can't find it at my favorite video
store! But I feel confident I will eventually track it down. Lastly,
thinking of "Zardoz", didn't Connery play a cop at a space station once?
Slava Zuckerman's low budget "Liquid Sky" is about aliens extracting a drug from humans produced during sexual activity. It really wasn't all that good or impressive. Used to show on a double bill with Rinse Dream's (Steve Sayadian) porno sci-fi film "Cafe Flesh" at the art house theaters in L.A., and did not embarass the quality of the latter. A better match might be "Lifeforce" (a great looking DVD, and the spectacular Mathilda May) or "The Hunger".
I'd like to see "Liquid Sky" out of sheer curiousity, especially the quality of the
dual-role performance of Carlisle. Have you seen "The Atomic Cafe" -
(1982)? That's another one I want to see, has a good rating at the
IMDb site. - AH
Atomic Cafe is made almost entirely of clips of old army training films, historical footage, propaganda and pop newsreel clips... most is B&W but some parts are color. It's put together really well and is both amusing and biting commentary on the idea of nuclear survivability. Having grown up at ground zero (well close to SAC anyway) in the 50's I found the bits with the "duck and cover" techniques followed by clips of the destruction from military test cameras in their mock cities particularly amusing (remember I thought crawling under my desk was pretty pointless even when I was in second grade). While the thing is totally different than most movies in that there are no main characters or plot, the juxtaposition of contrasting images and campy nostalgia was so well done that I'd rate it higher than any hollywood flick I've seen in the last decade, though it is a bit like comparing apples and watermelons (all of my friends loved it too). Both it and the 1984 release of Metropolis belong on any sci-fi lover's shelf. See also the reviews at Amazon.com
I too, a child of the 50s, grew up adjacent to a large logistics base with
a B-52 SAC bomb wing. Many nights turned into nightmares as I was abruptly
awakened by piercing airraid sirens on practice drills at the base. My
sleep-clouded mind in near panic, shivers raced up and down my spine as I
envisioned incoming missiles with nukes, a big fireball over the base and
everything incinerated, including me as I lie in the bed! Yes, I need to
see "The Atomic Cafe". - AH
Yes... Connery played sherif in Outland. Didn't see Liquid Sky either (nor do I ever remember hearing of it). Bain and Landau did that series Space 1999. Then there were all those Godzilla movies (actually like the very first B&W Gojira while most of the later ones got childlessly silly... a few of the middle ones were nice mindless popcorn filks though).I like your analysis of The Thing, though the story does also lend sort of an open-ended doubt with them wondering whether the alien had come in contact with a bird, seal or some other animal that could have made it to S. America or something so they are apprehensive of what they might find when they eventually make it home. Two other great Campbell stories are "The last/final evolution" and "Night" (especially "Night"... don't know how they could ever reproduce the sense of isolation of such a cerebrial story in a film though). The old 1920's stories, The Mightiest Machine and the Planetary Agent X (don't remember if that was the title of them... think they were done in the late 30's) would make great flicks though some of the technology is a bit outdated (gotta admire the guy for being investigated by the FBI for writing stories about atomic bombs, and even getting the elements used correct, before they even started The Manhattan Project!)
See my trivial quizzes in the archives dated 11/18/99 and 12/27/99 on
"The Thing" -1951 if you're interested. Also, see British Film Panelist
Margaret Tarrats interesting psychoanalytic interpretation of that film's
structure, derived mainly from the romantic relationship of Capt Hendry
and Nikki; can be found in "Film Genre Reader", Edited by Barry Keith
Grant, University of Texas, Austin, Chapter 19: "Monster from the Id",
Margaret Tarrat. - AH
And welcome to Film Asylum. Enjoyed "She" and "The Power" on Turner Cable a year ago. Waiting to see "The Last Wave" again (not sci-fi, but supernatural). Ever see "Phase IV" with Nigel Davenport?
Think the book The Power was much better than the movie (still have an ancient falling apart copy from the days of 35 cent paperbacks), but it was a good attempt. Saw Phase IV but for some reason I can't remember what it was about.
Not much into bug flicks, intelligent or otherwise. Helstrom Chronicles (sp) was another forgetter. Do remember my father dragging me off to see Rodan with him when it first came out and I rather liked that even if I did cry when the prehistoric birds burned up in the lava. Dinosaurs 10, bugs zero! (^_^)Well, there was one bug flick that was at least half interesting... episode of the original Outer Limits called Zanzi Misfits or something like that. My favorites from that were Galaxy Being, Soldier, Demon with the Glass Hand, Cold Hands Warm Heart, 59 Days of the Dragon, The Power, Production and decay of Strange Particles, and that two parter (The Inheritors, I think)
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