December 10, 2008 - 4:13 am - Posted by Administrator
Sebastian Caine [Kevin Bacon] is a man with voyeuristic tendencies. Dangerous character trait for a man working on an invisibility serum. In a modern day update of The Invisible Man, director Paul Verhoeven presents a morality play; a cautionary tale about the dangers of technology in the hands of the wrong man. If you had the power to go anywhere, do anything, and get away with it, how far would you go?
Along with his partner, Dr. Linda McKay [Elizabeth Shue], Sebastian Caine and a team of researchers pursue their invisibility serum in an animal testing laboratory, making intermittent progress but enduring horrific failures in the process. When Caine is unable to complete his project on an acceptable timeline, he is forced to dangerously accelerate his program to the human testing phase–with himself as the subject–to satisfy the Pentagon. Unfortunately he is entirely unprepared for the effect the serum will have on his psyche. While the insanely painful transformation process has the desired physical effect, Caine slowly loses his mind and becomes a homicidal maniac.
The special effects in Hollow Man are fantastic and garnered an Oscar nomination for Visual Effects, although some of the creative choices could strike viewers as campy. Every injection seems to be a fluorescent liquid, every computer monitor a wildly colorful display. The realism feels impacted somehow by the Disney-esque vibe. Make no mistake though, Hollow Man is graphic and violent.
Hollow Man also features a supporting cast that’s a virtual who’s who of actors who were little known at the time. Josh Brolin [No Country for Old Men] plays Matthew Kensington, fellow researcher and Shue’s love interest. Greg Grunberg [Heroes] plays another researcher, Kim Dickens [Thank You for Smoking, Lost] plays Sarah Kennedy, and William Devane appears predictably as a government heavy, Dr. Howard Kramer.
Although the dialogue can seem a bit contrived at points and the character development is a bit thin, Hollow Man really hits full stride about an hour in, as Caine becomes a full raging lunatic. As he stalks his victims the suspense is compelling and reminiscent of slasher flicks where the killer is always hiding in the shadows, always just out of sight. In many ways, Hollow Man is as much horror as it is science fiction.
February 24, 2008 - 10:28 pm - Posted by Administrator
The sequel to 1985’s Cocoon, Cocoon: The Return is a worthy–if somewhat thin–continuation to the story. To recap, our geriatrics from the original film discover the fountain of youth. They decide to accompany some aliens to their home planet of Antares where they’re promised eternal life. And in Cocoon: The Return… well, you know, they return. Damn, now that I’ve written that, it sounds ridiculous. Did I give this movie three stars?
Jack Gilford brings his supporting role of Bernie Lefkowitz two steps forward into a starring role, now a widower after the passing of his beloved Rose. Not surprisingly, he is still reluctant to embrace the fountain-of-youth lifestyle of his friends.
The primary story arc of Cocoon: The Return involves the rescue of a cocoon which has been recovered from the ocean by the St. Petersburg Oceanographic Institute. In reality this movie is more about the fragility of life, the importance of family, and having a healthy sense of adventure, all as experienced by Art [Don Ameche], Ben [Wilford Brimley], and Joe [Hume Cronyn] and their wives. Eventually when they begin to experience the aches and pains of being back on Earth, they are forced to make hard decisions–whether to return to Antares and live forever, or stay home on Earth and let nature run it’s course.
Steve Guttenberg and Tahnee Welch (daughter of Raquel) reprise their roles from the first movie, and a young Courteney Cox makes an appearance as Sara, a scientist. Overall, I would say it’s better than most sequels but not exactly must-watch material.
February 23, 2008 - 8:06 pm - Posted by Administrator
Fifty years from now, when we look back on the movies of this first decade of the millenium, we will compare them to the science fiction of the seventies. Bleak. Downbeat. Realistic.
28 Weeks Later is a stylistically brilliant example; aesthetically beautiful from lighting to editing. As a sequel, it remains visually and cinematically true to the original, 28 Days Later (2002) in it’s desperate depiction of survival in a post-apocalyptic London which has been virtually wiped out. There is no joy, no future, no hope.
The storyline picks up right where the original left off, but with a new set of characters. Great Britain has been destroyed by the infection, but the infected who wander the streets eventually starve to death. Under the direction of a U.S. led NATO force, the reconstruction of London begins. But it seems the claims the infection had run it’s course were far too optimistic.
This movie will make you squirm in your seat. The main characters, a family trying to survive and stay together, take you on a kind of emotional roller-coaster to a very sensitive place, which in turn makes the gory scenes of unbelievable violence all the harder to take. When Don (Robert Carlyle) is infected, transforms into a zombie, and then proceeds to gouge out the eyeballs of his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) with his thumbs, I almost gave up. Fortunately, I was watching with a group of friends and couldn’t just turn it off. I was glad to see it got better, although it is violent and gory.
28 Weeks Later does have it’s shortcomings. First and foremost, no Cillian Murphy. His role in the original pulled you in and kept you for the duration. The sequel suffers from it’s own serial-killing… all of our heroes end up dead in a relentless parade of uber-violent death scenes, including the aforementioned thumbs-in-eyes bit, the obligatory throat-tearing and limb-eating scenes we’ve come to expect from Zombie movies, and the immolation of an American Soldier with a flame-thrower. And just in case you’re not grossed-out enough, we also get countless head and chest explosions from high-caliber firearms, and the topper–the killing of dozens of infected with the blades of a helicopter. And at it’s core, the zombie premise limits the movie to the standard zombie-film mold–it’s a chase flick.
Like the original, 28 Weeks Later is loaded with societal parallels and ponderings, including homeland security, illegal immigration, and civil liberties. Like the movies of the seventies, this story mirrors reality in a difficult time–the implication being the thinking citizen has disappeared and has been replaced by blood-thirsty autmomatons. Where are the powers of good? Where are the voices of the righteous? But perhaps I’m over-thinking it.
January 7, 2008 - 11:04 pm - Posted by Administrator
I saw Wolfen for the first time on HBO, when I was a pimply pre-teen. That was back in the day when HBO from the cable company cost an extra ten dollars per month, and all you got was HBO… one more channel. Plus, you had to get up and walk to the TV and flip the little black switch on your gold and faux-woodgrain HBO box to descramble the signal.
I was home alone (my parents must have been out drinkin’ at Fridays or the Torchlight), perusing the paper HBO-guide that they mailed to subscribers every month. I saw a movie called “Wolfen” and flipped it on. What I saw that night was a movie which to this day is begging for a remake. It’s also the source of a good obscure sci-fi factoid you can use to brain-bust even your nerdiest friends. I’ll get to that in a moment.
Wolfen is set in late-seventies New York, at the beginning of the redevelopment which would eventually transform the Big Apple into a cleaner, safer, and better smelling metropolis. It’s a movie about two cops, played by Albert Finney and Gregory Hines. They’re investigating several gruesome deaths–apparent animal attacks. Their investigation leads them to the city’s darkest neighborhoods–neighborhoods where ninety-nine percent of the residents have fled.
****Spoiler Alert****
Someone, or something is stalking the citizens of New York. We are treated to point-of-view tracking shots that show us the dark New York skyline, somehow enhanced by the predator’s vision, and populated by unsuspecting victims who stroll along unaware they’re about to become food. If I had to describe the effect, I would call it a more subtle version of the effect from Predator, when you see through the hunter’s eyes.
As the bodiess stack up, the investigators encounter a tribe of Native Americans which includes Eddie Holt, played by a very young Edward James Olmos. They are a superhuman species, capable of shifting shape at will. And they are killing to protect their hunting ground. By the way, if seeing full-frontal nudity from Olmos as he prances around a beach is too much for you (it almost was for me), consider this a warning.
The setting and and story for Wolfen are pretty good. Unfortunately, the casting and the special effects are seriously lacking. What are supposed to be gory death scenes now look dated. Although a fine actor, Albert Finney was not a good match for the role. Plus, in the climactic attack sequences the shapeshifters assume the shapes of… well, ordinary wolves. The movie establishes the superhuman strength and savage nature of the deaths well in advance, so when the killers turn out to be what look like ordinary wolves, it can seem a little anti-climactic.
Which brings to me to how this movie is begging for a re-make. Now that special effects have caught up, this movie could easily be fixed and re-made with a heavy dose of big, savage, computer generated Wolfen-creatures. Not wolves, but wolf-like monsters.
Now, that obscure factoid I alluded to… in 1987, you may remember seeing little grey alien heads everywhere. Remember? Every book store you went to was hawking the novel Communion by Whitley Strieber. It prominently featured the face of a grey alien on the cover. I remember it because I had to straighten the damn books when I worked at Target in high school. And Communion was high on the “I must fuck with this book” list for our customers I guess.
Communion was pitched by Strieber as a true story of alien abduction, his account of being personally abducted by aliens. It gave a serious boost to UFO culture and re-awakened the abductee phenomena. But, from the outset, there were those who were skeptical. Some even alleged that Strieber’s novel should not be taken as a true story of alien abduction, because Strieber was an established writer, and published novelist. He was a master storyteller. Indeed, he even had one of his novels turned into a movie. That movie was Wolfen.
December 16, 2007 - 10:19 pm - Posted by Administrator
The USS Nimitz is cruising on maneuvers just off Hawaii. The aircraft carrier’s decks are crammed with modern jet fighters. Suddenly, the Nimitz steams into a strange magnetic storm. When the ship emerges, the crew find themselves transported to 1941. December. Just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Kirk Douglas plays the duty-bound Captain, faced with the question… “If I can prevent Pearl Harbor… should I?” As a guy who’s always been intrigued by Alternate History, I’d love to see a series of movies where we did prevent Pearl Harbor and how it would have changed the course of history.
My memory of the marketing campaign before this movie came out is that everybody was talking about the premise. “If you could, would you?” There was an unusual amount of buzz.
The Final Countdown is in my book of “must-see time travel movies” but fell short of excellence in my opinion. Good movie, but not great. Primarily because I always felt a little bit cheated that I didn’t get to see a squadron of Japanese Zeroes taken out by some American jets, and the question posed by the movie never really got answered. I will reveal no more than that in case you haven’t seen the movie.
This movie is big with Navy men and women, and many have commented on the accuracy with which Naval operations are portrayed. This is another one I’d like to see them re-make.
December 16, 2007 - 4:01 pm - Posted by Administrator
The early seventies could be considered a dark age of science fiction films. Both in terms of their modest success at the box office, and the tone of the films holding focus.
Written and Directed by Michael Crichton [The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park], Westworld is a vision of a future where Delos has become the most popular vacation destination in the world, a place where humanoid robots are a reality, slaves to the whim of man, and (supposedly) incapable of harming a human. When robots start going crazy, tourists Peter Martin (Richard Benjamin) and John Blane (James Brolin) find themselves being stalked by a homicidal, unstoppable robot gunslinger, incredibly portrayed by Yul Brynner.
Westworld hit theatres at a time when the public consciousness was consumed by an emerging scandal called Watergate, Vietnam, and the AIM’s occupation of Wounded Knee. At the same time in history, the Supreme Court ruling on Roe vs. Wade overturned the states’ ban on abortions, the World Trade Center and Sears Tower domintaed skylines in New York and Chicago for the first time, and America’s first space station, Skylab, was launched. So it should come as no surprise that Westworld is loaded with questions. Who are we? Where are we going? Will humans be victims of their own ambition?
Westworld succeeds marginally at addressing some of these questions, but falls short, like many flicks of the era, in the special effects department. See Westworld for Yul Brynner’s portrayal of the Gunslinger, and don’t laugh too loud at some of the effects.
December 14, 2007 - 12:36 am - Posted by Administrator
Note: Many say Outland’s story was patterned after High Noon.
Sean Connery plays space Marshal William T. O’Niel, a family man doing his duty in space while his wife and son await his return to Earth. He is assigned to provide security at a mining colony on Jupiter’s moon Io. When miners start exhibiting bizarre behavior (one commits suicide by going outside without a pressure suit), O’Niel investigates and finds evidence that the miners are using a lethal narcotic, encouraged by “The Company” because it increases the miners’ productivity. Unfortunately, the villain(s) turn out to be space hitmen, which lends the movie a very pedestrian shoot ‘em up climax. Peter Boyle co-stars as Sheppard in a rare non-comedic role.
The highpoint of Outland would have to be the special effects. Anytime you get to see a space miner decompress and explode in a mess all over the inside of his spacesuit, well that’s pretty hardcore.
When I saw Outland, it was the first time I saw an “outer space” movie where the technology was portrayed in a more realistic fashion, NASA style. As versus the more elaborately set The Empire Strikes Back which came out exactly one year prior.
December 13, 2007 - 7:19 pm - Posted by Administrator
Other than John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing, I’ve never been a huge fan of his sci-fi movies… primarily his horror endeavours; but They Live is one of his cult classics.
Former pro-wrestler Roddy Piper stars as a drifter who discovers a box of sunglasses which allow the wearer to see the aliens who roam the planet disguised as ordinary humans. Keith David co-stars as a construction worker content in the world he knows, uninterested in Piper’s magic sunglasses. Indeed, one of the greatest fist fight sequences ever filmed results when Nada (Piper) tries to get Frank (David) to try on the glasses. When he finally does, he can see the aliens, and the obedience messages which have been subliminally embedded in billboards, tv commercials, newspapers, and more.
We soon find out an undergound rebellion of those who know the truth is growing.
They Live is John Carpenter’s vehicle for a cautionary tale about consumer culture, cold war paranoia, and Orwellian society. The special effects leave something to be desired and the movie overall is a little anti-climactic, both of which are probably due to budget. At any rate, I highly recommend it to any sci-fi fan.
I must admit, I hope they make a big budget remake of this movie someday.
December 12, 2007 - 3:05 am - Posted by Administrator
I think I saw this movie for the first time on HBO years ago. Back when you had to get up off your ass, walk to the TV, and flip a switch on a little gold/woodgrain box to descramble the HBO signal.
I was too young to understand the concept of Virtual Reality, and most of us were unfamiliar with the concept anyway. But this is the first time I ever saw the concept depicted onscreen. Movies like Strange Days, the Thirteenth Floor, and The Matrix owe a heavy debt to this early shot at cyber-cinema.
In the near future, scientists perfect the art of recording and playing back human experience. Not on a screen, but in your head. Experience what others have experienced. Don a device on your head, and play back the tape.
Brainstorm explores all the questions that such a technology would bring to light… what is moral in a “virtual world”? Who should have access to such technology? It’s an interesting look back at what a screenwriter from the eighties envisioned virtual reality technology to be. They didn’t get it all right of course, but predicting the future ain’t easy.
When you watch, take note of the hints at future technology… like when Christopher Walken offers to pump some information “through the phone” in an era when a modem was unheard of.
This movie is also the final onscreen appearance of Natalie Wood. –troy
