Science Fiction – Page 10 – Yesterday's Movies

Coneheads

June 6, 2014temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

Have I seen this before? There’s something special in my memory about Coneheads, but I can’t quite place it. I’m fairly sure that I had a friend in Kindergarten or first grade who talked about it fondly, but the only concrete recollection I have is that there were a few clips of it in a Paramount promotional montage on a couple of tapes I liked to watch a lot. And more recently, I’ve seen some of the original sketches. Since my memories are so hazy, and there are a few alternative options, I’m going to conclude for now that I haven’t seen it before, and if I did, it was so long ago that nothing really stuck and my view will still be fresh. However, in the interest of transparency, I’m making this decision public.

While not as widely talked about as other Saturday Night Live spinoffs, this seems to have a pretty positive reputation. The concept certainly offers room for a full-fledged plot and lends itself to a higher budget. In fact, it may be so much more of a movie concept than a sketch concept that it becomes hard to remember it got its start on SNL, like Blues Brothers.

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Short Circuit

May 2, 2014temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

I’m a bit surprised at the fact that I only heard of this movie in the last decade. An eighties comedy sci-fi(ish) adventure about a cute robot coming to life seems like the sort of thing I would have been watching once a week as a child. In fact, I only became aware of its existence and cult status after meeting the internet hivemind that loves this movie.

Now that I’m actually going to watch it, all I can think of is that lightning doing magical things to machines seems dated even for the 80s.

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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

April 10, 2014April 11, 2014temporalparadox1 Comment

Before watching the movie:

The basic plot seems attractive enough, as I’ve always been fascinated by explorations of mind and memory. I was even more interested when I learned about the dream imagery included. And I’m interested in Jim Carrey, even though I’m pretty sure he’s in a purely dramatic role here.

The reason I’ve never gotten to this is because it seems entirely concerned with the emotional drama, which is something I’m rarely in the mood for, especially at a feature-length scale. And so it’s now eligible to be among the movies this blog has given me a kick into seeing.
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Flash Gordon

March 28, 2014temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

I’ve been wanting to see this movie ever since I learned while reviewing Highlander that Queen did music for it. That is the biggest selling point of this movie for me, and will likely be the best thing about it, even if it does turn out to be an effective update of a campy adventure serial. I’m just not sure this sort of thing can be done seriously anymore.

I was surprised to learn from the box that Flash is a football player. Some quick research showed that in the original comics, he was a polo player, so that’s not a big change. I never picked up on him being an athlete. I should probably invest more time in familiarizing myself with source material.

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Multiplicity

February 28, 2014March 27, 2014temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

I had some other options for this week that rose to the top due to impending expiration. Then Harold Ramis died, and the internet was covered in Ghostbusters. But he wasn’t just Egon Spengler, and as the week went on, I was a bit disappointed that I wasn’t seeing anybody that seemed to remember even that he was one of the leads in Stripes, and I only saw an indirect mention of SCTV. None of the classic and cult movies he wrote or directed were at all mentioned, which is perhaps understandable, since writers and directors are less visible.

However, Ramis was a guiding hand behind the camera for many more beloved movies than he acted in, and so many of them are so prominent that there are hardly any left I haven’t seen. So here we have Multiplicity, a Ramis-directed film about a man who clones himself to keep up with all his commitments. Perhaps appropriate to honor a man wore so many hats to make movies people loved.

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Journey to the Center of the Earth

January 24, 2014temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

It seems like this is Jules Verne’s most-adapted story, and it’s widely different from version to version. That’s probably because from what I remember of the book, there isn’t so much plot as an excuse to go on a low-tech sci-fi adventure. Exotic locations, exciting science, and fights with dinosaurs. If anyone else had been doing what Verne was doing at the time, we might consider him a pulp author.

So coming into this, I’m mainly expecting some high-budget, relatively innocent excitement. The blockbuster movie of the 1950s. I’m also interested in seeing how much of the parts of Verne’s book that aren’t “dinosaurs underground” still remains.

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The Andromeda Strain

November 22, 2013temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

My first thought, from the description about an extraterrestrial disease threatening to become an epidemic, was that this film would be rather like Outbreak, but with sci-fi elements. Then I read a little further and found out it’s mostly in a top secret containment facility. So it’s more like… other things that aren’t coming to mind right now. I also have a sneaking suspicion it’s rather like the Michael Crichton book of the same name.

Robert Wise has a terrific reputation as a director, so I expect this will be well put together.

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Armageddon

May 23, 2013May 24, 2013temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

As I recall, Armageddon and Deep Impact both came out at about the same time and both concerned averting an asteroid collision with Earth. Likely neither one of them takes precedence over the other, but in my mind, this one is the original and Deep Impact is the imitator.

I only just now learned this film is directed by Michael Bay. I knew he had Hollywood films before Transformers, but I didn’t think it was anything I’d heard of. It only reaffirms my expectations though, since I was already expecting great spectacle without much depth. However, I worry it might drag somewhat, since it’s an hour longer than most movies of the caliber I’m expecting. Unless there are flighty songs or weighty angst, movies don’t tend to have more than 90-100 minutes of content.

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2001: A Space Travesty

July 26, 2012September 7, 2012temporalparadox1 Comment

2001travesty — 2001: A Space Travesty. Cinevent/Helkon Media AG 2000.

Before watching the movie:

When I read the blurb, I realized I’d let the title trick me into thinking of it as a direct parody of “Space Odyssey”, which is a reasonable assumption but unusually late. It appears that it’s more a genre parody that got stuck with the title because everything got titles with “2000” in the late 90s.

I’m hoping this is more “enjoyably passable” like Spy Hard than “barely tolerable” like the Scary Movie series. Continue reading →

Metropolis

May 24, 2012May 25, 2012temporalparadox1 Comment

May is Non-Alliterative Silver Screen Classic Movie Month!

metropolis — Metropolis. Universum Film 1927.

Before watching the movie:

For such a historically important movie, I’ve heard surprisingly little about this. Again. I’m not even sure off-hand why it’s important, because I want to say “first science fiction film”, but that ought to be Meliès’s A Journey From the Earth to the Moon.

The robot Maria is pretty much the only thing people mention about this film, to the point that she’s the icon for it. But the skant summary I’ve found doesn’t indicate her role in it at all.

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