Stephen Boyd – Yesterday's Movies

Before watching the movie:

The Ten Commandments is an Easter tradition for many people. The connection seems tenuous to me, but there’s a thread there. I’ve already seen “Commandments”, so I won’t be reviewing it here, but it has me following another connection, that you can already guess at due to the title and the picture to the right.

In my mind, that film is much more strongly linked to Ben-Hur than to Easter, but on examination, it seems circumstantial. They’re epics, set in Middle-Eastern antiquity, informed by religious legend, starring Charlton Heston. It seems accidental, though possibly the success of one got the other made. While I don’t know of it being an Easter tradition like its cousin, if anything, this one should be more Easter-related, since it actually has a few scenes with Jesus.

On the other hand, its overall reputation is more like CHARIOTS CHARIOTS CHARIOTS.

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fantasticvoyage — Fantastic Voyage. 20th Century Fox 1966.

Before watching the movie:

I loved the concept of this movie when I first heard about it years ago. Matter shrinking, a tour of the human body, the body as a counterpart to outer space and alien worlds…

I’ve put it off for so long because films of the 60s and 70s, especially science fiction films, were focused on amazing imagery that looks badly dated today and moved at glacial paces. Aside from 2001: A Space Odyssey, I can’t think of a better opportunity for a filmmaker to stop and let the scenery flow over the acid-tripping audience than a submarine drifting through the world inside the human body. Never mind the dying patient they belong to, aren’t those nerve fibers far out?

I just hope the storytelling of this movie won’t be as nonexistent as in 2001.

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