Lost in Space: Stunning Special Effects Can’t Obscure the Flaws in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (2012)
“What is human?” Scott asks. “Make us care,” the audience replies.
Category: SF & Fantasy
Exploitation & Erotica · SF & Fantasy
Roots of ALIEN: A pre-pre-PROMETHEUS Triple Feature
If you’re excited about the promos for the Ridley Scott science fiction movie coming out this summer, Prometheus… it might be a good time to visit some of the films that have been mentioned over the years as the inspirations for ALIEN, and it just so happens they’re all pretty short and all available on Netflix streaming – a perfect weekend triple bill.
Dream Story: Julia Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty
“The Story of O and Traumnovelle are two tales of outrageous sex that nevertheless come across as lulling and gentle. Sleeping Beauty deserves to be ranked with those works, in[…]
Activist & Political · Essays · SF & Fantasy
The Numinous Automaton at the Center of Scorsese’s Hugo
“With the Uncanny one has reached the fringes of the Numinous.” — C.S. Lewis”Becoming a cyborg is the ultimate goal.” — Kevin Warwick on Singularity Hub
Glasnost in Space Revisited: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
“This is a winter movie, an elegy tinged with regret.”
Fun and Hunger Games. And Other Reality Shows.
For a science fiction film francise to become truly successful, it helps not to be too original. The most successful of these franchises are based on ideas that have been floating[…]
“Dad, Is That You?” Revisiting M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense
“Fatherhood, in a sense of a conscious begetting, is unknown to man.” — James Joyce, Ulysses
Activist & Political · Essays · SF & Fantasy
When We Dream, Do We Accumulate Capital? On Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010)
“Nolan is making evident, both through form and narrative, his criticism of the sweeping radicalization of cinematic work that has privileged the technological wonder of the movies over formulations of innovative and complex narratives that deal with human existence.”
Fantasia (1940): The Varieties of Religious Experience
Walt Disney’s masterpiece, Fantasia, may seem at first like a random collection of animated shorts whose only common factor is that each was inspired by a well-known piece of classical[…]
Activist & Political · SF & Fantasy
Cylons, Avatars, and Barack Obama: Science Fiction and Hybridity After 9/11
“Veering away from jingoistic portrayals of ‘us’ and the ‘Other,’ these films advocate instead a complex and globally entwined future of hybrid identities along with critical consideration of the political and cultural consequences of advanced technology.”
Green Hornet Makes America Bossy Bottom: Who’s Topping Who?
“Britt looks like the top as he bends Kato over and as he barks orders at his employee, but as every physical confrontation in the film demonstrates, Kato is the stronger man in both mind and body.”
Activist & Political · Essays · SF & Fantasy
Green Lantern: The Allegory of Fear & Will Unfolded
“Facing fear and not concoctions of fear serving the needs of our own resident guardians of wealth and power is a far different enterprise than joining the enthusiasts of self-empowerments’ call “to just wish it.”
Genres · SF & Fantasy · TV & Streaming
Concocting Character in Television: The Case of Star Trek’s Annoying Old Men — and the Beautiful Young Women Who Love Them
“The arrival of Kirk on the scene precipitates a kind of crisis in the equilibrium of this pair of older, controlling-male and young subordinate-woman. What happens is that the woman is somehow awakened by the arrival of the Enterprise crew — awakened sexually, but also in a much broader sense.”
Her Eyes Were Wide and Glazed: The Uncanny Valley part 2
These kids are aping anime, creating a dead look about their pupils, removing all glimmer of intelligence from their face as if trying to pass as a zombie in a post-Romero school environment, where any glimmer of humanity is met with devouring and slobber.
Revisiting DUNE (1984) with Sean Young
Consider the following plotline: A young man travels to another world where he infiltrates the indigenous people and adopts their ways. He is befriended by a beautiful young woman who[…]
Five Shameless Sci-Fi Oscar Robberies, Spearheaded By Avatar
Riding on the back of nine minutes of unseen footage, the special edition of James Cameron’s pioneering 3-D masterpiece Avatar returns to theaters today (Friday August 27). But billions of[…]
As Above, So Below – World on a Wire and The Thirteenth Floor
A MATRIX OF CONNECTIONS For a long time, I avoided watching The Thirteenth Floor (above) due to the name Roland Emmerich in the credits. Emmerich was responsible in one way[…]
SF & Fantasy · Thrillers & Action
“Let’s Call It a Draw”: M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender
“Most of the major speaking roles are indeed pwned by people without color, to put it indelicately. But the rest are thankfully brought to life by a rainbow coalition of talent.”
Counterculture · Essays · SF & Fantasy
“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”: Avatar’s Psychedelic Fantasy
“What entertains us may be shaping us.”
Interviews · SF & Fantasy · Writers & Critics
Back to the Futuristic: An Interview with Bill Warren
In which the author talks about being a lifelong SF movie freak and updating his seminal SF compendium Keep Watching the Skies! for the new millennium
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