Mainland China has not produced many horror films. Not that I’m sure Beauty Head of the Haunted House is a horror film. In fact, it is about as unclassifiable as any genre film can be. Certainly there are horror elements, but there are also a lot of other things which do not neatly fit into […]
Read more "Xiong zhai mei ren tou [Beauty Head of the Haunted House] (1989)"Lately, Animation and I have had a very complex relationship. It hasn’t exactly been a good one, not for some time now. I suppose, in a way, you might blame Pixar. Not that it’s exactly their fault, it is more that everyone else had to copy them and all the money went into computer animated […]
Read more "Misiunea spatialã Delta [Delta Space Mission] (1984)"Look, by now you know I love Czech Science Fiction comedies, particularly those made during the Czech New Wave. For that matter, I love even their more serious Science Fiction films from the same era. And yes, I also love just about every Czech comedy I’ve seen from the Sixties on. But for some time […]
Read more "Návstevníci [The Visitors] (1983)"(aka, Russian Road to the Stars) Great accomplishments in film never stand on their own. Take for example Kubrick’s masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey: It stunned audiences of its day, giving them an incredible glimpse of our solar system and the future of space travel, with a level of detail, scientific accuracy and believability never […]
Read more "Doroga k zvezdam [Road to the Stars] (1957)"(aka, Ori okeanis saidumloeba, The Secret of Two Oceans) Sometimes it is impossible to understand what is happening in the world of film without a solid look at the culture around a particular movie. Now for those interested in Soviet Science Fiction, there is a strange and rather awkward gap between the early science fiction […]
Read more "Tayna dvukh okeanov [The Mystery of Two Oceans] (1957)"I’ll admit it, I was stunned. This film surprised me. Now I’ve known that this adaptation of the novel by Karel Čapek existed for a long time, but missed my chance some years ago to watch it on Youtube with subtitles. I’ve looked for it at times, but I’ll admit that I didn’t put too […]
Read more "Krakatit (1948)"A few words about Piotr Szulkin are in order: Piotr made four blackly comic political satires disguised as Science Fiction comedies in Poland during the 1980s, at a time when the Polish government was one of the most oppressive on Earth. You don’t have to squint too hard to recognize that, whether he’s talking about a […]
Read more "Ga, Ga – Chwala bohaterom [Ga-ga: Glory to the Heroes] (1986)"Wow. That’s all I can say about this one. Wow. The Czech film industry made some of the best science fiction comedies ever made, and this is one of the best of those wonderful films. I can’t say it’s entirely a surprise, as Václav Vorlícek — the same man who gave us two incredible comedies, […]
Read more "Coz takhle dát si spenát [How About a Plate of Spinach?] (1977)"Twin Brothers. You just can’t trust them, can you? Look at Jan Bures: his charismatic twin Karel is constantly getting in trouble, chasing women and deep in debt. And yet he’s engaged to the girl Jan loves and has the job that steady, reliable Jan longs to have — actually flying the time ship Jan […]
Read more "Zítra vstanu a oparímse cajem [Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea] (1977)"What a lovely little film! For some reason, some of the best stop motion animated short films ever made came out of Eastern Europe in the SIxties and Seventies. I honestly don’t know why this was true, perhaps because of they applied their traditions of craftsmanship in making toys and dolls to creating the wondrously […]
Read more "Kybernetická babicka [Cybernetic Grandmother] (1962)"
rivets on the poster 