(aka, Demon Heaven: Ghost Hero) Honorable Mention This is one of those films which is almost impossible to explain. And when I say that, I mean, an almost impossible to explain Japanese film, which, yes, puts it in an even stranger category. Nor is it easy to put it into any of the ordinary categories […]
Read more "Youkai tengoku: Ghost Hero [Monster Heaven: Ghost Hero] (1990)"(Literal translation: The Flying Saucers) Honorable Mention I’ll confess that Mexican cinema is one of those areas I haven’t spent much time exploring. Which, of course, means that I keep finding a few interesting films to watch. Heck, some of them, like El monstruo resucitado [Monster](1953), are quite good. Fortunately, I don’t have to do all […]
Read more "Los platillos voladores (1956)"I’m not sure you can really call this one an “animated film.” Well, the little puppet characters do move at times — or so it seems But most of the time they just stand there. In fact, a surprising amount of the movement in this film is accomplished with cuts, or camera movements, or something […]
Read more "H.P. Lovecraft’s Dunwich Horror and Other Stories [H.P. Lovecraft no Dunwich Horror Sonota no Monogatari] (2007)"Ever wonder what it would be like to live in a videogame? Obviously, the people who made Press Start have. In fact, they seems to have spent a lot of time thinking about it. Like everyday. Several hours a day. Probably every minute that they weren’t actually playing videogames. It would be a mistake, though, […]
Read more "Press Start (2007)"Darkness. The sound of wind. Eerie music. Clouds against a bright, monochrome sky. And something huge, a vast slab of concrete like a monolith, which we gradually see has a very different shape. And then a voice, speaking for the very last of the Human race, Two Thousand Million Years from now, speaks to us, […]
Read more "Last and First Men (2020)"“Can you keep a secret?” It starts so well. The director, Les Michaels (who is actually played by, ummm, the real-life director, Eric Lee Huffman, only under the name “Rick Still.” Just go with it), steps in front of the camera to explain that what we are about to see was filmed by hundreds of […]
Read more "UFO Phil: The Movie (2008)"“Seth Ickerman” — who is really the French directing duo, Raphaël Hernandez and Savitri Joly-Gonfard — first came to my attention with the “trailer” for a film called “Ickerman,” which featured a dazzling combination of a high-tech future, a touch of Film Noir, and a lot of movie nostalgia. I still hope they will get […]
Read more "Blood Machines (2019)"The French Nouvelle Vague short film, La Jetee, occupies an interesting place in science fiction cinema. It is hailed as a great art film and formal experiment — and yet at the same time it is held to be a SF classic. There are only a few films you can say that about. It uses […]
Read more "Missing Pages (2006)"(aka Space Men Appear in Tokyo, The Mysterious Satellite) I finally saw the original Japanese version of this film. It is amazing what a difference that can make. Frankly, I didn’t think much of this one when I saw the American dubbed version of this film, bundled in a set with several other public domain […]
Read more "Uchûjin Tôkyô ni arawaru [Warning from Space] (1956)"(aka Gigantis the Fire Monster, Godzilla’s Counter Attack) Somehow, it comes as no surprise to me that Toho managed to get this film into the theaters six months after the original Godzilla. It is without question the least of all the Godzilla films. Not the worst. No Godzilla film has ever been as bad as Godzilla […]
Read more "Gojira no gyakushû [Godzilla Raids Again] (1955)"
rivets on the poster 