Where to begin… I suppose it might help to note that this hugely ambitious Korean film, loaded with weird special effects and dizzying action sequences, failed to attract a huge audience at the time, and left viewers wildly divided between those who adored it and those who hated the very ground it treads upon. Yeah, […]
Read more "Sungnyangpali sonyeoui jaerim [Resurrection of the Little Match Girl] (2002)"Sometimes you have to relax for a few minutes and just have fun. Consider today’s film, an animated short film by Walerian Borowczyk. Yes, it was made in France, and has been labeled “experimental” or “arty.” But that doesn’t change the fact that it is an amusing little bit of comic storytelling with no greater […]
Read more "Les astronautes (1959)"Let’s make one thing clear: The Island of the Lost is not a film version of The Island of Dr. Moreau. Not officially, that is. Yeah, the story is about as close to H.G. Wells as any of the movies based on the book have been. But that doesn’t mean that they did anything crazy […]
Read more "Die Insel der Verschollenen [The Island of the Lost] (1921)"I haven’t reviewed too many silent films in these pages, although I have written about them at greater length elsewhere. It was a highly imaginative era, during which science fiction flourished in a modest sort of way, although, sadly, as the vast majority of silent films are now lost, quite a few of these early […]
Read more "Le avventure straordinarissime di Saturnino Farandola [The Extraordinary Adventures of Saturnino Farandola] (1913)"Look, I’m not sure I believe it either. But everything I can find says that this is, in fact, a lost Independent short film from 1938, a silent film made almost a decade into the sound era. The story is that Richard Lyford was an independent playwright and screenwriter who made nine award-winning Independent films […]
Read more "As the Earth Turns (1938)"I suspect that Der Tunnel may have been the first feature length science fiction film. Certainly I don’t know of any that have survived that are older. Whether there are any lost films out there I’m not aware of is another question. After all, it is estimated that something like Ninety per cent of silent […]
Read more "Der Tunnel (1915)"“Realism is a form of hypocrisy. We are telling stories that take place in simulated worlds. Genre films like scifi, fantasy or horror are just more honest about that.” “I wanted to make A LIVING DOG not only because I love genre films and independent films but also because I admire silent movies and the […]
Read more "A Living Dog (2019)"This is one of those films where only a fragment remains. That isn’t exactly uncommon for silent film where it is generally estimated that anywhere from 75 to 90 percent of silent films are now lost, and some of the “survivors” are only known from a few clips. Although “fragment” isn’t quite the word we […]
Read more "La cité foudroyée [The City Struck by Lightning] (1924)"It can be almost comic to find out what science believed even a short time ago. Although the movies aren’t exactly the best guide for that. Wolfblood has been called the first werewolf movie. This is more or less sorta true, although not in the sense you think that should mean. It is also not […]
Read more "Wolfblood (1925)"If you haven’t seen it yet, I strongly recommend that you check out the short film Super 8 Daze, by Rob Hampton. He’s a professional filmmaker who made a lot of short documentary films about pop culture, things like The Gong Show, The Planet of the Apes and those classic Aurora model kits kids my age […]
Read more "King Kong (1978)"
rivets on the poster 