(Literal Translation: The Time Breakdown) I haven’t seen too many Brazilian Science Fiction films. There have been more than you’d think, although the one which might have come to your attention was the excellent Indie comedy, The Man from the Future (2011), which got a little play here in the United States. Somehow or other, […]
Read more "A Repartição do Tempo [Punch the Clock] (2016)"Here’s another potent reminder of why I’ve always loved Soviet era Science Fiction films. Now I’ll admit that part of the reason is the same reason I’ve always loved foreign made Science Fiction Movies: that they are often free of the old cliches which infect so much of our own output. While it is true […]
Read more "Pokhishcheniye charodeya [The Kidnapping of a Wizard] (1989)"I’m really not sure what to make of this one. Certainly the blurb on the posters isn’t any help. Whatever else we’re talking about here, it isn’t “A Science Fiction Road Picture.” Admittedly, that term “road picture” has strayed a bit from its origins with the endless series of “Road To…” movies Bing Crosby and […]
Read more "The Rising Light (2013)"(Literal translation: Opening Fire. aka, Jungle of Death, En busca del astronauta Maya. Literal translation: In Search of the Mayan Astronaut) I suppose it doesn’t help that I could only find a singularly bad rip of this rare Mexican film that actually had any sort of subtitles. And those were auto-translated auto-subs. But I still […]
Read more "Abriendo fuego (1985)"(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)"(aka, The Silence of Dr. Evans) This is one of those science fiction films which seems quintessentially a Seventies movie. Which seems rather odd when you remember that it was made in the Soviet Union, in the Seventies. Now I’ll admit this is because many of their films — like The Star Inspector [Zvyozdny inspektor […]
Read more "Molchaniye doktora Ivensa [Dr. Iven’s Silence] (1974)"I’ll admit it. I have a weakness for one particular type of film — or you might even describe it as a subgenre — one which doesn’t get a lot of attention from many critics. I’m referring to a handful of adventure films with fantastic elements from the Sixties and Seventies which feel like they were ripped […]
Read more "War-Gods of the Deep [City in the Sea] (1965)"(aka, Dune: Part One) I read Dune when I was in High School. A lot of us did at that time, and for the same reason I did — one of my friends told me that I had to read it. The third book had come out only a few years earlier, and it was […]
Read more "Dune (2021)"It can be a bit of a surprise to revisit a film you haven’t seen in a long time. This is particularly true if you’ve learned — or watched — more since the last time you saw it. Queen of Blood is perhaps the best of the films Roger Corman spliced together from other movies […]
Read more "Queen of Blood (1966)"This is a strange one, folks. It is also not what you think it is. After all, most of the canned descriptions start with events which are not disclosed until most of the way into the film. Which, I suppose, is what you have to do to find a simple narrative which explains what this […]
Read more "The Rift: Dark Side of the Moon (2016)"
rivets on the poster 