Film Review: Alien (dir. by Ridley Scott)

Posted on April 26, 2018 by Leonard Wilson

AlienPoster Today is 4.26, also known as “Alien Day”, and named after the planet in James Cameron’s Aliens (LV-426 / Acheron). It’s a celebration of the entire Alien Franchise, but I’m only focused on the first film as I finally saw it in the theatre in 2017.

This isn’t so much a review as it’s just my history with Ridley Scott’s Alien. You can find actual reviews all over the internet, and I know very few people who didn’t enjoy the movie. This piece assumes you’ve seen the film and are familiar with it. There are also spoilers within, though with a nearly 40 year old film, I’m not sure if it can be classified as such.

When I was little, my older brother and I shared a room in my grandmother’s house. Below our bunk beds was a open space that contained a set of boxes and each box contained a collection of our toys – board games, knick knacks, things like that. If you needed something, you went under the bed to fetch it. Only thing is, I always reached into those boxes with my eyes closed.

I have a vague memory of when my older brother received 3 toys that affected the way I looked at things. The first was a board game for the movie Alien. On it, you had a map of the Nostromo, about 3 Astronaut pieces and one for the Alien. I can’t recall the exact nature of how it was played, but I do remember it having to do with finding a way to reach the Narcissus – the escape ship – before the Alien reached your character. Each player also had their own Alien they could use to hunt the other characters before they could escape.

The Alien Board Game. Fox marketed toys for Alien (an R rated film), possibly fearing the mistake they made with Star Wars.

The second was a movie viewer. I had to do some hunting around the net to find it, and thanks to The Toy Box, I was able to locate one. These viewers (made by Fisher Price and by Kenner) were really popular, especially after the Star Wars boom. You loaded it with a tape and it would play out a scene. For the Alien tape my brother had, it would play out the egg opening face hugger jump sequence. I rewound that too many times, and perhaps it’s the reason I’m afraid of spiders. I don’t really know for sure. The tape used below goes through most of the film’s plot, so if you haven’t watched the film by now, consider yourself spoiled.

The last toy was the reason I never went into the toy boxes. My brother owned an 18 Inch tall Alien figure, complete with a glow in the dark headpiece and a functional second set of teeth. It was one of the scariest things I’d seen as a kid.

All of this was thanks in part to Star Wars. With the mistake Fox made in giving the merchandising rights for Star Wars to Lucas and Lucasfilm, Ltd., they missed out a major chunk of revenue. So when Alien was set to launch 2 years later, they greenlit an entire toy line for the film, even though the movie was rated “R” and the toys demographic couldn’t really see the movie without parental supervision. For the time, that was a pretty amazing thing.

Back in the early 1980s, my father invited my older brother and I to his place to see Alien. I was about six or seven years old at the time, with my brother a few years older. My parents worked nights, so we pretty much lived with my grandmother. He was always into movies and he acquired a RCA Videodisc Player, along with that film and First Blood. Although I was sick, I still went and watched it. I vomited twice during the playthrough, but it was so worth it.

I’d come to find out years later from my Mom that my Dad really didn’t need to invite us. He was just too scared of the movie to watch it alone. According to family legend, Alien was a date movie for my parents, and halfway into the film, my Dad (along with most guys, I’ve heard), was using my Mom as a shield. Mind you, this was a guy who kept multiple firearms in the house and knew how to use them.

Alien was the brainchild of Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett. Having worked on Dark Star for John Carpenter, O’Bannon wanted to create another space film, but with a more serious tone. They came up with the story, inspired by 1958’s B-movie classic It! The Terror From Outer Space and decided to roll with it. The feel for their story would be more like a set of space truckers hauling ore and picking up a stowaway space possum in their cargo.

And that’s Alien in a nutshell. A crew of seven astronauts heading towards Earth in their mining vessel are awakened from hyper sleep when their spaceship – The Nostromo – picks up a distress signal from a nearby planetoid. They are given orders to investigate the signal, but when one of them is incapacitated by an alien life form, it brings trouble to the rest of the crew once they all return to the ship. Can they survive?

The casting for Alien is damn near flawless. There isn’t a single person that feels out of place. The characterization for everyone is straightforward, from the wisecracking pair of Harry Dean Stanton and Yaphet Kotto to the very systematic Ian Holm as the Nostromo’s Science Division expert, it doesn’t take long for one to get to know them or at least wonder if they’ll make it through the story unscathed. Whether it’s Veronica Cartwright’s Lambert, who is nervous and jittery mid way through the film (and with good reason) or Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley who sees the potential threat before it gets out of hand, everyone here plays their part well.

Ridley Scott was a young director brought on board to create the film. Now, normally, this is where the movie would be made and that really would be that. Scott’s visit to an art gallery in Paris would change the make up of the movie, according to the behind the scenes documentary. What set Alien aside from other space/horror fanfare were the influences of two major artists at the time, Jean Giraud and H.R. Giger.

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Concept Art by Jean Giraud, a.k.a. Moebius.

Having seen his work in France, Ridley Scott felt that Giger had to be brought on board. Giger agreed to use some of his designs for the film and actually helped create the entire Space Jockey set. For the late 1970s, Giger’s look – elongated bones with sexual undertones – had to be a shock to audiences. Giraud, known to many fans as Moebius, was one of the greatest illustrators to have lived. Giraud was previously brought on to work on Alejandro Jodorowsky’s adaptation of Dune, but after that fell through, he ended up working with Scott for a bit, mainly coming up with the designs for the suits in the Nostromo. Together, both their designs would be used to bring something entirely new to audiences at the time. Also on hand was Carlo Rambaldi (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Dune), who helped design the Alien’s mouth and motor features. In the effects department, Dennis Ayling, Nick Allder, and even Batman’s Anton Furst had a hand in setting the atmosphere for the Nostromo and LV-426. The result is a sense of claustrophobia. The Nostromo’s hallways aren’t the immaculate ones you’d find on board the Enterprise or the roomy ones on the Millennium Falcon. They’re tight, dimly lit with an obvious function over form factor to them. It’s a space rig.

With older monster films, the creature usually is just one form. Giger’s Alien had three distinct forms used, which has always made me curious for the initial audience reactions. The first encounter is with a the Facehugger, an arachnid like creature with a tail that restricts the breathing of its potential victim. Add to this the notion that it uses molecular acid for blood. How do you even fight such a thing? Imagine thinking this is the “big bad” you’re going to see throughout the movie. Scott was particular in having the advertising reference as little as it could about the Alien itself (though the toy line kind of ruined that).

Just when you’re comfortable with the possiblity of facehuggers crawling around, the movie switches gears and introduces us to the Chestburster, a phallic snake of a creature (thanks again to Giger). . The scene was fantastic. Although the cast was told what was supposed to happen with Kane (John Hurt), they weren’t completely filled in on how it was supposed to occur. It was a two part process. The first involved trying to hold down Kane, and the second was setup with John Hurt in the table to have the “push through”. So, when Kane lets out that one big scream, everyone’s reactions are real. You can see that both Parker (Yaphet Kotto) and Dallas (Tom Skerritt) are completely stunned. Veronica Cartwright (and her character Lambert) caught the worst of all this and also had the best reaction. When the Chestburster appears, the effects blood pumps caught Cartwright full on and it was all kept on film. I’m told that the scene in its initial run had people curling in their seats, standing to move to the back of the theatre (for some distance) or walking out altogether. What I wouldn’t give for a Time Travelling DeLorean and an Opening Night movie ticket to that.

So now, there’s a snake running loose on the ship. The film spares very little time before our newborn becomes an adult. Mostly sleek and skeletal, the adult Alien is the stuff of nightmares, but thanks to Scott, and Cinematographer Derek Vanlint, we don’t see much of the Alien until the last act of the movie. Like the Batman, we only see it pounce, and that’s a testament both to the lighting used and the editing of shots. Scott’s close-ups on the Alien’s mouth and forehead doesn’t give anyone enough time to fully make out what it is entirely. Credit also goes to Bolaji Badejo, who portrayed the Alien. At 6’10”, Badejo was perfect for the creature sense of stature and movement, particularly with Harry Dean Stanton’s Brett having to stare up at him in shock.

BigAlienHead

The production wasn’t without an issue here or there. Giraud’s suits – which had a samurai feel to them – had problems with the ventilation, so some of the actors nearly experienced exhaustion while working in them. This was later remedied, of course.

Alien remains one of Jerry Goldsmith’s best scores, though it’s also a simple one. The music isn’t so much horrific as it just classical. The music in Alien isn’t really used to imply any kind of horror (save for perhaps one sequence), but perhaps that’s a good thing. The music lets the movie do the talking instead of throwing zingers. There’s very little I can say about the score outside of that.

Alien would go on to spawn seven extra films, though personally, only James Cameron’s Aliens (1986) and Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (2012) are the two worth seeing. Alien 3 (1992) is beautiful, thanks to David Fincher and Cinematographer Alex Thomson, but also kind of damaged the timeline.

So, turn out the lights, settle in with the food of your choice and enjoy Alien Day.

The Space Jockey. Much of Giger’s designs looked like bone.

* – A thank you goes out to Kevin Carr of Fat Guys At the Movies. He once featured It! The Terror From Outer Space years ago during the weekend Live Tweets he used to host. It was a treat to watch.

‘Annihilation’ Review (dir. Alex Garland)

Posted on February 28, 2018 by leonth3duke

It has been quite some time since I last wrote a review. But sometimes a film hits the right notes and sits with you and the only way to shake it is by getting your thoughts out in writing. ’Annihilation’ was one of the first films in awhile to have that effect on me. I should preface this by saying that I’ve been waiting 3 years for its release ever since I read Jeff VanderMeer’s brilliant ‘Southern Reach’ trilogy. That it was going to be directed by Alex Garland only heightened that excitement. It is fitting that the last film I reviewed on this site was ‘Ex Machina’ – another Garland film that I loved and ended up being my favorite of that year. It might only be February but I can honestly say I could see ‘Annihilation’ taking that spot this year.

Alex Garland has stated that he read the first book of the ‘Southern Reach’ trilogy – from which the film gets its title – only once and then wrote the screenplay as if remembering a dream. To him it was a “dream like” book – one that would be hard to adapt outright. So he wrote the screenplay as if recalling a dream – attempting to capture the tone but also offering up his own interpretation of the story. I think that you could say that this is also how I approached this review. I’ve only seen the film once and in writing this it really was like trying to remember a dream. The film is so layered and so visceral of an experience that to discuss it without multiple viewings doesn’t quite do it justice, because like a dream you only remember what stood out, the parts that affected you the most and things might get overlooked. Those things might not be the same for everyone so my interpretation of it may not mirror what others have thought – it might also just seem like pseudo intellectual babel! But I’ll do my best.

It would be damn near impossible to describe the plot of the film in any great detail without spoiling it but I will do my best to set it up. The film stars Natalie Portman as Lena – an ex army soldier turned biology professor. When we first meet her she is still grieving her missing husband Kane (Oscar Isaac) who was also in the military. He was sent on a mission a year prior and there has been no word of his status since. That is until one evening when he turns up to their house, his memory hazy, his explanation of his disappearance unclear. Before long he begins to have seizures and Lena rushes him to the hospital only to be intercepted by the Southern Reach – a secret government agency – and taken to a secure location.

There they explain to Lena that years prior something seemingly extraterrestrial crashed into the coastline. In subsequent days and weeks after the crash a shimmering pearl and translucent bubble began to grow and expand covering miles of swampland. It doesn’t seem to ever stop expanding and its presence is being monitored and kept secret. Their fear is that if it continues to grow at its current pace, it’ll eventually end up engulfing populated areas. They have sent in multiple exploratory teams over the years, consisting of trained military forces – to discover what lies within but none have returned. The prevailing theory/rumor? Something either killed them or they went crazy and killed each other. Lena learns that her husband – now on life support and quickly fading – was a part of one of those missions and is the first member to ever return. Determined to find out what happened – and possibly save him – Lena volunteers to join four other women on the next expedition into what the organization calls the “Shimmer”.

From there what Garland creates is a cerebral – at times haunting – sci-fi masterpiece. To me ‘Annihilation’ works brilliantly as two things. First as a genre film in the vein of ‘The Thing’ and ‘Alien’. It is at times bone chillingly eerie with a persistent sense of unease and paranoia from start to finish – and it contains one scene with a bear that is one of the more frightening scenes I’ve seen in awhile. This side of it raises a lot of questions about genetics, bioengineering and the effects of outside forces on an ecosystem. You could take it as a climate change allegory where human interference has altered the environment and now it has turned on them.

Second – and more importantly – it is a metaphysical examination of depression, self destruction – and in my eyes – renewal that has ties to Tarkovsky and Kubrick. It is a film about characters dealing with issues that hang over them like a dark cloud. Addiction, the loss of a child, self harm, cancer. Each and every one of them goes on this mission not just because they want to know what lies within the Shimmer – but also because the unknown is better than what they currently know. In an almost subconscious way – and for some very conscious – the threat of death doesn’t scare them and it perhaps would be a release. Once inside they are faced with an ever increasing state of anxiety. They can’t trust their eyes or their thoughts. Eventually even their bodies turn on them. Are they even any longer in control? Will they ever escape or be able to go back to being who or what they were before entering? Or will they be consumed by the Shimmer – the dark cloud that hangs over them?

For Lena specifically, the deeper she goes the more the Shimmer takes effect, the weight of guilt and grief consuming her, until she nears a breaking point. By the film’s end she must effectively confront herself head one – and for many people with depression that “self” is their worst enemy as it is here. She can’t get away from it, at one point it is literally suffocating and crushing the more she fights. It isn’t until she stops fighting that she is able to overcome. But still the question lingers – even once we get through the darkest moments in our life – when we shed that grief, guilt, loss or sadness – are we still the same? Has the effects of those things, of the Shimmer, changed us forever for better or for worse? That I think it open to interpretation. For me I found the ending hopeful. There was a sense of renewal, or rebirth, in the same way as ‘2001’ and the Starchild or the Titan-esque Ryan Stone crawling out of the “primordial soup” in the end of ‘Gravity’.

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Production wise I’d say the film is a marvel. The CGI is used to great effect creating a dreamy, gorgeous and colorful landscape. Garland has mentioned that although the film is set in Florida they shot the film in the UK and made the sets look like swampland. It is a minor production detail that I found interesting and in a way one that helps in making the Shimmer feel more unnatural. The score is equal parts hypnotic and kinetic. The finale in particular had my skin crawling as the images on screen danced along with the pounding score.

The two biggest complaints I have heard about the film are the pacing and the narrative structure. Neither bothered me. The pace was at times slow – but it felt deliberate as if building towards something great – which very much paid off. There are quiet moments but all serving a purpose to either further the progression of the story and Lena’s arc – or to build a sense of unease. As far as the structure of the film – which consists of flashbacks and jumps between the past and present – it didn’t hinder the film in any way. And to be quite honest, given the feeling of the unknown, I enjoyed the slow revelation of Lena’s past along with the questions about Lena’s state of mind in the present that the structure produced. One must remember she is an unreliable narrator at that point – something that I think could be rewarded with multiple viewings

I do highly recommend that everyone see this on the big screen- especially because love it or hate it, we need to support these sorts of films. The studio already gave up on ‘Annihilation’ before it was even released. It won’t hit theaters overseas and hasn’t even opened in a lot of theaters in the US which is a shame.

Ultimately for me ‘Annihilation ‘ was a film that was as earthly – almost cosmic – as it was intimate. It is a horror story about how we change the world around us and how it changes us – as well as a fascinating examination of depression, anxiety and overcoming self destruction. It is a divisive film for sure. It won’t click with everyone and many will outright hate it. Even those that love it might not walk away with the same impression as I did. But that to me is the sign of a truly great film – one that is subversive, layered and truly unafraid to take risks.

Horror on the Lens: Without Warning (dir by Greydon Clark)

Posted on October 14, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s horror on the Shattered Lens, we have 1980’s Without Warning.

In this horror/sci-fi hybrid, humans are hunted by an alien hunter who uses a variety of weapons and … what was that? No, we’re not watching Predator. We’re watching Without Warning. For the record, Without Warning and Predator may have almost exactly the same plot but Without Warning came out long before Predator.

(Interestingly enough, Kevin Peter Hall played the intergalactic hunter in both films.)

Anyway, Without Warning is probably the best film that Greydon Clark ever directed. Some would say that’s not saying much but seriously, Without Warning is a surprisingly effective film. It also has a large cast of guest stars, the majority of whom are killed off within minutes of their first appearance. That alien takes no prisoners! (I especially feel sorry for the cub scouts.)

Of course, the main characters are four teenagers. One of them is played by David Caruso, which I have to admit amuses me to no end.

Enjoy!

10 Sci-Fi Films That Should Have Been Nominated For Best Picture

Posted on February 26, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Over the past few years, it’s gotten a little bit more common to see science fiction films nominated for best picture. While a sci-fi film has yet to win best picture, it is no longer as much of a shock to see a science fiction film nominated. At least not as much as it is to see a horror film nominated.

That said, it’s still an uphill fight. Here are 10 science fiction films that I feel could and should have been nominated for best picture:

Metropolis (1927)

Fritz Lang’s expressionistic silent epic remains one of the most influential films of all time. Metropolis was eligible to be nominated during the first year of the Oscars, a year in which not one but two awards for best picture were handed out. That Metropolis was nominated for neither Best Production nor Unique and Artistic Picture was a huge missed opportunity.

2. The War of the Worlds (1953)

This film may be over 60 years old but it’s still one of the best alien invasion films ever made. And yes, I prefer the original to the Spielberg version.

3. The Time Machine (1960)

Morlocks, Eloi, and war … oh my!

4. Planet of the Apes (1968)

“A planet where apes evolved from man?” No, not quite. “YOU BLEW IT UP! GODDAMN YOU TO HELL!” Yes, that’s better. Today, Planet of the Apes may seem more than a little bit campy but it’s still an unusually intelligent social satire. Charlton Heston’s persona has never been better used.

5. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Can you believe that this classic from Stanley Kubrick was not nominated? Kubrick got a directing nomination but, when it came to picking the best films of the year, the Academy nominated Oliver! and Rachel, Rachel.

6. Blade Runner (1982)

Blade Runner is today recognized as a classic but it originally received mixed reviews and was ignored by the Academy. At the very least, Rutger Hauer deserved a nomination.

7. Never Let Me Go (2010)

This underrated clone drama was sadly overlooked. Andrew Garfield’s performance is heartbreaking.

8. Under the Skin (2014)

This enigmatic film was probably too bizarre and unsettling for the Academy but Jonathan Glazer’s direction and Scarlett Johansson’s performance make Under the Skin a classic.

9. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Whenever I rewatch Guardians of the Galaxy, I’m happy to discover that it still holds up as a wonderful piece of entertainment. It remains my favorite film of 2014.

10. Ex Machina (2015)

Quite simply an amazing film, this is a Metropolis for the 21st Century.

Halloween Havoc!: DONOVAN’S BRAIN (United Artists 1953)

Posted on October 28, 2016 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

No, this is not a movie about the mind of the 60’s Scottish folk singer responsible for “Sunshine Superman” and “Mellow Yellow”. DONOVAN’S BRAIN is a sci-fi/horror hybrid based on the 1942 novel by Curt Siodmak, responsible for THE WOLF MAN and other Universal monster hits. It was first made as a 1944 Republic Pictures effort titled THE LADY AND THE MONSTER with Erich Von Stroheim (why Universal didn’t buy the rights is a mystery to me). This is one of those rare cases where the remake is better than the original!

The story concerns Dr. Pat Cory, a scientist experimenting with keeping the brain of a monkey alive without a body. After several failures, Cory and his assistant, alcoholic Dr. Frank Schratt, have finally succeeded. A nearby plane crash leaves three dead, and multi-millionaire Warren H. Donovan in critical condition. Donovan dies on the table, but his brain is still registering…

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Sci-Fi Film Review: The 10th Victim (dir by Elio Petri)

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Before The Hunger Games…

Before The Purge…

There was The 10th Victim!

This Italian film from 1965 takes place in a future that is a lot like our present. After years of war and senseless violence, the world is finally at “peace.” Wars are avoided by allowing people to take part in the Big Hunt. When you join the Hunt, you’re agreeing to take part in 10 rounds of competition. For five rounds, you’re the hunter. For the other five rounds, you’re the hunted. Survive all 10 rounds and your reward will be money and retirement. So far, only 15 contestants have managed to survive.

If you’re being hunted, you get a letter informing you that you are now being hunted. The only way to win is to kill the person who has been assigned to hunt you. Unfortunately, you’re not told who is hunting you and, if you accidentally kill someone who is not hunting you, you’ll be sent to prison for 30 years. And, of course, the whole time you’re trying to avoid getting killed, others are being hunted around you. World peace means that there are constant gun battles in the streets, all of which are calmly observed by a rather apathetic populace. It’s a violent world but it’s legal violence so it doesn’t really concern anyone beyond the people that are getting killed.

(At one point, an announcement is heard while a hunter guns down his target: “Live dangerously but obey the law…live dangerously but obey the law…”)

Coverage of the Big Hunt is the world’s most popular television show and, as a result, legalized murder has become big business. Companies regularly sponsor hunters and turn their kills into elaborate commercials for their products.

When we first meet Caroline Meredith (Ursula Andress), she is using a literal bullet bra to shoot a man dead. Caroline is sponsored by Ming Tea and, when she is assigned to hunt Marcello Pollitti (Marcello Mastroianni), the company flies her out to Italy. In order to make Marcello’s death as cinematic and commercial as possible, Ming Tea and Caroline decide to lure him to Rome’s Temple of Venus. The Ming Tea dancers are flown in, a choreographer starts working on their routine, and Caroline tracks down Marcello.

Marcello has just found out that he’s being hunted and he’s more than a little depressed. He’s also paranoid and when Caroline first approaches him, Marcello suspects that she’s his hunter and not, as she claims, a journalist. However, because of the legal penalty for killing a non-hunter, Marcello cannot kill Caroline until he’s sure that she wants to kill him. Meanwhile, Caroline cannot kill Marcello until they’re at the Temple of Venus, in front of the cameras and the dancers.

And, of course, there’s also the fact that, as they get to know each other, Caroline and Marcello start to fall in love. When Caroline observes Marcello conducting a bizarre religious ceremony (he’s the head of a cult of sun worshippers), she is so touched that she starts to cry. Or does she? Are her tears just a ploy to keep Marcello from suspecting that she wants to kill him? We’re never quite sure.

If you didn’t already know that The 10th Victim was made in 1965, you would guess it after just a few minutes. This is one of those hyperstylized works of pop art that, for many people, define 60s cinema. How you react to the film will depend on how much tolerance you have for its nonstop style. Speaking as someone who happens to love over-the-top pop art, I enjoyed it but I could imagine other viewers ripping out their hair at the sound of the film’s peppy theme song.

But, if you’re patient, you will eventually discover that, underneath the film’s excesses, it’s actually a rather clever satire of media, politics, culture, religion, and just about everything else that deserves to be satirized. Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress are both a lot of fun and, in the end, the whole thing works as both a surprisingly accurate prophecy of today’s world and as a time capsule of the 1960s.

Plus, I loved the bullet bra. I need to get one of those.

It’s a dangerous world, after all.

Giant Lizards and Fur Bikinis: ONE MILLION YEARS BC (1966)

Posted on July 7, 2015 by gary loggins

JURRASIC WORLD and its CGI dinosaurs have stomped their way to box office domination this year, raking in over five hundred million dollars (and counting). The youth market just eats up those computer generated special effects. But for my money, you just can’t beat the prehistoric hijinks of Hammer Films’ 1966 ONE MILLION YEARS BC. Two reasons: Ray Harryhausen and Raquel Welch.

Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013) learned the art of stop motion animation from the master, KING KONG’s own Willis O’Brien. After assisting O’Brien on 1949’s MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, he struck out on his own, using his Dynamation process on such sci-fi/fantasy flicks as BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS, IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA, and 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD. Later films included VALLEY OF GWANGI, GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD, and his last, 1981’s CLASH OF THE TITANS.

The second reason is Raquel. Full disclosure: I had a huge crush on Raquel Welch during my adolescence. I had the iconic poster of her in her fur bikini from this movie on my bedroom wall through most of the Seventies. I also had pictures of her from TV GUIDE taped in my locker at school, which got me in hot water with my 6th grade teacher. What a prude! Oh well, it may have been my first time in trouble at school, but it certainly wasn’t the last.

But I digress. Let’s take a trip back to the dawn of time in ONE MILION YEARS BC. There’s a prehistoric tribesman named Tumak (John Richardson) who’s ousted from his people due to a sibling rivalry with brother Sakana. He wanders aimlessly into an unknown world, encountering giant lizards and spiders along the way. Tumak reaches the seashore, where he meets up with a tribe of blonde beauties led by Raquel and her fur bikini. A giant turtle attacks the girls on the beach and Raquel blows her seashell, summoning the blonde males of the tribe. They, along with Tumak, chase the turtle away with their rocks and sticks. The tribe decides to accept Tumak as one of their own.

Which is good for Raquel, because the fur-bikini clad damsel has developed a thing for Tumak. This, however, makes her blonde boyfriend Ahos very jealous. After saving a little girl from a hungry Allosaurus, , Tumak and Ahos duke it out over possession of the victory spear. Tumak gets banished yet again, but this time he’s accompanied by Raquel and her fur bikini.

Across the wasteland we go again, as the couple run into a band of unevolved ape-men, and a battle between a Triceratops and a T-Rex. Tumak and Raquel (and the bikini) are ambushed by Tumak’s old tribe, and Tumak vanquishes Sakana. But a Pterodactyl attacks and carries Raquel off, fur bikini and all! The lovers are separated as the flying terror tries to feed poor Raquel to it’s babies. Eventually, they’re reunited, just in time for a fight between the rival tribes. The battle’s just getting underway when a volcano erupts, spitting lava and causing massive earthquakes. The villages now all destroyed, the two tribes band together and march toward an uncertain destiny.

ONE MILLION YEARS BC may be pretty goofy, but it does has some bright spots. Harryhausen’s special effects are always a joy to behold, and I’ll still take them over CGI any day of the week. John Richardson makes a sturdy leading man, even with dialogue that mostly consists of grunts and groans. There’s a scene with the lovely Martine Beswick (DR JEKYLL & SISTER HYDE) doing a sort of Jurrasic watsui that’s a highlight. Oh, and did I mention Raquel and her fur bikini…..

Neon Dream #13: 川井憲次 – Making of Cyborg

Posted on May 28, 2015 by necromoonyeti

I can’t say that any entertainment franchise has given me more cause to think than Ghost in the Shell. It presents a mid-21st century post-apocalyptic earth in which society has more or less stabilized. Events revolve around Public Security Section 9, a counter-terrorism agency focused on investigating cyberterrorism, which is rather interesting because the original manga by Masamune Shirow launched in 1989, before cyberterrorism actually existed (or the modern internet, for that matter). Throughout their investigations, the team deals with the social and philosophical issues that arise in an age where society is fully integrated across a world-wide network and technology has been integrated directly into the body, rendering people intimately vulnerable to hacks and computer viruses.

I am as guilty as most of having never read the original manga. I became acquainted with Shirow’s world through Ghost in the Shell (1995) and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004), both directed by Mamoru Oshii, and the 2002 anime series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, by Kenji Kamiyama. While the two directors take rather different aesthetic approaches–the movies present Section 9 as a harsh, disenchanted unit in a somewhat dystopian world, whereas the television series is lively and a bit cartoonish–both remain dedicated to questioning the impact of highly integrated technology.

Stand Alone Complex lies much closer to the root of my music series, because some of the key issues it tackles have since arisen online in the real world. Everyone is well familiar with the use of V for Vendetta-styled Guy Fawkes masks in protests originating from the internet, but there is a decent chance you have also caught a glimpse of an odd blue smiley face among the rabble. The Laughing Man image originates from Stand Alone Complex, where it functions as a mask employed anonymously by individuals taking public action independently of each other. At first, an advocate for social justice uses it to disguise himself while committing a ‘terrorist’ act, but the image quickly overreaches his motives. Others commit unrelated political sabotage under the guise. Corporations employ it to discredit their competitors. Pranksters use it as a sort of meme, forming the shape with chairs on a rooftop and cutting it into a field as a crop circle, for instance. The image has no concrete meaning, and everyone who uses it essentially ‘stands alone’, but the public perceive the Laughing Man as a single individual.

The actual anime gives a fairly shallow interpretation of this. The creator of the image, Aoi, explains that he never intended the mask to become a social phenomenon, and that its arbitrary usage dislodged the image from its original meaning. He sums this up by asking “Who knew that copies could still be produced despite the absence of an originator?” The ‘profoundness’ of this ties back to a long history of bad philosophy which assumes that signs have universal objective meaning in some sort of fundamental way which mystically transcends subjectivity of the mind. Basically, certain Greek ideas saw a resurgence of popularity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, probably as a consequence of high society’s fascination with antiquities at the time. The plethora of ready-at-hand counterexamples to these archaic notions provided easy meat for countless grad students to earn their PhDs, so long as they did not throw the baby out with the bath water and ruin the game for everybody else.

But I digress. While the intended idea behind “Stand Alone Complex” is a bit naive, the Laughing Man does represent a unique sort of game that can only be played in the information age. To the public, the Laughing Man was a single individual, or at most a closely coordinated group, but the participants knew better. They knew that there was no real ‘Laughing Man’, but their independent actions were performed under the expectation that they would be written into ‘his’ public profile. The game was exclusive; you had to be aware of the mask in order to dawn it. The game also had rules; an action totally out of line with the Laughing Man’s pattern of behavior would be perceived as a fraud. (You could not, for instance, reveal the truth behind the Laughing Man.) By playing, you added a little piece of yourself to the puzzle, and it might slowly assimilate you in turn.

Ghost in the Shell has remained a uniquely relevant franchise in science fiction because it got so many ideas right. In 1989, at a time when internet was still a novelty of college libraries, the manga offered a world of total connectivity, where every human and device belonged to a global network. In 2002, Stand Alone Complex introduced the Laughing Man, and shortly afterwards the real world knew an equivalent. Whether this bodes well for the franchise’s dabblings into cyborg technology, only time can tell, but history has certainly made an inherently fascinating fictional world all the more compelling. In the Ghost in the Shell universe, science has fully bridged the gap between computers and neural systems, allowing electronic implants to directly convert wireless digital information into stimuli compatible with the senses. The average citizen possesses visual augmentations which allow them to directly browse the internet via voice command. More complex technology delves deeper, creating a sort of sixth sense whereby users can engage a network through thought command. Some individuals, especially accident victims with the means to afford it, might have their entire bodies replaced by neurally triggered machine components.

The 1995 Ghost in the Shell film gets especially creative in tackling this–enough that it became the chief inspiration for The Matrix four years later. It revolves around brain-mapping technology and its implications regarding sentience and identity. From the start of the film, the ability to copy and read brain data appears to be common. Presumably, these digital copies would remain stagnant until encoded back into a neural network, but as the government develops better software for interpreting and editing the massive content at its disposal, funny things start to happen. The software gains a sort of temporary sentience while performing its complex tasks, and eventually it uploads itself to a cyborg body in an act of self-preservation. This new entity possesses the capacity to read other augmented brains and incorporate them into its internal network. At least, that is how I’ve interpreted it. The movie does leave a lot to the imagination. Perhaps it is recycled from earlier science fiction, and far-fetched besides–I wouldn’t really know–but Ghost in the Shell presents it all as if it were right around the corner, not lost in a distant galaxy of Star Trek.

Ghost in the Shell is so steeped in ideas that it’s a wonder I don’t forget it is a collection of animations, not a book series. Stand Alone Complex is presented as rather typical–and relatively forgettable–anime, but the 1995 movie definitely denies dismissal. It is a real work of art. The city is dirty and a bit washed-out without feeling downright destitute; the masses still lead normal lives. Emptiness expands upward; the characters are perpetually surrounded by massive, sort of dusty-looking structures that feel vacant despite signs of life. The music is simultaneously vast and minimalistic. Generally, the artistic direction projects a feeling that the protagonists are isolated–cut off from the massive world surrounding them–perhaps by the knowledge they possess.

The score Kenji Kawai (川井憲次) crafted for Ghost in the Shell ranks among the best soundtracks I’ve ever encountered. Without it, the film might easily unravel. The plot really does take a lot of creative liberties. What amount of entertainment value could convince people to open up their brains to potential hacking? Or, if they are doing it to maintain memory backups, why is a brain hack so devastating? Can’t you just resume from your last save? Why would a hacker go to the trouble of replacing an entire memory system in the first place, if they could just encode an impulse into an existing one? To these questions, I say “shhhh!”, because Kawai has so utterly convinced me that my cyborg brain will be shipping in from Japan any day now. The music shrouds the film in imminent mystery. It is a moment of quiet awe, before the very foundations of human experience become uprooted and replaced by a higher state of computer-enhanced perception.

‘Interesting’ nerd note on Kawai: while the majority of his discography appears in anime and film, he is credited with arranging the TurboGrafx-16 port of Sorcerian, one of Yuzo Koshiro and Takahito Abe’s better 1980s NEC PC-8801 projects. I am pretty excited to dig that one up. Aren’t you? …Bueller?

‘Ex Machina’ Review (dir. Alex Garland)

Posted on April 27, 2015 by leonth3duke

‘Ex Machina’ – the directorial debut of writer Alex Garland (‘Sunshine’, ’Dredd’) – had been on my radar for awhile. Like with ‘Interstellar’ and my interest in astronomy and astrophysics – I have a similar level of interest in A.I. and the Singularity that drew me to this project. Good A.I. films are hard to come by. Last year we did have ‘The Machine’ which was very good – but even then that was offset by ‘Transcendence’…that sound you just heard? Me gagging. So when I learned about ‘Ex Machina’, it wasn’t Oscar Isaac’s beautiful mug that caught my attention – or it being Alex Garland’s directorial debut – but rather the plot, the subjects and themes I knew it might explore. So I went in with high hopes but loads of caution and I am happy to report that the film succeeds on multiple levels. It is a dark, sleek, sensual, thought provoking and visually mesmerizing sci-fi thriller. It is the sort that requires your full attention – but rewards it with one of the smarter and more intense movie going experiences so far this year.

The film stars Dohmnall Gleeson (‘Frank’) as Caleb, a good-natured young programmer who wins a contest to spend a week at the luxurious mountain estate of his brutish and brash boss Nathan, played by Oscar Isaac (‘A Most Violent Year’). After an awkward exchange of pleasantries, Caleb is told that he was brought out to the middle of this mountain getaway – which is actually a makeshift research facility – to be the human element in a Turing test. Nathan has built an A.I. named Ava (played by Alicia Vikander of ‘A Royal Affair’), and wants Caleb to devise tests and to interact with her to see whether or not she possesses a truly conscience artificial intelligence. The prospect of being part of such a groundbreaking program excites Caleb – who is blown away by Ava. However, as power cuts hit the facility – and Nathan’s eradicate behavior and potential secret motive becomes more evident – Caleb begins to question the true intentions of his being there.

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Now, I must stop you dear readers right here if you haven’t seen the film to say that I can’t go into much further detail explaining the events of the film, and the themes it explores, because it would spoil the experience. The film contains a ton of organically created twists and turns, and so giving away too much of the plot removes the initial suspense and shock that comes with the proceedings that follow Caleb’s first interactions with Ava. So I will start by going over some of the technical stuff and end with a more spoiler filled analysis for those that wish to read it. But if you want to go in totally cold, stop reading now and just get your butt into the theater…

But if you want a reason why you should – without it being spoiled – I’ll start be saying the acting here is top notch and Gleeson and Isaac do a wonderful job…but it was the absolutely mesmerized performance by Alicia Vikander as Ava, who I had never seen before, that blew me away. Vikander has such a wonderfully expressive face and brilliantly evoked a sense of innocence and curiosity – but also an intelligence and intuition – you would expect such a machine to have. It was made all the more impressive given that it was a very physical performance and so much is expressed simply with slight turns of the head or side glances. Vikander, who has a background in ballet, even gave Ava a walk and posture that was robotic but also fluid. The character is all the more extraordinary given the design, which was gorgeous and unique. Much of the body is a gray mesh with a visible inner skeleton of brightly lit tubes and machinery – making her figure seem at times incredibly human in the right lighting – but also very clearly mechanical when viewed up close. All of this giving weight to the way in which both the viewer and Caleb view Ava.

Speaking of gorgeous, the visuals – and not just the seamless CGI – are stunning. Tons of great juxtapositions of bright color against dark grays and blacks – neon reds and blues are sort of my thing – and they are used throughout. The cinematography was also really great and gives the sense that there is a meaning to almost every frame. The production design and set locations also lent a hand in giving the film a futuristic and almost dreamlike quality.

The script – trying not to be too hyperbolic – is quite genius. This is a very smart film with literary and mythological quotes and references – along with fascinating discussions of the human mind, human interaction, emotions, sexuality, etc. As I mentioned early on this is a film that can really only be fully appreciated with a little work on the end of the viewer to stick with the themes being explored, pay attention to the science involved – and doing a little bit of thinking of their own – to interpret how they all play into what is going on.

Last but not least, I would be remiss to not mention the hypnotic score by Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury, which was a perfect mood setter and had some truly awesome music cues. It just all adds up to a damn near perfect package – and a sci-fi thriller that feels unique and unlike anything before it.

I’ll end this part of the review by saying that it is hard to know this early on where this will ultimately fall amongst the other releases this year but I’d be very surprised if ‘Ex Machina’ doesn’t end up in contention for my favorite film of the year. Nothing so far released measures up – besides maybe ‘It Follows’ – and given my bias towards the subjects at hand this is one that will stick with me for a while. Hell, I’ve already seen it twice and wouldn’t hesitate to see it again – and my obsession has led me to read a lot into it (see below once you’ve seen the film). All I can say is just see it at least once. It isn’t for everyone and can be at times downright bizarre – but never boring. If only more science fiction films were this good.

***** Spoilers Follow *****

So I will assume you’ve already seen the film if you are reading this. So…good right?! No? Get out! But seriously, how about that ending? And what did it all ultimately means? Well the events of the film, especially the ending, are open to much interpretation. Even Gleeson and Garland hold different views. What did I think? Personally, I believe that what happened in that facility – as it did on Discovery One in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ – was perhaps a depiction of the final step in human evolution. In this case, the final battle between nature and nurture – the free thinking and the analytical. It wasn’t man vs. machine like Kubrick’s film, but rather the irrational fears, insecurities and inherent weaknesses of human emotion that led to the downfall of man – as the two sides battled and outdid each other – and gave rise to a more intelligent, restrained and arguably more deserving life form in Ava – who is ultimately the result of both Nathan’s brute nature and Caleb’s empathy driven nurturing. I think this idea of the ‘changing of the guard’ so to speak is expressed brilliantly in the way in which the film opens with a single human entering the facility and ends with an A.I. leaving. Garland admitted he almost named the A.I. Eve but felt that was too blunt. But it is fitting – she is the first of her kind – at least in regards to her level of intelligence and conscience. Her leaving the facility can be seen as her back in the garden…and one can only imagine what happened once she left.

Someone might still ask why she leaves Caleb, and for that I couldn’t help but think of ‘Stoker’. The moment when Ava put on the skin – which was a very coming of age sort of act – reminded me of when India received the high heels from her uncle. Like with that scene in Park’s film, I saw the aforementioned scene with Ava as her entry into “womanhood” – and with that was possibly a realization and new outlook that came with her sudden maturity – as it did with India. A realization of no longer needing Caleb who – though a nice guy – was still restricted by his human urges and faults. He still saw Ava as an object, lusting for her with his hand on the glass as she changed. He wasn’t a threat, and didn’t deserve to die like Nathan – but she wasn’t going to take him with her. After all, like Samantha in ‘Her’, she was much too complex and – lets be honest – far too superior to fall in love with a human. I personally don’t think Caleb dies. I’ll take a more optimistic approach and say he finds a way out.

One reasons I take this stance, and defend Ava, is that I have never bought into the idea of A.I. being a threat to mankind – even with leading scientist and inventors like Hawking and Musk warning about their potential threat. I think we should be much more concerned with ourselves. A lot of the fear over A.I. is simply humans reflecting our own faults onto this potential new form of life. We see our own vulnerability, anger, greed, etc. and assume that an A.I. would end up with those same aspects – but only with a greater intelligence and capability to destroy. But although I think a truly conscience A.I. would experience emotion – they’d also be able to apply a logic to them that humans can’t. We are often overcome and blinded by how we feel – and I think an A.I. could better process what often destroys us. Ava might not be perfect, but I found a logic and justification in what she has done.

But that is just my view. Many have come up with other theories – such as it being a battle of the sexes, or a classic femme fatale and noir scenario – and it is definitely a bit of both. But, no matter how you view it, the simple fact that is leads to such discussion and analysis – while still feeling so complete and utterly enjoyable – just elevates it in my mind.

Trailer: Dredd 3D (Official)

Posted on June 21, 2012 by Arleigh

In 1995 Sylvester Stallone put up on the big-screen a film adaptation of a sci-fi property that has a fan following as rabid as any sci-fi franchise there is. I am talking about the character of Judge Dredd which calls the British comic book anthology series 2000 A.D. it’s home for the past 35 years and counting. The Stallone production was just awful from start to finish.

It’s now 2012 and we have what one can only call a reboot of the Judge Dredd film from 1995 but with screenwriter Alex Garland (28 Days Later, The Beach) writer the script and Pete Travis behind the director’s chair. Instead of Stallone reprising the role of the iconic Judge Dredd the job goes to genre vet Karl Urban (Lord of the Rings trilogy, Bourne Supremacy, Star Trek). We even get Lena Headey as the film’s main antagonist in drug crimelord of Mega-City One called simply by the moniker of Ma-Ma.

The first trailer shows some interesting design choices that veers away from the neogothic dystopian look of the comics and the overly comic book feel of the Stallone production. The look of Mega-City One and the film in general seems to be more akin to District 9. Another good thing the trailer shows and hopefully the film will follow through on is Urban never once taking off the Judge helmet his character wears in the film. Never once has Judge Dredd removed his helmet in the comics and if there was ever one heresy fans of the property would cry foul over it’s the character being seen helmet-less.

Here’s to hoping that this grittier take on the Judge Dredd property goes a long way in erasing the abomination that was the Stallone production.

Dredd 3D is set for a September 21, 2012 release in the UK and soon after everywhere else.