Search results

And yet, that dialogue starts off with "What do you want to do?" "I don't know. What do you want to do?" It was deliberately simplistic dialogue, suggesting (to me, anyway) that humanity, despite the technological achievement in getting to the Moon and finding the Monolith there, are becoming...

And yet, that critic's review is useful for someone who hasn't really been following the MCU, but has friends trying to get them to see this movie. If the critic's background perspective (for lack of a better term) matches the reader's, it's a review that says a lot. That's been one of the...

I rarely thought about it. I was born in 1953. During my youth, I liked watching SF/fantasy/horror/monster movies. I watched them on TV whenever I had the chance, and never considered how old they were. Certainly, in those days, it typically took quite a while before a new movie made its way to...

I've had a number of similar...let's call then "debates"...regarding 2001: A Space Odyssey. I've come across any number of people who found it boring and not understanding why anyone makes a big deal about it. And I understand that there are people who just aren't going to be taken with it, and...

I've gotten to the point where I rarely recommend anything. If someone asks for my opinion, whether it be for a film, a TV show, a book, whatever, I tend to say "I liked it" or "I didn't like it", and maybe explain what it is about it that made me feel that way. I don't ever say "You have to see...

I hear you. Over at The Other Site, there was a news item presenting Criterion's announcements for August. And, as happens every freaking month that Criterion announces their latest titles, there are people who respond with "I've never heard of any of these movies". Which isn't a problem, per...

No question for me: Metropolis.

1920s: Metropolis 1930s: Bride of Frankenstein 1940s: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 1950s: The Day the Earth Stood Still 1960s: 2001: A Space Odyssey 1970s: A Clockwork Orange 1980s: Blade Runner 1990s: Terminator 2: Judgment Day 2000s: V for Vendetta 2010s: Interstellar

The above is the only one on the list that I've seen. And while it's no great shakes, I don't think it's one of the worst movies ever made. Hell, just in terms of Sean Connery films, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was far, far worse. And Sword of the Valiant, which was even worse than TLOEG.

No, you're not the only one.

Really, guys? Not Halloween? I thought Carpenter's Halloween II was a generic slasher film, but the original still creeps the bejeezus out of me despite the number of times I've seen it. While it almost single-handedly started the wave of slasher films back in the day, it itself is almost the...

They forgot The Road Warrior (which opened in Australia in Dec 1981, but worldwide in 1982). And, with a little slide over to the paranormal, Poltergeist.

I can't say my Top Ten -- if I was inclined to make one -- would match Schrader's, but every single one of his choices in that list are unquestionably great movies.

If you mean Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), I never saw it. I suppose I should, since it has Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi, and Michelle Yeoh in it. But I recall when it came out. My wife and I liked the TV show Medium, with Patricia Arquette. And one episode included an astonishingly shameless and...

I think the only time I'd call what I saw at the Brattle "weird shit" was when I saw Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East? there. Great movie, though, so I'm not sure I'd call it "weird shit" nowadays.

I don't think "appointment viewing" should be a factor. One still has to make an effort to see something. If I hear about a film that sounds interesting to me, I still have to hunt for it, whether to find where I can stream it, get it on demand through cable, or find on disc. Back in the day...

Back in the day, A Clockwork Orange was a nominee for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, and it won¹. At the time, I was a member of a Science Fiction club, and the club had a membership to the convention so that we, as a club, could vote for the Hugos. Anyway, when it came to...

Speaking of ACO... I remember a discussion (elsewhere) back in the early 90s regarding ACO, and not suprisingly, one of the points of contention was regarding whether it should be considered science fiction. Someone on the "not" side argued that it depicted the world "outside our window". I...

You make good points, here. But almost from the time it was released, I'd seen comments from people complaining about it being completely baffling, and how "nobody" could possibly understand the ending. I understood it when I was 15, even if it took two viewings and a few weeks of thinking about...

The original Mad Max was definitely a cult film. In the US, it pretty much played only in drive-ins. And the reason Warner gave for calling the second one "The Road Warrior" instead of its original Aussie title "Mad Max 2" was because they figured that nobody would know there even was a "Mad Max...

I'm with Pike regarding the definition of "cult film". The ultimate cult film is probably The Rocky Horror Picture Show, though at this point it's so well known in the cultural zeitgeist that it's hard to think of it as one anymore. I think maybe my two favorite cult films are The Wizard of...

I think you're kind of missing the point. Pretty much from the start, they had the idea of setting up these disparate characters in their own films with the idea of bringing them together. So Cap would have to be brought up to the present day in order for him to be a part of that. And they were...

There are also people who take on franchise roles simply because they want to. Or because they want to be in something that their grandchildren will enjoy. Folks like Anthony Hopkins and Robert Redford could get any role in any picture they wanted. Hell, Redford could decide to direct any movie...

I get what you mean, but using Scorsese as your prime example of this seems...odd. Scorsese is, and has always been, at the forefront of the promotion of World Cinema. It doesn't strike me as reasonable to suggest that Scorsese would deliberately make pictures primarily for an English-speaking...

I get what Pike is trying to say. I've seen a lot of low-budget films created by "nobodies" that are better than a lot of big-budget films made by and with popular filmmakers. For example, Gareth Edwards' virtually-nil-budget Monsters is a hell of a lot more creative than his bloated mega-budget...

But Westerns also have a..."feel" or "tone" that can transcend the setting of time and place. People tend to think that a Western must take place in the American West (usually defined as West of the Mississippi) and in the 1800s. But the aforementioned The Proposition takes place in Australia...

I would say "great movie actor". I've never thought of him as a "movie star". Will Smith is another actor that I think qualified as a "movie star" earlier in his career, but I don't think he has as much cachet in that respect nowadays.

Yes, I've seen that argument elsewhere. People who say, well, Star Wars has spaceships and robots and ray-guns, but it also has princesses and wizards and swordfights, which are fantasy tropes not SF tropes, so it's fantasy and not science fiction. My response to that is that yes, Star Wars has...

OK, I'll give you Minority Report (and Blade Runner, too). But as you say, "one of the defining examples of SF" opens up SF for being many other things, and not just that. That's why SF has been so hard to define, because there are too many disparate ideas that are encompassed by the term. As...

Or to quote SF writer, editor, and critic Damon Knight: "Science Fiction is whatever I point to and say, 'That's Science Fiction'." That it's a very subjective concept is kind of my point. There isn't a single genre out there in the world that doesn't invite arguments about what does or doesn't...