Archetype is a seven minute sci-fi short by Aaron Sims, which despite being a no-budget project, features amazingly high quality special effects.
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posted by quin
on Jan 24, 2012 -
17 comments
To paraphrase a character in the film, The Black Hole walks "a tightrope;" if not between "genius" and "insanity," then certainly between "genius" and "banality". If you're looking at this movie as a Manichean exercise between darkness and light, then you can -- for at least a few hours -- entertain the "genius" part of that equation.
posted by Trurl
on Sep 25, 2011 -
106 comments
British manned space flights; an insidious threat from outer space; a man mutating into an evil alien, his human consciousness being eaten away; and a scientist - utterly anti-Establishment, courageous and cerebral - the only man who can fight it. No, not Doctor Who, but his highly distinguished predecessor, Prof Bernard Quatermass. A decade before Doctor Who first aired, the
The Quartermass Experiment was the first science-fiction TV serial produced for adults, and a
live-to-viewers BBC production, to boot. The show ran for six episodes in 1953, of which
only the first two episodes are known survive. The short sci-fi series spun off
three original sequels and
a radio drama-documentary, along with movie re-makes of the
first three series by
Hammer Films. BBC brought back live TV with a
2005 adaptation of the original 1953 series. You can watch the various series on online (in parts on Daily Motion), thanks to
fans of The British Rocket Group.
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posted by filthy light thief
on Jul 23, 2011 -
21 comments
Finnish YouTube user
Ishexan has uploaded seven English subtitled movies in parts:
Broken Blossoms (
1919),
Aelita (
1924),
The Gipsy Charmer (
1929),
The Tragedy of Elina (
1938),
The Activists (
1939),
The Wooden Pauper's Bride (
1944), and
Sampo (
1959), which is based on the epic poem
The Kalevala. The films are mostly Finnish, though
Aelita is a silent Russian sci-fi film, and
Sampo was a joint Finnish and Soviet production. More film clips inside (mostly Finnish documentaries and "dorky musical numbers").
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posted by filthy light thief
on Apr 30, 2011 -
12 comments
"Let's do those drive-in totals. We have: Nineteen dead bodies
(plus fragments). Ten breasts
(shame on you, TNT censors). Two zombie breasts. One-hundred twenty-five zombies. Mummy dogs. One-half zombie dog. Ten gallons blood. Brain-eating. Gratuitous embalming. Zombie fu. Nekkid punk-rocker fondue. Gratuitous midget zombie. Torso S&M. One motor vehicle chase
(totalled by zombies). Pool cue fu. No aardvarking. Heads roll. Brains roll. Arms roll. Hands roll.
Joe Bob says, Check It Out." Only on
MonsterVision.
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posted by zarq
on Feb 3, 2011 -
31 comments
Statsis: A short film by Christian Swegal In the future, an Ex-Soldier is placed in virtual exercises to cure his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In the simulations, he sees glimpses of a mysterious girl, presumably someone from his past. When a Stranger appears in his facility offering answers, the Soldier finds himself once again asked to kill, this time for her...
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posted by clockworkjoe
on Sep 15, 2010 -
16 comments
He invented or popularized a startling array of the fundamental elements of film: the dissolve, the fade-in and fade-out, slow motion, fast motion, stop motion, double exposures and multiple exposures, miniatures, the in-camera matte, time-lapse photography, color film (albeit hand-painted), artificial film lighting, production sketches and storyboards, and the whole idea of narrative film.
By 1897, in a studio of his own design and construction – the first complete movie studio – his hand forged virtually everything on his screen. Norman McLaren writes, "He was not only his own producer, ideas man, script writer, but he was his own set-builder, scene painter, choreographer, deviser of mechanical contrivances, special effects man, costume designer, model maker, actor, multiple actor, editor and distributor." Also, his own cinematographer, and the inventor of cameras to suit his special conceptions. Not even auteur directors such as Charles Chaplin, Orson Welles, John Cassavetes, and Stanley Kubrick would personally author so many aspects of their films."
Inside: 57 films by Georges Méliès, the
Grandfather of Visual Effects.
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posted by Paragon
on Feb 3, 2010 -
31 comments
What's 51 years old and made of silicone with red food dye?
The Blob, best known for it's work in
The Blob, an independent film released in 1958, with Steve McQueen's second movie role (following
Never Love a Stranger, which was released earlier that same year). The movie has been considered
the definitive '50s film about a town that won't listen to the kids until it's too late (as noted in a review for the
Criterion laserdisc release), with a
super-catchy theme song (
extended single version and b-side
Saturday Night in Tiajuana) that was
Burt Bacharach's third US hit song. (See more:
theatrical trailer,
full film on Veoh,
full film as YouTube playlist) Times change, and so do monsters, and things got a bit wacky in the 1970s, with
Beware! The Blob (aka
Son of Blob;
wiki,
trailer,
full film). The sequel played more to the slapstick comedy than the sci-fi/horror spectrum of things. Thirty years after the original,
The Blob was remade in 1988 (
wiki,
trailer,
full film), and is supposedly
being re-created by Rob Zombie, though his statement about reviving The Blob without "the big red blobby thing" has people asking,
then why remake The Blob? (
previous blobby goodness)
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posted by filthy light thief
on Nov 3, 2009 -
53 comments
La Planète sauvage - based on the novel
Oms en Série by Stefan Wul, and known to the English speaking world as
Fantastic Planet, is a wonderfully psychadelic animated Sci-Fi film from 1973. An international production between France and Czechoslovakia, the movie has a cult following, mostly from viewers who saw it on USA's
Night Flight in the 1980's. Although it has languished in obscurity for some time, Hollywood has decided it's time for a
live action remake. For those who haven't seen it, or for people who haven't seen it in twenty years, some kind soul
has uploaded the entire film to Youtube. You'll never look at your pets the same way again.
posted by smoothvirus
on Dec 11, 2006 -
36 comments
"All democracies turn into dictatorships -- but not by coup. The people give their democracy to a dictator, whether it's Julius Caesar or Napoleon or Adolf Hitler. Ultimately, the general population goes along with the idea... It isn't that the Empire conquered the Republic, it's that the Empire
is the Republic."
George Lucas talks about the politics of his new Star Wars films.
posted by tranquileye
on Apr 23, 2002 -
19 comments
Tron returns with a vengeance. With a theatrical sequel, a 20th anniversary DVD and a first-person PC shooter, you have to wonder why Disney is rollling out the red carpet all of a sudden.
posted by ed
on Jul 27, 2001 -
34 comments
Curiouser and curiouser... They are talking of making a movie based on the new game, of which some of us enjoyed the recently released
demo. Since I thought the mood of the game was better than its playability (granted, I have yet to find a game whose playability satifies me), this could be pretty cool.
posted by rushmc
on Dec 7, 2000 -
0 comments
Dark Angel is a rip-off of Heinlein's Friday, which I completely agree with. Cameron has been successfully sued by Harlon Ellison before for blatantly ripping off his ideas. Then again the sci-fi word is a static world of either super-humans/machines/aliens/time-trave/alternate dimensions.
posted by skallas
on Oct 19, 2000 -
13 comments
