Sunday, January 31, 2021
Videodrome (1983)
Everybody likes movies that predict the future, and sci-fi directors have a knack for it. The details may be a little fuzzy, but David Cronenberg’s broad strokes paint a bold picture of anarchic content creation and distribution, which some critics say is the Internet. That’s a stretch. I would say that Videodrome predicted some parts of Internet culture, but to its original audience it was just another romp through Cronenbergian delusion.
No, Videodrome is not the Internet. It’s the future, and the future is the past. Nostalgia lets us live in the moment because we can pin that moment down to a fixed point in time and space. This moment, this vision of the future, is as classic as they come.
Monday, January 11, 2021
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
The message of Fahrenheit 451 is that the end of books is the end of philosophy. If this movie is any indication, cinema plays an equal role in dumbing everyone down. Just as characters in the film are manipulated by news broadcasts, reality programs, and sports, the audience is lulled into a sense of mundane, everyday occurrence.
The director was not able to create a feeling of urgency, making totalitarian censorship look like your local trash service. In this way, the film encourages literacy, urging people to read the book rather than watch the mediocre movie adaptation.
Saturday, December 12, 2020
Mortal Engines (2018)
It’s based on a book, but there’s nothing literary about the end product. It’s a political metaphor, but the metaphor falls apart whenever something has to blow up. There are some great visuals, but after two hours you won’t care. Without a proper story, none of it matters.
Saturday, November 14, 2020
Jason X (2001)
It’s Friday the 13th in space. Rarely does such a collision of genres exceed expectations. When your expectations are anchored in a character with Jason’s long and varied history, anything is possible.
Sunday, September 27, 2020
Tenet (2020)
It is impossible to watch Tenet without comparing it to Christopher Nolan’s previous works, especially Inception (2010). Tenet’s uniqueness comes from its reliance on science rather than fantasy, physics rather than dreams.
At minimum, sci-fi needs either believable science or compelling characters. Tenet delivers the bare minimum science to sell its time travel premise, with characters that exist only to advance the plot. Fortunately, the plot has the density and intensity to carry the film, with or without the stars. It also lacks the grating presumption of superheroes, making the film watchable by an adult audience.