A follow-up to Tim Carmody’s Film History 101 (via Netflix Watch Instantly). This one “features films that take a scientific possibility or question as their central premise”. I’ve got 11 of 15 crossed off the list.
Sci-Fi Film History 101 (via Netflix Watch Instantly) – Snarkmarket
Inception. This is a good movie. Worth seeing? Sure. Superlative? No. Interesting ideas and there’s enough ambiguity to puzzle over ‘til the End of Days. Five Ways of Looking at Inception is probably just the tip of the iceberg.
The trouble was that I didn’t care much. My first reaction was “Inception: all muscle and nerves, no heart. Interesting but probably at least 48 minutes too long.” It kinda reminded me of the situation where a writer has an awesome essay and then later writes a book on the same topic. This movie was a book where an essay (i.e. short film) might have been a tighter, more engaging experience.
Other assorted observations:
Moon. I really liked this one in the end. Good score, too, aside from a couple piano interludes. I was expecting a psycho-mind-bender kind of thing where we watch Sam Rockwell lose it for an hour. That does happen, for a bit. At first I was skeptical about the twist and the HAL-esque computer friend and the token evil corporation. But then, it turns into a surprisingly effective little deliberation on identity and memory and ethics and such. Recommended!
Solaris, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. I like this one much more in hindsight than when I was actually watching it. But I have to say it’s given much more post-viewing food-for-thought than its cousin, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Now that it’s over, I kind of want to watch it again. It’s much more introspective than the Kubrick, and it’s beautifully shot with some truly “wow” moments. I give it a thumbs-up for when you’ve got some patience to let it linger.
Roger Ebert on Solaris. Phillip Lopate on Solaris (“Watching this 169-minute work is like catching a fever, with night sweats and eventual cooling brow”).
How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later, by Philip K. Dick:
The strange thing is, in some way, some real way, much of what appears under the title “science fiction” is true. It may not be literally true, I suppose. We have not really been invaded by creatures from another star system, as depicted in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The producers of that film never intended for us to believe it. Or did they?
And, more important, if they did intend to state this, is it actually true? That is the issue: not, Does the author or producer believe it, butÄîIs it true? Because, quite by accident, in the pursuit of a good yarn, a science fiction author or producer or scriptwriter might stumble onto the truth… and only later on realize it.
There Will Be Vader made my morning today.
A few days ago I watched La Jetée (on Google Video). It’s almost entirely composed of still photographs, just a half-hour science fiction montage with narration. Not bad.
I enjoyed this one-hour documentary on Blade Runner. Two early comments that stuck with me were Philip K. Dick‘s notion that people “aren’t interested in novels of ideas,” and in contrast, that “sci-fi is essentially the field of ideas.” I’ll need to ponder that one. And wow, I still love the soundtrack by Vangelis.
Mark Larson 