Half dated and half legendary, Forbidden Planet is one of the greatest science fiction films ever made. Hailing from 1956, Forbidden Planet tells the story of the crew of an Earth spaceship, landed on the planet Altair 4 to investigate the fate of a scientific expedition that disappeared there twenty years before. Led by Captain Adams (Leslie Neilsen), they find two survivors, Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon) and his nubile daughter Altaira (Anne Francis). Captain Adams learns from Morbius that the other members of the scientific expedition were wiped out not long after landing by an unknown, all-powerful force. Altair 4 holds other secrets, as well. Namely, the remains of a once-great civilization called the Krell, whose cities have turned to dust with the passage of time, but whose technology survives deep beneath the planet’s surface. Captain Adams and his crew must unravel the mystery of the unknown force and its correlation with the Krell...if they expect to survive. Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: Forbidden Planet”
Tag: Adventure Flick
Shitty Movie Sundays: Raise the Titanic
Schlock on such a grandiose scale as Raise the Titanic only comes about on rare occasions. As such, it should be treasured, albeit briefly, until the novelty wears off. Raise the Titanic not only tells the story of an attempt to salvage the famous shipwreck, it is also a Cold War tale of epic proportions, the outcome of which would determine the balance of power in the world. In the cargo hold of the sunken ship lies the only known supply of a rare mineral, byzanium, capable of powering a laser shield that can disable all nuclear missiles heading for the United States. I am not making any of this up. This was the plot of an actual movie. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Raise the Titanic”
Shitty Movie Sundays: Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone
Along with the title of ‘Official Filmmaker of Shitty Movie Sundays,’ as mentioned in the review of Soldier, there are a few films vying for the title of King of the Shitty Movies. 1983’s Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, directed by Lamont Johnson, is a strong contender. Riding the post Star Wars wave of 80s sci-fi, Spacehunter really is a sci-fi adventure, as the film’s hero, Peter Strauss’s Wolff, is forced to confront bizarre obstacle after bizarre obstacle in his quest to complete his mission: rescuing three marooned space hotties from the clutches of the evil Overdog (Michael Ironside), a ruthless dictator exercising sadistic control over the desert planet Terra XI somewhere off in the far reaches of space. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone”
The Empty Balcony: Excalibur & Monty Python and the Holy Grail
VHS tapes, once upon a time, dominated the space below millions of televisions in American homes. They were in your house, a friend’s house, a family member’s house, stacked tall and deep in all sorts of cabinets upon which the TV was perched — cheap particle board constructions bought at the local big box with fake wood grain or flat black veneer, peeling up at the edges always. That awful furniture can still be found. The shapes have just changed a bit as tapes have disappeared and been replaced by DVD boxes. Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: Excalibur & Monty Python and the Holy Grail”
The Empty Balcony: Big Trouble in Little China
As I was watching John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China recently, I was struck by the familiarity of the material. I felt I had seen it before, but in some other context. Confined, mazelike, and windowless environments; various tricks and traps the heroes must overcome; goons, monsters, and the bosses that control them, etc. And there it is. Big Trouble in Little China plays like a videogame. Considering it was released in 1986, before videogames became complex enough to compare, does that mean John Carpenter was breaking new ground, that Big Trouble in Little China is ahead of its time? No. It just reaffirms that the pacing and storytelling of today’s videogames are derivative of cinema. There are plenty of other films from around the same time that are akin to videogames (Aliens, Commando, and Total Recall all come immediately to mind, among many others). Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: Big Trouble in Little China”
The Empty Balcony: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Patrick O’Brian published twenty complete Aubrey-Maturin novels in his lifetime, with an unfinished twenty-first published posthumously. The novels are writ large with swashbuckling tales of life in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. Thick with naval terminology and period slang, O’Brian is quite effective at transporting reader far away from what comfortable chambers they find themselves and placing them smack on the quarterdeck of a ship of war. O’Brian’s novels are far from high-minded and haughty literary endeavor. They succeed as great historical novels through the skill of O’Brian’s narratives, not the cleverness of his prose. Like a true saltwater-in-the-veins sailor, they lose direction slightly when characters find themselves on land for extended periods, but pages fly when O’Brian throws his characters into pitched battles with superior foes (as he always does — O’Brian treats his sailors savagely, always requiring them to beat tremendous odds). Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”
The Empty Balcony: Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia is the grandest of them all. Grand scope, grand personalities, and a grand, at times overpowering, score. The film is at or near the top of more ‘best movies ever’ lists than is worth recounting here. It is a classic, a film at the apogee of the industry’s aspirations for crafting epics. It was also a gaping hole in my experience of film. Until this weekend, I had never seen more than the first few minutes and some random clips here and there. Mostly, I had just never set aside the time. For the last few years, however, I never sought out the film because of what I know of the Middle East, and the film industry’s liberal interpretations of history. Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: Lawrence of Arabia”