Our ongoing series reviewing the greatest Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror movies. Note that these reviews may contain spoilers.

Directed By: René Laloux
Produced By: Simon Damiani, Andre Valio-Cavaglione
Written By: Stefan Wul (Novel) René Laloux, Roland Topor (Screenplay)
Starring: Jennifer Drake, Eric Baugin, Jean Topart, Jean Valmont
AKA: La planète sauvage
Original Release: 1973

Reviewed By: John J. Joex

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Synopsis: On another planet, a race of large, blue humanoids known as Draags keep the tiny humans known as Oms as pets. The Draag child Tiva takes home an Om baby after the infant’s mother is killed by the rough play of several other Draag children. Tiva raises the baby, who she names Terr, and becomes very attached to him. Terr begins to discover the knowledge of the Draags through the learning headset that Tiva wears during her lessons (she usually holds Terr in her lap as she listens to the teaching tool). Tiva’s father is not happy with her attachment to her pet, though, and he does not want Terr around during her lessons. Fearing separation from the knowledge he has been acquiring, Terr runs away with the headset and eventually becomes part of a group of “wild” Oms living in an abandoned Draag park. There, other Oms begin to acquire the knowledge from the learning tool which results in their ability to read a sign that has been posted on the park indicating that it will be “de-Omed”. This is carried out, killing many in the park, but many others flee and kill one of the Draags in the process. This leads to the Draags stepping up their efforts to eliminate all of the wild Oms across the planet. The Oms in turn use their new-found knowledge to construct spaceships at an abandoned Om rocket depot that will take them away from the planet. They successfully escape and make their way to a nearby planet where the Draags conduct mating rituals with beings from another galaxy. The Oms threaten to disrupt this process forcing the Draags to offer a compromise that will allow the two races to live together in peace.

Review/Commentary: Audiences today may not realize it, but there was a time when animated films were quite rare on the big screen, and if you take Disney out of the equation they were almost non-existent. French Director René Laloux’s Fantastic Planet offered a rare entry during this time that provided a beautifully animated film along with a decent Science Fiction tale. Based on the novel Oms en série (Oms by the Dozen) by Stefan Wul, it proceeded with a fairly simple, straightforward plot that had a basic message of understanding and coexistence woven throughout its fantastic and surreal imagery. Much of this visualization came from writer/artist Roland Topor who populated the world of the film with fantastical creatures and settings that demonstrated wild leaps of imagination. And while the animation from director Laloux can be stiff and plodding at times, the movie still delivers a beautiful and at times poetic piece of filmcraft. Some might find it a bit inaccessible as it is definitely slow-moving, talky, and at times distant. And its underlying theme of learning to live together seems somewhat naïve and trite and maybe a bit too retro-Cold War era for modern audiences. But still, the film provides an interesting perspective as the audience identifies with the Oms and experiences the dread they feel as they deal with harsh conditions and face potential extinction. Plus, there is an affecting, poetic quality to the movie that draws in the viewer and stays with them long after the film has ended. The visual imagery can take much of the credit for this, but there’s still more beneath the surface that resonates with the audience. Fans of animation will definitely want to check this one out as an early, non-Disney, non kid-friendly entry in the genre with an interesting social/sci fi story at its core. And even though this French-language film has not had a lot of exposure Stateside, and has mostly faded from memory these days, it deserves some recognition as a notable and significant international genre offering.

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Directed By: Steven Spielberg
Produced By: David Brown, Richard D. Zanuck
Written By: Peter Benchley (novel/screenplay), Carl Gottlieb (screenplay)
Starring: Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw, Lorraine Gary
Original Release: 1975

Reviewed By: John J. Joex

Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars (Highest Rating)

Synopsis: Sheriff Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) moved to the small, coastal town of Amity Island from the big city, despite his aversion to water, because he believed that here he could make a difference. But he did not realize just how quickly he would be called upon to do just that. This quiet little beach town usually does not see much action beyond rowdy vacationers, but the Summer season gets off to a bad start when a woman goes missing from the beach and her mangled remains are later found washed ashore. The medical examiner says she died as the result of a shark attack, but the mayor dismisses this and brushes the incident off as a boating accident. Sheriff Brody wants to close the beaches until they know for sure that the waters are safe, but the mayor does not want to ruin business for the peak season. Another attack follows on a crowded beach as a young boy becomes the shark’s next victim. Brody calls in marine biologist (and shark expert) Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) who, after studying the remains and investigating a boat attacked by a shark, claims the culprit to be a great white, and a large one at that. However, a large tiger shark is caught in the local waters and receives the blame for the attacks even though Hooper insists it could not be responsible. The beaches re-open, and yet another fatal attack occurs. Brody then hires up professional shark hunter Quint (Robert Shaw) and accompanies him along with Hooper to track down this vicious predator. Not long into their voyage, though, they come to a grim conclusion: “We’re going to need a bigger boat!”

Review/Commentary: Universal pictures realized they had something special with the Steven Spielberg directed Jaws early in 1975, but I don’t believe they quite realized that this film would change the course of the movie industry. Prior to Jaws coming out, most films were released by region and some did not even make it to all parts of the country. But Jaws scored very well with test audiences and studio executives decided to give the film wide release across the entire country, and thus the Summer Blockbuster was born. Jaws performed even better than Universal’s early high expectations and ushered in a time of people standing in long lines to see the big new movie of the Summer, something that would be repeated again two years later with Star Wars (and then the megaplexes started to pop up to handle the demand).

Jaws had such an impact and drew in large audiences because it took the old concept of the monster movie and brought it much closer to home. In this movie, no aliens or mutant critters were lurking around to terrorize the local townfolk. Instead, the film delivered a very real threat that stalked the coastal waters and just happened to be very big and very hungry. And the title creature decided to do its feeding in the very place that many in the audience could readily identify with, especially in the Summer months. Setting the movie on Everybeach U.S.A. and populating it with the characters we’re used to seeing there allowed Jaws to infiltrate the audience’s psyche as they could translate what in other movies was a remote, unreal threat into a very tangible danger they could possibly face when venturing into the waters of their local beach. And of course the fact that the technology of the time allowed Spielberg to create a very believable giant shark (as opposed to the rubber monsters that populated earlier films) added yet one more dimension to the film’s ability to drive the fear home with its audience.

Jaws, however, succeed not simply because it gave us gut-wrenching spectacle in a very believable manner, but because its young director (this being his second feature film) had a good grasp on his filmcraft and produced a movie that went beyond its horror/monster movie roots to deliver the full package. Spielberg got the most out of his actors and the script successfully fleshed out the characters that populated his film, even the minor ones. There is a real authenticity in the characters and their dialogue as the movie often has an unstaged feel to it, especially in the scenes that involve large numbers of extras (the beach scenes, the shark posse, the town meeting, etc.). And then when the movie gets away from the town of Amity Island, Jaws does not take the obvious action movie course but instead turns into a character study and a buddy film of sorts as it delves into the psyche of the three men crazy enough to chase this shark. But it doesn’t take that too far either, giving us just enough glimpses into the into the pasts of each of these men to understand a little bit better what makes them tick. Of course, having actors of the caliber of Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw to play the three lead roles helped immensely. Scheider definitely delivered a career performance in Jaws, but Dreyfuss and Shaw held their own next to him (with Shaw definitely stealing several scenes).

Jaws helped spearhead the Blockbuster Era and would be followed by The Omen in 1976 and Star Wars in 1977 which would solidify the trend. But Jaws, like the other two mentioned, did not live and die on its spectacle alone. Spielberg was still an innovator at that time and he took many chances with this film, most of which paid off. Like George Luca when doing the first Star Wars, Spielberg was driven by an inspiration to tell a big story on a grand scale, something that a genre film could finally do by this point without cutting corners. And he succeed on all accounts there and would continue to demonstrate his grasp of what the early blockbuster could be with Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Unfortunately he would start to looe touch with this by the 80’s (as would the movie industry in general) and by the 90’s and beyond the inspiration had gone (at least as far as his genre films are concerned) as he turned his attention to grand yet vapid productions like the Jurassic Park movies, Minority Report, and War of the Worlds. Spielberg had fallen victim to the pitfalls of the very blockbuster genre he had helped create as his movies wallowed in spectacle but lacked the depth and intimacy that made movies like Jaws more than just cinematic rush. And this film still holds up today allowing genre fans of all ages (and film aficionados in general) to appreciate Spielberg’s accomplishments at the dawn of the Blockbuster Era.

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Directed by: Franklin J. Schaffner
Produced by: Arthur P. Jacobs
Screenplay by: Michael Wilson, Rod Serling; Based on novel Monkey Planet by Pierre Boulle
Starring: Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, Linda Harrison
Original Release: 1968

Reviewed by: Sam Christopher

Rating: 5 our of 5 Stars (Highest Rating)

Synopsis: Four astronauts travel at near-light speed on a journey to another world. They crash land on a planet with a breathable atmosphere, with one of the astronauts—the only woman—dying in the crash. They find that the planet has a humanoid population, mute, living in packs at a pre-technological level. And they find that there is also a simian civilization, speaking, living in villages at roughly an 18th Century level of technology. This civilization is built on a hierarchy of race: orangutans are the leaders and “Keepers of the Faith”, gorillas are the war-like military leaders, and chimpanzees are the young progressive scientists and free-thinkers. Taylor, the leader of the astronauts, is taken captive by the ape leaders and must find a way to escape with the help of Zira and her husband, Cornelius, two sympathetic chimpanzee scientists. Along the way, we find a simian society mired in religious dogma, where the “Keepers of the Faith” are also the Ministers of Science, a world where truth and reality are viewed officially through the prism of “The Sacred Scrolls”. It’s a world we recognize as a distorted image of our own. And a world with a secret it doesn’t know it has, a secret that shakes the very foundations of Taylor’s spirit in the film and ended up becoming a cultural touchstone for us in the now 21st Century.

Review/Commentary: Planet of the Apes has always been one of my favorite sf films. My first clear memory is watching it on television at my Grandparents’ house when I was three. I didn’t understand all the concepts at the time (who am I… Wile E. Coyote, Super-Genius?) but the ending still had an impact that I will never forget, although I still didn’t get the enormity of it at the time. Now that ending has become more punch line than punch in the gut and I find that to be sad in some ways, even though I can laugh at it, too. This was a film that had something to say. It was progressive at a time when that meant more than simply shackling the Harrison Bergerons of the world. It was subversive at a time when that meant more than throwing glitter on some guy who says he wants to run for president. It talked about our world and our society without ever mentioning them except in the most tangential ways, tearing at us subtly while showing our primal need to be a part of the herd. It held up progressivism as a shining beacon while showing progressives themselves to be less than ideal. Sure, Heston as Taylor gave us some nihilistic talk about the arrogance of man and the contempt with which he held most of his fellow men, but when it came down to it he was the first to trumpet Man’s achievements over those of the denizens of Ape City, holding Man up as superior to those he considered to be lesser beings. Until his ego suffered the monumental crushing of the final scene, the filmmakers’ final reminder of who and what we really seem to be so much of the time.

This film is just so rich in detail and character, with so much to say about us and the world we have made that it is easy to overlook the source material. Pierre Boulle’s magnificent original novel differs in some ways from the filmed work, just as the first adaptation of that novel, the script by Rod Serling, would differ from the final product. In Boulle’s book, the astronauts from Earth are headed toward a specific planet orbiting Betelgeuse. They arrive to find an ape civilization more in line with 20th Century Earth. There are cars and planes and even a space launch scheduled. Ulysse, the character in the book analogous to Taylor in the film, finds an uneasy acceptance in simian culture that would be mirrored more in the second sequel to Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, with the way that Zira and Cornelius are treated by our society of 1973. And, as Zira and Cornelius did in that film, he would come to be reviled and even feared by The Powers That Be as more and more of their own history and possible future become known to them. At least Ulysse escapes (sort of). Serling’s original screenplay would have some of the technological advancements of the novel, but it was seen as being too expensive and thus the movie went with the more primitive ape society. Serling did give us the amazing twist ending, though, an ending too powerful to be dropped.

Planet of the Apes became a phenomenon after this original film. There were four theatrical sequels released through the early ‘70s, with a dire “reimagining” by filmmaker Tim Burton in 2001. There were two teleseries based on PotA, a live action primetime series and a Saturday morning cartoon. There were comics and comics magazines and all manner of mention in popular culture. There is also a new comics series recently released and an upcoming film, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which is ostensibly a “reimagining” of the fourth film in the original sequence, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. I personally look forward to Rise, although I do not have any hopes for the wonder and thought-provoking majesty of the original film.

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Directed By: Robert Wise
Produced By: Julian Blaustein
Written By: Edmund H. North (Screenplay), Harry Bates (Short Story)
Starring: Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Billy Gray, Hugh Marlowe
Original Release: 1951

Reviewed By: John J. Joex

Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars (Highest Rating)

Synopsis: An object appears on radar moving at incredible speeds and setting all the countries of Earth on alert. It turns out that the bogie is a spacecraft (assuming the expected flying saucer shape that aliens in the 50’s preferred) and it lands in Washington DC near the Washington monument. The military surrounds the ship, and soon after a humanlike creature emerges wearing a spacesuit. He carries a gift that he plans to offer to the President that will allow humans to study the stars, but one of the soldiers mistakes it for a weapon and shoots the visitor. A large robot (Gort) emerges from the ship in response to this action and begins to destroy all the weapons of the military personnel. The wounded alien calls the robot off, though, and then he is rushed to a nearby hospital where it is discovered that he appears very human under his suit and that his name is Klaatu. He explains that is mission is to deliver a message to Earth and that he must speak directly with the leaders of all of the countries. He is told this would be difficult to do because the countries do not trust each other, and he is also told that he must remain in confinement for the present time. He takes little head of this, though, as he easily escapes from his detainment then decides to go among the people of Earth to better understand them. He also makes contact with a well-known scientist and through him tries to bring together all of the greatest minds of the planet for a meeting. But is the message Klaatu will deliver one of peace or destruction?

Review/Commentary: Despite its trappings, The Day the Earth Stood Still is anything but the typical cheesy 50’s alien invasion B-Movie. It plays around with that formulas a bit (in fact, it helped establish it) with the flying saucer shaped spaceship landing in Washington followed by a spaceman emerging, and then there’s the poster-friendly shots of the massive alien robot carrying off the film’s attractive leading lady. But this is no simple exploitation film designed to fill up the drive-in and deliver cheap thrills. In fact, producer Julian Blaustein wanted to make a movie that tapped into the anxiety and paranoia of that era dominated by the Cold War and the proliferation of atomic weapons. And he succeeded masterfully at that, delivering a film that utilizes genre elements to convey a message that transcends its B-Movie roots. The film taps into the prejudices, short-sightedness, and petty squabbles of the human race and shows how it is ourselves, and not a supposed alien threat, that can act as our own worst enemy. And The Day the Earth Stood Still plays its story straight and shoots for broader appeal than the typical Saturday matinee creature film, something rare for a genre film at that time. It’s spaceships and robots appealed to the younger movie goers of that time, but its more involved plot would draw in the mature viewers as well. And even though it throws in the expected cute kid, it successfully maneuvers past cliché by using that character to give Klaatu a more innocent perspective on Earth and its people.

Since its first appearance at the theaters back in 1951, The Day the Earth Stood Still has worked its way into our culture with such things as the image of infamous giant robot Gort (and his Bruce Campbell chin) as well as the phrase “Klaatu barada nikto” (which, speaking of Campbell, he used to great effect in The Army of Darkness). But the movie has also endured because of the accomplishments of its filmcraft. It had excellent production values with special effects that were first rate and nearly flawless for the time. This movie also gives us an intelligent, well-made film as well as a strong Science Fiction tale (based on the short story “Farewell to the Master” by Harry Bates), albeit one of the more slow, thoughtful ones of the medium. In this sense, The Day the Earth Stood Still can be considered a precursor to films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Andromeda Strain, and Contact, and it stands up quite well in that company. It’s slow, but not plodding, a bit distant, but never aloof. And Klaatu’s final speech to Earth resonates and stirs up a nerve in the audience and gives us one of the all-time great monologues in film (though some might find it a bit heavy handed).

The performances help the film excel as well as we did not see the typical wooden acting and cardboard stereotypes quite common in early genre films (and still today for that matter). Michael Rennie stands out as Klaatu, manifesting curiosity and at times compassion towards the people of Earth while never losing sight of his mission to deliver a stern message to the human race. And Patricia Neal managed to steer clear of the expected subordinate female role so common in films of that time and even demonstrates her willingness to stand up to her would-be fiancé when she questions his motives. Billy Gray takes on the cute kid role yet never annoys or overstays his welcome. And several other familiar faces flesh out the cast and deliver strong performances in smaller roles including Hugh Marlowe (Earth vs. the Flying Saucers), Sam Jaffe (Ben Hur and a gazillion movie and television supporting/guest roles) and Frances Bavier (forever identified as Aunt Bee on The Andy Griffith Show).

Plenty of alien invasion films would follow The Day the Earth Stood Still in the decade or more after its release, many giving us examples of B-Movies at their worst (I Marred a Monster from Outer Space, Cat-Women of the Moon) while some managed to stand out as better examples of filmcraft or tap into the underlying Id of the era (The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Invaders from Mars). But The Day the Earth Stood Still represented one of the first and best examples of this formula, giving us a complete movie that transcended (while fully commanding) its exploitive elements and at the same time delivering succinctly that grand message that great films aspire to.

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Category: Science Fiction
Directed By: Andrew Niccol
Produced By: Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg
Written By: Andrew Niccol
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Jude Law, Gore Vidal
Original Release: 1997

Reviewed By: John J. Joex

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 Stars

Synopsis: In the near-future world of Gattaca, liberal eugenics have come to dominate society and DNA becomes the prime determiner of social status. Those people produced through selective breeding (the “valids”) have risen to the top, while those born the old fashioned way (“in-valids”) or those with genetic defects tend to take up the rear. However, one in-valid has a dream to be an astronaut and will stop at nothing to make that happen. Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke) “buys” the genetic identity and impersonates the valid Jerome Eugene Morrow (Jude Law) who has superior (almost perfect) genes but has been confined to a wheelchair because of an accident. Vincent then gets accepted into the space program of the Gattaca corporation (a name derived from the four DNA nitrogenous bases: adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine). He excels in this program, and gets selected to pilot the next spaceship to Saturn. He also strikes up a romantic relationship with one of the valids from the program, Irene Cassini (Uma Thurman). However, shortly before the launch, one of the directors of the program is murdered and DNA of an in-valid is discovered on the scene. The investigation then comes very close to Vincent, threatening to reveal his secret and dash his dreams.

Review/Commentary: Gattaca is a hard Science Fiction movie and it chose to follow the path of other classic genre movies that preceded it like 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Andromeda Strain, and Silent Running even though that would hamper its Box Office appeal. This movie delivers slow, intelligent Science Fiction and stays the course throughout despite temptations to diverge into crime-thriller territory. The movie does share elements with crime films, but that’s all part of its intricate, multi-layered plot. Gattaca could have easily gone the route of Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report and added chase scenes and big-budget, sfx-gasm flourishes, and it may very well have played better to popcorn-munching audiences than it ultimately did (it only grossed about one-third of its budget upon its initial release). But those of us who prefer good story-telling to blockbuster extravaganza can only appreciate Andrew Niccol’s approach to the film, even if it did not make much money for its studio (but it has earned Niccol plenty of cred among genre fans).

Gattaca is primarily a character study, examining the lives of people who live in a society with discrimination deep at its core. But it is not the racial, ethnic, or gender discrimination that we have often scene explored in the movies, on television, and in books. This is a new type of discrimination with scientific roots and it can affect anybody impaired by disadvantageous choices they played no part in. And that makes its message all the more encompassing and closer to those who have not been effected by the discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or gender that only minorities have experienced. IWe see in the characters of Vincent, Jerome, and Irene three people trying to overcome the stigmas society has associated with their genetic makeup. Vincent is an in-valid and tries to hide that fact. Jerome, despite his superior genes, fell short of expectations and ultimately finds himself crippled, both literally and figuratively. Irene seems to have a bright future but has a defect of her own, a heart problem, that has held her back. These “conditions” have shaped each of these individuals and the movie centers on how they have decided to cope in this segregated, dystopic setting.

Niccol could have gone any of a number of ways with this movie and you can see in the last third where many directors would have succumbed to the temptation to turn this into an action-laden crime thriller. Niccol resists that, though, and remains mostly consistent with the tone and pacing he set up during the first two thirds of the film. And ultimately he delivers a thoughtful and at times even poetic movie. This is hard Science Fiction pulled off gracefully, even if it is not quite as accessible to the typical blockbuster-devouring crowd. But this one does rank as an important accomplishment among genre movies and it holds its own next to Science Fiction classics like those mentioned above.

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Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Produced by: Alfred Hitchcock
Written by: Evan Hunter (Screenplay), Daphne du Maurier (Novel)
Starring: Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette, Veronica Cartwright
Original Release: 1963

Reviewed by: John J. Joex

Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars (Highest Rating)

Synopsis: Lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) lives in the small, peaceful town of Bodega Bay, California where some strange occurrences begin to arise involving birds. Several isolated bird attacks against humans occur, then the creatures begin to amass and wreak havoc on the town. After a deadly attack on the children at the town’s school, Mitch and his family decide to hunker down in their house, which they board up and wait out the attacks. But will the birds prove a more tenacious enemy?

Review/Commentary: That synopsis above provides an inadequate summation of the Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, but no description could convey what Hitchcock brought to the screen in this masterful piece of suspense and horror. The film could just as easily be summed up as “Birds Attack!” or you could write a page or more detailing each scene from the film. But this movie does so much more than that while working from the starkest of concepts.

Hitchcock had already proved himself a master director in the genres of Mystery, Suspense, and Horror with his output over the previous four decades in film and television and he had laid the groundwork for the modern horror film three years prior with Psycho. Now he was re-inventing himself once again with a film very different from what audiences had previously seen from him, but with his same level of filmcraft again brought to bear. The Birds is effective because it turns the everyday world on its head while successfully drawing the audience into its premise. Creatures so simple and inauspicious as birds seem like they could pose no threat. But as we see them amass in menacing hordes, we feel that same sense of terror and dread that grasps the characters in the film as their once peaceful existence is shattered. We are given no explanation of why the birds are behaving this way nor do we know how long this epidemic could go on. Some people look at this a fault in the movie, but it is actually its greatest strength. Hitchcock uses this element of the unknown to make this film that much more powerful. In fact, as Mitch and his family drive off at the end through a sea of (now calm) birds, the film has an almost apocalyptic feel to it. The birds may very well have moved up on the pecking order (pardon the pun), and humans don’t know why or where they stand anymore. That final scene from The Birds could be one of the most powerful moments in the cinematic history.

But that was just one of many that Hitchcock delivered in the film. The Birds had so many potent, unsettling moments that you cannot help but feel uneasy and anxious throughout the majority of the film. Just a few more examples: the scene where the birds converge outside the school as the children sing innocently inside, the scene in the diner as people try to make sense of the chaos outside and begin rationalize and/or throw blame, the scene in Mitch’s house as the birds begin their final attack. Hitchcock knows how to use these moments to build up the suspense and to generate anxiety in the audience. This movie could have easily descended into B-Move territory, the more likely place to find a film of this subject matter at that time, in the hands of a lesser director (who would have certainly tried to offer some explanation for the bird attacks). Hitchcock, though, turns it into a cinematic masterpiece.

Of course he had a pretty decent cast helping him out as well. Rod Taylor (The Time Machine) delivers a career performance and his co-star Tippi Hedren nearly outshines him in some scenes, playing anything but the damsel in distress. A young Suzanne Pleshette is on board along with Veronica Cartwright years before she would show up as Lambert in the first Alien film. But the leads did not carry the film by themselves as Hitchcock manages to get the most out of the bit roles from the various characters the leads would interact with throughout the film such as the alleged bird expert in the diner. And along with the strong cast, the director would make excellent use of found sounds instead of the typical movie soundtrack to enhance the dark ambience. The Birds had no musical accompaniment, but the background sounds such as the singing children mentioned above or the flapping and cawing of the birds themselves help establish the atmosphere and sense of impending terror underlying the film.

Few other filmmakers have managed to accomplish what Hitchcock did with this relatively simple concept. He took an idea as straightforward and almost ludicrous as “Birds Attack!” and made it into a masterwork of modern filmcraft. And this is one that still stands up when viewed today because it relied very little on special effects and mostly on layering terror and suspense on top of an excellent story (all brought together with impeccable directing). Talks of a remake arose a few years back, but they seem to have stalled. And that’s a good thing. This is one of those films perfected the first time around, and a remake could do nothing but tarnish the legacy of the original.  And the “sequel” made back in the 90′s should be completely disregarded as it followed every path that Hitchcock eschewed and ultimately delivered a pointless piece of celluloid.

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Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Produced by: Julia Phillips, Michael Phillips
Written by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Melinda Dillon,Teri Garr
Original Release: 1977

Reviewed by: John J. Joex

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Synopsis: Several unexplained events occur around the globe as a squadron of fighters lost since World War II mysteriously reappears, the lost ship SS Cotopaxi shows up in a desert, and two airliners nearly collided with an unidentified flying object. Also, a small boy is awakened in the middle of the night as his toys come alive and he ultimately gets abducted by the aliens causing the commotion. Not far from where the boy is abducted, electrical worker Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) is buzzed by a U.F.O. while investigating a power outage. Following this, Roy becomes obsessed with images he sees in his mind of a large mountain, and he tries to recreate it in some manifest form, much to the dismay of his family. Jillian, the mother of the abducted boy, also succumbs to these mental images which eventually draw her and Roy to Devil’s Tower in Wyoming (which is the mountain they have been invisioning). After evading government forces trying to keep unauthorized personnel away (many others have been drawn to the site as well), they discover a station that has been set up to welcome alien visitors and to attempt to make first contact with them. The officials there use a sequence of musical notes (the infamous five-note CE3K theme) as well as a series of hand gestures to communicate. And Roy finds that he has a destiny he never expected.

Review/Commentary: Close Encounters of the Third Kind was the third of the trio of genre films that sealed the deal and led the charge for the new wave of sfx-heavy blockbusters that would dominate Hollywood from that point forward (the other two were of course Jaws and Star Wars). This film offered yet another Box Office-friendly spectacle that delivered a realization of Science Fiction and Fantasy themes that fans could have only previously dreamed about. Far from the painted paper plate flying saucers of B-Movies or the brief, budget-conscious glimpses of alien hardware in more accomplished early alien encounter films like The Day the Earth Stood Still or This Island Earth, CE3K delivered big-time on its aliens and their spaceships. It gave audiences a phantasmagoria of special effects that wowed them and finally delivered on the visuals that the genre has teased us with for so many years.

But this movie has many flaws, often forgotten by those caught up in its onscreen magic years ago and who still look back on it with fond memories. The movie starts very strong with the early mysterious appearances of craft long thought gone and with the initial alien encounters. But then it derails in its middle section as we see Dreyfuss’s character Roy descend into near hysteria. I understand that Spielberg wanted to convey the powerful draw that the aliens had on him, but this whole sequence and the way his actions impact his family nearly causes the audience to divest from the character. And it doesn’t help that Spielberg parades television commercials across the screen (Roy has the TV on in the background, but the directer puts it in our faces) in a blatant and gratuitous early example of product placement. To make matters worse, when Roy meets up with Jillian, the romantic connection between the two seems just thrown in and superfluous. Sure, you could say they were just caught up in the emotion of the moment, but it just didn’t fit.

The film gets saved by its ending though. This is where Spielberg really shines and commits to celluloid some of his best moments ever as a filmmaker. Even though early on the aliens are given somewhat of a threatening demeanor, in truth they are a peaceful species that just wants to make contact with us (or at least that is what we take away from the ending). This movie gives us a very rare example of peaceful contact with extraterrestrials and it does so with at least some scientific plausibility along with plenty of cinematic grandeur. The idea of bridging the communication gap with a universal constant like musical tones I thought was brilliant and great touch of speculative fiction. True, Spielberg handled this with grand cinematic flourishes, but he does not take this to excess and this time around he also avoids the smarminess that later weighted down his film E.T. In fact, the ending is one of the most poetic moments in cinematic history and a must-see for all fans of good film-craft.  Too often genre films parade an excess of violence, sometimes justified, sometimes not so much.  So it’s nice to have a movie once in a while that resolves its story while still engrossing the audience without having to resort to battles, fight scenes, or excess carnage.

So if you have not seen this movie, or have not seen it in a long time, go in knowing that it has a bit of a schizophrenic nature about it. Don’t let the middle section detract you, though, and feel free to fastforward through much of that part as well as the commercials (just like when watching regular TV). But the ending brings it all together and ultimately delivers a satisfying movie experience.

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Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Produced by: Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas
Written by: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe,Ellen Page
Original Release: 2010

Reviewed by: John J. Joex

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 Stars

Synopsis: The movie centers on Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Dom Cobb who, with the help of his illicit team, can enter people’s minds to steel their deepest secrets. Cobb is “auditioned” by a man named Saito (Ken Watanabe) who has a very special job for him. He wants Cobb not to steal a secret but to employ “inception” to plant an idea in someone’s mind. A rival energy company’s owner is on his death bed and will pass his company on to his son. Saito wants his son to divest the company before it can gain a virtual monopoly on the energy industry and he wants Cobb to place the idea within his mind. In order to do this, they must delve deep into the man’s psyche by placing a dream within a dream within a dream. This is a difficult task made worse by the fact that Cobb himself might pose a threat to the endeavor because of repressed memories of his dead wife that keep interfering with his dream infiltrations.

Review/Commentary: Inception may have been snubbed in the big categories in the 2010 Academy Awards (as we usually see with Science Fiction and Fantasy films), but unlike some of the Oscar winners, this one will definitely show staying power and will continue to work its way onto “Best Of” lists in the years to come. Writer/director/producer Christopher Nolan is no stranger to well-crafted blockbusters that resonate with their audiences as he helped revive the Batman franchise with Batman Begins in 2005 then launched the Caped Crusader into the stratosphere in 2008 with The Dark Knight (and you can see our Must-Watch List review of that one at this link). With Inception, he once again delivers a blockbuster-style film, but this time with some techno-sci fi flavorings and with an intricate, through-the-maze plot which will keep movie goers’ heads spinning and the gears of their minds cranking hours after the last spool has run.

That short synopsis above barely does justice to the tightly scripted, labyrinthine plot that Nolan penned for this movie, but then I could fill up several pages and still not cover all the details. And the fact is that the less you know about the movie going in, the better. The film starts off with a breathless pace as it throws you right in the middle of the action and barely eases up on the accelerator throughout the full two and a half hours of its running time. You don’t understand the opening sequence and it almost becomes an afterthought as the film pulls you through the tunnels of the maze, but ultimately everything comes together by the time we reach the mind-bending end. And while films like this often use their breakneck pace to hurry the viewers along so they don’t ask too many questions, hoping that they fail to notice any plot-holes along the way, Inception does not stoop to this cop-out. I kept score as best I could throughout the film, and I noticed very little in the way of loose ends. The film delivers a smart, tight thriller that keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat from start to finish and never becomes tedious or muddled or gets lost in its own intricacies.

Which is not to say that it may not leave some people scratching their heads by the time the credits roll. This is the type of film that demands multiple viewings to appreciate all the details and it does not suffer from the law of diminishing returns with increased exposure because of the depth of its story that helps raise it above the level of a simple action flick. Inception explores the implications of delving into the dreamworld and how that can become a more attractive, addictive reality than the world we live in. Cobb experienced this and now suffers its consequences which impedes his ability to do his job even though carrying that out is the only way he can eventually return to the very real family he is separated from. The film explores some pretty heady territory, and without the right person at the helm it could quickly derail and turn into a pretentious, byzantine mess. But Nolan adroitly carries the plot and underlying themes forward to keep the movie interesting to the viewers as a thriller while also infusing it with depth and relevance.

Nolan also assembles a near flawless cast with DiCaprio stepping up as the tortured Cobb struggling to put his past behind him and rediscover how to find his place in the real world he has disconnected from. Watanabe holds his own next to the star playing an ambiguous role as the person who may be an ally or an enemy or both rolled into one. Each of the other actors make a stand as well and manages to carve out their place in a movie which could easily swallow up lesser or unengaged talent. Michael Kane (previously teaming with Nolan as Alfred in his two Batman films) even makes a couple of brief walk-ons as Cobb’s father.

Though Inception came out during the midst of last Summer’s Blockbuster season, it stands out from its competition as it delivers a much headier film than we are used to seeing at that time of year. Far from popcorn-friendly opuses like Iron Man 2 and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, it demands a bit more of the audience’s brain matter and yet it still drew massive audiences to the theaters and became one of Summer 2010’s biggest hits. And along with that accomplishment (and the Academy Award nominations and technical wins), it has quickly found itself recognized as one of the upper echelon of Science Fiction and Fantasy films.

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Directed by: Kurt Maetzig
Written by: Stanislaw Lem (novel), Kurt Maetzig, Jan Fethke (screenplay)
Starring: Yoko Tani, Oldrich Lukes, Ignacy Machowski, Julius Ongewe
Original Release: 1960
AKA: First Spaceship on Venus

Reviewed by: James Marshall

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Synopsis: An extraterrestrial artifact is discovered in the year 1970 (ten years ahead for this movie) containing a partially decipherable message from a crashed Venus spaceship (the so-called morning star). Radio contact with Venus is attempted but as the planet remains silent an intrepid crew of eight is assembled and they rocket off to learn more of that otherworld place and its people. On board the crew learns the alien message contains plans of an imminent attack on Earth from our apparently not-so-friendly neighbor. Despite not being able to contact Earth, the crew decides to continue their journey in hopes they can somehow make peace. They’re in for a big surprise.

Review/Commentary: Did science fiction film exist behind the Iron Curtain? With the opening title sequence of The Silent Star running over pitted, blue-tinted concrete one might wonder whether Khrushchev’s regime was responsible for completely stifling the Soviet sci-fi film genre. But once past the title credits this movie manages both to delight and intrigue its audience with rather impressive visuals for its day, as well as offer some surprisingly interesting plot points to carry its story forward.

Adapted from Stanislaw Lem’s novel, The Astronauts, the film seems to draw from its literary source in supporting some of its propositions with the speculative science of its time. Far from the utterly non-scientific contemporary Hollywood monster movies (Giant Gila Monster, 1959) and ultra-heroic adventures (Atomic Submarine, 1959), The Silent Star offers a plausible discovery of the existence of extraterrestrial life on one of our neighboring planets.

Why Venus? In the 1950’s and early 1960’s there was as much evidence to suggest possible life on Venus as there was for there to be life on Mars. Where the West went down the wrong path on flights to and invasions from Mars (Rocketship X-M, 1950, War of the Worlds, 1953), the great Russian bear had its eyes on cloud-covered Venus (Russian science led the exploration of Venus landing Venera probes in the 1960s, and even photographed its lead-boiling oven temperature surface back then).

The Silent Star was originally screened in brilliant Agfacolor on 70mm Totalvision (a competing widescreen format to Kodak and Cinemascope); that we have a quality reproduction of a science fiction motion picture from the Soviets that’s nearly fifty years old is amazing by itself. But considering the world events happening in its day, the plot of joining nations, through representative astronauts (before the word “cosmonaut”), to travel through space and mitigate an offworld threat definitely seems to be a story ahead of its time.

Six years later, in 1966, Star Trek launched its series with an ethnically and sexually mixed bridge crew of the starship Enterprise that then was considered as groundbreaking as it was risky. But here, in The Silent Star, a full half-dozen years before Star Trek, the crew of the Cosmoskrator I (a truly beautiful designed movie spaceship) consisted of a Russian mathematician, German pilot, American physicist, Japanese doctor (a woman, no less), Chinese biologist/linguist, African communications technician, Indian mathematician, and a Polish engineer.

When asked, “Why not just a team of Soviet scientists? It’s their rocket!” Arsenyev, the Soviet Russian mission leader answered, “Landing on Venus cannot concern only one nation. We are not only internationalists in politics. In a peaceful world we don’t keep our successes to ourselves. Take Luna 3 for example, the socialist lunar station. We don’t use it as a military base. Engineers and physicists from all nations work there.”

A plug for Soviet communism? A subliminal cover of the Soviet’s true intentions in the space race? In the real world of the 50s and 60s it’s clear the Americans were publicly open about their successes and failures, whereas the Soviets kept their space programs highly secret – news of Yuri Gagarin’s orbital flight wasn’t released to the world until after its actual launch on April 12, 1961. But politics aside, the movie is fascinating for its depiction of Venus, truly an attempt to convey a mysterious place filled with unknown and otherworld technologies. We don’t see the clunky climbing up and down of ladders, and constant slogging across the surface, our futuristic explorers have their own self-contained truck, rocket and “elasticopter” for jaunts across the terrain.

The plot stretches science a bit with its energy speculations, but that’s what sci-fi is supposed to do. And at its core, it delivers a commentary on the misuse of atomic weaponry, containing numerous references of Hiroshima with both the Japanese and American crew members having their own direct experiences linked to that event.

Though much can be accepted, given a wide margin for a film of its time, there are a few facets that might strain one’s suspension of disbelief. To be sure, the events and pacing all flow in a rather contrived manner with the continuity at times becomes rather stilted, and the build up of tension is often predictable.  The acting is better than the directing, for the most part. Perhaps the censored writing is what limited the directing to show only what was allowed by the bureau. Imagine an environment where the writers and directors are already micromanaged by the studio heads who are beholden to the political powers above them.

History shows the crew to be a little extreme. NASA sent astronauts to the moon; they didn’t send engineers and scientists along with them. On a much longer interplanetary trip to Venus (or Mars) maybe the crew would be larger. Even so, there was no hint of training for the crew, and the Cosmoskrator I carried a massive computer along with them as well as a heavy operating table and a few vehicles to boot. Weight (mass) obviously wasn’t a problem for its power plant unlike earlier rocketship movies, (The Woman in the Moon, 1929 Destination Moon, 1950, When Worlds Collide, 1951), where weight was everything and part of the plot.

One humorous challenge they face is the possibility of meteors changing course and crashing into them – what? How is it possible for a meteor to change course without some force to act on it?

But the film does have a prediction of a tracked robot down pretty well. Omega looks somewhat like the US Army’s PakBot first used in Afghanistan in 2002. He’s a bit more advanced than a simple bomb-sniffer, though. Having the ability to forecast the weather and play chess at a master’s level to rival Deep Thought.

In all, for the chance to peer behind the old Iron Curtain nearly fifty years later and watch an East German/Polish sci-fi movie at their highest production capability makes for great entertainment for nostalgic sci-fi film buffs. Don’t compare the original version to its cut and dubbed First Spaceship on Venus release – they’re not the same.

The format is NTSC DVD (region 1), German with English subtitles.

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Directed by: Yakov Protazanov
Written by: Aleksei Fajko, Fyodor Otsep
Starring: Yuliya Solntseva, Nikolai Tsereteli, Nikolai Batalov
Original Release: 1924

Reviewed by: John J. Joex

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 Stars

Synopsis: This silent movie from the early days of the Soviet Union starts with radios around the world receiving a mysterious transmission. It is decided that the signal is from Mars (for no apparent reason), and a Russian scientist (Loss) decides that he will build a spaceship to travel there (Title card: “[Loss] works all night to construct a spaceship to take him there”!). Meanwhile, Aelita, the queen of Mars, uses a viewing device to watch the people of Earth. She sees Loss and falls madly in love with him (so much for long courtship). At the same time, we are shown the struggles of the Soviet people in the early days of Communism and a group of conspirators who prey upon the simple hardworking Soviet citizens. One of these conspirators tries to seduce Loss’ wife over to the ways of the old (capitalist) society. Loss becomes enraged when he believes that his wife has cheated on him and kills her. He must now use his rocketship to escape from the law. He takes off in his craft with a Soviet soldier, Gussev, as his traveling companion (a police detective in pursuit of Loss also stows away). When they arrive on Mars, they find that the rulers there (including Aelita) are tyrants that enslave and torture the common people. Led by Gussev, the people stage a revolt to put down the tyrants and establish a socialist society on Mars.

Review/Commentary: An early piece of science fiction cinema, and from behind the Iron Curtain at that, Aelita is an interesting gem of a movie. It is from the silent era and will probably not gain a lot of followers from those raised on the big budget productions common from Hollywood today. It was made in Russia in 1924 and the movie is essentially a Marxist parable, though it need not only be viewed from that perspective. It shows people who have lost faith in the ideals of the revolution but who eventually are swayed back to the side of socialism. In this sense, it a less of a cinematic feature and more of a propaganda tool. Still, it gives us an interesting piece of movie history of particular interest to genre fans. It is an early attempt at Science Fiction and an interesting window into the nascent Soviet Union. The special effects are so-so, but hey, this was made in 1924. The constructivist imagery used to depict the Martian society is fascinating. And the spacecraft used to travel to Mars is actually based on sound scientific principles. It is a liquid fuel propelled rocket, though it is bloated and unwieldy in appearance. Tracking in at almost two hours (111 minutes), the movie is daunting at times even for the most dedicated of viewers. But for those interested in the formative years of Science Fiction cinema, this one is a must-see. It’s production values are actually quite good for a film of that time, even if it does not quite compare to some of the sci fi “blockbusters” from the other side of the Iron Curtain like The Lost World and Metropolis. But it’s also not bad compared to those two and it delivers what is believed to be the first full length movie about space travel. Go into this one knowing that it has plenty of flaws, but also a great deal of charm as an early attempt to use Science Fiction elements to carry a larger story to the big screen (and fear not, it’s unlikely this one will sway to over to Marxist beliefs).

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