Category: Science Fiction

BLADE RUNNER

By Marc S. Sanders

Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is a technical and special effects masterpiece…however thin-very thin-its story may be. 

When the film was originally released in 1982, its period setting of November 2019 seemed unimaginable.  So, it was easy to accept that the dystopian future first conceived by author Phillip K. Dick (in his book Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?) could actually happen.  With the Vietnam War behind us, and shopping malls becoming the happening place to be in our Members Only jackets and Jordache jeans with Swatch watches, the 1980s seemed like eternal bliss.  Middle class America felt prosperous and free and comfortable with a President on his way to eight years in office.  Bright pastel and neon colors took over.  A hopeless, dreary future was all but fantasy.  Therefore, just like Star Wars, a gritty, urban Los Angeles seemed like another possibility where science fiction had become as trendy as super hero movies are today.  It was cold and rainy and dirty, but we wanted to see that because that was nowhere near what we were living in, much less envisioning. 

Ridley Scott achieved greatness with visuals never thought possible.  George Lucas might have introduced moviegoers to desert and swamp planets and industrialist Death Stars, but Scott delivered an Earth where Coca-Cola, Pan Am, Atari and Cuisinart still existed amid a dark, rainy Chinatown section of Los Angeles with glowing umbrella handles, flying police cars and cabs, hovering electronic billboards, and exhaust flames that spewed out of the rooftops of cylindrical skyscrapers.  Ridley Scott might have supervised this palette of futuristic film-noir, but the real heroes of Blade Runner belong to its Oscar nominees Lawrence G. Paull, David L. Snyder, and Linda DeScenna for set decoration, as well as Douglas Trumbull (already a legend for 2001: A Space Odyssey), Richard Yuricich and David Dryer for visual effects.  All these years later, there’s much to explore within the appearance of Blade Runner, but the storyline still remains shallower than a puddle of water.

I’ve watched Blade Runner a number of times because fellow peers and colleagues carry such admiration for the film.  I cannot deny the first third of the film holds your attention as you acclimate yourself to this enveloping world.  Once your accustomed however, the story is what has to carry you through to the end, and the journey is as slow moving as a rickshaw on one wheel.  Harrison Ford is Rick Deckard, a blade runner and the best one there is.  Upon learning of an escape of four Replicants from an off-world slave site, Deckard is tasked with coming out of retirement to hunt down these Replicants and “retire” them.  Retire is the polite word for kill, exterminate, slaughter or execute.

A replicant is an android that looks completely human, bleeds like a human and talks like a human.  It’s near impossible to tell the difference on sight between a human and a replicant. As well, replicants are manufactured with four-year life spans and are not permitted on Earth.  They are intended for the sole purpose of slavery towards their human creators.  Yet, what makes them so exemplary or offensive?  What trait do they carry that threatens their human counterparts?  Racism often occurs because of fear derived from skin color or appearance.  Antisemitism will have you believe that Jews have horns growing out of their heads under their yarmulkas.  What is so terribly misconstrued or offensive or threatening about Replicants?  The film never makes clear, and that’s frustrating.  What makes a villain a villain?

M Emmet Walsh comes on early enough to tell us through dialogue that he needs the best of the blade runners back and that’s Deckard.  When I’m to understand that I’m watching the absolute best of something, whether it be a cop, lawyer, baker, student, doctor, painter or blade runner, I want to see what exactly makes them the best.  In Top Gun, I saw the aerial maneuvers that potentially justified why Maverick could be the best of the best fighter pilots.  The problem with Blade Runner and the script, written by Hampton Fancher and David Webb Peoples, is that I never see in its two-hour time span when or how Rick Deckard is such an exceptional blade runner.  How is a blade runner different from an ordinary cop or a simple person with a large gun?  No matter which of the various cuts of the film I’m watching, with or without Harrison Ford’s voiceover narration, I fail to see any outstanding fighting skills or clear thought-provoking intuition.  This guy is neither as good as Dirty Harry or Sherlock Holmes or even James Bond.  He’s not even as personable as Sam Spade, the original noir detective.  Rick Deckard just looks like Harrison Ford with a very large hand gun.  Furthermore, where does the term “Blade Runner” derive from?  Is it just there because it sounds cool?  The moniker wasn’t even created by Philip K. Dick.

The film’s eventual sequel, Blade Runner 2049, is a far superior film.  It’s longer, but it’s much more fleshed out in tone and character and understanding of its setting.  The original film stands on the heels of its cult like legendary status.  Some of the best filmmakers today cite Blade Runner as an influence in how they construct their own movies.  I buy that.  The assembly of whatever cut I’m watching is evident of how mind blowing its appearance is.  You can see some of the blue print visuals that carried over in to Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve’s pictures. But I’m past all that.  Now I need to appreciate what it’s all there for, and who is playing in its yard. 

I cannot simply rely on IMDb trivia and endless social media sites that speculate on whether Deckard is a replicant himself, or why he dreams of a unicorn and why Ridley Scott opted not to include said dream in the original cut.  I cannot just tickle my curiosity with the picture’s eerie foreshadowing of the various product placements that suffered real life eventual downfalls after its release.  Beyond the visuals, what am I watching Blade Runner for?  This is not just a riddle in the Sunday paper.

The film boasts an eclectic cast that work well together.  I just wish they were provided with something much more insightful with background and personal experience.  Rutger Hauer became a familiar name following the release of this picture.  When he’s finally given the opportunity within the second hour of the film to come off as hideous and terrifying and strange, it’s worth looking at.  His famous “tears in the rain” closing dialogue is beautifully poetic, as it was personally written by him.  It’s as ambiguous as the film.  Yet, Shakespeare can be vague too.  I might not understand what anyone is talking about, but the performance can keep my attention.  Regrettably, he does not do much else in the film beyond his closing fight scene with Ford.  Ridley Scott insisted on casting Sean Young as Rachel, as her appearance was reminiscent of Vivian Leigh.  She’s intentionally mysterious as a likely replicant and/or niece of the wealthy creator of the replicants, Dr. Tyrell.  It works, but again, if the viewer is going to be questioned on the mystery of this major character early on, then why doesn’t the film follow further into that enigma?  You don’t have to say for sure, but at least give me evidence to argue one way or the other.  The same goes for the speculation on Deckard.  Had it not been for outside references, I’d never question who or what Deckard really is.  Daryl Hannah, Brion James and Joanna Cassidy round out the rest of the cast/replicants within the film.  Edward James Olmos is here too with a curious and odd habit of making origami.  They all have their unique way or look about them.  In science fiction, every character should stand apart.  Yet, again, it’s all about appearance.  What is the motivation here?  What is the motivation to live on earth or off earth?  What is the motivation to kill a human?  What is the motivation to kill a replicant?

I’ve beaten my head enough over this film.  Blade Runner has always been frustrating to me.  Maybe I’m not being fair to myself, as I try to find something else or some underlying layer each time I watch it.  Why do people love this movie so much?  Why does it consistently appear on “greatest of all time” tabulations?  Ultimately, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just pounding sand, or maybe as Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty suggests, I’m impossibly looking for tears in rain.

MOONRAKER

By Marc S. Sanders

Roger Moore’s fourth outing as James Bond was supposed to be For Your Eyes Only. However, producer Albert R. Broccoli made a last minute switch before production was to take place. Two little known films called Star Wars and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind broke box office records and Broccoli went with “Moonraker” to piggy back on the science fiction trend. James Bond needed to launch into outer space. The effort proved profitable even if the story mostly fails.

A Moonraker shuttle is mysteriously hijacked from the Americans. After Bond survives being thrown out of an airplane with no parachute by the hulking assassin Jaws, he is assigned to determine what happened to the ship, and what purpose it is being used for.

Bond travels to California to introduce himself to Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale) with his samurai henchman Chang, and to Dr. Holly Goodhead (yes you read that right) played by Lois Chiles.

The issue with Moonraker is it suffers from a number of boring elements including Lonsdale, Chiles and even Jaws is watered down as he falls in love with a nerdy, pigtailed, blonde. Eventually, Jaws becomes a good guy and that’s when your eyes roll. Lonsdale is hardly any fun in his villainy. Chiles is not any more interesting than her character’s last name. Action scenes are bland beyond the airplane drop in the title sequence which has outstanding camerawork accompanied by the staple Bond theme.

Broccoli and returning director Lewis Gilbert (The Spy Who Loved Me) focused more on the science fiction cinematic trend with laser guns and laughable lack of effective zero gravity.

Broccoli became guilty of going with what was trendy with Moore’s 007. Blaxploitation with Live And Let Die, martial arts with The Man With The Golden Gun, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, in The Spy Who Loved Me, and now science fiction in Moonraker. The sci fi doesn’t work so well for Bond or Drax’ diabolical scheme to destroy all human civilization and begin a new life in space.

Q provides Bond with a cool wrist band that shoots darts. That’s pretty fun.

As well, travel sites still hold up with destinations along the California coast, Italy with a gadget filled gondola and a glass shop fight, and Rio De Janeiro where Bond faces off against Jaws along the tops of two cable cars and engages in a boat chase. Then of course Bond eventually reaches Drax’ satellite base in space. None of it is unwatchable. It’s fun. It’s just not comparatively as exciting as prior Bond adventures before, and still to come.

Moonraker is just a little too weightless.

It should be noted as well that sadly, we also say goodbye to Bernard Lee as M, head of the Double O section for the last eleven films. He’s here to remind 007 that the British government can’t afford any slip ups. The whole series thus far was only better because of Lee to emit humorous aggravation in response to Bond’s relaxed and sarcastic response to the government risks at hand. Bernard Lee deserves recognition.

her

By Marc S. Sanders

Director/Screenwriter Spike Jones is a master at adding multiple dimensions to what we always know exists. It’s been evident in his prior films, Adaptation, Where The Wild Things Are, (which I did not care for personally), and most especially in Being John Malkovich. He plants the seeds of fantasy in what we can normally touch, hear and see. Then his elements of fantasy receive a supportive crutch from what his viewers have always been familiar with.

her is another masterwork; a film that takes place in the not too distant future that expounds on our current digital age. If we can already talk to “Siri” or “Alexa” and trick–umm, excuse me, “her” (I mean “Siri”) into making sophomoric dirty jokes, then of course we are bound to approach the stage where we can literally, truly fall in love with her and then she can reciprocate.

With her raspy yet silky vocals, Scarlett Johansson is inspired casting as the voice of “Samantha.” Had she actually had a physical presence in the film I would have totally fallen for her affections. The film hinges on the performance of Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore. If we can’t believe that he loves “Samantha” more than he loves himself (a surefire test of true love as far I’m concerned) then “her” falls apart. Phoenix passes abundantly. He deserved his Oscar nomination.

From the start, you become very accustomed to the banter between Theodore and his electronic device voiced by “Samantha.” Both have personal feelings. Both have personal longings (more especially “Samantha” the computer, of all things!!!).

Spike Jonze explores all the diameters and dimensions of a loving relationship. The ups, downs, and in betweens. What’s different is how all of these layers of a relationship are received in this currently fictional (bound to come true, one day) dynamic of a relationship. Theodore and “Samantha” are affectionate. They argue, they laugh, they even make love. Watch the movie to understand that last point. It happens, and it is perfectly executed with the residual effects of their lovemaking bringing the film into its next act brilliantly.

Jones won the Oscar for original screenplay simply for how innovative this picture is. I’m not sure it’s the most exciting two hours of film, however. Personally, I think other films in this category back in 2013 had sharper and more interesting scripts. her is practically all talk and when it ended, I was ready for it to be over, and it concluded as I expected.

Still, Jones is fortunate that his cast (Johannsson, Phoenix, Amy Adams and Rooney Mara and Chris Pratt) trusts him. If they hadn’t, this movie would have lost its magic by probably how absurd this script must have originally been perceived on paper. Well done work by all involved but credit has to begin with Jones, the screenwriter.

ANNIHILATION

By Marc S. Sanders

Science Fiction/Horror for the thinking viewer is the best way to describe this film.

Director Alex Garland has found a way to make a viewer’s eyes pop, not just with fear but with the unimaginable. This is as good an effort or better than his other well known film, Ex Machina. I foresee it will not be long before Garland is recognized among the ranks of today’s most notable and popular directors like Del Toro and Nolan.

This is not a run of the mill monster movie. This is fictionalized science that seems foreign and strange, yet makes complete sense by the time the credits roll. All questions are thankfully summed up despite a hanging thread or two to relish in deep thought long after the film has ended.

Natalie Portman strongly leads a nearly all female cast to uncover the purpose and functionality of “The Shimmer.” She does so, but at what expense? She’s great and believable in her role with lots of dimension by way of her career as a Johns Hopkins professor/former army infantry soldier and through periodic dreams of sin she feels guilty over.

Jennifer Jason Leigh does her best no nonsense disturbing creep. Gina Rodriguez makes good transitions in levels of sanity.

Like Black Panther, I’d argue this is also a front runner for art direction as an encapsulated swamp is overrun with strange pastel plant life, mixed up animal life and cinematic lens flare. Yes, here the lens flares serve a narrative purpose which is why the cinematography should also be given some recognition.

I’m looking forward to seeing this again to uncover what I missed the first time.

Annihilation turned out to be one of the biggest surprises of 2018.

READY PLAYER ONE

By Marc S. Sanders

Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece, Ready Player One is the best Easter Egg to search for today.

As a huge fan of Ernest Cline’s novel chock full of pop culture salutes, this latest effort from Steven Spielberg is the film I was looking forward to the most in 2018; more than Solo and definitely more than Avengers: Infinity War.

The film adaptation almost completely succeeds. It is very well cast and the expansive imagination of Spielberg and his crew get everything right. It’s the greatest amusement park for the eyes. When there are not hidden gems to look for, I still found the young cast of characters portrayed by talented unknowns to be engrossing, and more importantly endearing to those cinematic kids of the ‘80s from John Hughes films, as well Spielberg’s other classics.

Authenticity was also truly a priority for Spielberg. I dare not spoil the highlight of the film’s second act but let’s just say the attention to detail was perfection to every minute crammed on the screen. You can’t help but laugh, grin and slap your knee. In fact, you really do it through the whole film practically, but Act 2 really reaches for the skies.

Now the one issue I have. Like Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, the villain was pulled back in their deviousness from the original source material. The danger did not feel threatening enough for me. Here the antagonist is this large conglomerate run by a CEO, and I’m afraid that’s all that Ben Mendelsohn is sadly reduced to. The stakes didn’t seem high enough. Cline’s novel made sure that your life could end as you got closer to solving the puzzles of the “Oasis,” the interactive virtual world that everyone willingly engulfs themselves in. The threat was more convincing in the novel. In the film, I’m afraid it’s a little too watered down.

Still, Ready Player One is incredibly fun with an awesome soundtrack; “Staying Alive” by The Bee Gees will always be the greatest song to bless any film, ever. This film especially supports that argument.

“LET’S SAVE THE OASIS”

THE MATRIX FRANCHISE

By Marc S. Sanders

Miguel and I went to see the The Matrix Resurrections last night and honestly, when I woke up this morning, I had forgotten I’d even seen it.  That’s because, other than the original Matrix film, the subsequent chapters are about as special as cheap food court Chinese food.  When you get home from the mall, you recall what you may have window shopped, but you never reflect on what you had for lunch; well maybe your gut does later on, and that’s certainly not doing you any favors. 

When The Wachowskis introduced the world to The Matrix way back in 1999, it was one of the biggest surprises in films.  No one saw its uniqueness coming.  Everyone was focused on the over hyped resurgence of Star Wars, or a kid who desecrated a pie, or a hand held video film that was seemingly terrorizing audiences.  Yet The Matrix arguably may have had the best longevity that year.  It seemed like a combo sci fi/super hero picture with the players looking ultra-cool in designer sunglasses and leather night club outfits.  Guns and jiu jitsu flew off the screen, but it was done in a new visual kind of way.  Bruce Lee would have likely been a part of this picture had he been alive.  When someone took a kick to the face, it was edited super cool looking sloooooowwww motion.  Bullet time became a thing with projectiles warping through the space between characters and these players, especially Keanu Reeves as the messianic Neo and Carrie Anne Moss as Trinity, would bend and twist and twirl acrobatically (again in slow motion style) to dodge machine gun fire and endless shrapnel.  The look of the film remains absolutely superb.  Nothing (other than maybe the film’s sequels) has duplicated what was accomplished here. 

As well, the original Matrix stands apart from the other three because it actually told a story and developed its protagonist and his mentor (Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus) into fleshed out characters.  It also went so far as to describe what the Matrix is, and what the world outside of that realm represents.  Like all humans, Neo, also known as Thomas Anderson, was actually under the control of a machine-like community designed to sustain a world known as the Matrix, and…well…that’s just bad!  There was solid storytelling here with setting and character development that was later accompanied by well-choregraphed action and pulse pounding club music.  When the film ended, audiences couldn’t wait for more and Warner Bros happily greenlit two more films that were shot back-to-back.  Only the train derailed from there.

Gearing up for the 2021 installment, directed by Lana Wachowski, I watched the first three films again.  Other than the first film, I had forgotten much of what occurred in the 2nd (The Matrix Reloaded) and 3rd (The Matrix Revolutions) pictures.  I realize now that I only forgot what really wasn’t there.  Substance!  Of the two films, Reloaded is likely better, thanks especially to an outstanding highway car chase involving sci fi effects of the characters bouncing off of big rig trucks, motorcycles and car roofs.  A pair of characters dressed in evil white leather with dreadlocks morph in and out of the vehicles and concrete streets as well.  The scene comes late in the film and only wakes you up from the meandering ahead of it.  Truly, it’s hard to comprehend what the hell is being explained in this second film.  The Wachowskis almost would prefer you be impressed with the monosyllabic vocabulary that’s exchanged with each character.  Dialogue doesn’t advance the story any further from where the first film left off.  All that I gathered was our band of rebels who successfully broke free from the slave-controlled Matrix are regrouping at the promised land of Zion, and the machines (squid like metal robots with countless red light bulbs) are advancing for an attack.  Morpheus, Trinity and Neo take it upon themselves to reenter the Matrix (because they look so much cooler there) and do who knows what.  Near the end of the film, Neo walks down a long hallway, opens a number of doorways and encounters the one supposedly responsible for the Matrix, an older gentleman known as The Architect.  This moment was intended to be a highlight of the film and yet it was anything but.  This architect spews out word diarrhea at an alarming rate that only clouds your mind further and further.  The guy has a great radio voice and has an antithetic appearance against the heroic looking Neo, but what in the hell are we supposed to do with any of this?  What’s the point?

On to Revolutions which begins exactly where Reloaded left off.  This is a picture that could have had a running time of thirty minutes at best.  The robots are finally attacking Zion.  One character who seems like he should be important or necessary to the Matrix storyline saddles up in a robot suit equipped with massive machine guns and The Wachowskis make the poor choice of feeding their audience a good seven or eight minutes of this guy spraying endless amounts of bullets in an upwards direction towards the infinite swarm of octopi robotic armies.  His guns never run out of ammo.  He just bellows as he continues to fire.  Where’s the story here?  Where’s the innovation that the first film offered?  Also, what goes up, must come down.  Shouldn’t some of that ammunition have dropped down in a hail storm eventually?  Reader, if I have to ask that last question then you know there’s not much to pay attention to in this film.

The wisest character of the Matrix films, Morpheus, is given very little to say or do in either film.  Fishburne stands in the background and let’s everything happen around him.  He’s not utilized to explain anything like he was in the first picture.  His skill for teaching the audience has been completely diminished.  Whatever he had to offer was exhausted following the first picture.  With Revolutions, especially, the filmmakers rely on B characters that we’ve never really gotten a chance to know or remember or adore like Yoda or Jabba or even Boba Fett in the films that followed the original Star Wars. In fact, Revolutions seems more concerned with its extras than any other film I can recall.  So much so that when a major character from the first film has a death scene, you hardly care for the loss.  There wasn’t much to expound on the character after the original film.  Revolutions only relies on the war nature of the human armies against the monochrome metallic squid race.  Beyond shooting at one another, where’s the conflict?  Ms. Pac Man and Frogger have more depth than any of this.

That’s the problem with these films.  A discovery was made with the 1999 installment and the filmmakers opted to capitalize on the effects and not the challenge of story. 

Furthermore, and this goes back to the original film when I first saw it in theatres, I was always of the mindset that I’d rather live in the Matrix.  After all that Morpheus has revealed to me, the Matrix still seems like the better place to reside.  The real world consists of living on a dirty, dreary ship and eating slop for food while wearing torn sweaters and having electrical plug orifices running down my spine.  Who wants that?  A Judas character from the first film turns on his crew by telling the evil Agent Smith that he will bring them Neo as long as in return he doesn’t know that he’s under the control of the Matrix and he can savor the taste of a juicy steak again.  Now I’m with this guy.  Aren’t The Wachowskis as well, though?  More footage and highlights take place in the computer mainframe of the Matrix than outside of it.  Thereby, more cool looking action sequences can happen and the cast appears more glamourized.  The films want us to fear the horrors of the Matrix on the humans by showing them plugged into wires while drowning in a pod like puddle of KY jelly embryonic ectoplasm.  You know what?  What I don’t know won’t kill me.  So, leave me be.  Perhaps the argument would have been more convincing had the environments been reversed.  Put the rebels as slave dilemma in the real-world areas and the utopian setting within the Matrix.  Then I might buy the problem here.

The newest film, Resurrections, is nothing special and nothing new.  It’s rather boring actually.  Revolutions was boring too.  It only kept me awake because it was two hours of headache inducing noise.  With the new 2021 film, apparently a new Matrix has been developed and thus a new Neo and Trinity have been conceived.  The antagonist is represented by Neil Patrick Harris and that’s about it.  Miguel pondered much, following the picture as to what was going on.  That’s not a good sign for a popcorn action flick, and it’s consistent with what was done with the 2nd and 3rd films.  What the hell is anyone talking about. Once again, dialogue moves to a beat of answering questions with questions. Even the allies speak to one another that way, and if it is not a question, then it is a cliché of some sort.  Don’t these people want to help one another?  If so, then speak to each other like your four years old and get to the point.  The action scenes drone on and on.  A goal of the picture is to keep Neo from finding Trinity because if they do, then the Matrix crashes.  Okay.  That’s simple enough.  Yet (spoiler alert), when they do find each other, somehow this new Matrix continues on.  Huh??????  The movie just betrayed me, and I don’t like that. 

Miguel attempted to conjure up the idea that Lana Wachowski was trying to demonstrate her transition from a man to a woman and this new picture was a representation of that.  Could that be true?  Maybe, but it never occurs to me while I’m watching the picture.  Am I watching The Matrix Resurrections because it’s the newest Wachowski film?  No.  This isn’t a Quentin Tarantino or Christopher Nolan piece.  This is leather and gunfire and sunglasses and noise, all depicted in a green DOS computer hue lens.

The Matrix was always worthy of a sequel; a subsequent follow up that explored imagination and perhaps more background.  What has Neo not yet uncovered.  Yet, the series as a whole continues to deny those opportunities and simply settles for cool looking visuals that get overly exhausted and tired.  No new skills are featured with each passing film.  Over the course of the series, the big bang, so to speak, of the first Matrix never reveals itself.  Instead, we are mind controlled viewers relegated to depend on overlong dialogue with no point and no where left to explore.  We are simply gifted with Neo punching Agent Smith and/or infinite duplicates of Agent Smith with no one getting weakened or wounded or defeated.  Look no further than an early fight scene in Reloaded.  The scene goes on forever.  The editing is amazing.  So is the choreography but after four minutes of this, it’s time to show some progress.  The Wachowskis limit their imagination to just having Neo fly away.  Scenes like this only allow me ample time to exit the theatre for a bathroom break and return having not lost out on any storytelling.  My friends, you can find plenty of bathroom breaks in this series of films.

The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, and The Matrix Resurrections should never have been made.  Producer Joel Silver and Warner Bros would argue otherwise though.  Their wallets continue to get fatter, but at the cost of controlling moviegoers’ appetite for something more when all they really got was dry rice and overcooked orange chicken from the food court.

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL (2016)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

Director: Jeff Nichols
Cast: Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Adam Driver, Sam Shepard
My Rating: 10/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 83% Certified Fresh

PLOT: Two men go on the run with a child in tow, pursued by federal agents and by members of a cult who believe the child has special powers.


The general concept of “mystery” in a film is a subtle art.  Not enough mystery, and people will say they’ve seen it all before.  Too much mystery, and people will wonder why they’ve spent good money to be confused for two hours.

Every now and then, though, a movie comes along that shows everyone else how it’s done.  It manages to plunge the viewer headlong into the story with little to no exposition, provides just enough clues to keep things intriguing without giving the game away, and supplies a climax that is not just satisfying, but revelatory.  Prometheus is one of those movies.  So is Freaks (2018).

And so is Midnight Special, from director and screenwriter Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter, Mud).

This movie grabs you right from the opening minutes.  Two men appear to be holed up in a hotel room with a young boy wearing blue swim goggles.  Cardboard and duct tape cover the windows.  A news broadcast on the TV reports on the young boy’s kidnapping.  However, he does not appear to be distressed in any way.  One of the men may or may not be his father.  He goes willingly when they vacate the room and hit the road.

In another part of the country, a pastor watches the same newscast with concern.  He later leads a church service, but the scripture reading consists of non-sequiturs and random numbers.  The FBI interrupts the service and hauls each and every church member in for questioning about the missing boy.

What the deuce is going on here?  How is this church connected to the boy?  Where are the two men taking the boy?  What’s with the blue goggles?  What is so important about this boy that the two men with him would be willing to kill for him?

These are all very good questions.  Whenever the movie takes the time to answer one of the questions, two more spring up in its place.  And I may as well tell you now: not every question will get an answer.  But instead of feeling frustrated, I just got more and more involved in the film.  I felt like I was an active participant in figuring out the story, along with the characters.  There’s nothing quite like feeling involved in a movie, rather than simply watching a movie.

When the revelations arrive about where the men are headed with the boy, why they’re headed there, and why the FBI is interested, I’m not gonna lie, I was gobsmacked.  In retrospect, I suppose I should have seen some of the plot points coming a mile away.  But that’s the beauty of the screenplay and the direction.  I wasn’t interested in trying to second guess what surprises were in store.  As a result, when the surprises arrived, I was constantly in a state of jaw-dropping amazement.

I would also like to point out the great restraint used by the filmmakers when it came to the few scenes that required CGI enhancement.  There are a hundred ways these scenes could have gone wrong, resulting in a shot that completely takes you out of the movie.  They avoided all those pitfalls and instead created scenes of startling beauty, even when things seem to be going wrong…or when they at last go right.

This is a movie that deserves to be seen with as clean a slate as possible.  It didn’t exactly make a dent in the pop-culture zeitgeist, so it’s not likely you’ll see any spoilers on the internet without Googling the movie, but why would you want to do that?  Keep an open mind, don’t ask how it ends, and find a way to see this movie.  You won’t be disappointed.

UNDER THE SKIN (2013)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

Director: Jonathan Glazer
Cast: Scarlett Johansson
My Rating: 9/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 84% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A beautiful, mysterious young woman seduces lonely men in Scotland and takes them to her home, where something very strange indeed happens to them…


Under the Skin captivated me in a way that I did not expect.  It is a sci-fi mystery that stubbornly refuses to supply neat and tidy answers, and yet is spellbinding to watch. How director Jonathan Glazer accomplished this is no less mysterious to me than the origins of the movie’s main character, a solitary young woman played by Scarlett Johansson in a bravura performance that must have required a great deal of courage and trust in her director.

After a cryptic opening sequence involving some trippy visuals accompanied by an eerie musical score, Johansson’s character (listed only as “The Female” in the credits) gets down to business.  With the help of a mute motorcyclist (???), she acquires a van and trolls the streets of Scotland for young men on their own in the city.  She lures them into her van with pleasant conversation and a smile, which is easy enough to do when you look like Scarlett Johansson.  She then takes the men back to a deserted house in the country where I wouldn’t DREAM of revealing what happens.

The appeal of this movie is not the story, although that is obviously a big part of it.  It’s the storytelling.  Director Glazer works from a script that has the bare minimum of dialogue, usually when The Female is convincing men to get in her van.  Everything else depends on visuals.  It’s the kind of movie my friend Marc would enjoy, as it uses the camera to tell the story much more so than the soundtrack.  It shows us images and challenges the viewer to put two and two together to figure out what’s happening.

This visually-heavy strategy is a tightrope walk.  One false step and, instead of a mind-bending masterpiece, you get a head-scratcher that leaves you feeling cheated.  Under the Skin manages it.  There is one specific visual sequence that sealed the deal for me, a scene that provides a more detailed explanation of what happens to the men once they’re inside The Female’s house.  The real genius of the scene is that it provides information without fully answering the questions going through your head.  What is that black liquid?  Are the men hypnotized?  Their behavior would make it seem so.  And exactly how big is that house?

I’m being deliberately obscure because the delight of the film comes from discovering the thread of the story and following it along with The Female.  Her discoveries were just as interesting and scary to me as they were to her, because I felt really in tune with her character while I was watching the movie.  The closest I can get to describing it is…a long, LONG time ago, there was a computer game called Hacker that I got for my Commodore 64.  It came with literally no instructions beyond putting the disk in the drive and loading the game.  Then your screen went blank and it just displayed: “LOGON”.  And that was it.  As the gamer, it was up to you to figure out what to do in order to keep playing.  As you discovered more clues to the object of the game, you became more and more involved.

That’s how I felt watching Under the Skin.  Those opening visuals start you off thinking, “What the f@#k???”  Then the movie progresses, and the wheels start turning, and you realize what’s happening, and what The Female is attempting, and the discoveries she’s making about herself, and before you know it you’re as wrapped up in the story as she is.

I remember there was a lot of talk when this movie came out, but I never really hear anyone discuss it any more, outside of movie-centric blogs and Facebook pages.  If I can convince just one person who hasn’t seen it that this movie is worth their time, I will be happy.  Under the Skin deserves to be seen, discussed, and puzzled over.

P.S.  Under the Skin is, in fact, mildly famous because, yes, Scarlett Johansson gets naked.  But don’t get too excited.  Her nude scenes are utterly drained of any sexuality or eroticism whatsoever, due to their context.  You’ll see what I mean when you watch it.

CLOUD ATLAS (2012)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

Directors: Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski, Tom Tykwer
Cast: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw, Keith David, Susan Sarandon, Hugh Grant
My Rating: 10/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 66%

PLOT: An exploration of how individual lives impact one another in the past, present, and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution.


Okay, faithful readers, I hope you’re comfortable.

Cloud Atlas is one of those movies like Baraka that leaves me with the urgent need to tell people how amazing it is.  It’s visually spectacular, thought-provoking, and hopelessly optimistic about love and the good side of human nature, even in the face of the worst humanity has to offer.

Based on a critically acclaimed novel by David Mitchell, the movie tells six separate stories, linked by the fact that a core group of actors plays all the principal roles in each story, and by the fact that at least one actor in each story carries a curious birthmark shaped a bit like a comet or a shooting star.  Each story is separated from the others by decades or centuries, taking place in the years 1849, 1936, 1973, 2012, 2144, and an apparently post-apocalyptic 2321.

I cannot imagine the lengths to which the filmmakers, and the film editor in particular, went to make this movie work.  The film jumps freely from one story to another, forward, back, forward, and back again, somehow maintaining a clean flow and keeping each storyline absolutely clear.  Although the stories are unique, the editing keeps the idea of connection alive for nearly three hours.  Just based on the editing alone, that makes Cloud Atlas kind of exhilarating to watch, especially when things heat up in the 2144 segment.

Let me see if I can quickly summarize each story, without giving too much away:

  • 1849 – An American lawyer visits property holdings overseas and witnesses the brutal whipping of a slave, who stows away on the lawyer’s ship returning to San Francisco; meanwhile, an unscrupulous doctor has plans to steal the lawyer’s gold en route.
  • 1936 – A struggling composer, Robert Frobisher, is hired as an amanuensis (a fancy word for a music stenographer) to another aging composer, which allows Frobisher to compose his own masterpiece, The Cloud Atlas Sextet. The aging composer demands credit for the piece and threatens to expose Frobisher’s bisexuality, including his deep, unconditional love for a gentleman named Rufus Sixsmith.
  • 1973 – An investigative reporter stumbles onto a conspiracy at a nuclear power plant, thanks to a whistle-blowing report written by none other than Rufus Sixsmith, now in his sixties.
  • 2012 – An author on the run from hooligan creditors takes refuge in what he thinks is a hotel, but is in fact a nursing home, to which he has inadvertently committed himself.  He and three other residents plan a daring jailbreak.
  • 2144 – Set in a vastly futuristic New Seoul, a renegade “fabricant” is brought in for questioning by the ruling government known as Unanimity.  The fabricant, known only as Sonmi-451, spins a tale of oppression, liberation, and horrific realization as she becomes the voice of a revolution that will ripple across centuries.
  • 2321 – In a post-apocalyptic Hawaii, peaceful Valleysmen live in constant fear of attacks from vicious cannibals, the Kona tribe.  They also receive periodic visits from Prescients, a highly advanced society that apparently lives offshore.  One day, a Prescient, Meronym, asks a Valleysmen leader to guide her to a remote mountain peak where she hopes to send an SOS signal to off-world colonies.

Confused yet?  Don’t be.  The editing keeps everything crystal clear.

But that’s just the clinical description of the movie.  What catapults Cloud Atlas into the stratosphere is how the fancy editing and visual effects occasionally take a back seat to a really deep philosophical question that leaves me with a sense of awe.  It’s really a what-if question, one of the greatest what-if questions of human existence.

What if…death isn’t the end?

I know that countless other movies have asked this question. We all have our own answers and beliefs.  I am not suggesting that Cloud Atlas has somehow figured out THE answer to this question, or that the answer it provides somehow trumps your own beliefs. But of all the movies I’ve seen on this topic, Cloud Atlas is the only one that really, genuinely, truly left me in awe of the possibilities it proposes.

I mentioned earlier that key roles are played by the same actors over and over again in each of the stories.  While that was initially distracting, I realized that the filmmakers were actually making a genius move.  It was nothing more than a simple way of illustrating the concept that a life in one era is echoed in another, decades or centuries later.  Heavy makeup is used to indicate how one person’s life as an Asian woman could, in theory, be echoed in the life of a Mexican woman in another era.  Or perhaps the life of a British man might be echoed later as a British woman.

And then there’s the question of that recurring birthmark.  One key character from each storyline bears a birthmark that resembles a shooting star.  So many people (including me the first time around) wanted to attach some kind of conventional story-based meaning to that birthmark.  Did it mean these characters were all somehow blood-related?  Was it a prophecy of some kind?  Something mentioned in the book, perhaps, that had to be left out of the film for pacing reasons, or some such thing?  No.  It’s just another visual reinforcement of the idea of recurrence, or reincarnation.

And that’s where I get awestruck by the movie.  Reincarnation is not a new concept in films, but Cloud Atlas really got under my skin.  Imagine.  What if…the person you love, your soulmate, the one you’ll love until the day of your death…what if, centuries hence, you’ll meet each other again?  Maybe you’ve walked down the street, or been eating in a restaurant, and for a fleeting second you lock eyes with a total stranger across the room, and you think, “I KNOW that person,” but the moment passes and life goes on.  What if that happened because you have met in some past life?

Or maybe you go on a date, and it goes phenomenally well, as if you’ve known each other for ages?  Well…maybe you have.  It’s your destiny to meet and love this person because you’ve already done it before.

I know I’m getting a little woo-woo/touchy-feely here.  It’s not a new idea.  It’s just that Cloud Atlas presents the idea so well that my breath gets taken away when I think about its implications.

I just have to bring up the stunning visuals again.  There’s a scene where the composer, Frobisher, is writing to his lover, Rufus Sixsmith, and there’s a passage where, in his mind, he meets Sixsmith in a china shop.  In a wonderfully poetic moment, they start smashing the china in slow motion as Frobisher’s composition plays in the background.  Then, just as the music reaches a crescendo, the two of them stop in place, and hundreds of china vases and plates rain down from the ceiling in slow motion, hanging in space, descending slowly to the ground like gigantic snowflakes.

I’m at a loss.  I’ve come to the end of whatever I can discuss about this movie without repeating myself endlessly.  I want to reiterate that I don’t believe this movie has THE answer to what lies beyond death.  But it has a truly lovely hypothesis, one that leaves me awestruck with its implications.

So let me just end with a line from the movie that makes my heart swell every time I hear it.

“I believe there is another world waiting for us, Sixsmith. A better world…and I’ll be waiting for you there. I believe we do not stay dead long. Find me beneath the Corsican stars, where we first kissed.”

PROMETHEUS (2012)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Guy Pearce, Logan Marshall-Green
My Rating: 10/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 73%

PLOT: A deep-space research vessel arrives at a distant moon, searching for clues to the origins of mankind.  What they find instead threatens their lives and the lives of everyone back on Earth.


I am at a loss to explain the mediocre Tomatometer score for Prometheus, Ridley Scott’s long-awaited return to the universe he created in Alien [1979].  Intellectually, I can hear the arguments:

  • “Where’s the Xenomorph?”
  • “So did the ‘Engineers’ create humans or what?”
  • “Is that planet at the beginning supposed to be Earth?”
  • “Where’s the Xenomorph?”
  • “Why did that idiot scientist approach the snake-looking creature?”
  • “How is the android able to break almost all of Asimov’s Laws of Robotics?”
  • “What’s with the open-ended ending that provides no resolution?”
  • “WHERE’S THE XENOMORPH???”

I get it.  You hear Ridley Scott is making a prequel to Alien and you build up a lot of expectations, especially after watching some of the sorrier sequels that piled up after Aliens [1986].  When you go into a movie expecting one thing and get another, people get hacked off.  I feel you, bro.

But to those people who dismissed Prometheus because it didn’t deliver what they expected to get, all I can say is: your loss.  Because Prometheus is one of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time, in my humble opinion, and it’s mostly for the very same reasons that people disliked it in the first place.

After a brief prologue set in an unknown time in an unknown place, we jump to the year 2093, when a deep-space research vessel arrives at a far distant moon, searching for clues to the origin of mankind.  Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) says they were led to this specific moon by “Engineers”, humanoid beings who are visible in ancient cave drawings from across the globe.  She believes the Engineers can provide an answer, THE Answer, to Life, the Universe and Everything. (Apologies to Douglas Adams.)

Instead of Engineers, Dr. Shaw and her expedition discover miles of underground caverns and a room full of canisters that turn out to contain a horrifying contagion that attack the body at a cellular and/or genetic level, creating painful mutations that, if they don’t kill the host outright, turns them incredibly violent.  We also get a glimpse of the famous “space jockey”, the fossilized alien creature seated in some kind of contraption inside the spaceship in Alien.  So at LAST we’re in familiar territory.

But still no Xenomorph.

The story progresses, the shipboard android turns out to be less than trustworthy, people die in creative and horrifying ways, an Engineer actually turns up, we get a couple more visually spectacular tie-ins to the first Alien…but by the time we get to the end, what gives?  The movie’s obviously over, but we haven’t gotten any answers to the burning questions: Who are the Engineers?  If that was an Engineer in the prologue, was that supposed to be Earth?  If it WASN’T Earth, why even HAVE that prologue?  And don’t try to tell me that was a Xenomorph at the end…

Well, here’s my two cents.

First, of all, expectations are tricky.  They can color and compromise your entire movie-watching experience.  When I went to see Prometheus, I did have my own set of expectations, but as the movie settled in and it became clear that the movie had other designs, I had to consciously shake myself loose of my expectations and embrace what was being presented to me.

Second of all, the visuals are stunning.  I happened to see this in 3-D, and it’s one of a handful of movies where the technology was used PERFECTLY.  No gimmicky shots of spears or harpoons or whatever being pointed out of the screen.  It was used as it should always be used: as a tool to further immerse you into the world of the film without overloading you or being ridiculously obvious.  The gorgeous landscapes during the prologue and during our heroes’ descent to the surface are awe-inspiring.

And then, the story.  I was completely okay with the open-ended nature of the story, and I’ll tell you why.

There are some films out there that play Prometheus’s game of asking questions and not answering them.  One of the most famous examples is Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey [1968].  If you’ve never read the book, I defy you to provide a concise explanation of the last thirty minutes of that movie.  But that didn’t bother people, because the goal was to get the viewer to ask questions, to provoke discussions about the movie that would eventually get around to some of the same questions asked in Prometheus: Why are we here?  What is our purpose?

And then there are other films that play that open-ended game and fail.  The one that comes immediately to mind is Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain [2006].  By the end of that movie, my head was locked in a tilted position like a cocker spaniel hearing a strange noise.  If I had been a cartoon character, the word balloon over my head would have been all question marks.  I once read a full description of what was really going on in that film, but to the degree that I understood it, I simply didn’t care.  If I have to go that much work to “get” a movie, the movie didn’t do its job.

There are those who say that’s what Prometheus did, throwing us in the deep end and making us do some mental heavy lifting with no payoff.  But I disagree.

I think, for me, it has to do with the very nature of the questions Prometheus is asking.  “If we could discover the answers to the riddles of our existence, to what lengths would we go, or should we go, to get those answers?  And do we even want to know the answers?  Are we better off NOT knowing?”  These are questions that, almost by definition, can’t be answered in any satisfying way.  So Prometheus presents a possible answer, but then teases it away so there is still some mystery in the story.  If the characters in Prometheus had discovered some kind of document that laid out the Engineers’ plans in detail, I would have felt cheated.  It would have been woefully anticlimactic.  I liked it better that the biggest questions went unanswered, so I could formulate my OWN theories about the Engineers, their plans, their methods, their history, their future, etcetera.  It’s much more stimulating to let my imagination run riot.

(Granted, some of those questions are answered in Alien: Covenant [2017], but that movie still had the guts to leave some things to the imagination by the end.)

Prometheus couches deep philosophical riddles about our very existence within a crackling good thriller with spectacular visuals from beginning to end.  It stands tall as one of the best prequels ever made…Xenomorph or no Xenomorph.