Best scifi movies

Recently, I saw two of my all-time-favorite science fiction movies again. Blade Runner and 13th Floor. Both these movies are highly rated and have set the trend for modern science fiction. The 13th floor is about a simulation where there is a earth like world with real chracters in it. It is a must see. The movie Matrix was very much like 13th floor and was based on a similar story. BladeRunner is about a cop whose job is to deactivate “replicants” ( Robots ) in the future los angeles. Deckard and Roy batty have given excellent performances. Harrison ford is remarkable. Here are some of my favorite quotes from Bladerunner.

Roy Batty: I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams … glitter in the dark near Tanhauser Gate. All those … moments will be lost … in time, like tears … in rain. Time … to die.

Tyrell : If we gived them a past, we’d create a cushion, a pillow for their emotions and consequently we can control them better.”
Deckard : “Memories. You’re talking about memories.”

Double Indemnity. Film Review

The shadows look more ominous than ever in this remastered print of one of Hollywood’s first films noirs. Fred MacMurray plays against type as Walter Neff, an insurance salesman who falls for a client’s wife and gets snared in a scheme to kill the husband. Barbara Stanwyck thickly applies both the femme and the fatale, and Edward G. Robinson is superb as Neff’s suspicious boss. This was second of four pairings for MacMurray and Stanwyck, and definitely the best. Extras on the two-disc set tend toward the scholarly, with a documentary and two commentaries. (Fun fact: Director Billy Wilder had to take a bathroom break every 15 minutes while writing the screenplay because he and co-writer Raymond Chandler couldn’t stand each other.) The second disc includes a faithful 1973 television remake starring Richard Crenna.

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RV. Film Review

If you’re looking for an updated “National Lampoon’s Vacation” for middle school-aged kids, and you’re not afraid of a predictable plot and potty humor, “RV” is the film for you. It’s the story of a suburban family, including a clueless but lovable dad (Robin Williams), on a “family time” road trip in - you guessed it - a recreational vehicle. Even for fans of Williams’s over-the-top “Mrs. Doubtfire” fare, “RV” delivers only a handful of laughs. A flat character and even flatter lines hardly allow the comedian to be himself (except for the opening tickle-monster scene). Those who prefer more subtle comedy than exploding sewage lines and rabid raccoons will likewise be disappointed. Extras: Details of the many toilet scenes are included in the appropriately named gag reel.

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To Kill a Mockingbird

The No. 1 movie hero, according to the American Film Institute, possesses no superpowers, doesn’t wield a lightsaber or mow down the enemy while shouting nifty catch-phrases. In fact, he’s a lawyer, played by Gregory Peck. The Oscar winner brings a deep decency to the role of Atticus Finch, who takes on the case of a black man accused of raping a white woman in 1930s Alabama. The film unfurls through the eyes of Finch’s daughter, Scout, and everything about it, from the opening credits to Robert Duvall in his first screen role, is exceptional. It’s almost as good as Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The set boasts plenty of extras, which tend to become repetitive. But “A Conversation With Gregory Peck” and the documentary “Fearful Symmetry” are both good.

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DVD review: Multiple homicide, double standard

If you’ve never seen a movie where the character walks backwards towards the edge of the frame only to be surprised by someone standing behind them, “House of Wax,” now out on DVD from Warner Home Video, may seem like cutting-edge cinema. Of course you would still have to sit through 45 minutes of lazy exposition designed to make characters with the depth of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog seem lifelike before their inevitable waxing. For, you know, contrast.

Paris Hilton getting killed is really the only thing they’ve got here, and the filmmakers know it. I found myself checking my watch all the way past the hour mark waiting for her to get it. The casting of Hilton, an “actress” totally untroubled by talent or good taste, goes to one of the central weaknesses of this film.

Good horror flicks scare by inverting the norms of reality and violating the boundaries of safety that society establishes. Thus, actually frightening films like “Psycho,” John Carpenter’s first “Halloween,” “Rosemary’s Baby” or “28 Days Later” really work on their audiences deep down. The realest thing “House of Wax” has going for it is real heiress Hilton “playing” a dumb teen, surrounded by a bunch of other dumb teens who have all kinds of fancy toys (like a Cadillac pick-up truck) that few grown-ups could afford. Call it aspirational horror. A better movie might successfully find a consumerist parable in the killing of these cardboard dummies, but director Jaume ColletSerra is no George Romero, and this is definitely no “Dawn of The Dead.”

Watching “House of Wax” got me to thinking (surprisingly enough). How is it that a film with zero redeeming qualities other than copious gore and gruesome violence can get an R rating from the MPAA and something like Atom Egoyan’s “Where The Truth Lies” or the Ewan McGregor starrer “Young Adam” gets slapped with NC17s for some semi-explicit sex?

The Sting. Film Review

Audiences must have left theaters in 1973 chortling at the audacious twists of this tale of a grifter (Robert Redford) out for revenge after his partner is murdered.

Unfortunately, in the past 30 years, con-men and trick endings have become such cliches that the movie has lost its power to surprise. Even when Redford is leaping over rooftops, The Sting feels lethargic.

An impressive supporting cast (Ray Walston, Eileen Brennan, Robert Shaw) and great direction help make up for this. And Paul Newman is a loopy delight as Henry Gondorff: The twinkle in his blue eyes when he signals that the con is on remains undimmed by time. There are three making-of documentaries with interviews with Newman, Redford, et al., but these are more self-congratulatory than informative.

David Oistrakh: Artist Of The People?

I belong to the generation that as students drooled over David Oistrakh’s new recordings, but then had quite a surprise when on stage we saw a dour person whose face showed so little emotion. Even more infuriating was his ability to make everything look so ridiculously easy, with technical challenges just swept aside.

This 1994 documentary from the French violinist and film-maker Bruno Monsaingeon traces Oistrakh’s life from early years spent in his native Odessa through to the time when, as a young Jew in the Soviet Union, his career was only as good as his last competition result.

He triumphed in one after another, while the Communist authorities used that success to bolster the image of their regime.That he was financially exploited by that regime is made abundantly clear in a film interview with Yehudi Menuhin, who condemns the fact that Oistrakh was forced to perform incessantly and that everything he earnt abroad was channelled back to the party machine.

The musical excerpts are historically interesting but are often in grainy black and white with indifferent sound quality, giving little evidence of his great performances. But many close-ups show a bowing technique every student should study, for it produced those incomparable long-spun passages of lyric beauty.

Oistrakh’s son, Igor, adds family touches, including the fact that his father played the violin incessantly, and before he did anything in the morning he would play an excruciatingly difficult passage, only after which he seemed content.

Lucid subtitles, when the soundtrack is not in English, provide the finishing touch to a fascinating disc.