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Maiklas3000
Reviews
The Colony (2009)
Reality TV grows up
I'm no fan of reality TV, but I make an exception for The Colony, because it's more meaty. The scenario is that a viral outbreak has devastated Mankind, leaving relatively few survivors. The volunteers for the "experiment" are 10 individuals with diverse backgrounds, and we get to watch as they attempt to survive in an admittedly artificially constrained environment: a cordoned-off warehouse in L.A.
Two things make the show special. First, the group is so immersed in the situation that the emotions are real for them, which is fascinating. Second, they do builds that are interesting and sometimes amazing.
From comments the participants have made outside the show, it's fairly obvious that things were about as real as they could be, within this totally artificial situation. On the Discovery forums, Mike the mechanic wrote:
"WE...and I say this again,,,,,,,,WE had NO HELP from crew or anyone else!!!!!!!!!"
You can almost hear him shouting. And on his blog page, uber electrical engineer John C. wrote:
"One thing I really loved about the show was that everything they showed that worked.. actually worked.. if it didn't work.. they'd show that it didn't work.. That was really important to me."
Despite this, the director was not content to just sit back and watch things unfold naturally, and instead prodded the group with events, such as actors playing the role of raiders. This sometimes comes off a bit silly, but at least there are no stupid contests.
It's a show that some love and some hate, so your mileage may vary.
Pod njenim oknom (2003)
enjoyable, humorous, and offbeat
Is Dusha going crazy, or is someone *really* stalking her? Dusha is a woman from a dysfunctional family, atypical for Slovenia. Her father ran off to India, and her pragmatic mother chooses sexual partners on the basis of their useful skills, such as an auto mechanic. Dusha is having something of an early mid-life crisis at age 30, questioning whether her married lover really loves her and trying to drown her misery with drugs and dancing. She tries to find answers in the stars, without success. She becomes convinced that someone is sneaking into her apartment to unclog her sink. A shallow love story ensues with someone even more dysfunctional than she. It's a story of meeting life's adversities, starting with being towed away while still in her car and then a king cobra delivered to her home and finally a much bigger problem, and dispatching them with pragmatism and relative ease.
The acting is good, and the script is good, and this already puts it far above most Slovenian films. It's enjoyable, humorous, and offbeat. I lost myself in the story. Although in some ways the film feels shallow, I believe below the surface lurks symbolism, most obviously with the cobra and storks.
Minor complaints: The English subtitles were not edited by a native English speaker. I would have preferred the ending to have jumped forward 20 years to show how everything turns out, but being left with something to chew on has its advantages.
Starship Troopers (1997)
Some people just don't get it
Hands off Starship Troopers! It's one of my favorite movies (9/10), and each time I watch it I am more impressed by the fine workmanship that went into it. For example, in response to a student saying that people are given citizenship and the right to vote as a reward for military service, Radcheck exclaims, "No! Something given has no value!" Radcheck's words make no sense whatsoever, and yet he pounds out each word like it is a fundamental truth. It is fascist propaganda, and the director intends you to think about how similar today's Earth is to this film. Yes, the film is silly, and so is our world today. Watch "Battle Line" on the History channel, or the black and white filler stuff at the end of A&E Classroom, or "Victory at Sea" on PBS, and then watch Starship Troopers again... you won't be saying you don't get it. For extra credit, watch a live speech by the President of the United States to see some current parallels. Work makes you free.
Red Planet (2000)
Above average sci-fi
Although plot holes abound in this film, many of the criticisms voiced by reviewers here are not valid. For example, someone complained that the dates don't add up. Well, the film says that by the year 2000 it was becoming obvious that we were poisoning the Earth (it is), and then the film is set in the year 2050, and it says terraforming has been going for 20 years prior. That seems plausible. Someone complained about the warming of Mars, but this was explained by one of the characters in the scene where they are running out of oxygen in their suits. The film shouldn't be expected to explain all this, but it did. The coincidence of the chosen landing site being relatively close to some previous probes' landing sites seemed all too convenient, and this was never explained, but there are plausible explanations: maybe it was intentional, to supply the crew with some extra resources, or maybe this was just a good area of Mars for landings (but look out for the cliffs!)
My biggest nitpick with the film is that a "nematode" is a worm, and the PhD in Genetic Engineering who identified non-worm creatures as nematodes should have known better.
My other big problem with the film is its implausible sequence of disasters. Most recent films seem to suffer from this. Like in Perfect Storm, it's not enough that your boat gets hit by a big storm - prior to that you also have to suffer through a man overboard due to a freak accident, a great white shark *onboard*, and a rare rogue wave. Well, same thing here, you suffer radiation from a solar flare and later the destruction of everything you need to survive, and as if surviving on an alien world with no food and no water is not hard enough, you also find yourself under attack from some of your own equipment. Come on.
Speaking of no water, why weren't they eating/drinking the ice that rained down in the ice storm? It was water ice, wasn't it, or was it carbon dioxide ice?
Let's focus on the positives. The computer images of the planets and spaceship are absolutely gorgeous, and the computer animation of the 'bot does a better job of suspending your disbelief than the old stop-motion model filming like in Terminator(1). As far as science fiction films go, this one is above average - not nearly as good as the Matrix, but not nearly as bad as Mission to Mars or Screamers. The acting is good. The exotic beauty of Carrie-Anne Moss is a bonus. (I wonder if her exotic looks may be Marfan Syndrome.) The core of the plot is vaguely plausible. The repeated theme of "no, no, you go on without me" and self-sacrifice is interesting, along with the contrast with the selfish approach. Go in with low expectations and optionally a suspension-of-disbelief ale, and you may enjoy it.
Alphaville: Une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (1965)
Weird
While it does not come off as art for art's sake, it nevertheless lost me. Actually, I don't so much think that it lost me as that there was not much there. The plot is weak. The film is largely snippets of a society gone amuck, ruled by a computer that makes Hal seem nice. When "love" gets dragged into the mix, it does not wash, as the film does nothing to show the viewer any love between the lead characters. On the Star Trek scale from "Spock's Brain" to "City on the Edge of Forever", this is a "Spock's Brain."
Pitch Black (2000)
Sci-fi fans will love it
If you read the comments, you'll see that this is a "love it or hate it" flick. If you're a sci-fi fan who liked Alien, you should love it. With the exception of the Matrix and Star Wars, science fiction just doesn't get any better than this. Packed with tension and not completely predictable, I found it scary and not at all boring. Clearly some deep thought went into the morphology and habits of the aliens. The main human characters were more than one dimensional stereotypes, as you get peeks at details of their personalities that conflict with your first impressions of them. But clearly some of you will hate it, so if you don't like sci-fi or didn't like Alien, steer clear.
Soylent Green (1973)
Not all that meaty
This movie has a great atmosphere, convincingly portraying a world gone awry and interesting social customs of the future. However, there is more atmosphere than true tension and character development. It's worth watching once for sci-fi fans.
Hardware (1990)
I rated it a 5...
I rated it a 5, but would probably go lower if it weren't sci-fi. It's much like the original Terminator, but that's a minus, as you just wind up cringing when the similarities remind you how much better Terminator is than this. Pity it didn't steal Terminator's series of different fight locations, choosing instead the claustrophic tedium of a single apartment for most of the movie. You can see a little Bladerunner influence, with the setting, the roof-top fight scenes, and the Vangelis-like background music in spots, again a minus. Violence upon violence is piled on in lieu of character development and a plot. The movie leaves the science out of the science fiction, like by someone hiding in an open freezer to avoid showing up on infra-red. The music is top notch 80's angst alternative: Ministry, Motorhead, PIL... very appropriate, but it doesn't save the movie. By the way, the lead guy is "Bobby" on the Practice (on TV.)