The original Alien from 1979 was a masterpiece of production design that infused Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett’s ‘haunted house in space’ concept with Ridley Scott’s remarkable aesthetic sense. James Cameron’s 1986 sequel, Aliens, while lacking the original’s eloquent artistry, inventively expanded some its ideas and reworked the concept into a brutally efficient, white knuckle action film. After two reasonably
Read moreLoosely inspired by Henry James’ novella The Beast In The Jungle, the beguiling, occasionally disturbing, sometimes funny and at times brain boggling French-Canadian science fiction film, The Beast sits beside Slaughterhouse Five and Cloud Atlas in the ‘fascinating head scratcher’ sub-genre. This is one of those films where characters shift through different realities appearing at different times and in different
Read moreThe recent Hollywood Godzilla and King Kong films have been enormous, lumbering, jokey, CGI onslaughts that have offered some impressive spectacle and monster porn but (smatterings of techno jargon aside) seem to have mostly been aimed at 12-year-olds. Despite a distinct lack of cinematic nutrition, they’ve been successful enough to spawn multiple sequels and now we have the latest effort,
Read moreWriter/director Kristoffer Borgli’s strange psychological drama, Dream Scenario joins Beau Is Afraid, Poor Things, Babylon and various others in the impressive roster of inventively odd recent films. In one of his career best performances, Nicolas Cage stars as evolutionary biology professor Paul Mathews, a seemingly ordinary chap who becomes the centre of a bizarre social phenomena. People begin reporting that
Read moreAustralian cinema isn’t renowned for its science fiction films although Mad Max and Upgrade fans might disagree. Seemingly influenced by the likes of TV show Black Mirror, the latest Aussie sci fi film, Monolith makes for a topical and inventive, if limited, addition to the genre. Monolith is as much a psychological mystery thriller as a sci fi film as
Read moreBased on Ian Reid’s 2018 novel, the dystopian sci fi drama, Foe offers an intriguing premise but too often delivers it in a dull fashion. Set in the year 2065, the film depicts a world in which our worst fears about the impacts of climate change have been realised. Global drought has almost annihilated agriculture so governments have begun a
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