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Ten B-Lister Sci-Fi Flicks I Can't Help But Enjoy

Man From Planet X (1951)

 
Made on borrowed sets in just six days this modest film is basically a melodrama where a few people save humanity from a little alien guy you can't help but feel sorry for. The fog machine is turned on full to hide the wire and cardboard as heroes and villains wander around castle walls and out on the moors. It's like watching an epic as done by an amateur theatre company.

Earth VS The Flying Saucers (1956)

Few sci-fi inclined haven't seen this, but I'll remind you anyway. Ray Harryhausen put a lot of life into his saucers and into this film. The film itself is very pedestrian and predictable, but when saucers or aliens appear it just has that childhood thrill or fear you want to recall. And the faux epic climax over models of Washington buildings is always fun.

The Abominable Snowman (1957)

From the writer of the Quatermass stories comes an intelligent and philosophical adventure film. And yes, about the hunting of the Yeti. But despite the glorious visuals (impressive for the budget) this is mainly a psychological story and where much of its strength is from the characters and general atmosphere. There are striking moments to this small grand film and Peter Cushing shows why he's...well...Peter Cushing.

Fiend Without A Face (1957)

 
Feral brains with whiplash spinal cords! And these squirmy, leaping neck stranglers create a fairly effective climax to this modest British flick that is respectable to all concerned, even with the silly science and melodramatic plot twists. Without doubt the stars of this movie are the little brain bastards and they don't truly appear till near the end but it's a worthy payoff.

Atomic Submarine (1960)

 
The cheap look adds to the charm of submariners versus a flying saucer. The actors try to be likeable, the director tries to be entertaining, and the narrator keeps a stiff upper-lip. Stock footage abounds! When our heroes eventually get into the saucer the real fun begins. The big bad alien is one of my cheesiest favourites and I love his alien arrogance. Take that, you!

The Day The Earth Caught Fire (1961)

The Last Man On Earth (1964)

 
When don't you enjoy Vincent Price? Never does he fail to live up to a film and this Italian mega-el-cheapo mutant zombie movie tries hard to live up to him. Admittedly, this version of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend (there have been three) virtually begins and ends with Vincent's performance, but the film still holds up enough on its own. It shows that even if the execution isn't the greatest, a good idea not betrayed goes a long way towards a good SF movie.

Death Race 2000 (1975)

 
I've always liked David Carradine even when he's in one of those ultra-cheapie rip-off flicks. And this is one of them, made quickly to cash in on Rollerball (1975). But it moves fast, keeps the right humour and beats Paul Verhoven to that satirical style uber-violence. It's Wacky Races for psychos. And who doesn't do pedestrian point scoring when that little old lady is taking too long to cross the road? And it has the only bad visual pun I'll let be paid.

The Hidden (1988)

Effectively a chase movie, it barrels along so fast you don't have time to realise there isn't much story. Eventually it turns into an alien and human buddy story, with all that character building stuff wanna-be writers would want to do with such a premise. But the direction and Kyle MacLaughlin's charms keep you happy to see how it all turns out. And the body-stealing alien is a nice piece of work.

Fatally flawed, but there's enough cool stuff in this Rutger Hauer low-budgeter to make you wonder why it goes so wrong. Indeed, this is a smart, sassy, stylish future cop film with quirky heroes chasing a nashy-teeth monster through a flooded London. It's going great guns till the studio, so impressed by the rough cut, thought this could go mainstream and thus rejected the original cerebral ending, forced the director to quit (he went back to commercials) and commissioned a rewrite to deliberately dumb down the last ten minutes (you can see the moment it happens). It could have been a cult classic, but instead it's another Highlander 2, except it still makes more sense than that.

Ray Harryhausen is a god among filmmakers, because he was and still is the king of movie monster makers. His Dynamation process was more than just hand animating models, which would be awesome simply by itself, but he developed film processes for this animation to work among real actors and seemingly on set. It was stunning for its time but the artistry keeps it alive even now when technically it would seem crude compared to the computer generated material of Avatar.

But I would bet you ten bucks that everyone who worked on the creatures and ships in Avatar is a proud Harryhausen fan directly inspired by his work. And I bet another ten bucks directly inspired by Jason and the Argonauts, maybe the best kids movie ever.

Ten or so years ago I had the privilege of meeting Mr. Harryhausen at a talk he gave. That would have been cool by itself and remains a firm and fond memory. But it was made very special by what he brought with him. He had various models from his films including the Medusa from Clash of the Titans and few other beasties.

Two particular items were really special to me to see, up close too. One was a skeleton from the climatic fight from Jason & the Argonauts; he was like twenty centimetres high. The other was a saucer from Earth vs the Flying Saucers, one of the small ones from the shots where they flew along in armadas.

That moment was so exciting for me, the high moment of fanboy worship, because to actually see up close one of those saucers that Ray animated by hand and know that was the saucer I saw in the film that when I first saw it, some Saturday afternoon on the family TV, I didn't even think of it as something that existed outside the screen, was like making a personal and physical connection to my sense of cinematic awe. This should really let you know where I'm coming from. And it's where a lot of fantastic film enthusiasts come from.

And Ray Harryhausen holds a rare distinction in cinema. In the early years of film, particularly during the studio system, ownership went to the producer, a Selznick or DeMille picture, later, as independents started to arise, to the director, a Hitchcock or Scorcese film, otherwise it belong to the lead actor, a John Wayne or  Audrey Hepburn movie. Ray Harryhausen is the only person who is not a producer or director or actor who is given the ownership for the films he created such dazzling effects. Ray did not write, produce or direct any of his films, from It Came from Beneath the Sea to Clash of the Titans, yet all are referred to as Harryhausen films. For in the end, there is no reason to see these movies except for the thrill of what Ray Harryhausen produced for it, often as a solo craftsman and with the most modest of budgets.

And that is why he grows in reverence and stature more and more every day. You see, the coolest thing of all about Ray Harryhausen is that he gets cooler. He is cooler now than he was ten years ago, twenty, fifty years ago. I am glad that on his 90th birthday he has that knowledge that he is one of the coolest guys in the movie world. For over time, because and not despite of all the common place CGI of contemporary fantasy films, new generations can see the artistry and the unique skill of Harryhausen's achievements. Some things don't date and some things date just in the right way to keep them alive forever.

In the world of fantastic cinema, he is a legend. He is the man.

So now, let's wrap this up with what is perhaps Ray Harryhausen's finest moment as an artist, Perseus encountering the Medusa in the 1981 film Clash of the Titans, his last feature film before retirement.

Thank you, Ray.

Alfred Hitchcock was riding high as "The Master of Suspense" when he made Vertigo in '58 and North by Northwest in '59 (two of his very best films) but he was getting some lip that he was only the master because he commanded the budgets to pull it off. Plus, there were young "maverick" directors being treated as upcoming rivals to an old schooler.

Perhaps this gave Hitchcock a reason to prove something or maybe he just wanted to try something different. Regardless, he was shown Robert Bloch's new novel Psycho  (inspired by Ed Gein, arrested two years prior) and Hitchcock decided this is where he wanted to go.

  The major studios, previously happy to give Hitchcock the big bucks, didn't like the idea at all and refused to support it. They wouldn't even pick up the film rights to the novel to explore it. So Hitchcock picked up the rights himself (anonymously) and self funded the project as a low budgeter using the studio and crew from his Hitchcock Presents TV series.

Upon its release it immediately became one of the most controversial films from a major studio and shook up everything to do with the cinema of horror, of the thriller and of psychological drama. And of course, Hitchcock not only had another hit, but also showed he wasn't just still on the edge but ahead of the curve on almost everybody and could do so outside the studio system.

But I don't need to heap superlatives on what is as much a work of modern art as it was entertainment. No other film has given more people doctorates in psychology. No film other than Citizen Kane has been so dissected by film scholars. The shower scene has been paid homage or parodied more than any scene in any film anywhere and remained the height of modern editing till the car chase in The French Connection ('71). And the musical score by Bernard Herrmann is still one of the best soundtracks ever put to a film.

Regardless of what I'm going on about, if you haven't seen it yet then you better get on with watching it. Or see it again, because there's something new to find in it every time. And when you do watch it remember it's 50 years old and almost all of modern thriller / horror cinema owes it big time. Oh, and the original novel by Block has been reissued as part of the 50th anniversary.

Norman hopes you enjoy the film.

Best Book Covers for May

Though I use layout design combined with the execution of the art, be it photography or illustration, as to judge the quality of the final product I still pretty much just go with what I like.

Eh, what ya gonna do? 

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Star Wars Sequel Anyone?

I almost forgot that on May 21st 1980, The Empire Strikes Back was released to an anxious audience. No need to tell everyone it remains the most liked of the Star Wars movies and often referred to as an example of a sequel that improves on the original (I prefer to think it builds on the first). It was a film that introduced the cinematic cliffhanger to a new generation and was the first downbeat ending that teenagers had encountered. That satisfied but still yerning feeling in the stomach when the credits went up was a new sensation for millions. And 30 years on it remains the best space adventure film. And the hand animated snowwalker battle on Hoth sequence is still superior to almost all since (yes, I'm thinking Avatar).

It remains a kick-arse adventure. Gotta be impressed.

Here's the trailer to remind you.

Oops, wrong trailer.

Eh, what ya gonna do?

 Dennis Hopper     May 17, 1936 - May 29, 2010

Daisy Duck has turned 70. She is the aunt of April, May and June Duck and lifelong friend of Minnie Mouse. She has had a longtime on again off again relationship with Donald Duck and despite their reputation for volatile behaviour Daisy has successfully tempered Donald over the years while maintaining an independent career and being a role model for working women who do not have to trade femanine fancies for success. She remains an inspiration for young women, especially showing you can be strong and forceful and still wear pink ribbons.

Also turning 70 is Lance Henricksen. There aren't many people you can refer to as a cult actor. Lance is certainly one of them. An experienced stage actor he first appeared in the classic Dog Day Afternoon and has shown his versatility ever since. He was James Cameron's first choice for the Terminator but the studio wanted Arnold. Can you imagine how different Hollywood would be if they had gone with Lance? Anyway, he still was in Cameron's Terminator but it wasn't till he played Bishop in Aliens that we really got a good look at him. Never out of work playing crazies or wise men and doing three seasons of Millennium as FBI agent Frank Black. ALways liked him as astronaut Wally Schirra in The Right Stuff. And Lance is a successful ceramic artist as well.

Here's a quiz question; who's the only other actor besides Lance Henricksen to have faced a Terminator, an Alien and a Predator?

At the age of 16 Lena Horne became a singer and dancer at the famous Cotton Club working with Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington. By the early forties she was appearing in American musicals though her songs would be removed from films when shown in the south. Still, she became the first African-American leading lady in Hollywood. Despite this she quit her film career because of the inherent racism. By the '50s her civil rights activism and left-leaning politics got her blacklisted. She kept performing on stage and on television and in 1981 at the age of 64 her one-woman show relaunched her to new generations of followers and her fan base only grew till she retired from fulltime performing in the late '90s. She died 9th May at the age 92 still one of the most respected performers of all time.

Logorama won best animated short at the Academy Awards this year. Originally in French it has had the American voice treatment. It's sixteen minutes of pretty friggin' awesome. Nuthin' else to be said. Enjoy

One hundred years ago the very first film adaptation of Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus was released to an unsuspecting public still dazzled by the medium of cinema itself.  Mary Shelley's tome had been quite a popular subject for theatre prior to this film in numerous manifestations, but when this film came out it was considered a radical reinterpretation of the text and was perhaps the first film to convert another medium into a cinematic experience. It was a sensation.

Produced by The Edison Company (yes, Thomas Edison) it was billed as a "liberal adaptation" and it could hardly be anything else being only 16 minutes long. Though striking for its day and considered rather visceral it has a rather odd mystical tone to it which most contemporary critics agree makes for a strange ending. Still watching it today you can see past the incredible datedness and can imagine the shock of it when it was first seen.

But I think you can enjoy it now not just as a historical document but also as a surreal little film that could have come out of the imagination of a David Lynch or Guy Maddin.

Here is the most complete version available running around twelve minutes.

Enjoy this one hundred year old monster movie.

Steve McQueen would've turned 80 late last week if he hadn't died at 50 in 1980. So he was a bright and shining star for slightly less than two decades. His cult status began in 1958 as the teen hero in The Blob, which immediately identified him as someone special, because here was a young punk that has the town against him and yet we identify with his intelligence and morality right away. And this is in a low budget '50s monster movie (a fav, btw). Less than two years later he was the cool and sharp-witted gunfighter in The Magnificent Seven. But by then he was a household name as the star of what would be a three year run of the still most popular TV series of all time Wanted: Dead or Alive.

But I'm not talking about him here because he was a star in some good movies. He was the coolest actor of his generation, the automatic replacement to James Dean, except who know where Jimmy Dean would have headed, because Steve McQueen seemed to so encapsulate the new sexual revolution and non-political libertarian male that both progressive and conservatives could identify with. He could flower power it with the best of them and then go do the 24hr Le Mans, then appear on Johnny Carson and then go bareback bike riding. And through all this he just looks so cool in all the photos.

But if there is one film that truly puts him the status of Planet Blog worship then it is his 1968 cop thriller Bullitt. He redefined the action hero, allowed him to be tough as nails, tougher then the bad guys, yet intellectual and person of style. Bullitt makes a big point that he has style, even elegance. After all, the best car chase in cinema history is Steve McQueen in a 1967 Mustang (and you don't have to be into cars to know that's a cool car). And McQueen did all his own driving. I'd like to think that five years earlier McQueen did most of the riding in the coolest bike chase seen ever for The Great Escape.

But it isn't about his prowess as a driver but that something actors have tried to copy but can't capture. That rugged Renaissance man, that such an air of cool calm control (even though he made films where he portrayed characters quite the opposite) he played in all his key films and he made those characters all an iconic part of the late twentieth century cinema. Steve McQueen is Reese from Hell is for Heroes, he is The Cooler King, he is Bullitt, he is Thomas Crown, Nevada Smith, The Cincinnati Kid, Doc McCoy, Junior Bonner and in his crowning achievement as an actor he is Papillon.

Steve McQueen is rightly considered a legend and remains the coolest actor on the Hollywood screen since his death. Only Clint Eastwood surpasses him in icon status but that could well be because Eastwood kept on going. Personally, I think Chow Yun Fat is the only actor that rivals McQueen for on screen cool, but I wouldn't be surprised that he has used the Steve McQueen legacy as many an actor has in the last thirty years. Frankly, I don't think there'll be another Steve McQueen and for that reason his legend will only build.