sci-fi
Horizon: Playing God, BBC TwoWednesday, 18 January 2012
“So you’re telling me that somewhere on this farm there’s an animal that’s part spider and part something else?” No, this isn’t a snatch of dialogue from the climax of a shlocky B-movie. These words were spoken calmly if sceptically by biologist... Read more... |
2011: Ladies With Ukuleles and Blockbusters With BiteThursday, 29 December 2011
2011 was an excellent year for highly original music from female musicians, two of whom brandished ukuleles yet found quite different ways of using them.New England’s Merrel Garbus (otherwise known as Tune-Yards) put her foot down on the effects... Read more... |
Doctor Who Christmas Special: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, BBC OneSunday, 25 December 2011
Next time you glance up at the stars, spare a thought for your Christmas tree. It’s probably topped by a star, but some of those in the sky might just be the spirit of the tree itself. By helping free the spirits of the trees in a forest, the Doctor... Read more... |
DVD: Super 8Friday, 16 December 2011
In JJ Abrams’s retro sci-fi Super 8, a group of budding film-makers are terrorised by a mysterious creature. With credible camaraderie and poignant performances from its young leads, it’s as much about growing up and the thrill of first-time film-... Read more... |
Another EarthTuesday, 06 December 2011
Another Earth begins, like many more reliable but less ambitious films, with a life-changing event. A young astrophysicist is involved in a collision. Climbing unharmed from her vehicle, she finds a woman and child dead by her hand. Four years later... Read more... |
Black Mirror, Channel 4Monday, 05 December 2011
It was several minutes into The National Anthem, Charlie Brooker's latest dramatic output on Channel 4 after his excellent 2008 mini-series Dead Set, a zombie-laden satire about reality television, before I laughed. I say that not as a criticism –... Read more... |
The ThingThursday, 01 December 2011
John Carpenter's original The Thing from 1982 had punch, pace, shocks, horror, dramatic tension and Kurt Russell in the lead. It also had a great intro, with its scenes of an apparently blameless and photogenic husky being pursued across Antarctica... Read more... |
DVD: La Jetée/ Sans SoleilMonday, 22 August 2011
Chris Marker has made over 60 films in his long career (he's now 90). But his reputation has rested on just two. Sans soleil (1983), a meditative film essay on Japan, and La jetée (1962), a 20-minute sci-fi film in the ciné-roman photomontage style... Read more... |
Cowboys & AliensMonday, 15 August 2011
The title is the film. In a new low point for high concepts, producers Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg only needed to see the cover of the titular, unfinished comic book to give Cowboys & Aliens the green light. Iron Man’s director Jon Favreau,... Read more... |
Rise of the Planet of the ApesThursday, 11 August 2011
Ever since the first Planet of the Apes film in 1968, in which astronaut Charlton Heston landed on a futuristic Earth being run by super-evolved apes, the idea has become a sci-fi staple, breeding a string of sequels, spin-offs and TV series. Tim... Read more... |
Super 8Thursday, 04 August 2011
Having masterminded the existential fantasy of Lost, reinvented Star Trek and served up the monster-on-the-loose rampage of Cloverfield, JJ Abrams now comes trampling all over Steven Spielberg's favourite turf of a homely, nostalgic America. He can... Read more... |
Captain America: The First AvengerTuesday, 26 July 2011
Already shouldering the new Harry Potter off the top of the US box-office charts, this latest arrival from Marvel Studios harks back to a simpler America where the hero wraps himself in the stars and stripes and the bad guys speak with ridiculous... Read more... |
