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20 years later, the movie "Total Recall" still kicks butt
40hz:
It shows that a good story with a good script far outdoes any special effects.
-Renegade (June 15, 2010, 08:35 PM)
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Agree 100%. Unfortunately, good sci-fi and speculative fiction stories are getting pretty rare. Some of the best are currently found in Japanese animae films - but that's a topic that rates a whole separate thread.
One very cool film no sci-fi buff should miss is this relatively low-budget picture:
Avalon- released in 2001 and directed by Mamoru Oshii, who also was responsible for the great animae classic Ghost in the Shell.
Avalon tells the story of Ash, a woman who competes in an illegal VR wargame called Avalon. Because the game links directly into the brain, Avalon players run the risk of becoming one of a growing number of damaged players who live out their catatonic lives in state mental hospitals. But despite this risk, or maybe because of it, the game remains popular in the bleak industrial world its players live in.
From the Prologue:
The near future. Some young people deal with their disillusionment by seeking out illusions of their own - in an illegal virtual-reality war game. Its simulated thrills and deaths are compulsive and addictive. Some players, working in teams called "parties", even earn their living from the game. The game has its dangers. Sometimes it can leave a player brain-dead, needing constant medical care. Such victims are called "Unreturned". The game is named after the legendary island where the souls of departed heroes come to rest: Avalon.
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Click on thumbs for full size:
20 years later, the movie "Total Recall" still kicks butt 20 years later, the movie "Total Recall" still kicks butt 20 years later, the movie "Total Recall" still kicks butt
There's also a trailer available. Caution: trailer contains some images that may partially give the ending away. DO NOT watch if you'd rather not risk ruining it for yourself. SpoilerWatch trailer here.
Avalon covers most of the concepts found in the three Matrix films. But it does so better than all of them combined. The Polish actress Malgorzata Foremniak, who stars as the character Ash, creates one of the more intriguing female leads since Sigourney Weaver's portrayal of Lt. Ellen Ripley in 1979's Alien.
Not too shabby looking either:
I could easily get lost in those shoulders...too bad they didn't cast her as Aeon Flux!
The film is mostly shot using a weird sepia color palette that really hammers home the dull and colorless lives the characters endure when not inside the game.
Strange visuals, a strong but somewhat 'damaged' heroine, illegal cybergames, virtual reality, the hint of a monumental government conspiracy, and some mysterious allusions to Arthurian legends.
Now that's my kind of picture!
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Trivia break:
The basset hound you see in Avalon is owned by the director. It's a female and it's named Gabriel. (Go figure.) This dog served as the model for the basset hound in Ghost in the Shell along with several other animae films. The classic scene in Ghost in the Shell where Bato (the dogs owner) fixes the dog a fancy meal and then scoops its long ears out of the dog dish while it's eating is exactly duplicated in Avalon.
+++
In real life (whatever that means) Ms. Foremniak is a natural blond:
;)
Innuendo:
A person either loves 50's sci-fi and horror movies or they don't. There's no middle ground.
EDIT: This was in reference to some not liking that movie posters & movies of the time didn't always sync up or may not be as fast-paced as modern films.
Renegade:
It shows that a good story with a good script far outdoes any special effects.
-Renegade (June 15, 2010, 08:35 PM)
--- End quote ---
Agree 100%. Unfortunately, good sci-fi and speculative fiction stories are getting pretty rare. Some of the best are currently found in Japanese animae films - but that's a topic that rates a whole separate thread.
-40hz (June 15, 2010, 10:25 PM)
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Have you seen "Fallen" with Denzel Washington, John Goodman and Donald Sutherland? It's a horror film, but it's just beyond spectacular. I've seen it probably 50 times or more. (An international title for it was "Dark Angel".)
It only rates 42% at Rotten Tomatoes, but they're retards. It really is very cool. Even if it recycles some themes, it's done really well.
I find that the very best films are often horror films. Now, 99% of horror films are just drivel, but that rare horror that pokes its head above the crowd really does go beyond.
Sci-fi I find are generally more consistently good, but again, rarely truly are "great". Star Wars and Blade Runner are what film makers aspire to. Getting there is another thing though.
A lot of current TV shows are doing very well with good plots and writing. Lost, Supernatural, Flash Forward, Fringe, Heroes, Paradox, Star Gate (various spin offs), Southpark, and I'm sure others can name more -- these push different methods and literary devices with plot twists and the like that you don't get in shows like "Friends" (which I find mildly humorous, but entirely stupid) or other typically mainstream shows.
There's nothing better than a show that when it finishes, you're swearing and cursing a blue streak because now you have to wait an entire week to find out what happens next.
The show "Surface" was very cool, but got canceled, leaving the final episode as a cliff hanger ending. Disappointing when shows get canceled sometimes. Farscape deserved better.
Blah. I'm rambling now.
Target:
Avalon- released in 2001 and directed by Mamoru Oshii, who also was responsible for the great animae classic Ghost in the Shell.
Avalon tells the story of Ash, a woman who competes in an illegal VR wargame called Avalon. Because the game links directly into the brain, Avalon players run the risk of becoming one of a growing number of damaged players who live out their catatonic lives in state mental hospitals. But despite this risk, or maybe because of it, the game remains popular in the bleak industrial world its players live in.
-40hz (June 15, 2010, 10:25 PM)
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I've never seen this film, but I was struck by the apparent similarity to Tad Williams otherland series (of books)
One of my alltime faves - anyone else read these?
Deozaan:
A person either loves 50's sci-fi and horror movies or they don't. There's no middle ground.
EDIT: This was in reference to some not liking that movie posters & movies of the time didn't always sync up or may not be as fast-paced as modern films.
-Innuendo (June 16, 2010, 10:37 PM)
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I see this as a response to 40hz's recommendation of IT: The Terror from Beyond Space and my dislike of it, so I'm responding to clarify my position.
I don't really mind that the movie poster didn't align with what happened in the movie. Heck, these days you'll see movie trailers with actual footage from the movie that doesn't make it into the movie. And I don't mind slow-paced movies either, as long as something is happening (i.e. story or character(s) is/are developing).
What probably bothered me most about the movie was just how stupid and helpless everybody was. A couple of the really bad ones:
[Potential Spoilers Below]
* They find out pretty early on that bullets are ineffective at stopping (or even harming) the Martian, yet every time they hear a growl from the creature, they immediately pull out their pistols and, if in sight, start firing.
* They have deadly gas bombs that are supposedly strong enough to kill dinosaurs, so all (but three) of them don gas masks (and the three without protection are only a few feet away from those with the masks) and toss a few down the hatch and seal it up. 10 seconds later they open up the hatch to see if it did the trick and let all the fumes up. If the gas was as deadly as they said, it would obviously kill the three unprotected folk pretty fast.
* They actually do this stupid hatch trick a few times. Throw something down there to destroy it and then immediately open up the hatch again to check if it worked, each time getting ambushed by the monster who is still in the same spot on the staircase/ladder it was in just 15 seconds ago.
* Why didn't they ever think to just jettison it out into space and be rid of it? If the thing got on board by someone accidentally leaving a door open that can be opened and closed (remotely) from the bridge/cockpit/control room, why not just open it up again while the creature is still down there?
* If you really think a guy murdered his entire crew on Mars for no good reason, why would you allow him to roam around freely (albeit accompanied) on your ship?
* If there's even the slightest chance of there being an alien lifeform on Mars (which was the lone survivor/alleged murderer's story), wouldn't that potential discovery seem more important than anybody made it out to be in the film?
* They are in a small spaceship, with circular rooms that are maybe 15-20 feet in diameter, yet two people will carry on a conversation (loudly) about someone else on the other side of the same room as if that other person won't hear it.
* Amazingly, that other person doesn't seem to hear it!
And these are just a few examples of the stupidity of everyone involved.
I disagree with 40hz's description: "With it's (mostly) intelligent dialog and brooding shadowy set, IT succeeds in creating a remarkably believable atmosphere of escalating tension."
In my opinion, the characters were unbelievably stupid (stupid is as stupid does) and quite often downright illogical. I do suppose, however, that there was escalating tension throughout the film, but that was mostly just my patience wearing thin waiting for anybody do to something intelligent.
Movies really irritate me when people behave irrationally or illogically for no good reason. (Upon reflection, that sounds funny, I need a valid, logical reason for someone to behave illogically.) I'm not good at watching movies just for entertainment. I usually can't help but think about them for the next few days and analyze them to pieces.
But now that I've vented about IT: The Terror from Beyond Space, I think I've gotten it out of my system enough that I can move on to analyzing Pandorum, which I found while looking to see if Avalon was on NetFlix's Instant Play. (It's not.)
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