As we stand on the cusp of a New Year (2013! Wow, does that sound futuristic!) I thought I would end the year with this classic from the 101 Sci-Fi Movies list. Made in 1968, this stunning visual achievement, which took home the Academy Award that year for Best Effects, it still stands a…
Tag: 101 sci-fi movies
Planet of the Apes (1968) – Franklin J. Schaffner
The further I get into the 101 Sci-Fi Movies list, the more films I know, and am enjoying the chance to revisit. It’s been a number of years since I’ve seen this classic film, based on a novel by Pierre Boulle and a script by Michael Wilson and The Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling. Schlocky fun, it…
Quatermass And The Pit (1967) – Roy Ward Baker
Release in North America as Five Million Years To Earth, the 101 Sci-Fi Movies brings a chilling, unnerving tale to me with this Hammer adaptation of a classic BBC serial. Quatermass and the Pit has it all, the devil, ghosts, psychic abilities, aliens and a UFO long-buried, all of these items are in service to…
Who Killed Jessie? (1966) – Vaclav Vorlicek
The 101 Sci-Fi movies has brought me this unexpected treasure. This is a wacky 60s sci-fi romp that is just an absolutely hoot, verging on madcap hilarityof the Blake Edwards variety. Jessie (Olga Schoberova) is a busty, brainy, blonde beauty (how’s that for alliteration?) who has created a pair of anti-gravity gloves, unfortunately she’s consatantly being…
Fantastic Voyage (1966) – Richard Fleischer
Just over 20 years before Dennis Quaid was miniaturized and found himself inside Martin Short, in Joe Dante’s escapist adventure Innerspace, Richard Fleischer last seen on the 101 Sci-Fi Movies list with 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, returns with Fantastic Voyage. Amidst the Cold War, America and Russia aren’t only in a nuclear race, they are in a…
Seconds (1966) – John Frankenheimer
The 101 Sci-Fi movies brought an interesting if downer of a film for me to watch… John Frankenheimer the director of the original Manchurian Candidate and Ronin directs this black and white film based on David Ely’s novel. Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph) is a middle-aged man, his wife (Frances Reid) and he are less than…
Fahrenheit 451 (1966) – Francois Truffaut
The 101 Sci-Fi Movies brings us this Ray Bradbury adaptation, by legendary French director Francois Truffaut. A world where the written word and books are outlawed because they disturb people, create feelings of longing, joy, sorrow… I wouldn’t get along very well there that’s for sure. I love my books. Truffaut creates the world right from…
The Tenth Victim (1965) – Elio Petri
The 101 Sci-Fi movies brought me yet another film I had never heard of, which as we get closer to the 70s and 80s will happen less and less, and it was an interesting little film, that starts out as kind of a sci-fi action thriller, and then almost ends up being an absurdist comedy….
Alphaville (1965) – Jean-Luc Godard
A year before Gene Roddenberry’s stalwart Captain Kirk would take on ultimate computers and artificial intelligences controlling the lives of its subjects, a grizzled, film-noir detective/secret agent Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine) who is undoubtedly kin to Blade Runner Rick Deckard, travelled the interdimensional roads (in a car) from the Outlands to the planet (?)/city(?)/dimension(?) of Alphaville on…
Robinson Crusoe On Mars (1964)
Hey, they can’t all be winners, and this time, the 101 Sci-Fi Movies disappointed me a bit. Perhaps if they hadn’t called it Robinson Crusoe On Mars, but Planet X or something instead, because this one falls more solidly into the fiction side rather than the science side. Using Daniel Defoe’s classic novel of isolation of…
The Mind Reels 