Day: January 7th, Movie: 7

Steven Spielberg directed a movie that had been handed him by Stanley Kubrick, who had owned the rights for a few years, but was unable to get the film produced. After Kubrick’s death, Spielberg was finally able to direct A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

Starring Haley Joel Osment, fresh off his Academy Award nominated performance in The Sixth Sense, A.I. Artificial Intelligence was filled with some beautiful imagery and amazing shots. The special effects of the movie were amazing, providing the setting/background for Haley Joel Osment to do this work.

Osment brought an excellent performance as David, a robot created as a young boy who could feel love- something that was not done before. As a trial run, David was given to a husband and wife whose son was in a terrible accident and had been comatose for five years. Monica (Frances O’Connor) and Henry (Sam Robards) were uncertain about David, but eventually, Monica came to accept the young Mecha. She imprinted herself on David, a process that she was warned could not be broken and, if something bad would happen, would require David to be returned and destroyed.

After the imprinting, Henry came to his wife with the news that their injured son, Martin (Jake Thomas) had awoken and was coming home. Martin began to feel jealousy over David and started plotting against him. In the end, after David unintentionally nearly drowns Martin, Monica knew that David could not stay with them. However, she could not take him back to be destroyed wither, so instead, she took him and dropped David in the woods, deserting him.

David went on a quest in an attempt to find The Blue Fairy, from his favorite movie Pinocchio, trying to be made into a real boy.

I did not like much of the beginning of this movie. I found Monica to be a terrible mother and Henry did not even try to bond with David. Dumping him in the woods like a stray dog was such a cowardly thing to do, I had a real hard time hoping that David could get his wish and find his way back to Monica as a real boy. I also did not find Frances O’Connor’s performance to be very well done. I did not believe much of anything she did early in the movie and she seemed to be obviously acting. I did not enjoy her performance much.

When David met up with Jude Law, who played Joe, a gigolo robot whose job was to please women, the film took a turn into the world of creepiness. I felt a little uncomfortable with the material that Haley Joel Osment was acting around and, though Jude Law was charming in this role, he felt like nothing more than a suave Scarecrow (from the Wizard of Oz). I am not sure what his purpose was outside of just getting David where he needed to go and to creep me out.

The ending 20-30 minutes felt added on, though apparently it was not. None of the ending of the film felt earned and did not have much of any narrative structure to the film.

While it did have its moments, I was disappointed overall with A.I. Artificial Intelligence. It had plenty of themes, but none of them seemed to be developed over the course of the film. Haley Joel Osment was excellent again and the look of the film was lovely, but after that, I did not like the story, the other characters or the finale. It was a true disappointment.

Day: January 6th, Movie: 6

Today’s Genre-ary Sci-Fi DailyView film is a black and white classic from 1954, a monster movie with giant ants called Them!.

According to IMDB, “In the New Mexico desert, Police Sgt. Ben Peterson (James Whitmore) and his partner find a child wandering in the desert and soon they discover that giant ants are attacking the locals. FBI agent Robert Graham (James Arness) teams up with Ben and with the support of Dr. Harold Medford (Edmund Gwenn) and his daughter Dr. Patricia ‘Pat’ Medford (Joan Weldon), they destroy the colony of ants in the middle of the desert. Dr. Harold Medford explains that the atomic testing in 1945 developed the dangerous mutant ants. But they also discover that two queen ants have flown away to Los Angeles and they are starting a huge colony in the underground flood control tunnels of that city. When a mother reports that her two children are missing, the team begin searching for them. Will they arrive in time to save the children and destroy the colony?“

The film surprised me because it did a really good job of keeping the ants hidden through the film. It was the 1950s and the special effects are spotty, but they do a great job of maintaining the mysteriousness. The moments that they use the ants are kept minimal and it maximizes the opportunity.

Meanwhile, it does a solid job of providing us with a group of characters to root for as they are chasing the monstrous ants. James Arness gives a great performance and is one of the better characters to watch. I also enjoyed the scientist Harold Medford who had so much knowledge of ants (including a film detailing all the facts about ants). Edmund Gwenn went from playing Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street to the world’s most knowledgeable ant guy.

The story was very relevant for the time as it helped kick off the atomic monster films. It had been under a decade since the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan and the idea of what the a-bomb could do was front and center in the minds of the public. Causing a group of ants to mutate seemed very realistic and created an anxiety. The response of the film’s characters made a lot of sense too.

There were a few scenes that I felt that I needed that were not included in the film. The ending needed something for me and there was a reunion scene with the kids and their mother that was missing in my opinion. Still, the film worked well and I really thought it was more than I thought it would be.

Day: January 5th, Movie: 5

A 2-hour delay for school today opened up an opportunity to complete the Genre-ary Sci-Fi DailyView right away this morning. I am heading to see Megan tonight so I had scheduled a short to watch and, thanks to HBO Max, I was able to watch the original sci-fi short, Georges Méliès’s groundbreaking film, A Trip to the Moon.

This is the oldest movie on the site, being listed at 1902. A Trip to the Moon is an influential film by the French filmmaker and is widely considered the first science fiction movie. The version I saw on HBO Max had some color added to it. I do not know if that color was added recently or if it was from the original. According to Wikipedia, color prints “were produced for a small percent of Méliès’s films and advertised alongside the black-and-white versions at a higher price.” This make me suspect that this version on HBO Max could be one of these.

The film is an amazing achievement by Georges Méliès as the 14-minute film included a narrative structure, despite not having any dialogue or any word screens as many silent films would use. Some of the effects were very creative for the time and Méliès effectively used several camera techniques to create the illusion of what he wanted to happen. I can only imagine the stir that this film and its originality and its subject matter caused.

Inspired by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells among others, Georges Méliès brought the idea of science fiction to the movie world. He included a score over the film and, apparently, there were times when a narrator spoke over the film, explaining what was happening. Georges Méliès starred in the film as Professor Barbenfouillis, the president of the Astronomy Club and your main character.

The imagery of the cannon-powered rocket ship embedded in the “face” of the moon is an iconic image that has been used many times. My first memory of the image and reference to this film came from Martin Scorsese’s 2011 film Hugo. A Trip to the Moon brought a sensation to the film industry, which was just starting out, proving that you could tell a story and involve the audience in a piece of entertainment. The film helped show that anything was possible and the only limitations was the imagination.

Day: January 4, Movie: 4

The fourth film in the Genre-ary Sci-Fi DailyView is the 2011 British film, Attack the Block.

I started off this movie disliking what the film was giving me. We met the street gang led by Moses (John Boyega) as they were mugging an innocent woman, Sam (Jodie Whittaker). The five kids seemed to be nothing more than a group of punks and I found myself wondering if these characters are meant to the protagonists. Moses seemed to be a horrendously cruel punk who was not easy to like.

Then Moses killed an alien and things went off the charts. The death of the alien drew an invading force of larger, meaner creatures that appeared to be on a path of vengeance.

Suddenly, the character of Moses took a turn and started to realize how much of what is happening was his fault and, when he had to come into connection with Sam once again after mugging her, Moses is taken on a definite journey as a character. By the end, I had a much better mindset about Moses, even liking the character.

I especially enjoyed the gang member Pest (Alex Esmail), who felt like the audience’s voice as the film moved along. He was funny and quite witty. I also enjoyed the dialogue from Pest and the other kids because half of the British slang that was used was nearly undeterminable. I did not know what he was saying a lot of the time. It was funny.

I was surprised that this sci-fi/comedy/horror film’s biggest draw for me was how well the characters developed and interacted with one another. The action was good and the creature design was solid, using what was clearly mostly practical effects. In a film that I initially thought that I was going to dislike because I did not like the characters, I ended up liking this a lot.

Day: January 3rd, Movie: 3

Today’s entry in the Genre-ary Sci-Fi DailyView is the classic Anime animated film, Akira from 1988. This animated movie was adapted from a manga of the same title.

Right off the bat, I want to say that I watched the English dubbed version of this. Usually in live action, I try to watch the English subtitled version instead of the dubbed, but I did not think that the animated film would matter much. However, I was wrong. The dialogue and the voice acting of the English dub was poor and it took a lot of my concentration to focus in on the film with the distractions. If I had it to do it again, I would go with the Japanese voice/English subtitles version.

But I did not choose that one and so my opinion on the film is tainted a touch.

According to Rotten Tomatoes, “In 1988 the Japanese government drops an atomic bomb on Tokyo after ESP experiments on children go awry. In 2019, 31 years after nuking the city, Kaneda, a bike gang leader, tries to save his friend Tetsuo from a secret government project. He battles against anti-government activists, greedy politicians, irresponsible scientists and a powerful military leader until Tetsuo’s supernatural power suddenly manifest.”

The animation was amazingly cool for the year. It may not be up to the quality of animation today, but there was a special quality to it that made it work very well with this story. It definitely had that Anime feel to it and you can tell how this inspired all kinds of Anime films that followed it.

I had a little trouble getting into the story at first, but as the story progressed, I became more interested in what the movie was trying to show. There were some high concepts in the story and some impressive science fiction themes.

I enjoyed this movie, but I would be lying if I said that the dialogue and the English voice acting did not affect my overall feelings of this version. I still like this, but I would have liked to have seen the film the way it was meant to be seen.

Day: January 2nd, Movie: 2

The second day of the Genre-ary Sci-Fi DailyView is underway with a cool sci-fi flick that I had never seen before, starring some big named actors. It was a neo noir film called Dark City and it featured Kiefer Sutherland and William Hurt.

However, the lead star was an actor named Rufus Sewell, who I did not know very well. Checking out his filmography at IMDB, I saw that he had been in several films that I had seen (as well as several TV shows that I had not), but none of them stood out as the “Oh yeah, I saw him in that” memory.

Dark City has a complicated story that grabbed me right away. I was engaged with the central mystery of what was happening and wanted to know the answers. Directed by Alex Proyas (which is a follow up to The Crow), the film is extremely stylish and truly surprising.

According to IMDB, “John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) awakens alone in a strange hotel to find that he has lost his memory and is wanted for a series of brutal and bizarre murders. While trying to piece together his past, he stumbles upon a fiendish underworld controlled by a group of beings known as The Strangers who possess the ability to put people to sleep and alter the city and its inhabitants. Now Murdoch must find a way to stop them before they take control of his mind and destroy him“

The film gave me some The Matrix feeling about it, and then I realized that this film came out in 1998 whereas The Matrix came out in 1999. So perhaps The Matrix gave me some Dark City vibes instead.

Kiefer Sutherland gave an interesting performance as Dr. Daniel Schreber. He gave the character several intriguing traits, such as a breathy way of speaking and physical limps that you do not normally see from a Kiefer Sutherland role. Where he falls in the story is one of the key mysteries of the film.

I believe there was too much use of exposition, especially at the very beginning of the film which feels unnecessary. I understand the need for an explanation as you go, but some of the information they presented in the film was shown rather sufficiently using the imagery.

I will say that when the big revel came around, I was surprised. I was impressed by the reveal and, even more so, since the film had been dropping hints throughout about what was going on. I am sure that upon a second watch, you could pick up plenty of clues that would make more sense with the knowledge of what was happening.

Dark City was a well design science fiction tale with some fascinating ideas. The Strangers were creepy and menacing. The film’s look was exceptional with some definite dark tones and creative images. I am not sure how I feel about the third act confrontation (which I will not spoil), but everything else was so strong that I am happy to put aside any minor gripes.

Day: Jan. 1, Movie 1

2023 starts off with the first of the Genre-ary Sci-Fi DailyView which was a film I heard about from Robert Meyer Burnett’s films of the year from 2022. It was a sci-fi film called Vesper, a film that I had never heard about before. I went to Vudu and was able to rent it and I kicked off the Genre-ary with it this morning.

Directed by Kristina Buožytė and Bruno Samper, Vesper is a post-apocalyptic film where engineered viruses escaped into the world and wiped out a large portion of life. Enclosed cities, known as citadels, were where the well-off went to thrive while others struggled to survive in search of food.

Vesper (Raffiella Chapman) is a 13-year old who is taking care of her father Darius (Richard Brake) who is paralyzed and can only communicate with Vesper through a flying drone. Vesper’s uncle Jonas (Eddie Marsan) runs an orphanage where he would harvest blood from the children that he sells to the citadels. Jonas was not motivated by a family bond.

One day, Vesper discovered a young woman named Camellia (Rosy McEwen) who had crashed, along with her father, in one of the citadel’s ships. Vesper took Camellia back and helped heal her, but there is more to her than what we see.

The movie was well shot and required specific attention because there were some really creative and intriguing ideas being used in the movie. Some of the concepts really worked well and created the feeling of hope among the desperation that enveloped the world.

Speaking of the world, this film did a fantastic job of world building. Creating a futuristic society with rules and dangers can be a difficult thing that, at times, weighs down a film. It many times leads to an excess of exposition, but Vesper handled the introduction of the ideas extremely well and the film worked it in to the story smoothly. In fact, several of the details that the film brings up are never expanded upon and feels as if there is significant story yet to tell. It is a setting where I would welcome further exploration.

The visuals were done vey well, helping to build the feeling of a world that felt dirty, grimy, but it never feels hopeless. You believe that Vesper is going to overcome with her intelligence and heart.

A nice start to the Genre-ary Sci-Fi DailyView.