Movie Review: Primer (2004)

Aaron(Shane Carruth) and Abe(David Sullivan) have an invention.  They don't know what it is or what it does, but they know they have something.  They find out they have a time machine that makes it possible to go back a short time in the past.  The two have issues with how to use the time that they now have.

Primer is the type of movie that puts your brain into think mode.  I'm actually going to watch it again just so that I can help myself piece together the amount of times the two friends use the time machine.

The camera shots are really weird in this movie.  The opening scene is a shot from the ceiling angled down with a light in in the upper portion of the screen and the garage door in the background.  The next scene in the kitchen/dining area has the camera on the counter top, with the edge of the counter top showing.  There were other shots that just had too much showing of people's backs or other objects in the foreground that weren't vital for the scene.  By no means, am I an expert as far as directing goes, but there were so many scenes that were visually bothersome and it took away from the movie-watching experience.

Movie Review: The Zero Theorem (2013)

Qohen Leth(Christoph Waltz) is a talented computer operator in a futuristic world.  Qohen lives a very isolated life and it's due to his faith that he will be receiving a phone call.  He doesn't know when, so he has centered his life around working and waiting for the phone call.

Qohen is put on a project by Management(Matt Damon) to prove the Zero Theorem.  Proof that at if the universe ends, there truly is nothing.  The film explores the faith of people and what drives them.  It is explored wonderfully as you see Qohen giving up on experiences that would make him a happier person, but he needs to know what that phone call is.

The visuals in director Terry Gilliam's film help push the faith drive.  Qohen lives in an abandoned church with eyes on him at all time, much how people feel with religion.  The biggest visual metaphor would be the giant crucifix with Jesus' head removed and replaced with a camera.

The pace of the movie wasn't the fastest but overall I didn't get bored watching, especially with Christoph Waltz in the lead role.  Watching him deal with love, friendship, trying new foods and the like felt very organic.  Melanie Thierry as Bainsley was a delight to watch as well as her relationship with Qohen was played out incredibly well.  Lucas Hedges as Bob started off as someone I really did not like, but he turned out to be the most reasonable voice of the film.

Movie Review: Ex Machina (2015)

Caleb(Domhnall Gleeson) who works for the largest internet search engine in the world wins a trip to hang out with the founder(Oscar Isaac) of the company.  When Caleb meets Nathan, he finds out he is part of something much bigger.  Nathan is in a very secluded and highly secure compound where he is developing Artificial Intelligence.  Nathan wants Caleb to perform interviews/tests to see if his creation, Ava(Alicia Vikander), has a conscience.

Caleb is excited for the opportunity despite the odd behavior of his employer Nathan.  The interactions between Caleb and Ava were shot incredibly well.  Caleb starts to feel things are amiss when he gets into the artificial mind of Ava and his dealings with the heavy drinking Nathan.

Plenty of plot twists keep you wondering what may or may not be real inside this film.  Why was Caleb brought here?  What does Nathan really want?  Can Ava love someone?

On a scale of one to five pile drivers, I'm giving "Ex Machina" four pile drivers.  The film kept me interested from start to finish and really kept me guessing.

Movie Review: Rollerball (1975, Blu-ray)

I remember Rollerball from my schooldays. It came onto TV and all the kids in my class (4A, I believe: it's amazing what details certain things dredge up) were talking about it. It was like forbidden fruit. I didn't get to see it then, but saw it later and enjoyed. By then I'd read William Harrison's short story that it was based on. Now, it's many years on and times have changed. I wonder if kids today talk about the 2002 remake like it was forbidden fruit. Somehow I doubt it. I saw the remake a few years ago and while it wasn't a patch on the original it wasn't as bad as people claimed. It didn't scream forbidden fruit though.

Now I also have a little more pertinent background too, and that's well beyond just having a clue who Norman Jewison is. I haven't been to a roller derby match (game?) yet but I have met some of the girls and, let me tell you, they're not the little sissies that I had some vague uneducated idea that they were. Those are some tough ladies for sure and I could easily believe them playing rollerball at professional level.

Movie Review: The Thing From Another World (1951)

Directed by Howard Hawks, Christian Nyby

Starring Kenneth Tobey, Margaret Sheridan and James Arness

Run time- 87 minutes


A distress signal is sent from a scientific outpost near the North Pole to the nearest U.S. Air Force base, a thousand miles away in Alaska. Radar and other instruments have detected a large metallic object entering the atmosphere and crashing into the ice, a short distance from the outpost. Quickly taking action, the Air Force commander dispatches a rescue and recovery team, thinking the object may possibly be a secret Russian aircraft of some type.

Soon after ariving at the outpost, Captain Patrick Hendry (Kenneth Tobey) and his crew, along with a few of the scientists from the outpost, led by Dr. Kerrington (Robert Cornthwaite) take the short plane ride in search of the crash site. With the object causing major magnetic disturbances to their navigation equipment, they are forced to home in on the object with a Geiger counter and eventually find their quarry, a mysterious ship, completely submerged in a layer of solid ice.

A severe miscalculation in their attempt to free the ship causes it to self-destruct though, and at the moment they think the find of the century has been lost they then discover that there is something else trapped in the ice not far away, something that looks eerily like a man.....a very, very, large man.
Using axes they then free the strange looking being, taking care to keep it locked safely in a block of ice and return it to the outpost.

Movie Review: Futureworld (1976, Blu-ray)

Long before Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton built what would possibly be the foundation for the blockbuster dinosaur theme-park adventure with his robots gone awry science fiction flick, Westworld. The success of Westworld was lucrative enough to warrant a sequel directed by veteran Television movie director Richard T. Heffron (The Morning After). The sequel, Futureworld, has just been given a Blu-ray release by Shout Factory and for a 70’s sci-fi film it still stands the test of time when it comes to entertainment.

Following on the heels of a colleague’s murder, two reporters, Chuck Browning and Tracy Ballard (Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner) bring it upon themselves to do their own style of investigative reporting by poking through the massive Delos theme-park where the events of Westworld took place. 

Apparently things have changed for the better according to the operators of Futureworld, including Dr. Schneider (John Ryan, It's Alive, The Cotton Club) the main puppetmaster of the many cyborgs wandering the park. Chuck and Tracy don't seem to be getting anywhere until they meet up with one of the very few non-cyborg, employees. This helps them to gain more access to Delos but it puts a big target on their heads

Movie Review: Battle of the Worlds (1961, Ultra Films/Cheezy Flicks)

...ya' know?? One really has to hand it off to cult film director Antonio Margheriti (...or, Anthony Dawson, per his domestically coined moniker), for his ever-changing versatility and his ability to smartly adapt to many film genres, adding his unique style to whatever genre he takes on, without necessarily procuring a sense of 'copycat' or 'knock-off', in whatever 'flavor-of-the-moment' genre, which happens to be 'big', at that particular time and place. Whether it's spaghetti westerns (...1968's "Vengeance", 1967's "Dynamite Joe", etc.) ...swords, sandals & sorcery (...1964's "Devil of the Desert Against the Son of Hercules", 1983's "Yor, the Hunter from the Future", etc.) ...spy thrillers (...1966's "Lightning Bolt" and "Killers are Challenged", etc.) ...edge-of-seat giallos (...1968's "Naked, You Die", 1973's "Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye", etc.) ...'Raiders'-like high adventure (...1982's "Hunters of the Golden Cobra", 1984's "Ark of the Sun God", etc.) ...mixed genres (...the 1975 blaxploitation western, "Take a Hard Ride"...the 1974 martial arts western, "The Stranger and the Gunfighter", 1973's "Hercules Against Karate", etc.) ...war flicks (...1980's "Hunter of the Apocalypse", 1983's "The Last Blood", etc.) ...cannibals, aliens, sharks & shockumentaries (...1980's "Invasion of the Flesh Hunters", 1989's "Alien from the Deep", 1979's "Killer Fish", 1964's "Mondo Inferno", etc.) ...and horror, of course (...1963's "The Virgin of Nuremberg", 1964's "The Long Hair of Death", and this viewer's favorite of Antonio's, the 1963 gothic horror/romance, "Castle of Blood", amongst others). Indeed, if Antonio is guilty of anything, it's the odd occasion where he quite literally 'rips' himself off (...for instance, with 1971's color remake of "Castle of Blood", called "Web of the Spider"). However, for the purpose of this review's study, it's Antonio's contribution to the genre of science fiction, which stands out as prominently as the other genres, which he has tackled...the films of which are as numerous and varied, including 1966's "War of the Planets", 1960's "Assignment: Outer Space", and an intelligent, tension-filled little sci-fi gem from 1961...offered to us, from the fine folks over at Cheezy Flicks...called "Battle of the Worlds"...