Today is one of those days. A weekend spent partying and drinking and all sort of sill things has meant that today has been spent drinking cups of tea and lolling around the flat in a state of torpor, watching rugby, and sorting out stuff for a new mix that will be coming out in the next couple of weeks. That should be a lot of fun.
But as ever, Sunday evening is now here and that can mean only one thing. Yup, it’s time for the SUNNNNNNNNNDAY CULLLLLLLLLLLT FILMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM CORNNNNNNNNNNNAH!! (Belch…).
And for this week’s instalment i present to you a low slung ’80s sci-fi classic with a stellar cast, psychic assassins, and strange government conspiracies. Ladies and Gentlemen, i give you DREAMSCAPE.
Directed in 1984 by Joseph Ruben (Who would later go on to direct such Hollywood fare as sleeping with The Enemy, The Money Train, and The Forgotten), the film stars Dennis Quaid as Alex, a young psychic who drifts around using his powers for things such as winning at gambling. After being found out, he is coerced into re-joining an academic research project funded by the government and managed by Alex’s former mentor, Dr Novotny (Max Von Sydow). The project aims to help people with sleep and psychological disorder by allowing psychics to enter the patient’s mental state while they dream. But the project is hi-jacked by powerful government agent Bob Blair (Christopher Plummer), who plans to use the project to train assassins who can kill people in their sleep. Alex and scientist Jane DeVries (Kate Capshaw) find themselves in danger when they uncover Blair plans to use a dream assassin to kill the US President. Together they vow to stop Blair before it´s too late.
Dreamscape mixes several genres into its flesh. There’s some Sci-Fi, some thriller, some action, some psychological horror. Despite it’s rather stellar cast, Dreamscape is most definitely classic pumped up B-film fare and at times feels more like a TV film that something from Hollywood. The dream sequences seem rather cartoonish and due to the rather low-budget, the special effects have really not aged well. The script is no great shakes, and the characters don’t have that much to them. But the cast play it reasonable straight (aided along with George Wendt, as a Novelist investigating the project, and David Patrick Kelly as the psychopathic assassin). Dennis Quaid in particular shows a lot of flashy wit and the charming smile and demeanour that would serve him well on films such as Innerspace, Great Balls Of Fire, and The Big Easy.
So if you fancy some classic schlocky ’80s sci-fi action, then pull the chair up and give this a blast. But be careful when you get to sleep, OK?
You know, i think that sometimes i´m too easy on your lot. Here i am slugging my guts to provide you with entertainment and some possible educational nourishment, and what do i get in return? Nothing! (apart from the odd howl of adulation or snark). At the same time i don’t think you, my reader, that you are not progressing enough in your sentience and education to survive in the real wide world.
So for this weeks cult film, I’m taking the logical gloves off as we look at the reals of quantum physics and time travel that make Inception look like a copy of “See Spot Run”. Ladies and Gents, i give to you PRIMER.
Primer is a low-budget Sci-Fi written, produced and directed in 2004 by Shane Carruth. It tells the story of four engineers who one, while working on a project in their spare time, accidentally build the workings of a time machine, specifically travelling into the past. After some initial forays, their minds turn toward the possibilities (stock market manipulations, relationships, averting disasters). But after a perceived malfunction, mistrust and paranoia grow amongst the engineers as they each try to angle each other out of the discovery. But which one will be successful and have the ability to change the world?
first off, PRIMER will make your head bleed, in that its experimental plot structure was doing to filmgoers what Inception and Memento would do several years later (the wiki for the film has a handy diagram to explain the mechanic of this version of time travel). Due to the low budgets, the generic “crash band wallop” of generic Sci-Fi has been replaced with a more philosophical narrative on the morals and merits of time travel, as it tries to ask the question “What would actually happen if you could go back in time?” The budget restriction also means that the film has a very cheap feel to its production. Shaky camerawork, slightly blurred visuals, and storage depots and garages for locations. No multiple dimensions or new worlds here.
But despite this, Primer is a very weird, but thoughtful and highly inventive film. I do recommend watching it at least a couple of times before you get the gist.
We’re living in what can be called “interesting” times. A worldwide recession that should have been completely avoidable is exerting its vice-like grip on society. All over the world, governments are powerless to stop the rapacious demands of powerful, moneyed interests collectively buttfucking civilisation into the next dimension. In the middle east, nations are falling into chaos and even war as oppressive regimes find their power starting to crumble, while elsewhere, people are trying to fight back and protest, whether it’s student fees in the UK, the occupy movement in USA and elsewhere, and anti globalisation demos in places such as Toronto. Meanwhile they are being met with crackdowns from state and private mechanisms in the form of police, the judiciary and corporate backed media outlets.
It’s with this uncertain backdrop that i merrily drop this weeks fun action packed edition of the SUNDAY MOTHERFUCKING CULT FILM CORNER!!! This week, a truly realistic nightmarish vision of an American society at war with itself. Ladies and Gentlemen, ice give to you PUNISHMENT PARK.
Punishment Park is directed by Peter Watkins, a director who honed his talents with the BBC in the ’60s and is best known for his use of Docudrama techniques. Before Punishment Park, he was most infamous for his film “The War Game” (which describes in detail the effects of a nuclear attack on London), which to this day has never been shown in full on British TV.
Told in a faux documentary style, Punishment Park tells of a USA in the near future where escalation of the Vietnam war and increasing political unrest and violence at home has resulted in the enacting of the (completely real) McCarran Act, which authorizes Federal authorities, without reference to Congress, to detain persons judged to be “a risk to internal security”. Anti war protestors, conscientious objectors civil rights, feminist and various counterculture and left-wing activists are arrested en masse and given the simple choice. Either spend 15 years in a federal prison, or run the gauntlet of “Punishment Park”, a 50 mile stretch of desert where they must reach a flag within 3 days, all the while hunted and chased by law enforcement officers and national guardsmen as part of their “Training”. The film has a British & German documentary film crew following two groups of people. One undergoing their summary court “tribunals”, while the other group undertakes the “game” of punishment park.
Part social commentary, part dystopian Sci-Fi, Punishment Park pulls no punches. Despite having an initial script, the film mostly consists of improvised dialogue and interaction, adding a sense of realism and urgency to the proceedings. According to the legend, some people identified so closely with their roles, at one point an actual fight broke out when actors hurled rocks at their pursuers only for them to open fire in return.
Despite the liberal leanings of Watkins and his complete denunciation of the state machine and the people who operate within it, nobody comes out of Punishment Park well. Even the “good guys” in the form of the activists are shrill, argumentative and somewhat naive in their expectations as they are manipulated by the people running the game.
What Watkins does manage to capture brilliantly is the increased polarisation that became evident in the Nixon ´nam years (he managed to get re-elected in 1972 on the back of creating an “Us Vs Them” divisiveness amongst the electorate). In the film, there is no real dialogue between the opposing sides, just shouting and general mistrust and often outright hatred of each other.
Punishment Park only received a tiny limited release in the USA. When it was shown, there was often a polarizing reaction within the audience, similar to the film, between those who thought it was hysterical and heavy-handed announcing that such things couldn’t happen in the USA, and those who felt it accurately chimed with the reality of US state oppression, pointing out that interment camps were a reality in the US during the second world war for the Japanese Americans.
Even though it was released 40 years ago and was about the Vietnam and Nixon years, the central messages of Punishment park are ironically more important today than ever. The last decade has seen a frightening increase in violent paranoia amongst many groups, both right and left-wing. The McCarran Act was eventually repealed, but in its place we now have the Patriot Act, which in some ways goes even further. The court scenes in Punishment Park wouldn’t look out-of-place in an interview on FOX news or MSNBC. In many countries in the western world, we’ve seen a gradual but real erosion of our ability to exercise our freedoms and rights to protest, all the while going hand in hand with an increase in the militarization of our Law Enforcement agencies and their willingness to exercise said force in ever more blatant abuses of power. Finding yourself detained while protesting in a legal black hole where you are no rights or access to lawyers has become a reality. And for people who still think that internment camps can’t happen in places such as the USA, I’ll leave this article about the fallout of Hurricane Katrina, where militia men rampaged with impunity, and a a detention facility called “Camp Greyhound” sprang up from nowhere and was used to detail all manner of citizens, with no legal recourse or oversight, subjecting detainees to brutal levels of abuse similar to Abu Ghraib.
So get that cup of tea and prepare to feel some righteous anger at the brutality of western state suppression. then go out and protest as if your life depended upon it.
Ahh the French. When it comes to culture, they always end up doing things just that little bit differently. Actions films, historical dramas, buddy cop dramas. they always have to be that little bit extra. And it’s the same with Sci-Fi. OH they love that stuff, but it’s not enough to have big guns, crazy aliens and shit like “the Force”. No, they have to get all metaphysical and philosophical on us, creating some films that are truly… interesting.
And with this in mind we are heading to…. Glasgow! Yup it’s the Auld Alliance as we bring an Anglo French edition of THE SUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNDAY CULT FILM CORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNERRRRRRRRRRRRR!
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give to you a lost classic - DEATH WATCH
Directed in 1980 by Bernard Tavernier, Death Watch was a departures from the movies he was best known making at the time (Historical dramas and crime). A near future Sci-Fi tale, It tells of Roddy (Harvery Kietel) a cameraman who loses his eye in an accident , but has it replaced by a state of the art camera that can records whatever he sees. Roddy is hired by the head of a TV organisation (Harry Dean Stanton) to follow a woman named Katherine (Romy Schneider). Katherine is dying and the TV organisation want Roddy to secretly record her last actions for a captive TV audience. At first the footage provides a grim and slightly sleazy spectacle as the TV organisation and it’s viewers get to see the thoughts and actions of a person who knows they are dying. But as he spends more time with Katherine, Roddy begins to care and empathise with Katherine’s plight and starts to question his actions.
When Death Watch was first released, a mix of poor reviews and big blockbuster films such as “The Empire Strikes Back” meant that it sank quickly into obscurity. But over the years, the film has grown in stature to become a highly prophetic polemic about the nature of personal privacy, the intrusion of modern media and the ethics of using personal drama, pain and lives for ratings and entertainment. Remember this was back in 1980 and fly on the wall documentaries were still a new phenomenon. The first fly on the wall doc, THE FAMILY, has screened in 1974, but they weren’t as prevalent as they are these days. It predates “The Truman Show” by nearly 20 years.
The other star of Death Watch is the city it was filmed in, Glasgow. in the late 70s/early 80s, Glasgow was a city crumbling and living on fumes, it’s soul destroyed by city planners who had inadvertently turned the place into a shadow of its former self. The old buildings are torn down, the industries all but gone. You can almost feel the city crumble right before your eyes. But the film still manages to capture the city’s faded former glory. the city is feels very off kilter, at once recognisable, but decidedly alien, detached. It’s probably one of the best uses of a city as a location for a film. No shit – even better than Woody Allen’s use of New York.
Death Watch is not your typical Westernised guns blasting, gung-ho, meathead sci-fi film. It has a true message on the nature of human interaction and communication and more importantly makes you think. so if you want to think for a bit (and knowing my readers, that might just be a possibility), then put your feet up with a nice cup of tea enjoy some proper, realist Euro Sc-Fi.
(A big shout out as well to the guys at Dangerous Minds, for the heads up that this film was posted on YouTube)
Damn it’s still really difficult to type, but a decent mix of beer and painkillers took care of that. Iceland today has been basking i a warm summers glare with people starting to wilt under the heady temperatures of 12 Celsius!! Phew what a scorcher!
And today yours truly was witness to a well know icelandic custom at this time of year where the locals indoctrinate its youth into the loving arms of the national church, otherwise known as the confirmation. At least there was a beer and some food at the end of it all.
And while i was sitting there wondering what the hell was going on, my wandered as i thought to myself “you know what i really want to watch right now? No brain, not the handball. What i want to watch is a crazy Sci Fi space vampire zombie apocalypse movie that’s based in the UK”. “Don’t be silly” said my brain. “there’s no film like that in the world!” Oh yeah? Well ladies and gentlemen (and my brain), for tonight’s Sunday Cult film, i give you the completely outlandish classic LIFEFORCE.
The plot is rather simple. A spaceship, the Churchill, is in deep space investigating Haleys Comet, when they find a spaceship hidden by said comet. They find the spaceship deserted except for three humanoid aliens (1 female, 2 male) in suspended animation. On their way back, they lose contact with earth. A subsequent rescue mission finds only one survivor as well as the 3 aliens. The aliens and the survivor are taken back to earth for closer examination. A big mistake, as it appears that they seem to be space vampires who feed not on your blood, but your lifeforce. Oh and once drained, the victim turns into a zombie that also craves human lifeforce! Can a mix of scientists, a kick ass SAS guy and the shuttle survivor stop the aliens in time, before the earth is destroyed?
Lifeforce was directed by Tobe Hopper, 3 years after he directed Poltergeist. This was a film with a very big budget for its time (approx $25 million) with the idea of creating a major sci-fi blockbuster. alas it performed really badly at the box-office and Hooper never really recovered his career after wards. As a film, Lifeforce is certainly sleek with decent special effect. But it still clings to a B-movie/exploitation ethos, especially as the female lead vampire alien is almost completely naked the whole time in the film. Casting wise it has the usual Brit acting talent on display (Patrick Stewart, Frank Findlay) as well as my favourite, Peter Firth, as the dashing but equally direct and brutal SAS officer Colin Caine (Peter Firth would go on to be better known to UK fans as the imperious Harry Pearce from BBC spy drama “Spooks”). Plus it was aliens, vampires AND zombies! I mean, who can really go wrong with that??
So while i go off to an illegal party (apparently it is illegal to have an official party during a christian holiday), you sit back and watch the OTT sci-fi madness…
so this weekend has been a fairly relaxing contemplative experience. Reading, music (Lots of music) and seeing famous musicians in the Nuddy. In fact it was a performance last night at the Icelandic Opera and concert house, Harpa, that has inspired this weeks cult film corner.
Last night saw the performance of “Solaris 2.0″ , a collaboration between Ben Frost, Daníel Bjarnason and the Krakow Sinfonetta to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the publication of the Stanislaw Lem’s novel “Solaris”. Now i didn’t go, but i did have two friends that went, only to leave half way through! apparently according to them they found it a little boring. No accounting for taste i suppose.
As it’s well-known that Lem’s novel was adapted for film by famed Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky. And Solaris wasn’t the only one. For tonight i give you not one but TWO classic russian Sci-Fi adaptations for the price of one. Ladies and gentlemen, i give to you SOLARIS and STALKER.
Now i could go on for a while about the history and legacy of the films of Andrei Tarkovsky, but i think you should just first read his Wiki, then check some interviews with him here. Now let’s get back onto the films…
Solaris, made in 1972, is a psychological sci-fi tale of a bereaved psychologist that is sent to a space station orbiting the planet Solaris, where cosmonauts and scientist are studying what seems to a sentient, intelligent organism covering the entire planets surface. The study has stalled due to a member mysteriously dying after experiencing psychological problems. While at the space station the psychologist begins to experience hallucinations of his dead wife. Is it all in his mind, or is the alien intelligence trying to find ways in which to communicate to him?
SOLARIS is a slow building tale that has absolutely none of the classic western sci-fi traits of action/special effects/paper-thin characterisation. Instead it slowly draws you in with a realistic, mature approach to the idea regarding love, loss, and the nature of communication and alien life forms. Despite the lack of special effects, the cinematography is both lush and realistic. you may have to watch it twice, but you’ll get out of this film what you put into it. Yes, people you will have to watch and think while viewing this movie.
The ideas explored in Solaris are taken further in the next film from Andrei Tarkovsky this evening, STALKER. Loosely adapted from the novel roadside picnic, it tells of two men who attempt to travel into a heavily guarded area known as The Zone. where for some unknown reason, the normal rules of physics have been rendered null and void. To do this they hire a guide (the “Stalker” of the title), who can take them to a place known as “The Room”, where your innermost desires are granted and made reality. During the trip, they converse and explore their motives and reasons for trying to reach the room, all the while trying to ensure that they do not fall into danger. But will they encounter what they expected and will it be worth it in the end?
Like Solaris, STALKER is a dense, philosophical film about the nature of mans needs, desires and place in the universe. It’s a beautifully realised picture with the film, starting in bleak black and white before the entire look and feel of the film changes once they enter the Zone (one of the films stand out scenes). The image of the film is also as important as what is said by the characters. Image and text move in harmony with each other, aided by a heady psychedelic soundtrack.
Stalker has many ideas and messages about the nature of man desires, drive and the nature of god and man as the rational world of science clash with the spiritual, emotional side of people. Also, this is a bloody great film to experience while undergoing some form of chemically induced experience.
Now these films are both well over 2 hours long, so if you do decide to watch them, then be prepared to write off most of your day/evening. But you will truly come out of this a smarter, more rounded human being. A human being that will also likely be going “WTF did i just watch??”
Ahh Sunday, the day of rest and recovery. The Farm is slowly picking up the pieces of our broken consciousness as we drink copious cups of tea and collectively go “durrr” at YouTube videos of Adam Curtis docs and the Saturday night Live character Stefon (the coolest club kid in New york apparently). But the time for supine thrills and undemanding entertainment for something a little more substantial. Maybe an intelligent Science fiction thriller with some nasty extra terrestrial viruses. Hey, i know what we should all watch. Ladies and Gentlemen, i give to you THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN.
Based on the novel by Michael Crichton, the andromeda strain tell of the efforts of a group of 3 scientists to examine and combat a lethal extraterrestrial organism that arrives on earth after a US satellite falls to earth. The organism has a rather nasty habit of killing everybody it come into contact with by turning their blood to dust. Can they find a way to stop it spreading and placing mankind in peril.
The Andromeda Strain is an interesting film in that it completely eschews big flashy bombast and action scenes for a more reasoned, intelligent, science based approach. Well the main characters are scientists after all. The tenson comes from the strain the scientists put themselves under to try to defeat the organism, the other fact is that the organism seems sentient and resists attempts by the scientist to combat it.
the movie has a fly on the wall feel to it with a lot of scientific processes and language used. It all comes across as rather realistic in its atmosphere, spurred on by an entirely electronic soundtrack that contains eerie drones and machine like beeping precision, which is still a rarity in movies these days.
So put your feet up and get your inner scientist thing going on as mankind battles against weird space germs that will KILL US ALL!!!
OK the thumbscrews are starting to turn slowly as some deadlines are starting to loom. This means that my train of thought today has been rather bi polar and scattered like mental confetti. Pausing only to take a breather, i realised that the damp wet evening is a golden chance for you all to watch some weird, nasty shit on your PC. The sort of weird,nasty shit that will make you go “Oh hanks bob. I really needed to see that. Now i can’t get any sleep at night”. Yup it’s time for the SUNDAY CULT FILM CORNAHHHH!!
And for this weeks offering, i’M going for something deeply british, outlandish and gruesomely bizarre in equal turn. Boy and girls, i give you the lost cult classic, XTRO!!
Made in 1982 by Director Harry Bromley Davenport, XTRO is a low-budget Sci Horror that tells of the abduction of a family man by aliens while his young son is the only witness. Fast forward 3 years, and the son still has nightmares about that night, although his mother and her new boyfriend believe that his dad simply left them. Then his dad returns from space, and tries to instigate a reunion with his wife and son. However, he is not the same man he was when he was abducted and he has a few nasty surprises up his sleeve so to speak.
When this film first came out, it was originally categorised as a video nasty due to the amount of gore (especially for a British film). And it’s not hard to disagree. There are some scenes in the film where you actually say to yourself “Holy shit! did they really just do that???”. But despite the gore and inherent bizarreness of it all, XTRO still manages to deliver some genuine shocks and scares (the sighting of an alien on the road at the beginning being a classic example).
so if you’Re in need of some good old-fashioned shock and groans, then get that duvet and a glass of finest claret and prepare to be astounded by some lovely ’80s Brit exploitation.
