Rogue One: A Star Wars Story tells the story of the brave rebels that stole the plans to the Death Star and led us into the opening crawl of Star Wars: The Episode Four. Is it a story that needed to be told? Let’s just say that Rob and Clive… disagree.
Strap in. Frank exchange of views ahead.
A dose of grimy 90s cyberpunk from director Richard Stanley that’ll leave you feeling like you need a shower. Great practical effects, some creative gore and a heavily-encrusted aesthetic makes this a retro pleasure. But there’s a controversy at the heart of the film, that led to an unexpected credit nod for a couple of 2000AD writers. Let Rob, Clive and Curiosity give you the lowdown…
The last Marvel movie of 2016 is a fun, psychedelic romp through the origins of the Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Stephen Strange! Join Rob, Clive and Curiosity as they explore the world, the performances and whether or not we’ve found the last one of those pesky Infinity Stones…
We continue Spooky SFF month with the bizarre gore-drenched fantasy-horror The Sword And The Sorcerer.
It’s a formative experience for both our futurenauts for various reasons (including a parental ban from Clive’s mum and dad). Master of exploitation Albert Pyun’s first movie, it features changes in tone rapid and extreme enough to give you whiplash. From swashbuckling to sadism, this movie has it all!
It’s October, which means Curiosity is skewing spooky. This month our over-excitable alien chum is feeding Rob and Clive titles with an extra layer of creepyplasma.
We start with Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce–a deranged slice of Quatermass-style oddness with added nudity, exploding corpses and weapons-grade scenery-chewing. This one has to be seen to be believed, and even then you won’t believe what you’re seeing.
What would survival in a post-oil society be like? As life slips back into an agrarian, hard-scrabble existence, how can we find meaning or even happiness? How much do we have to lose before we lose our essential humanity?
Stephen Fingleton’s cult psychodrama The Survivalist takes on these questions and weaves a taut story of uneasy trust and betrayal from the tangled threads. A film to admire, and one that gives you a lot to think about…
For a more informed take on the film, check out director Stephen Fingleton in conversation with Stuart Wright on the excellent Britflicks podcast…
http://www.britflicks.com/Podcast/23938
The Survivalist is out now on Blu-ray, DVD and VOD.
Rob, Clive and Curiosity celebrate a landmark piece of SF in the shape of the 1956 classic, Forbidden Planet. Widely recognised as a formative text in the creation of Star Trek, and influential in the production and sound design of Star Wars and many other examples of filmed and TVSF. If you like the fiction of sciencey, you need to be all over this film.
Worst name for a starship ever, though…
A five year mission. A villain with a secret past. A warrior princess. A crew without a ship. A family without a home. Faced with a situation like this, there’s only one way to go… and that’s BOLDLY.
Join Rob, Clive and Curiosity as they fire up the warp engines and engage… in a discussion on the merits of 2016’s Star Trek: Beyond.
Spoilers, needless to say, are in abundance. Alert Condition Red for that, yeah?
Oh, and we like the Rihanna track that plays over the end credits.
2016’s X-ample of mutant heroics may not have got the love of First Class, and it does have problems. But allow us to X-plain why there are still X-citing moments that make the film worth your time.
Fair warning: there’s some pretty hard core X-men geekery on display. Rob and Clive have no shame. I’m not X-aggerating.
One of the classics. A gem of dystopian SF, and a great example of a sports movie to boot. A rare example of an intelligent box-office hit: a film that lets its audience make up their own minds about Jonathon E and the society that both embraces and rejects him.
Clive mentioned William Harrison’s 1973 short story “The Rollerball Murders”, the source material for the film. Read the whole thing here.
The A To Z Of SFF 