Forbidden Planet (1956) directed by Fred M. Wilcox

 

(my interpretion of elements of the film)

 Inspired by Shakespeare's "The Tempest", Forbidden Planet is film with a list of firsts in Science Fiction  cinema. It was the first science fiction film to depict humans traveling in a man-made faster-than-light starship.It was also the first to be set entirely on a planet orbiting another star, far away from Earth and the solar system. Robby the Robot character was more than just a dumb machine that walked and has a distinct personality. The film was groundbreaking as the first of any genre to use an entirely electronic score. The film was nominated for special effects and for good reason, they are really over and above other films at the time. The design of the saucer shaper spaceship is iconic and stands out to this day. 

The story centres around a crew from Earth sent to discover the fate of an expedition on the Planet Altair which was lost 20 years previous. After arriving in orbit, they warned off by Morbius telling them their safety cannot be guaranteed if they land and he has no need of them. They do land as per their orders and discover every one of the expedition except for Morbius and his daughter, who has never seen other humans, are all that is left. 

Spoilers:

It turns out the previous crew were all killed by a mysterious force when they tried to leave the planet and for reasons unknown Mobius and his daughter were spared. They feel immune to the attacks but also do not think the threat has gone away by any means. The residence they live in is on top of the entrance to what was a super advanced civilization that all died out thousands of year ago overnight. Morbius has been trying to understand how and why and learning how their tech works. His daughter seems happy enough but even he realizes she must return to earth at some point to have a normal development. 

The visiting ship is attacked and people start dying from an unseen force which turns out to be an invisible monsters which is briefly seen as it breaks though the force field around the ship as it kills several more crewman. 

The daughter decides to leave with the earthmen and the monster now seems to be after her as well. In a really great twist, it turns out the machines that Morbius has been using to boost his intelligence has tied him into the very system that doomed the origin race, the Krell. It was supposed to let them make their thoughts become real with no need of physically making things but their "Id", the subconscious mind, hid horrors and violence that an advanced race could suppress but not rid itself of. The monster was produced by Morbius himself to avoid leaving the planet and to keep his daughter in his control. When he realizes that he is at fault he he tries to unsuccessfully disown the monster of his Id but is killed in the process, but not before he has the ship captain set off a series of explosion that will destroy the planet and keep this technology away from mankind before they too disappear. 

If you have never seen Leslie Nielsen as anything other than Frank Drebin from the Baker Gun films and series this is a great film to expose you to his career as a handsome young leading man in serious films. Robby the Robot has been in so many movies and films you might not know this is where he was first seen and his design and character are fantastically realized. Ann Francis is an odd character, both naive and very aware and in control of herself and not a screamer in search of a man to save her, though she of course falls in love with the captain and they head back to Earth as a couple. 

As recent as November 15th of 2024 there was word of script for a remake but I am not sold there needs to be one, this holds up on its own! 

When Worlds Collide (1951) directed by Rudolph Maté

A George Pal production that almost seems to be part of an unintentional trilogy including The Time machine and War of the Worlds to me. Not in subject but in tone. Maybe that's just me. 

Astronomers have spotted a sun with a companion planet streaking at incredible speed towards the earth and have calculated that the planet will pass us first, causing massive destruction and death, followed by the sun finally engulfing our planet destroying it completely.  As science-y as the film tries to be it is a product of its time and this scenario seems preposterous with what we know about the universe now. it is all presented in a serious enough way that you can just go with it.

The characters are pretty interesting, the scientists are trying to save what the can of humanity by building an ark to land on the passing planet, hoping life is possible there while the pilot hero falls in love with his daughter who is a scientist in her own right. There is a selfish, handicapped billionaire who agrees to fund the ark as long as he can be on it and many minor characters fleshed out more than this type of movie  typically does. There is a love triangle, that I thought was used to show emotions connected with knowing the world is going to end in a few months and not just there for show. 

Pacing, like most Pal movies is good and we get some dated but effective disaster scenes. New York getting flooded from a tidal wave is particularly effective. 

Spoilers:

 For me a disaster film is usually a natural unstoppable event is the source of the disaster, like earthquakes, fire, tidal waves etc. so this could be one of the first disaster films. No magical do-hicky is miraculously invented at the last minute to save us all, the world does get destroyed. The ark also gets to the new planet and while the getting there and landing are pretty awesome, the final shot is a bit confusing and seems tacked on. They land on a snow covered valley but when they step out, on to a not very good painting, it's like a spring day and they watch the sunrise on the new world and NEVER mention the massive buildings and structures directly in front of them. The place is already inhabited and no one notices! This was based on book with a sequel, neither of which I read so I hope that is addressed in second book. 

Fun, exciting and while maybe a slightly lesser Pal film, it's still going to keep your attention. 

Sylvie et le fantôme (1946) directed by Claude Autant-Lara

 

Sylvie is obsessed with the portrait of her grandmother's lover in the family estate and is distressed when her father sells it to pay some bills. There are stories that Alain, the man in the portrait haunts the estate and he does in fact do just that. Before the painting is hauled off he leaves it and begins walking around the house and sort of stalking Sylvie in a way not cool by today's standards. 

To make her feel better, her dad has a 16th birthday ball for her and hires a ghost visit her so she can feel better about losing the painting. Robbers and the son of the man who bought the painting are caught creeping around the estate one night but are mistaken for actors hired to play the ghost. The real actor arrives and they decide that 3  is better than one since he can instantly appear in different locations. The real ghost is till walking about as well. 

This is sort of needlessly complicated and I can see that it's light enough to watch and find some charm in it but I found it a bit banal. The best thing in for me were the effects. They used the same reflection effects Disney's Haunted mansion uses to make it appear translucent ghosts are integrated into the sets and its very well done.  Not a must see but maybe light enough to watch before bed. 

Flow (2024) Directed by Gints Zilbalodis

A cat walks though the forest, avoiding a pack of dogs but almost gets trampled by a stampede of deer. The cat lives in an abandoned house where a cat obsessed artist has left sculptures from small to enormous all over the land. The cat sees the running deer were escaping a coming flood which covers everything up to several stories. 

As the flood rises the cat finds refuge on a boat which already has one occupant, a capybara. Before long several more animals, a dog, a secretary bird, and a ring-tailed lemur have joined the crew as they explore a world empty of people and flooded by water. They learn to co-operate to live in a changed world.

The plot is simple but the story told is more profound, though, like his last film "Away" hard to pin down specific meanings. The cat's point of view is our point of view so we never know where the water came from or why or what happened to the people or how the resolution happens. This could be frustrating but it's really not. It's intriguing and beautifully animated using Blender, a free software and a smallish team that shows it doesn't take 150 million$ to make something meaningful and striking visual. 

Its rare you look forward to a film and it meets and exceeds expectations. This certainly did for me. As with "Away" Zilbalodis has created a world to explore, again very Myst-like in its beauty and mystery. It's not a typical "its the friends we made along the way" trope of a movie, though it is that. There is death but handled in a way that won't be traumatic to children and through the eyes of the main character, a cat, so its not from a human perspective. While I would love to know more about the backstory of this world it's better not to know. It might not even be earth to be honest or at least it might be an alternate one. One animal is familiar but not like any version of such a creature we see in our present world. 

If you can see it, please do and buy the Blu-ray when/if it comes out. We need a lot more films like this to be made. 

Godzilla VS Biolante (1989) directed and written by Kazuki Ōmori

 

I recently caught this on a cable network just as it was starting and decided to watch. I swore I had not seen it but I think I did. I did remember it being one of the later Godzilla films people thought were good and above the earlier sillier films from the 70s but... I have to disagree. 

The film has some interesting elements, like the giant plant monster is at first OK except for the giant flower on top which makes it a bit silly but it transforms into a pretty awesome looking creature at the end. It doesn't move all the well I thought but it was pretty complicated and I give credit where it's due. 

The story which got such praise was simply ridiculous, complicated and with the same characters we have seen in other lesser Godzilla films. People we really couldn't care less about other what their stories are. There is an international spy thriller part that just made me laugh out loud and a "touching" story about a scientist father who loses his daughter in a terrorist attack and does what any loving father would do. He takes her DNA and misses it with a plant and Godzilla cells and turns her into a giant plant monster. For some reason she is conscious in the creature for a bout 5 minutes then she seems to fade away, probably so  no one will root for the plant monster over Godzilla during the fights. At the end her face appears in the sparkly remains of the monster and flies into space where the particles reform into a giant flower in orbit. 

The crazy earlier films from the 60s and 70s had a charm this one was missing as it tried to be a lot more than it was. 

Dracula (1979) Directed by John Badham

 

This could easily have been called "Frank Langella's Dracula" since his presence is the driving force throughout. After rising to fame on stage in the role that was electrifying on Broadway and on tour for years (yet somehow never revived since) a new film version HAD to feature Langella. 

The film is not a film version of the play which had amazing hand drawn sets by the infamous gothic artist Edward Gorey and instead became much more like a Hammer studios reboot, adding a good amount of gore and some over the top set pieces but none of the humour we had seen on Broadway. Dracula is graceful and articulate, no Transylvanian accents here and a high budget allowed for interesting, if not always effective, special effects and costumes. 

Things to love about movie are the John Williams score (though his self "referencing" from other of his score is very noticeable) and the locations are beautiful dripping in gothic horror elements and the lovely matte painting work involving Dracula's Carfax Abbey. I guess the interiors of Carfax Abbey are also striking, but also they seem to be trying to replicate Gorey's illustrations in the real world which doesn't really work. There are bats, including a GIANT bat head at the rear of the main hall. Who built this place? It's way over the top where most of the other locations and props are less prone to self parody. 

Things to love less are the lack of connection or sympathy for any of the characters. They and the scenes they are in vary in tone and never congeal into more than a series of events. The characters of Lucy and Mina names are switched, Renfield has no role in the story. The movie starts with Mina somehow leaving her room unnoticed in a violent storm to get to a boat she saw crashing into the shore from her window where she sees a wold jump off the boat and go into a cave where she find not the wolf but Dracula? It's hime but we only see his hand take hold of her hand then...  it's never mentioned she was there or how Dracula got from the cave to his new house and Mina doesn't seem to know him at all when he visits later on. The end is equally nonsensical. After a complex series of events to save Lucy that isn't terrible but goes on a little long, the count is killed after being hoisted up on a hook to the sunlight on the boat he is trying to escape on and is burnt by the sun. We only see the start of this process and the shot makes it seem that he transformed in to a kite and flies away over the ocean? Lucy seems free of him but she sees the kite-count and gives an enigmatic smile. What? 

While the film doesn't really work, Langella 100% does his best despite the efforts of maybe Badham to rob the vampire of all mystery and repeating shots over and over. We see Dracula's feet only leaving a carriage etc, a shot which leads to seeing him completely at least three times. There are multiple shots though a web with a spider on it as a character walks beneath. We get it, they are caught in Dracula's web... move on. It's frustrating to see the real potential of a great film wasted but it's worth taking a look for the good elements if you can handle the bad ones. 

The Time Machine (1960) Directed by George Pal

 

George Pal made a few iconic science fiction films and this is up there with version of War of the Worlds which also was from a book by HG Wells. It is the story of a man obsessed with time who arrives late for a dinner with friends at his own house in a terrible state. He is cut and exhausted but insists he tell the story of what happened to him. He has discovered a way to move through time, but not space, using a very cool looking victorian machine that is worth watching the movie just to see it. 

With this device he has travelled to the distant future where humans have been divided into two distinct species. One docile and dependent on the other aggressive and living underground. Our traveller meets a beautiful girl, don’t they always, and finds himself trapped in that time period when the aggressive race, the Morloks, drag his time machine into his layer behind doors he can’t get through. 

There is plenty of of adventure that follows but before all that we a treated to a few great moments of him moving through time, stopping a few decades later when he meets his best friend’ s adult son, who wasn’t born when he got into the device and then decades later still when a nuclear bomb goes off forcing him to jump into the far future. The passing of time is demonstrated by a women’s dress shop window at first and with stop motion, it shows time by the animation of the changes of the dresses in the window display. 

I don’t want to spoil the movie, old as it is, because its old enough that younger people might never even heard of it and its worth saving it surprises for them. The costumes and make up is great and the special effects have a few weak points but mostly still work today and have that look that War of the Worlds and his other Sci fi film When Worlds Collide have. Its distinctive and wonderful. The players are all good, I like the maid a lot and Rod Taylor is perfect as the scientist. 

A hit when released, it stands up by keeping the exposition to a minimum and the story moving always forward… well when it isn’t moving backward in time. 

Away (2019) animated silent film, written and animated by Gints Zilbalodis

 

This Latvian silent animated fill length feature was animated using the computer program Maya by one person over 4 years. I only heard of it because I saw a trailer for his new film “Flow" another silent feature about a cat whose survives after an unexplained disaster has destroyed human civilization.  This film is on the festival circuit at the moment and I am looking to seeing it. It was made in the free program Blender. The trailer intriguing enough for me to research anything else he hade made and I discovered "Away". 

The film follows a boy who parachutes to mysterious land from a crashing plane, where he finds a motorbike and an injured bird. With these, he sets off to reach an initially unknown goal, pursued by a shadowy giant monster, which drains life from every living being that crosses its path. The film is divided into different chapters, each individually named. The backgrounds have a Studio Ghibli feel in atmosphere but are more simple. The path the boy takes reminds me of the game Myst in many mays, its a mysterious land with a path leading him from the start to the end of the film. The character looks very simple, you can usually only make out his eyes and nose, the monster is partially transparent with glowing white eyes. The music is moody and the pace is fairly slow but maybe measured is a better description. 

NO spoilers as this film is not new but I can guess that even anyone reading this 2 decades from now won't have heard of it and there isn't much to spoil except to say there is a lot of ambiguity going on throughout that pulls the viewer through the film. It's always intriguing over frustrating and, like the game Myst. offers puzzles to solve but in this case you have to make your own answers. 

Poster project: War of the Worlds (1953)

 

I decided on a look I thought fit the film and it's style. The stars are a photo I took in Colorado years ago with my brother and the earth is a 3D render I made in Cinema 4D years ago. I had a Mars 3D render and the martian probe ready for the poster but that was way too crowded and counter to my ideas  on what I wanted it to look like. The title is remade from the original post and I used Paramount logo from the 50s. The Martian war machine and hand were drawn in Affinity Designer. 

Poster Project: The Day the Earth Stood Still

 

After about 35 hours of work this poster is done. I thought I was done earlier but I rewatched the film and noticed some robot details I missed. After drawing the elements in Affinity Designer I moved them to Affinity Publisher and composed the poster, added the title and other information. I made a 1940's- 50's style earth that was to go under the hand of Klaatu but it didn't look right and didn't really add to poster for me. Gort, the robot, was a bigger challenge than I thought as he is smooth, reflective the costume lacks some details, his superman undies always look a little goofy to me but I knw why they are there from a practical costume making viewpoint. 

I would like to make a "war of the Worlds" poster from the George Pal movie but I have come up with a decent way to pull it off. I might have to make a 3D model of the spaceship, the creature, the martian probe... maybe all of that and work out my composition when I see what looks good or not.