SF and Fantasy Movie Reviews Starting With #
The 6th Day (2000) 
Genres: Act SF Thr
Entertaining, coherent human cloning adventure.
I remember an SF story where this scientist became inadvertently cloned by going through an ill-understood alien maze-thingie he was helping to research. And so what do you think the dramatic conclusion was? The clone committed suicide, because there couldn't be two of him suddenly could there, I mean which one would get the girlfriend, and all this kind of wimpy crap. Thank goodness for Schwarzenegger. Killing himself because he's a clone wouldn't occur to him.
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
Genres: Act Adv F
Excellent special effects for the time, done in claymation by Ray Harryhausen. The guy loves big monsters throwing things into water; he keeps having this in his claymation fantasy movies.
The plot has a few problems toward the end but mostly it's OK. The acting is also OK, except for the princess. She's the opposite of sultry. She's like a suburban housewife; maybe it's so that the female audience members could identify with her. But I couldn't identify with this girl -- I kept imagining her with a beehive. And my boyfriend said he couldn't identify with Sinbad because he looks gay. He kinda does, I guess. And all his sailors love him. But they are all ugly and old so he probably isn't supposed to be be gay. And maybe it's gaydar, or being attracted to villains, but I thought the evil sorcerer was cuter than Sinbad. (And my boyfriend agreed with me; he said it's the sexy evil-foreign-sorcerer accent.)
The 10th Victim (1965 Italy)
Genres: SF Com
Nice banter! And it's so stylish! Every scene is full of insane stuff. There's so much avant garde art. And lots of stylish, handsome, tanned, seminude men. It's based on a Robert Sheckley story. I haven't read the story, but I read the book, which he wrote following the movie. His book is nice but doesn't really have sexy stuff as far as the men go, and doesn't convey stylishness, so I have to conclude that comes only from Italians. American writers congratulate themselves on putting in plenty of sexiness if they mention boobs and long hair. I should find some Italian SF/F to read.
The 13th Warrior (1999)
Genres: Act Adv F
Fun despite recurrences of plot silliness. Banderas's character is sort of annoying (although I like Banderas in other movies). And is that blond guy hot or what. Less Banderas and more super-hot blond sidekick would have been an improvement. Seriously, this movie is pretty enjoyable but the most enjoyable thing about it is this blond guy.
Maybe I should say something about the rest of the movie . . . That blond guy is So. Hot. And he rides around on horses and swings weapons at scary bad guys, frequently topless because it's a primitive kind of society, and makes eyes at lucky wenches, and there's lots of close-ups of him talking to Banderas.
28 Days Later (2002 UK) NR!!!
Genres: Hor
Watched: 30 min
My current favorite for dumbest horror movie I've ever tried to watch.
A plague of "rage" virus sweeps the world; several survivors bumble around, getting killed by the en"rage"d infected. We walked out. But I dunno. Maybe it's a great artistic statement. Movies in general do make a stab at logic and not having characters so stupid they wouldn't long survive even in stable friendly environments. But that's probably often a chore for these creative folks. Here there is no logic happening in the minds of the characters or the writers. Maybe the writers were making a daring statement, finally actualizing something that must often bob to the surface in the minds of all movie people: Screw this logic crap, it's just getting in the way of my artistic vision. And getting the science and tactics to the point that they don't cause stray dogs to collapse with laughter? Groan. It's like like pulling teeth. Then again, this movie didn't seem particularly artistic.
The best thing about the movie was what the little boy who sat in front of us said. There were three boisterous little boys sitting in front of us and they wouldn't shut up. (Unsupervised in an R-rated movie. Resourceful little boys. Further, they left about the time we did so I have to conclude they were pretty worthwhile as little boys go.) I was considering bending over and suggesting that they shut it or I'd stunt their growth but the lady seated next to me took over that chore, shushing and kicking. Anyway very early on, there's this naked young man lying on a gurney. So one of the little boys says, "It's half as big as mine!" Ha ha ha. The naked guy was I guess the second best thing about it. Well, the back view was better because then I didn't have to look at his idiotic expression. Did I mention a goodly portion of actors' butts are more charismatic than their mugs?
I can be quite dense. I was so scared when the protagonist was bending over his dead parents. Apparently the movie was actually hitting me over the head at this point with signs that the parents had committed suicide (like them holding a suicide note) but I thought they were just pretending to be dead and would jump up and bite him! So I'm seriously digging into my boyfriend's arm with my nails, and he's perplexed because nothing scary is going on, but still trying to be gentlemanly and is politely trying to disengage my nails because it hurts so. (It didn't matter that the movie was so stupid; I was still really scared. I am such a wuss.) Come to think of it, that would be such a good tactic for a zombie! He could carry around a suicide note and pretend to be dead and when they reached for the note he'd grab them. I mean, there is no reason why zombification should make the subject stupid necessarily. I wonder . . . possibly the en"rage"d zombies in this movie were in fact smart and were trying to kill the non-infected people because they were dangerous, being so stupid; I don't know, like I said we walked out of it.
Not long before we left the plague-surviving protagonists found another couple non-infected, one of whom kind of looked like Benny Hill. Earlier there had been some messages written in blood on the walls, like "the world is ending," etc. Benny Hill had messages like that on walls. Maybe the guy was Benny Hill; he drove like a clown and wrecked the car in a dark tunnel full of en"rage"d which caused an amusing scramble to change the tire before they were all mauled to death. Yes. Come to think of it the attackers tended to be men; I saw no hot young en"rage"d women. (And such do exist in England; we know, from Benny Hill.) Maybe the hot young en"rage"d women aren't half bad and Benny could organize them into a dancing chorus.
2001: A Space Travesty (2000)
Genres: Com SF
Watched: 30 min
Seems to be cheaply made. Some of the jokes are OK but the actors mumble and the sound editing's bad so it's hard to tell what they're saying. It's kinda boring and silly but if you've a cold it's OK, but there's so many commercials it's not worth it and I'd rather be in bed anyhow.
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