Tag: Metropolis

Throwback Thursday – GO BACK IN TIME WITH THESE EIGHT ESSENTIAL SCI-FI FILMS

SCIFI

Article by Beth Kelly

Science fiction, by its very nature, seeks to innovate in storytelling. Restricted only by the boundaries of their imaginations and the limits inherent to their craft, filmmakers of this genre use complex cinematic effects and fantastical plotlines to create worlds outside time. These films are notable for their craftsmanship as well as their embedded social and political messages, which later serve as reflections of the time periods during which they were produced. For enthusiasts of film, culture, and recent American history, classic science fiction movies provide a window into the past while predicting the course of society’s future

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1. Metropolis (1927)

At date of its release this was the most expensive silent film ever made. Unfortunately, in the time since its initial debut in Weimar Germany, nearly a quarter of the original film has been lost. Legendary German director Fritz Lang, a notorious control freak, used inventive practical effects to evoke a Utopian city with decay at its core. The result is one of most visually innovative sci-fi movies of all time. The oft-replicated scene of Maria’s transformation stands alone as one of the first and only depictions of a female robotic imagery in early science fiction.

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2. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

This philosophical parable starring Oscar winner Patricia Neal tells the story of a visitor from another world who lands unexpectedly at the White House. Klaatu bears a prophetic message for all international leaders, but the state of world politics being what they were in 1951, is ignored. He then poses as a human named John Carpenter, and is resurrected after being wounded. Sound like anyone you know?

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3. Forbidden Planet (1956)

Surprisingly intelligent for a 50’s B movie – and starring a dashing young Leslie Nielsen! – Forbidden Planet was also the first film to feature a self-aware robot or human interplanetary travel. This cinema landmark also snagged an Oscar nod for best special effects, and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry cited it as a major influence. Indeed, the film has come to be known as a major sci-fi masterwork, as well as a cautionary tale of the role human error plays in technological innovation.

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4. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

You know a film is influential when it’s been remade three times. The concept of alien beings that can replicate our bodies is frightening enough, but not being able to tell who is real was true horror for an audience still reeling from McCarthyism and the Red Scare. The phrase “pod people”, used in the film to describe those who had been brainwashed, became a part of American popular slang by the late 20th century.

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5. Les Yeux Sans Visage (1962)

This edgy, macabre French horror gem had film-goers fainting in their seats at its Edinburgh premiere. Then again, the story of a lonely doctor cutting the faces off of young girls to graft them onto his disfigured daughter is sufficiently disturbing in any time period. His attempts at radical plastic surgery are no longer contained to fiction, but the film’s audacious, gothic beauty is something that has never been replicated.

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6. The Time Machine (1960)

Based on a novel penned by sci-fi master H.G. Wells, and winning a special effects Oscar for its ingenious time-lapse photography, this classic depicts the dystopian future of a world laid to waste by nuclear war. Fast-paced and thrilling, with an overt anti-war message, it set the standard for time-travel films in the modern era, and was remade in a 2002 film directed by Wells’ great-grandson Simon.

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7. Planet of the Apes (1968)

Screen icon Charlton Heston headlines this timeless adventure with an adapted screenplay by Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling. Astronaut Taylor crash lands on an unknown planet where chimpanzees run the world and humans are enslaved mutes. Fascinated by Taylor’s ability to speak, the apes keep him captive and form a tribunal to discover his origins. Desperate to find answers, Taylor fights for his freedom and the truth- but he will be shocked by what he finds.

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8. Soylent Green (1973)

Another great Charlton Heston thriller, this time with our stoic hero playing a futuristic detective trying to get to the bottom of a suspicious murder of one of the city’s elite. In a world that has become heavily polluted and overcrowded, government-funded Soylent Corporation produces rations essential to the survival of the human race. The government boasts that their scientists have discovered the miraculous nutritional value of the ocean’s plankton and can create healthy foodstuffs for all. Set in the year 2022, today the race to find alternative energy sources and solutions to overpopulation is already on. But why is Soylent’s sleuth being pressured to lay off the case? The answer lies in one of the most famous twist endings of all time.

Today, it’s easy to marvel at how far filmmakers have come in their creation of futuristic worlds. Yet the appeal of these classic pictures remains undeniable, and their prescience eerily remarkable.

Could ‘Metropolis’ Be a Feature Length Spinoff of “Smallville”?

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This bit of news/speculation goes out to all the people who, after eight years, are still catching up on every episode of “Smallville,” whether the annoying protagonist can friggin’ fly or not.  Evidently, there will be a “Smallville” panel/presentation at next month’s Comic-Con. Someone wrote to Ain’t It Cool News about the signage that is being prepped for this presentation. Here is how the description breaks down:

On black, with crimson/red text in the same font lettering that Smallville uses, and a transparent grey Superman “S” watermark behind the text:

METROPOLIS

CHRISTMAS 2010

Then at the bottom is a banner advertising the Smallville presentation, with the time/place (can’t remember).

This “untested” source, who calls himself/herself Yoda’s Bitch, also claimed that this is in preparation not for a spinoff TV series from “Smallville,” which is rumored to be entering its final season.  They claim this is for a feature-length project, one that will likely air on the CW a number of months after “Smallville” ends.  If next season is to be its last, “Smallville” would conclude in May, 2010, giving the CW nearly seven months to market the “film.”

Hercules, the guy over at AICN who put up this bit of rumor, says 18 months isn’t much time to put together a big-screen film for Tom Welling nad company to finish up the series in theaters.  However, he then does note that Warner Brothers had ‘Clone Wars’ into theaters with much notice.

I guess well all find out for sure next month when Comic-Con rolls around.

Source: AICN

Mega-Movie Geek News: ‘Metropolis’ finds its parts …

I am totally geeking out here, but its what I do … especially when something this major occurs in the world of classic cinema. Fritz Lang’s classic German sci-fi epic was the most expensive film ever made in Germany when it released in 1927 and it was a silent film. Unfortunately, audiences at the time did not appreciate it for what it was and the film flopped … hardcore. In an effort to salvage some profits, the studio pulled the film and cut the living daylights (approx. 25%) out of it before re-releasing it and receiving a more favorable audience reaction. Apparently, one of the original “long” prints was taken to Buenos Aires by a guy names Adolpho Wilson. After changing hands several times, the film turned up at the Museo del Cine in Argentina where it was determined that the print contained all of the footage considered to be lost. After reading the following article, I am eagerly awaiting a brand new uncut release of this classic film, but I fully understand it will be some time … patience is a virtue, but so damned difficult to maintain!

Here’s a chunk of the story that broke on Variety.com:

Earlier this year Paula Felix-Didier became the director of the museum. She discovered that the copy  included nearly all of the long-lost scenes — some 700 meters, 25 minutes — and contacted Germany’s Die Zeit magazine.

“The discovery of the material thought to be lost forever leads to a new understanding of Fritz Lang’s masterpiece,” said Helmut Possmann, chairman of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau Foundation, which holds the rights to the pic.

In an interview with Die Zeit, he said the foundation and the archives in Buenos Aires “feel a responsibility to make the material available to the public.”

Lang made the film, considered a classic in part because of its pioneering special effects,  at the Babelsberg studios outside Berlin.

Conceived during the heyday of the Weimar Republic, pic is about a futuristic urban dystopia in the year 2026 set against the backdrop of social tension between the working class and capitalist bosses.

“This was one of the most sought-after films ever made,” said Anke Wilkening, a film conservator at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau Foundation. The segments were said to be in poor condition and partly scratched.

“It’s a sensational find,” said Rainer Rother, head of the Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin and head of the Retrospektive sidebar at the Berlin Film Festival.  “Fritz Lang’s most famous film can now be seen in a new light.”