science fiction – Page 20 – PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – Little Joe

Little Joe (2019)
Written by Jessica Hausner & Géraldine Bajard
Directed by Jessica Hausner

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is one of the most recycled narrative tropes in cinema, and more often than not, those adaptations fall short. The original and the 1970s remake stand above the fray. Little Joe is a secret Body Snatchers picture, telling a very well thought-out variation on the official story. However, there’s so little to the script that its slow burn actually becomes a hindrance to the character development and tension that should be present in a picture like this. Technically and aesthetically, Little Joe has a lot going on that entices the audience, but ultimately it fails to deliver on the promise of these things.

Black Books Matter

It’s not just important to support Black Lives, but you also need to engage in and promote Black Art. Here are some books I absolutely love that are written by Black authors. I hope you find something here to pick up and read. These are not just books by Black writers but also some of the best books period I’ve ever read.

Movie Review – The Vast of Night

The Vast of Night (2020)
Written by James Montague & Craig W. Sanger
Directed by Andrew Patterson

A story about an alien visitation in New Mexico during the 1950s doesn’t sound terribly original or compelling on the surface. However, the way The Vast of Night is presented with gorgeous cinematography, inventive scene framing, and a narrative that unfolds almost entirely in real-time is what propels into another level of filmmaking. I sat down with moderate hopes after hearing some positive buzz and walked away, absolutely loving this movie. The picture is made by people who fully understand the genre they are delving into and are intelligent enough to play with the tropes. This delivers a film couched in genre expectations but able to explode in fascinatingly unexpected directions.

TV Review – Tales From the Loop Season One, Episode Eight

Tales From the Loop (Amazon Prime)
Season One, Episode Eight – “Home”
Written by Nathaniel Halperin
Directed by Jodie Foster

Tales From the Loop has always been a complicated series to parse and break down. It’s an anthology show but also a collection of interconnected short stories with ongoing plot elements. It’s a science fiction series that uses its fantastic ingredients to highlight deeply human stories. The tone incredibly sedate and contemplative despite presenting large scale cosmic ideas. I don’t imagine Tales From the Loop will find a broad audience as it’s such a specific thing, and not every episode hits on all cylinders leading to an uneven experience. I still argue these eight episodes are worth a watch because if nothing else, they are some of the most visually gorgeous television.

TV Review – Tales from the Loop Season One, Episode Seven

Tales from the Loop (Amazon Prime)
Season One, Episode Seven – “Enemies”
Written by Nathaniel Halperin
Directed by Ti West

Ti West is a director that came across my radar back in 2009 with his Eighties horror homage, The House of the Devil. I enjoyed his follow-up films, The Innkeepers and You’re Next. Since the early 2010s, he’s done a few other lesser movies and started to pick up more television work. I personally enjoy his filmmaking style because it is nostalgic without being shallow, West understands how to set a mood and sit in that space instead of leaning into endless, unearned jump scares. His contribution to Tales from the Loop actually borrows more from the artbook’s sequel Things From the Flood and brings some very subtle horror elements to the series.

Movie Review – Phase IV

Phase IV (1974)
Written by Mayo Simon
Directed by Saul Bass

Saul Bass is primarily known for his graphic design work in the opening titles of films like Vertigo, Psycho, West Side Story, and many others. Phase IV was Bass’s first and only foray into feature film directing. Anytime you get a movie made by someone working primarily in the visual arts, it’s going to be visually appealing but not necessarily following the standard narrative structures. Kubrick was a photographer, David Lynch is a painter, and so on. Panos Cosmatos has cited Phase IV’s influence on his own Beyond the Black Rainbow. These directors aren’t so much interested in narrative points and character beats as they are as in establishing a potent atmosphere. Saul Bass’s Phase IV falls right into that same category.

TV Review – Tales from the Loop Season One, Episode Six

Tales from the Loop (Amazon Prime)
Season One, Episode Six – “Parallel”
Written by Nathaniel Halperin
Directed by Charlie McDowell

Tales from the Loop continues its trend of taking a previously supporting character and making them the protagonist of their own episode. This time it is Gaddis, the security guard that works the gates of the Loop. We spend some time in the first act getting to know him better and quickly realize Gaddis lives his life in lonely sadness. He has friends, like Loretta and her husband, but he doesn’t have any intimate relationships. There is a brief flirtation with a new man in town, but Gaddis’ insecurities get in the way. Instead, he focuses his time on repairing an old tractor in a field near his home.

TV Review – Tales from the Loop Season One, Episode Five

Tales from the Loop (Amazon Prime)
Season One, Episode Five – “Control”
Written by Nathaniel Halperin
Directed by Tim Mielants

Tales from the Loop continues its interconnected anthology structure with a chapter that touches on events from episode two, yet you don’t have to watch that one to understand what is going on. In fact, I think you could watch this series on shuffle and still have the same experience as the connections are so light. There is even a brief reference to episode three that you don’t need to fully comprehend to follow the story being told here. The theme for this episode is Grief and how people work through that process while feeling powerless to do anything.

Movie Review – Cocoon

Cocoon (1985)
Written by Tom Benedek
Directed by Ron Howard

Steven Spielberg’s E.T. has a profound influence on the 1980s and created a subgenre where family, fantasy, and science fiction merged. These were humanist movies, without threatening antagonists or, in some instances, no real villain at all. The common factor in all the pictures was characters experiencing contact with some fantastical entities, typically alien, evoking a sense of child-like wonder in them and leading to the resolution of interpersonal issues. Of the E.T.-inspired movies, Cocoon is one of the better pictures because it keeps the story character-centered and allows the science fiction elements to enhance that narrative.

Movie Review – Total Recall

Total Recall (1990)
Written by Philip K. Dick, Dan O’Bannon, Ronald Shusett, and Gary Goldman
Directed by Paul Verhoeven

Total Recall is not the best film ever made. It’s not even the best science fiction movie, but it is a beautiful example of a type of science fiction film that died out around the beginning of the 1990s. The practical effects, the matte painting, the clever use of computer effects in minimal ways, all add up to a world I wish we could spend more time in. But, I’m sort of glad that we don’t get more of this setting because it makes the bits and pieces provided all that more interesting to mull over.