Fans of Inception will enjoy the reality-bending storyline and visuals. The romance subplot helps balance out the brooding and introspective energy of the film. The film received mixed reviews, however, it’s a good watch if you want to see a dark fantasy spin on the age-old rags-to-riches story. Be warned, the film involves violence and themes of suicide. Let’s take a closer look;

The Story

The movie follows the life of Sang Yu, a poor screenwriter plagued by terrifying nightmares. Every time he sleeps, he crosses over to a strange alternate reality where a dark shadowy figure attacks him. He tries to cure his chronic insomnia by going to various healers without success. Unable to sleep properly for months on end, he can no longer write. His agent, San, is hounding him to finish the script he got an advance for, and his landlord is demanding unpaid rent.

With everything else going on, Sang Yu still frequently passes by a nearby café to watch Hua’er, a girl he’s pining after. He eventually comes home to find himself evicted. With no money, no family, no prospects and his sanity in shambles, he sends San a suicide note via text and climbs onto a building to jump to his death. A kind street vendor saves him at the last minute, offering a free meal and some advice. The old man tells him that whenever he’s in the middle of a nightmare, he should just tell himself; “I’m only dreaming”.

This advice changes Sang Yu’s life. He learns how to wake himself up at will, which comes with one amazing perk; he can bring items from his dream world back to his current reality. He starts bringing back precious antiques which he pawns for huge amounts of money. Of course, power comes with consequences.

While watching this, I could tell that there was a twist coming, but it wasn’t what I expected. The film took a few unexpected turns and played on the psychological aspect more than I expected. However, in my opinion, the deeper spiritual meaning the film aimed for fell a little flat at the end. There were too many mixed metaphors and the ending felt cobbled together, with a very vague conclusion.

The Characters

Something I appreciate about this film is that although it is fantasy, the actions and thought processes of the characters are realistic. The old superhero trope of immediately trying to save the world or wreaking vengeance on enemies is a little stale. Sang Yu does what most reasonable people would do if they woke up (or in his case, fell asleep) with superpowers; he makes money. And even though his first priority is himself, he is neither selfish nor particularly careless. He isn’t a hero, a villain or even an antihero; he’s just a person.

The lead role was excellently played by Darren Wang. I appreciate the portrayal of his friendship with San, which had a natural and rather touching development. Unfortunately, this film fell short of Sang Yu’s relationship with Hua’er. In this day and age, I don’t expect to still see blatant stalking framed as a grand romantic gesture. And though Hua’er was given some personality, she still comes off as a manic pixie dream girl. As the only female main character in the film, the moviemakers could have really done better.

The Visuals

You can tell that this film had a big budget for visuals. The CGI was very realistic and better than a lot of contemporary Western fantasy superhero films. Personally, I think the set and prop design stole the show. There were a lot of props in this film, considering that the main character is a supernatural antique thief. It’s impressive that the props were so well-made despite the sheer number of them. I also really liked Sang Yu’s visual transition from a degenerate starving artist to a clean-cut man in a suit. I was honestly surprised to see a handsome face hiding behind the straggly beard, chunky glasses and greasy hair. Props to the makeup and department.

The only major visual flaw I noticed was the very last scene. Unlike the rest of the movie, Sang Yu looked like a cardboard cut-out against a green-screen background. The editing was clearly rushed at the end.

All in All,

This is a good weekend watch if you like fantasy, good visuals and fight scenes. The execution of the story left something to be desired, but the premise is good enough to have you watch till the end.

Also Read: Netflix Hidden Gems: Subira

The post Netflix Hidden Gems: Super Me (2019) appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

Today we will recommend five alien encounter films and look at what their use of extraterrestrial characters mean.

A Trip To The Moon

Georges Méliès early silent short sees a group of scientists venturing to the moon in a rocket. Where they encounter a not-so-friendly race of moon people. While its aliens have simple designs and lack emotional depth as one of the earliest science fiction films this short showcased that films were capable of presenting other worlds as well as showing our own. It represented progress for cinematic imagination and inspired filmmakers to start dreaming of what extraterrestrial life could look like.

2001: A Space Odyssey

This sci-fi masterpiece charts the human race as it evolves and pursues travel to the stars. Each major event in our history (the development of tools, colonisation of the moon and interstellar travel) is marked by the appearance of a monolith that seems to communicate something. Eventually, when one astronaut finds another monolith beyond Jupiter something happens to him. Is it the birth of a new alien being? A way of communicating with beings beyond our understanding? Or something else? 2001 presents a visually arresting but grounded view of humanity’s technological progress. Additionally, it asks us to consider if our first encounter with alien intelligence will be terrifying, liberating or even conventionally understandable.

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

Cinema’s ultimate friendly alien. When E.T. gets left on earth he is taken in by the young Elliot. Eliott tries to keep E.T. safe from the government and eventually, with help from his family and brother’s friends, gets him home. A classic tale of bonding that through its fantastic direction, score, performances, and effects shows us the wonder of the world from a child’s perspective. But it also promotes the value of kindness by showing how the bonds of friendship and family are common. Even across the stars. It’s a film that by the end makes you want to be a better person.

The Thing (1982)

John Carpenter’s The Thing took the cinema staple of the hostile alien encounter to its most gruesome conclusion. A dog carrying an alien life form reaches an antarctic research station. After grotesquely transforming its host’s body the research team discovers that the alien can infect people through contact and absorb and imitate other life forms. Was anyone else infected by the alien and worse how can the team tell who is still human? The Thing is a great allegory for how viruses affect the body and human nature. But it also gave us perhaps cinema’s scariest alien. A creature that can hide anywhere and transform life into twisted parodies of itself. The Thing is the pinnacle of cosmic horror films and practical effects work.

District 9

If E.T. uses alien encounters to show humanity at its best District 9 uses them to comment on the worst of humanity. After a ship of aliens lands on Earth they are placed into an apartheid system where they are discriminated against and forced into separate houses and systems to humans. From there we follow Wikus van de Merwe, an agent of the company MNU, who through being exposed to something slowly begins turning into one of the aliens. Similar to E.T. District 9 uses aliens to comment on how we view others but this film focuses more on the at-once banal and other times violent nature of systemic oppression and the ramifications it can have on oppressed people. With some fantastic effects work, a compelling story, and poignant thematic underpinnings District 9 is a hard but rewarding watch.

We could honestly recommend many more alien contact movies. These films have been a staple for years because they represent cinema’s greatest qualities. The ability to visualise new worlds and people while reflecting the most human of experiences. If you have any favourites you want to recommend then please do so.

Also Read: Trains of Events: Great Movies About Trains

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Sci-Fi: Crimes Of The Future

In Crimes of the Future pain is mostly a thing of the past because of implied evolution. And some people are now able to grow extra organs. But others have evolved further, now being able to eat and digest plastics along with other undigestable materials. Something which the government wants to suppress. Featuring such intriguing concepts as theatrical live organ transplants, human bodily evolution to adapt to a decaying world and surgery being so commonplace it is considered “the new sex”, David Cronenberg’s return to body horror encourages much discussion thanks to the many thought-provoking ideas that populate this fascinating world.

Comedy Action: Everything Everywhere All At Once

When the year started everyone wanted to see how Doctor Strange’s sequel would showcase the creative possibilities of the multiverse. But Everything Everywhere All At Once managed to capture viewer adoration more. And it used the multiverse concept as an excuse to showcase a number of creative and hilarious ideas. Including using technology to access skills possessed by different versions of oneself in the multiverse, showcasing a diverse array of parallel worlds that feature such great ideas as humans having sausages for fingers, humans being controlled by raccoons, and the main characters becoming rocks and an apocalyptic doomsday device made from a snack. All of which was accomplished on a $25 million budget. 8 times less than Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Showing that the multiverse has such big creative potential even smaller productions can use it to showcase fantastic ideas.

Thriller: Fall

Movies primarily based around one location are nothing new. Fall however bases its central plot around two friends scaling up and then trying to get down from a 2000-foot-high TV tower. This conceit not only provides a thrilling setting for most of its action but allows for a constantly high amount of tension to be present even during mundane scenes. This is thanks to the high winds at such heights and the small surface area not providing many opportunities for respite. Plus being up so high provides great explanations for common problems viewers have with many of these thrillers. Such as why don’t the protagonists just call for help? High-altitude thrillers are always a guaranteed source of tension. And the conceit to set one atop such a thin, high structure paid off.

Horror: Hatching

Hatching concerns a child facing incredible pressure from her mother. She subsequently takes care of an egg which eventually hatches into a monstrous creature. It then begins taking on more of the girl’s likeness and violently acting out. Hatching’s central idea is a perfect allegory for how abusive parental pressure negatively impacts and shapes children. The creature acts as a great metaphor for the child’s mental health. Demonstrating once again that horror is a perfect genre for using creative ideas to address bigger issues.

Action: Prey

How do you revive interest in the predator franchise when only the first one is universally considered a good film? You go back to the series’ roots, having the predator attack a group of people in a sparsely populated area while offering something new by setting the film in the 1700s. The era of colonial expansion. This conceit of placing the technologically futuristic predator during this era instantly stacks the odds against our main characters and provokes discussion of colonialism and power. Additionally, the film gives us diverse, fully-rounded indigenous protagonists, and centralizes their voices in depictions of their cultural history. Instead of having them act in service of someone else’s story.

These were just a small sampling of creative ideas that we got to see this year. So please make sure to let us know any creative movies you particularly gravitated towards. And let’s hope 2023 continues to provide us with more genius film ideas.

Also Read: The Impact: How Dozens of Filmmakers Around The World Crowd-Created A Film About The Apocalypse

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After the debacle of Star Trek: The Motion Picture the people in charge of the franchise wanted to make some changes for the next film and brought back a villain from an episode from the TV show – Khan Noonien Singh. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is still held up as one of the great Star Trek films (and a great film in general) and as it will be forty years old this year it is worth going through its greatness.

What’s Going On?

James T. Kirk is now an admiral and is potentially moving away from active command. Far away across the galaxy, a Federation ship encounters a colony of genetically engineered superhumans that Kirk marooned there years before. In the years since the planet has undergone catastrophic changes and is a barren wasteland. The leader of these superhumans, Khan, nurses an all-consuming hatred for Kirk and wants revenge. Khan takes over the Federation ship and sets out to fight Kirk, luring him into a fight by stealing top-secret Federation technology: the Genesis Device.

The Cast

The full Star Trek cast is in the film: William Shatner as Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Spock, Kirstie Alley joins the cat as Saavik, a young Vulcan officer and Ricardo Montalban reprises his role as Khan. The Star Trek cast are on usual form, with Shatner and Nimoy anchoring everything with their characters unusual friendship but Montalban shines as Khan. He is a charismatic villain, chewing the scenery in great style and enjoying every minute of it.

Does It Work?

Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan is the great Star Trek film; with the only contender being Star Trek: First Contact. The film plays out a classic story of revenge mixed with starship battles, mind-controlling worms and some incredibly memorable scenes. Khan and Kirk seem to be engaged in a duel, each trying to outwit the other, tricks within tricks and both getting in good shots.

The crew of the Enterprise are older. Kirk looking down the barrel of a desk job and none of them are the daring young crew they once were. Kirk who was the epitome of an action-based captain struggles to define himself when no longer adventuring around the galaxy. Kirk and the crew race to get the Genesis Device back as well as rescue people significant to their captain.

The Battle

The starship battle between the Enterprise and the Reliant (Khan’s ship) is a fantastic space fight unlike any other. The two damaged ships enter a nebula and try to outmanoeuvre each other, it is not a fast-paced dogfight but this slow dance of trying to get an advantageous position. Obviously, the special effects are decades old but still have a charm and distinct look to them.

The Ending

In the closing minutes of the film Khan has triggered the Genesis device with the goal of taking down the Enterprise with him. Kirk et al can’t escape as in the recent battle the warp drive has been damaged. Spock goes to Engineering, steps into the reactor and fixes the warp drive, knowing that such exposure will undoubtedly kill him. Kirk arrives to see Spock before he dies and shares one of the most memorable exchanges in all of Star Trek containing the iconic lines – “the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few” and “I have been, and always shall, be your friend”. It is perhaps one of the “best” deaths in cinema.

“How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life, wouldn’t you say?” – Kirk

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a great sci-fi film and the quintessential classic Star Trek movie.

Rating:

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Who is Boba Fett?

As a Star Wars nerd of the highest order I know there are multiple answers to this question but we shall stick to the canon made in the Star Wars films. Boba Fett is a clone of the infamous bounty hunter Jango Fett, Jango was used as the DNA template for the clone troopers we see in the prequels. Jango asked for one clone which he would raise as his son – Boba. After Jango’s death, Boba seems to bounce around the galaxy, eventually becoming the most feared and capable bounty hunter in the galaxy, so much so that it is Fett who tracks down Han Solo for Darth Vader. Boba met his death when knocked into the sarlacc pit by Han Solo. Or so we thought. Despite having a grand total of four lines, five if you include his scream, Boba Fett became a fan favourite. The mysterious bounty hunter featured in numerous books and other extended universe material and eventually showed up in The Mandalorian. The brief glimpse of Temuera Morrison (who played Jango Fett and so presumably Boba Fett would be identical to) at the end of an episode of The Mandalorian caused an explosion of fan theories, and indeed, Boba Fett made a huge impact on the second season of that show.

The Reports of My Death Are Greatly Exaggerated

In Return of the Jedi Han Solo accidentally activates Boba’s jet pack, which sends him careening into the sarlacc pit, never to be seen again in the original trilogy. But for such a popular character apparent death is a minor inconvenience. The Book of Boba Fett does explain his escape and how the battered, near death, bounty hunter managed to survive, after all, it’s great to escape the sarlacc, but then you’re stuck in the desert.

Why Do People Like Boba Fett?

Boba first appeared in the Star Wars Holiday Special, then had a pivotal role in The Empire Strikes Back and “died” in Return of the Jedi. From these appearances, he would undoubtedly be viewed as a villain by the audience, and he actually does very little. He had a clever idea to find Han Solo, he shoots at Luke Skywalker a couple of times and has an embarrassing tumble into a giant sand monster. But this figure, completely encased in armour, barely saying anything, with no backstory or explanation of who he is other than he’s a bounty hunter is beloved by fans. Boba was even added to the remastered A New Hope, appearing with Jabba the Hutt’s goons (who was also changed from a human to the famous slug we all know and love). I think it’s because he’s cool. Luke Skywalker is the hero but Han Solo is cooler. Darth Vader is evil but he is undeniably cool. C3PO knows seven million forms of communication and we can’t understand a word R2D2 says but we all know the little trashcan droid is far cooler.

The fact that most of the people the rebels fight are masked lends the bad guys an anonymous quality, I don’t think any of the stormtroopers in the original trilogy is ever referred to by name. Stormtroopers are nameless, hidden, seemingly endless foot soldiers and if a villain with any sort of identity shows up they are latched onto.

The Book of Boba Fett

The new show takes places in roughly the same time period as The Mandalorian, with Boba heading back to Tatooine to take over Jabba the Hutt’s crime empire. He is joined by Fennec Shand, another character from The Mandalorian, a brilliant assassin whose life was saved by Boba Fett. Like The Mandalorian, it explores the chaotic galaxy that has been created by the decline of the Empire, relatively unimportant worlds like Tatooine were abandoned as storm troopers were needed elsewhere. Coupled with the death of Jabba the Hutt a power vacuum exists, one which Boba Fett will take full advantage of.

I’ve watched the first episodes and really enjoyed them and if you want to keep following the story of the galaxy’s greatest bounty hunter you should watch it too.

Also Read: Beyond The Mandalorian: Expanding The Star Wars Universe

The post How Boba Fett Got His Own Show appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

There is an old cliche that every odd-numbered Star Trek film is bad, so 1. The Motion Picture – bad, 3. The Search For Spock – bad, 5. The Final Frontier-bad 7. Generations – bad, 9. Insurrection – bad, which brings us to the topic of this article – 10. Nemesis. You will notice the even number – but it is still bad. It broke a pattern that had endured for decades.

What’s Going On?

One of the main antagonists to the Federation is the Romulan Empire and the film starts with the annihilation of their government by the Remans, a slave race the Romulans use for their most dangerous and arduous work. The leader of the Remans, Shinzon, assumes control of the Romulan Empire and after professing a desire for peace the Enterprise is sent to meet him. Then things get weird. It is revealed that Shinzon is a clone of Picard, created years ago by the Romulans so they could replace Picard with a spy, but apparently dropped the plan and left Shinzon to die with the Remans. Because of the cloning process, Shinzon is ageing rapidly and so needs a transfusion of blood from Picard and kidnaps him so he can get what he needs and continue his villainous plans.

Franchise Syndrome

When you have these decades-long franchises where numerous films are made, new directors brought in, and the times have changed since the original was created things can go off the rails a bit. Star Trek had already done this with Insurrection and it was hoped Nemesis would change course. It did not. It got worse. The best example I can think of is the decline of the Bond films that ended with Die Another Day and took a complete retooling to make the great Casino Royale. Nemesis is what happens if they’d stuck with the Die Another Day style.

In Front of the Camera

There is the usual The Next Generation cast Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard, Brent Spiner as Data etc, but really all I want to talk about is Shinzon…who is played by a young Tom Hardy. These days Hardy has a tendency to play gruff, bearded, tough characters but back in the day Hardy was a male model who had a very different look and style. In this film, Hardy has shaved off his hair but also he has a more slender and wiry appearance. Normally I am okay with the slight incongruity that can come from a younger/older version of a character being played by different actors and just accepting that as the truth of the film. But imagining that Patrick Stewart and Tom Hardy share even a slither of commonality is too much.

Hardy also verges on pantomime levels of villainy and can monologue with the best of them. He makes entrances so dramatic as to how the actors and characters manage to keep a straight face is beyond me. This is not so much to criticise Hardy, who I consider to be a great actor, but just how muddled this film is. Sci-fi is of particular risk of these over-the-top performances and it’s very important that they be reined in.

Behind the Scenes

The film is directed by Stuart Baird who only directed a few films but as an editor has worked on everything from Demolition Man to The Omen to Skyfall.

Is It Any Good?

No. It is not. It’s often said that the worst thing to be is not bad, but forgettable. People at least remember the weird premise of Star Trek: The Final Frontier. And they remember the bizarre badness of Star Trek: The Motion Picture but I struggle to remember Nemesis. Most people who see Star Trek films will go in with a lot of goodwill, these are characters they’ve known for years, so it’s not a simple thing to mess that up. I do feel like when you’re getting into younger clones of existing characters (as well as another part of the plot where there are essentially two Datas) you may be heading into absurd territory. There is even a car chase.

The film also does something that I have to come to hate, especially in franchises, the fake death. We are led to believe one character has died only to find out that no, they haven’t, and while the sci-fi elements of Star Trek can make this more feasible than other films it still feels like cheating. This is especially true as maybe their death makes sense in the story but the franchise doesn’t want to remove a key character.

My Nemesis

With the critical and commercial failure of Nemesis (even amongst Star Trek fans) the franchise considered its options and elected to give Star Trek to someone who clearly wanted to make Star Wars.

Rating: (1.5 / 5)

Also Read: The Best Performances of Tom Hardy

The post Retro Review – Star Trek: Nemesis appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

What Is Dune?

Dune is a series of sci-fi novels by Frank Herbert and continued by his son Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson after Frank Herbert’s death. Dune is often cited as the best-selling science-fiction book of all time. There have been various adaptations of these books, most famously David Lynch’s 1984 version of Dune, loved by some, mocked by many and generally considered a failure. Frank Herbert wrote six books and with the first book already split into two films, there is potential for a lot more movies.

Denis Villeneuve and Franchises

This version of Dune was directed by Denis Villeneuve who is one of the best filmmakers working today. My first experience of his work was Sicario which is quite simply one of the best thrillers ever made. A later film, Arrival, is one of the best films ever made; a sci-fi film capable of making you break down in tears by the quiet tragedy of its story. Villeneuve has also been very critical of Marvel films, referring to them as “cut and paste” films for following a formula. Villeneuve doesn’t seem to think all the MCU films are bad but rather the way they are made is not how good films are made. It’s hard to imagine Villeneuve wanting to embark on a sprawling franchise and be some kind of Kevin Feige figure for Dune. The film was made by Legendary Entertainment who are certainly no stranger to making franchises having released Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, the Jurassic World films and more, and would presumably want to maximise profit – but at the same time, they hired Denis Villeneuve.

A Different Kind of Franchise

If we imagine that it is the intention to make Dune into a hugely successful franchise it would be a franchise like no other. Many have noted that Star Wars seemed to take a lot of inspiration from the Dune book series but the tone of the recent film and Star Wars are very different. Dune is a type of sci-fi that we don’t see too often, demanding a lot from the audience, not spoon-feeding them information or “Basil Expositioning” everything. In a major battle in the film, more time is spent on creating spectacular scenes of exploding spaceships than making it look cool. The characters in Dune don’t make quips or have amusing robot sidekicks, they discuss the use of power and who should wield it. It is also a film that has no problem with the oddities of the original work that many other filmmakers would have taken the edges of – such as as the bizarre Baron Harkonnen, a man of huge proportions who also floats around when he feels like it or submerges himself in black tar.

Will a Dune Franchise Work?

I don’t think so. That’s not a comment on the quality of the film or the source material but rather it’s not suited to a franchise. It’s dense, weird and currently helmed by a filmmaker who seems to be opposed to the very idea. There may be several films made but there are three Godfather films but that is not a franchise, it is a story told across numerous films. As a fan of films, I am not looking for more franchises and I am certainly not looking to shackle interesting films to the boulder of franchise expectations. I love Star Wars, I have enjoyed many Marvel films but I am desperate for big-budget films that aren’t franchises, that don’t have to fit into a twenty-two film plotline, that aren’t operating on “phases”, that can be a single film or a couple of films, and that, essentially be the end of it. To go back to The Godfather films – they made three films with one of the most talented directors ever and a superb cast weighed down by Oscars, and even then, one of the three films is not well-regarded. The brilliance of Jaws, Terminator 1 and 2, Alien and Aliens, is marred by the insistence of sequel after sequel that gets worse in quality. Denis Villeneuve also directed Blade Runner:2049, the sequel to the sci-fi classic Blade Runner. Around 35 years passed between those two films and the second being made only when there was a film worth making. Dune does not feel like someone trying to start a franchise but just trying to make the best film they can.

Also Read: Martin Scorsese and Denis Villeneuve Vs The “Marvel Movie” Formula

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If you aren’t entirely sure what AfroFuturism is, there’s a reason for that: There isn’t a lot of it. And it casts a wide net. It includes the music of performers like Jimi Hendrix, George Clinton, Afrika Bambaataa, even more modern artists like Erykah Badu, Outkast, and Beyonce.

Out of these many branches, its deepest roots lie in literature. Novels like Rose Water (Tade Thompson), set in a Nigerian settlement on the edge of an alien biodome, The Unkindness of Ghosts (Rivers Solomon), set on a segregated spaceship carrying the last of humanity, and the better known Kindred (Octavia Butler), the story of a modern woman dropped into the time of Black slavery, forced to relive it, with no idea how to escape.

As for film, everyone points to Marvel’s Black Panther as the most popular example. I disagree. Although it technically encapsulates the tenets of AfroFuturism: Black characters, in a technologically advanced African country, that exhibits magic in a SciFi world, I contend that it’s still a Marvel movie. Which constrains the story to the “White gaze”.

A better example would be Brother from Another Planet, the 1984 film by writer/director John Sayles, starring Joe Morton (Justice League). Although not a Black director, the film is so intrinsically from the Black point of view, you’d never know it. It follows the experience of an alien (Joe Morton) who finds himself in Harlem, New York. We later find he is being chased by interplanetary law enforcers– Who happen to be the White versions of the Men in Black. I’d even go so far as to say that Men in Black was loosely based on this film.

Another great example is Sleight, written/directed in 2016 by J.D. Dillard, starring Jacob Latimore (‘The Chi’). This film would be easy to miss because its description on Netflix is as follows:

“Struggling to raise his little sister on his own, a young street magician turns to drug dealing, unaware of how ruthless his supplier can be.”

Does that in anyway sound like a movie that has SciFi or is afro-futuristic in nature? Here’s my description:

“A scientific savant has to resort to dealing drugs after he and his sister are orphaned. When he gets in over his head, he and his mentor build a machine that will get him out of trouble… And change the power structure of his world.”

Neither of the aforementioned films feel like fantasy; They just tell their stories as if the world we live in is a world where these things exist. Both completely grounded in Black culture, or at least, American Black culture.

But I think the true destiny of Afro-Futurism is in television. 2020 birthed several Afrocentric shows, all taking racial issues by the horns. For instance, HBO’s ‘Lovecraft Country’, written by Misha Green, produced by Jordan Peele (Get Out) and co-starring Jonathan Majors (Da 5 Bloods), Jurnee Smollett (Birds of Prey), and Wunmi Mosaku (Luther). Based on the 2016 novel by Matt Ruff, which in turn was based on the collective works of author H.P. Lovecraft, the series pairs outrageous aspects of magic, science, and mysticism with the equally outrageous environment of the American Jim Crow era.

Second on the list is another HBO series, Watchmen. Though not solely told as a Black story, Watchmen in anchored by them. Written/produced by Damon Lindelof, and starring Regina King (‘Ray’), the show is based on the 2009 film also entitled ‘Watchmen’, which itself was based on the 1986 graphic novel of the same name. The show is centred around the Tulsa Massacre of 1921 and follows the exploits of self-appointed gods and heroes while wrestling with the likes of crime, betrayal, clones, and mind control.

With all this in mind, I think Mark Dery’s original question is still valid: Why aren’t there more Black voices in AfroFuturism? Many of the projects I mention have their origins in White America. But my theory and my answer to his question is this: HOPE. Many in the Black Community cannot stretch our imaginations far enough away from the horrors of our realities to see a future at all. To quote a few lines from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s ‘Hamilton’:

“I never thought I’d live past twenty. Where I come from, some get half as many. Ask anybody why we livin’ fast, and we laugh, reach for a flask… We have to make this moment last.”

But, we’re finally starting to shake off the demoralization that racism has wrapped like a blanket around our shoulders. And many of us are opening our eyes to see, not just the pain of the past, but the power of the future. As we step into a literal Golden age for this genre, where our stories are told by us, for us, we’re breathing new air, and we are indeed going BLACK to the FUTURE.

Also Read: The Rise of Nigerian-British Filmmakers

The post BLACK to the Future: The Rise of AfroFuturism appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

For me, A Quiet Place came out of nowhere. One day I heard there was a new film coming out where the hook was none of the characters spoke or made noise in the film. This was A Quiet Place and while it wasn’t as silent as the original stories suggested to make a film with so little dialogue was very ambitious. The film could have been a disaster, it could have been a gimmicky movie that just didn’t work and it’s a testament to all involved that it was a great film. With IMDb estimating the budget at $17,000,000 and it making around $50,000,000 in its opening weekend in America it’s not terribly surprising that a sequel is coming out.

What happened in Part I?

A Quiet Place showed a post-apocalyptic world where society had completely collapsed, the cause was terrifying monsters who hunted by sound but essentially couldn’t see anything. The film followed the Abbott family as they tried to survive in this world, going to extraordinary lengths to not make any noise. Viewers immediately picked up on one potential problem which was Evelyn Abbot was pregnant. The film was a masterpiece in tension with the audience constantly on the lookout for potential causes of noise – at one point a loose nail sticking out of a floorboard was shown and everyone knew it was a matter of time before someone stood on it. At the end of the film, Evelyn managed to give birth but they lost the dad, Lee Abbot (played by Josh Krasinski), who sacrificed himself to save his family.

The Trailer

The trailer shows us some glimpses of the moment these monsters arrived and the chaos they caused but mainly focuses on the life of the Abbot family, forced to leave their home and find somewhere safe. The sight of them trudging out is not at all hopeful and not long after reaching a deserted city they set off a trap. Fleeing this trap leads them to Cillian Murphy’s character who seemingly saves them. They join a community of survivors of which Murphy is a part, but whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is not quite clear.

Potential Pitfalls

The monsters – in the first film the monsters were barely glimpsed, sometimes you saw a flash of movement, sometimes not even that. Yet in the new trailer, it is clear you see more of the monsters. It’s long been a cliche of horror films that you shouldn’t show too much of the monster as it will always be disappointing (Alien perhaps being the classic example of getting this right with only glimpses seen until the very end of the film). Secondly, while many monsters are terrifying it’s often hard to imagine how they would seemingly overwhelm modern armies. Yes, they’re good at killing, but are they better than helicopter gunships?

Stretching Credulity – the first film had a very contained environment, most of it revolving around the family’s home consisting just a few buildings in a secluded area. The family went to extraordinary lengths to limit the sound they made and that was how they survived. It’s hard to imagine the family simply taking off and managing to keep the requisite level of silence – and, of course, they also have a newborn baby. And as the trailer shows – they are going to find a lot of people, how will their survival be explained?

Losing The Mystery – People always want to know how a situation came to be, in this case, how did these monsters destroy society but it’s not always a good idea to give them what they want. Sometimes the mystery is better.

Lightning Never Strikes Twice – A Quiet Place is ninety minutes long, which is about as short a film you can get away with these days, the director, also Krasinski, knew that after a while an audience would get sick of the confined world of virtually no dialogue. It’s a very clever idea but it could very easily have been a bad film and it is very risky thinking that idea will stretch to a second film. It’s a good sign that Krasinski is back to direct but I’m not sure it’ll be enough.

Should There Even Be A Part II?

I’m sure we all have examples of films where you wish the sequel hadn’t been made; where an interesting and original film was left as a complete story. Will A Quiet Place II be one of those films? I’m not sure as I am intrigued by the trailer but I certainly think the first film did not need a sequel. There was no need to continue the story, especially as the first film ended on a note of tragedy the sequel cannot possibly match. Still, whatever happens A Quiet Place will remain a great film.

Also Read: The Best Horror Films of the Decade

The post A Quiet Place Part II: A Film Too Far? appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

The Plot

For those who don’t know, I shall briefly explain the plot – Thomas Anderson lived in late 90s America, working as a computer programmer but is secretly the hacker “Neo”. He was approached by sinister government agents asked him to work as a spy. Neo refused and is quickly picked up by the people he was asked to spy against. Their leader Morpheus explained to Neo that what he thought was reality was actually only a computer programme, in reality, AI robots were draining his energy to survive. What follows is a spectacular two hours of gunfights, fistfights and metaphysical pondering on the nature of reality and destiny.

Great Expectations

There was a huge amount of hype surrounding the film especially with the talk of unprecedented special effects – what became known as “bullet time”. The famous “bullet time”. The Matrix was not the first film to use this technique but undoubtedly popularised it. Bullet time is a form of slow-motion photography that will often have the camera moving around the target. In The Matrix, this was used as characters dodged bullets using what would be super-human reflexes. While the technology has moved on a lot since the effects still look great to this day.

The film wasn’t stunning just because of bullet time. The hand to hand fight scenes, such as Neo and Morpheus fighting or the climactic fight between Agent Smith and Neo were amongst the first of the extremely choreographed fights that are the mainstay amongst recent action-films (with perhaps the most relevant example of this being in the John Wick films – starring Keanu Reeves).

The Internet, Computers & Technology

The Matrix capitalised on computers and the Internet in a way few films had before. Neo was a computer programmer by day and hacker by night and you got the feeling that not only Neo understood computers but so did the Wachowskis. The fact that Neo goes by that name, his hacker alias, seemed to reflect an understanding of the Internet, a place where you could be whatever you wanted to be.

Storytelling

In many ways, the storytelling aspects of The Matrix were rooted in old ideas. Robot tyranny, virtual reality, sinister but vague government agencies had all been done before. The idea of Neo being The Chosen One again is nothing new but perhaps they made it their own, in an episode of South Park there is a search for a chosen one they refer to as “The Keanu Reeves child”. By the Wachowskis’ own admission the film is heavily indebted to Japanese anime and Hong Kong action films. But I think the Wachowskis deserve huge plaudits for pulling all of these aspects into one film whilst at the same time combining an over-the-top action-sci-fi blockbuster with an intelligent hard sci-fi drama. Apparently, the Wachowskis had the main actors read relevant books on philosophy and science so they could comfortably explain the ideas thrown around in the film.

Culture

The cultural impact was huge. Like A New Hope or The Dark Knight, The Matrix launched a thousand copycats and its influence can be felt in many more. The Simpsons and Spaced both parodied it while The Onion could write about something being “Matrix-y” and people knew what you meant. Anyone who wore a long black leather coat was imitating Neo. The term “matrix” has been used a lot in sci-fi (in Doctor Who it’s the repository of Time Lord knowledge, it’s the name of a DC superhero and is the name of a 90s fantasy tv show) but if used today would only refer to the film. The choice of red pill or blue pill has become synonymous with choosing fantasy over – an often painful – reality and people can talk about odd events and coincidences as “glitches” in the Matrix, a moment where a person can see something is not right in reality. One such glitch is that the aforementioned Matrix tv show starred Carrie-Ann Moss, one of the stars of the film The Matrix. Weird.

The Matrix 4

The world recently learned that there will be a fourth film in The Matrix franchise. After the huge success of the first film, the two sequels were not well-received but there is already a lot of interest in this new film. Crucially Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Ann Moss and Lana Wachowski are all part of the film. I think the years have been kind to The Matrix, with the sequels being forgotten about and the delight of the original still has a hold over people. I recently rewatched the film and despite knowing every twist, betrayal and cliffhanger still thoroughly enjoyed it, immersed in an interesting world that was glorious to watch.

Also Read: Horror-ibly Funny Movie Titles

The post The Matrix: Twenty Years On appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

The Plot – The film follows Jyn Erso a woman who has been on the run from the Empire since her childhood because her father is the man who designed the Death Star. Forced by the Rebel Alliance into a mission to extract her father from the Empire’s clutches and so disrupt their plans, Jyn becomes more and more involved in the civil war that is only just beginning.

Why It’s Great – In my opinion this has been the best of the new crop of Star Wars films. A self-contained story (more or less) that fixed perhaps the biggest plot-hole in all of Star Wars – namely, who builds a priceless weapon of mass destruction with such an easy Achilles’ Heel. The cast is sensational with Felicity Jones and Diego Luna as great leads, Ben Mendelsohn doing his Evil Scumbag routine in space and with great actors like Mads Mikkelsen and Forest Whitaker taking on small roles.

Verdict – A wonderful addition to the Star Wars Saga.

Inception (2010)

The Plot – Leonardo Di Caprio plays Cobb, a very special kind of criminal who enters peoples’ dreams to steal information. Challenged to the seemingly impossible act of “inception” – implanting a new idea in a dream that the dreamer will believe to be their own Cobb puts together a crack team to accomplish his goal.

Why It’s Great – Christopher Nolan doesn’t make bad films. Or at least he hasn’t yet. Inception was the first film Nolan directed after Nolan makes blockbusters like no one else, making them as intelligent and original as they are a spectacle. There is a lot of the “one last job for a criminal” motif going on but that is just a great jumping off point. The special effects are truly stunning with the city landscape being twisted and folded as the high point and even if the writing and acting were terrible – which they aren’t – it would be worth watching for the effects alone. As frustrating as the ambiguous ending might be, I like a film that is brave enough not to give you all the answers.

Verdict – A dazzling and smart sci-fi blockbuster.

The World’s End (2013)

The Plot – Gary King wants to reassemble his school friends to complete the “Golden Mile” a pub crawl along twelve pubs in their home town. Sadly for Gary much has changed since school, the group is estranged and he is no longer – if he ever really was – their leader. As the friends reunite and start their pub crawl things in the town become increasingly odd leading to a sensational fight in a pub toilet that reveals what is going on in the town.

Why It’s Great – All of the Cornetto Trilogy are more than what a simple category can describe – all of them are excellent examples of their genre but excel in being films about people. The World’s End is a film about aliens slowly taking over the planet but it’s also about friendship, betrayal, dealing with disappointment in life, youth (and losing your youth), what is life about and more. I would say this is my least favourite of the trilogy but that still could put it in my top twenty films of all time. It has another feature of the Cornetto Trilogy in combining huge, over the top scenarios, in small unlikely places. Few films pack the emotional punch of The World’s End let alone comparing it to other sci-fi comedies.

Verdict – A triumphant end to the Cornetto Trilogy.

Back To The Future Trilogy (1985, 1989, 1990)

The Plot – After accidentally travelling backwards in time teenager Marty McFly interrupts the meet-cute between his parents and thus will never be born. Recruiting the younger version of the scientist who sent him back in time, Doc, Marty seeks to set the timeline right and save himself. In Part 2 Marty and Doc travel to the future to avert a disaster for Marty’s son only to make things much worse everyone – well, nearly everyone. And Part 3…well Part 3 is set in the Old West for some reason ( just go with it, it’s fun).

Why It’s Great – I suppose it’s cheating to put a whole trilogy into one slot but it’s surely a crime to break up these wonderful films when they make such a satisfying collection. It’s hard to overstate the impact these films had on science-fiction and pop culture in general. For many these are the films that made time-travel (and all the paradoxes, dangers and opportunities that come with it) vaguely possible to understand, partly through literally drawing it on a blackboard in Part 2.

Verdict – If for any reason you have not seen these films prepare to watch three of the most enjoyable films ever made.

Annihilation (2018)

The Plot – Lena’s soldier husband returns mysteriously to their home but something is very wrong with him and it isn’t long before the government swoops in and takes control of the situation. It turns out her husband was sent on a secret mission into The Shimmer – a mysterious area of land where normal rules do not apply and her husband is the only person to return from numerous missions. Lena, a scientist and former soldier joins the next team determined to find out what happened.

Why It’s Great – While it does feel somewhat fitting to include a Netflix original film on this list doesn’t mean Annihilation doesn’t got a free pass – it’s a great sci-fi film, and in a way that few sci-fi films are. It has gunfights and monsters and all those things going on it has also has unusual ideas that make you think about the world and the universe. Science-fiction gets a lot of criticism but to me it’s always been the genre of big ideas – whether that’s time travel or space flight or what it means to be human. Written and directed by filmmaking genius Alex Garland and adapted from the successful Southern Reach book trilogy this film comes with exemplary sci-fi credentials.

Verdict – Bizarre mind-bending sci-fi epic.

The post Five Sci-Fi Films To Watch Right Now On Netflix appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

One of only *three* directors to have screened two of their films at our Film Club events, we catch up on what he’s been up to since. Diving right into it, we explore the process of making feature lengths, the importance of cinema and his top 5 favourite sci-fi films.

Read about Mark’s Top 5 favourite sci-fi films here. Listen to the full podcast here.

The post Episode 008 The Big Picture Film Club Podcast ft Mark J. Blackman appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.