Director – Byron Haskin – 1952 – US – Cert. PG – 82m **** RUK PAL laserdisc review, 1997. Originally published on London Calling Internet. Hungarian born George Pal, who produced the stop-frame Puppetoons shorts in the forties, chose H.G.Wells’ seminal alien invasion novel for his fourth live action production. Media wunderkind Orson Welles had already […]
Director – Joseph Newman – 1955 – US – Cert. PG – 83m ***** UK PAL laserdisc review, 1997. Originally published on London Calling Internet. Pioneer continue to plunder the Universal vaults for SF gems. I’d never heard of This Island Earth when a print turned up for a revival run at London’s late lamented […]
Director – Egor Abramenko – 2020 – Russia – Cert. 15 – 113m ***** some of the underlying concepts and all of the special effects ** everything else Available on VoD from Friday, August 14th. Now on Netflix In the early 1980s a two-man Russian spacecraft undergoes a mysterious incident during its return to Earth […]
Director – Alexandre O. Philippe – 2019 – US – Cert. 15 – 95m **** 1/2 A detailed examination of the ideas and personalities behind Dan O’Bannon, H.R.Giger and Ridley Scott’s classic 1979 SF shocker Alien – in cinemas on Friday, August 30th 2019, and then on VoD the following Monday, September 2nd 2019 When […]
Director – Kiyoshi Kurosawa – 2017 – Japan – 140m ***** Loving the alien. Again. Japanese director reshapes his earlier Before We Vanish into an effective drama which plays out as an edge of the seat, sci-fi alien invasion thriller – from the London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF) 2018 This is not exactly a remake, […]
Director – Ridley Scott – 2017 – US – 15 – 122m *** 1/2 The latest Alien franchise entry is an effective horror sci-fi, teeming with shocks, scares and twists, but it lacks the mythological depth of Prometheus and the twisted sexual connotations of Alien – in cinemas on 12th May 2017 This is Ridley […]
Director – Ridley Scott – 2006 – US – 12A – 118 mins ***1/2 A ruthless, successful Square Mile bond trader travels to Provence to sort out the estate he’s inherited from his late uncle – UK release date 27/10/2006 Back in the 1980s, British TV commercials spawned a number of hugely successful feature film […]
Director – Ridley Scott – 1989 – US – 15 – 120 ** UK Release date: January 26th 1990. On paper, Ridley Scott’s Black Rain reads like a winner: a police action thriller with Michael Douglas and sidekick Andy Garcia (then a little known star in the ascendant) as an NYPD cop hunting a villain […]