September Movie Event #2

Question

Update:

Both The Matrix and Westworld were tied on +4, however The Matrix has the most upvotes (10 vs 6) so it's selected as our winner for this event.

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Our most recent chat movie event, the amazing fantasy film "Stardust" was a complete and utter bust with just three commenters and three lurkers, thus proving that my initial instinct to stick with only scifi films was totally and utterly correct :-P

With that in mind and undeterred by rand al'thor's dismal failure, it's now time to pick September's second chatroom Movie Event! (can I get a hell-yeah!!?).

As before, you need to pick your preferred SCI-FI film and post it as an answer below. Upvote the ones you like and the top answer (by Friday 25th September at 9pm UTC) will be selected as the winner. We'll then watch together on Saturday 26th September at 9pm UTC in the Mos Eisley chatroom.

Choose wisely and remember, all scifi film suggestions will be considered carefully, except those that turn out to be shampoo commercials.

Answer 1

My second nomination is the 1980 classic, Flash Gordon. It has everything: Brian Blessed!¹ Max Von Sydow! Topol! Timothy Dalton! Richard O'Brien!² Sam J. Jones! A brilliant soundtrack by Queen! Beautiful, incredibly unique backgrounds! Boar worms! Ridiculously bad acting! Absurd dialogue! A fight in the form of a bizarre alien football game! This thing!

Just look at the poster:

It absolutely screams "Campy Sci Fi!"

Look how big Brian Blessed's mouth is!

Watch the video for the amazing theme song!

Read how much of a cluster#%£@ the production was! Screenwriter Lorenzo Semple, Jr. said:

[Producer] Dino [De Laurentiis] wanted to make Flash Gordon humorous. At the time, I thought that was a possible way to go, but, in hindsight, I realize it was a terrible mistake. We kept fiddling around with the script, trying to decide whether to be funny or realistic. That was a catastrophic thing to do, with so much money involved... I never thought the character of Flash in the script was particularly good. But there was no pressure to make it any better. Dino had a vision of a comic-strip character treated in a comic style. That was silly, because Flash Gordon was never intended to be funny. The entire film got way out of control. Wikipedia

That's right - they weren't sure if the movie was a comedy or not, even while they were filming it. The producer didn't care that the main character was about as complex as a piece of cardboard. It was less like producing a film, and more like releasing a sack full of angry, drunken badgers into a kindergarten classroom just to see what would happen.³

But it gets even crazier than that! Sam J. Jones, the star and titular character, hated Dino De Lauretiis so much that he quit before post production began. A voiceover actor had to dub most of Jones' lines, and no one can remember who that voiceover actor was:

According to a 2012 interview in Maxim, Sam J. Jones had disagreements of some sort with De Laurentiis and departed prior to post-production⁴, which resulted in a substantial proportion of his dialogue being dubbed by a professional voice actor, whose identity is still a mystery.
Wikipedia

Can you even imagine a film production so screwed up that no one thought to write down the name of the guy who recorded most of the lead character's lines? Well, if you vote for this movie, you won't have to imagine it, because you'll see it for yourself!

Freddie Mercury explains why we need to watch this movie:

• Flash is the Savior of the Universe

• He'll save every one of us

• He's a miracle

• King of the impossible

• He's for every one of us

• Stands for every one of us

• He'll save with a mighty hand every man, every woman, every child

• Just a man, with a man's courage

• You know he's nothing but a man, but he can never fail

• No one but the pure of heart may find the Golden Grail

In light of this argument, I genuinely and emphatically believe that we owe it to Flash to watch this film. After all, he did save every one of us.

¹During filming, the battle scenes had to be reshot because Brian Blessed was making "Pew! Pew!" noises every time he fired a weapon, and you could see his mouth moving. The director was not pleased.

²Best known as the writer-director of Rocky Horror Picture Show, in which he also played the role of the butler, Riff-Raff

³Seriously, it was ridiculous. The producer referred to Flash Gordon as "the only improvised $27 million dollar movie ever made". You can read all about it here.

⁴The article linked in note ³ describes Jones' departure rather differently: "At Christmas, he went to Los Angeles and never returned". The producer was proud that he was responsible for the only major studio film that was completed with the star AWOL.

Answer 2

I would like to nominate Neill Blomkamp's "District 9". A wonderful mix of low budget effects and larger-than-life space aliens living in a filthy ghetto in South Africa.

If you ever wondered what it would really be like when aliens arrive, this dystopian film gives us a glimpse into the future, 10 minutes from now.

Answer 3

I'm renominating Westworld. With a score of 4, it is currently the highest voted movie from the last event, scoring higher than Stardust.

It's a classic sci-fi movie with an intriguing plot. With the TV reboot coming soon, it will help everyone get up to date with the original.

It also has a lot of stupid things and parts that don't make sense, so everyone can make fun of it, and that's always fun.

Answer 4

I'm going for the hit 1999 film "The Matrix" starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Anne Moss. This film literally inspired a film revolution, introducing new effects techniques that are imitated (but not bettered) in pretty much every scifi flick since 2000.

Remember the days when all that anyone could ask was...

What is the Matrix?

Answer 5

Time Bandits

I'm nominating "Time Bandits" again as well as "The Host"

Very few movies are better than this one.

I still think we should watch "The Host" as most community members probably haven't seen it and it's a really enjoyable film. But if people want a classic, great writing, great storytelling, great acting, amazing cast, this is it!

Time Bandits is a 1981 British fantasy film co-written, produced, and directed by Terry Gilliam, and starring Sean Connery, John Cleese, Shelley Duvall, Ralph Richardson, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Michael Palin, David Warner, and Craig Warnock.

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 92% rating based on 39 reviews, averaging an 8/10.

Answer 6

How about the 2014 film Snowpiercer?

Director Bong Joon-ho brings us a superbly created science fiction film that sees the last remaining survivors of a sudden global-cooling stuck on a train that travels the entire world once per year. At the back of the train, the masses live in poverty and are controlled by a vicious and fascist police force. At the front, the few live in luxury. We follow protagonist Curtis Everett (Chris Evans) as he leads a revolt from the back of the train that intend to take the front by any means necessary.

A film with great action, fantastic performances, an inventive concept and full of fun little moments that you would never get in a Hollywood film, Snowpiercer is just a great film that I would want anyone to see, and actually made my list of the must see films of 2014, in which I described it as "undoubtedly one of the strongest science fiction films released in years, at once an exercise in world building, an allegorical look at the class system and a great action film".

I've seen it three times now, and I can confirm that it is a really, really, really good film.

Answer 7

If you haven't seen this movie you absolutely want to see it.

The Host (2006 film)

It was suggested I include some info, but I don't want to spoil it for you, this will spoil the first ten minutes of the movie, so here goes:

The movie concerns a monster kidnapping a man's daughter, and his attempts to rescue her. According to the director, his inspiration came from a local article about a deformed fish with an S-shaped spine caught in Han River

There are sightings of a strange amphibious creature in the waterway, and the fish in the Han River are dying off because of water pollution. Six years later, in Seoul, Park Gang-du (Song Kang-ho) is a seemingly slow-witted man who runs a small snack-bar with his father, Hee-bong (Byun Hee-bong). Also with him is his daughter, Hyun-seo (Go Ah-sung), his sister, Nam-joo (Bae Doona), a national medalist archer, and his brother, Nam-il (Park Hae-il), a heavy drinking unemployed college graduate and former political activist. While Gang-du is delivering food to some customers, he sees a crowd along the Han River. They witness a huge creature hanging from the Wonhyo Bridge, which then jumps into the water...from there everything goes haywire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Host_(2006_film):

It was ranked one of the top films of 2007 on Metacritic with a score of 85.

The Host received critical acclaim, with a 93% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

...13 million tickets had been sold, making it (at the time) the highest grossing South Korean film of all time.

It won several awards including Best Film at the Asian Film Awards and at the Blue Dragon Film Awards.

In addition to its opening in Cannes, among the most prominent were the Toronto, Tokyo and New York film festivals.

The film swept Korea's Blue Dragon Awards : The Host received five awards, Go Ah-sung took Best New Actress and Byun Hee-bong was awarded as Best Supporting Actor.

The French film magazine Cahiers du cinéma ranked the film as 3rd place in its list of best films of the year 2006 and 4th for the 2000-2009 decade.

The Japanese film magazine Kinema Junpo selected it as one of the top 10 best foreign films of the year 2006. (Flags of Our Fathers won the best foreign film of the year 2006.)

Manohla Dargis of The New York Times wrote "The Host is a loopy, feverishly imaginative genre hybrid about the demons that haunt us from without and within."

The filmmaker Quentin Tarantino included it in his list of top 20 films released since 1992 (the year he became a director).

The film was also listed at #81 on Empire Magazine's list of The 100 Best Films of World Cinema.

Top ten lists: The film appeared on several critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2007:

2nd Ella Taylor, LA Weekly (tied with Manufactured Landscapes)

2nd V.A. Musetto, New York Post

4th Dana Stevens, Slate

5th Marc Mohan, The Oregonian

5th Mike Russell, The Oregonian

7th Desson Thomson, The Washington Post

9th Wesley Morris, The Boston Globe

Awards and nominations:

2006 Asia Pacific Film Festival

Best Supporting Actor - Byun Hee-bong

Best Editing - Kim Sun-min

Best Sound - Choi Tae-young

2006 Chunsa Film Art Awards:

Best Lighting - Lee Kang-san

Technical Award - Jang Hwi-cheol

2006 Blue Dragon Film Awards:

Best Film

Best Supporting Actor - Byun Hee-bong

Best New Actress - Go Ah-sung

Best Lighting - Lee Kang-san, Jung Young-min

Audience Choice Award for Most Popular Film

Technical Award - The Orphanage, EON (CG)

Nomination - Best Director - Bong Joon-ho

Nomination - Best Actor - Song Kang-ho

Nomination - Best Supporting Actress - Bae Doona

Nomination - Best Screenplay - Bong Joon-ho

Nomination - Best Cinematography - Kim Hyung-koo

2006 Korean Film Awards:

Best Film

Best Director - Bong Joon-ho

Best Cinematography - Kim Hyung-koo

Best Visual Effects - The Orphanage, EON

Best Sound - Choi Tae-young

Nomination - Best Supporting Actress - Go Ah-sung

Nomination - Best Art Direction - Ryu Seong-hee

Nomination - Best Music - Lee Byung-woo

2006 Director's Cut Awards:

Best Performers Award - Ensemble cast (Song Kang-ho, Byun Hee-bong, Park Hae-il, Bae Doona, Go Ah-sung)

2007 Asian Film Awards:

Best Film

Best Actor - Song Kang-ho

Best Cinematography - Kim Hyung-koo

Best Visual Effects - The Orphanage, EON

Nomination - Best Editing - Kim Sun-min

2007 Hong Kong Film Awards:

Nomination - Best Asian Film

2007 Baeksang Arts Awards:

Best Film

Nomination - Best Actor - Byun Hee-bong

Nomination - Best New Actress - Go Ah-sung

2007 Saturn Awards:

Nomination - Best International Film

Nomination - Best Performance by a Younger Actor - Go Ah-sung

2007 Grand Bell Awards:

Best Director - Bong Joon-ho

Best Editing - Kim Sun-min

Nomination - Best Film

Nomination - Best Actor - Song Kang-ho

Nomination - Best Supporting Actor - Byun Hee-bong

Nomination - Best Supporting Actress - Go Ah-sung

Nomination - Best Cinematography - Kim Hyung-koo

Nomination - Best Visual Effects - The Orphanage, EON

Nomination - Best Sound - Lee Seung-chul, Choi Tae-young

2007 Busan Film Critics Awards:

Jury Prize

2008 Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics:

Nomination - Grand Prix

Answer 8

My first nomination is the hilarious and very original independent Irish sci-fi/horror/comedy film Grabbers.

Without giving too much away, an alien monster is attacking a small island off the coast of Ireland, and the only way to survive is to get really, REALLY drunk. Hijinks ensue.

Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that Grabbers received positive reviews from 72% of 29 surveyed critics; the average rating was 6.3/10. Damon Wise of Empire film magazine described it as "a romantic but surprisingly scary monster movie that feels like a lost Amblin flick, shaken and stirred with a dash of The Guard. ... a finely crafted tribute to a long-lost style of filmmaking [that] stands up in its own right too." Matt Glasby of Total Film rated it 3/5 stars and called it "a bright, breezy Irish monster mash boasting gorgeous cinematography, appealing performances and great SFX". Gareth Jones of DreadCentral rated it 4/5 stars and said, "it is one hell of a good time that offers plenty of laughs, excellent characters and performances, and big slimy monsters." Jordan Hoffman of US cable channel IFC summed the film up as "a delightful romp", while Upcoming Movies gave it four stars and called it a "fun, monster movie roller coaster" with a "mix of laughs and scares". The Daily Telegraph‍ '​s Robbie Collin called it a "cherishable Irish B-picture ... with an unimprovable premise". Kim Newman of Screen Daily said of the film: "Kevin Lehane's smart script is canny enough to sidestep the expectations of fans who might think they know how films like this are supposed to play out, while the monsters are as well-realised as anything in far more costly productions." The Irish Times said, "Grabbers has an atmosphere all its own: the humour is earthy without being patronising; the action sequences are both absurd and properly exciting." Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian rated the film 3/5 stars and described it as "a likable and technically impressive comedy-horror" that is "fantastically silly, often funny".

Answer 9

Why aren't we watching Star Trek Renegades?

Answer 10

2015-09-26 Saturday is the date of the TV premiere of the fantasy movie

My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Friendship Games

on Discovery Family.

This doesn't interrupt the, ahem, “regular” schedule of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic TV show, so season 5 episode 15: “Rarity Investigates!” will be broadcast on the same evening. With those two, there's no need for any other movie for the night. So no matter what you choose, I'll be watching these instead.

Please tag questions about the film or TV show with both my-little-pony-fim and my-little-pony.