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Re‑Animator (1985)

  Re‑Animator (1985)   When Roger Ebert reviewed “Re-Animator” he chose to quote Pauline Kael, "The movies are so rarely great art, which if we can't appreciate great trash, there is little reason for us to go."   Who is going to deny it applies to Horror more than the other Genres?   This is based on a novella “ Herbert West–Reanimator” (1922) by Howard Phillips Lovecraft (HPL). In life Lovecraft was never able to support himself as either a Writer or an Editor, but was admired by his peers, and created a uniquely Atmospheric and Philosophical body of SF,F&H prose. The work was not restricted to, but most famously represented by, his Cthulhu Mythos stories, considered Popular Fiction’s first great, original Mythological Cycle. Though it constitutes only a handful of stories, the Mythos has now deeply penetrated all aspects of America’s Fantastic Culture, and almost every writer of SF,F&H have reflected upon and addressed Lovecraft’...
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The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

  The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)   "And then he looked around him again, at the big hotel room, the almost untouched tray of liquor, and back at Newton, reclining in bed. 'My God,' he said. 'It's hard to believe. To sit in this room and believe that I'm talking to a man from another planet.' "'Yes,' Newton said, 'I've thought that myself. I'm talking to a man from another planet too, you know.'" -from Walter Tevis’ novel, “The Man Who Fell to Earth” (1963)   Part 1. Background and stye(s) This film started as a novel of the same name by Walter Tevis which was strikingly Autobiographical for a work of SF; Tevis fictionally cast himself as an Outer Space Alien to explore his own feelings Isolation and his own descent into Alcoholism, wrecking all the better ambitions he held before his self-decent. Fiction granted Tevis the power to be a bit more Grandiose than a more Realistic Narrative could’ve, and in many...
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High-Life (2018)

  High-Life (2018)   Here’s a question, is Writer/Director Claire Denis more brilliant, or more frustrating?   She is probably France’s most admired current Director, but I must I admit of only seen her SF,F&H (so only two of her eighteen features, “Trouble Every Day (2001) and this film). She goes beyond subverting Genre Expectations, she achieves wholly new narratives when exploring the familiar Tropes. But she can also fail at the intimacy she seeks because she’s most comfortable with an Art-House archness. I say, “Trouble Every Day” is merely frustrating, but “High Life” is both frustrating and brilliant.   “High Life” addresses one of those questions SF prose Authors let bang around in their heads while looking for the next story, but I can’t think of another serious attempt to address it in cinema. It has to do with the Speed of Light (SoL), that speed limit that apparently is unbreakable, the Physical Law that denies us the Stars (the very clos...
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