Tonights thoughts: first, Im beginning to think that my insane plan to watch 5 low-budget recent and obscure sf movies a week, for seven straight weeks, is one of the best decisions Ive ever made, and second, my long-standing conviction that were now living in a golden age of sf films was actually some kind of understatement. Platinum age? Unobtanium? Tonights extraordinarily good discovery was the 2008 / 09 Mexican film Sleep Dealer. Take one near-future technology that lies somewhere between probable and inevitable, extrapolate not one but four distinct uses of it, two of which are utterly torn from todays headlines, and construct a plot that wholly relies on three of them (with the fourth for frosting). Tell it all with wit and soul and cheap sfx. Im also increasingly convinced that if you make a movie this smart, your Rotten Tomatoes scores (66% fresh, but a sad 5.8 Average Score) and IMDB rating (5.9) will be torpedoed by people who just dont know how to watch hard sf. A bunch of critics complained that the film was overstuffed and/or that the metaphors were too on-the-nose. Seriously. Netflix, thank Algorithm, said Id give it a 4.0, but if theyd said 4.5 or 4.6 they wouldnt have been wrong. And I do believe that the only way to learn about flicks like these, if you havent rated 1450 films at Netflix, is to listen to someone like me (and note that I use Ron Drummond as a backup!) Also just watched: Michael Winterbottoms hugely underrated (see above screed) Code 46, as strong as an A-/B+ gets without edging into pure A- territory; its one of those flicks that holds your interest and emotions merely solidly for the first 30 minutes or so, as its putting its pieces on the chess board, then kicks into gear strongly with its first big reveal. Also, TiMER, just sneaking into B+ on its charm and good humor and the delight of seeing Emma Caulfield (Buffys Anya) in a lead role.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 06:11:25 +0000
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