The Holtonian

Searching for Interesting Sci Fi Movies

I went to blockbusta on the way home from work to find something to watch while wifey made some bread and butta at the restaurant. I was there for 45 minutes and came up with nothing that really floated my boat. I got In America, which I've wanted to see for many moons now and will watch this weekend with the wifey, possibly on sunday. But I couldn't find that one movie, that one that makes me glad to be alive, and glad robots and aliens will always be killable by humans with big guns and super powers. I find myself looking a lot more at the anime section and what classifies as the weakest Sci-Fi section I've ever seen but alas blockbusta is no longer busting the block. I really want to rent some of Bruce Cambell's lesser known flicks like Mindwarp, Sundown: the Vampire Retreat, and Moontrap. Some of the anime stuff seemed interesting, and some of the hokey Sci Fi stuff seemed plausible, but nothing seemed well made as tends to be the case these days.
    I've always tried to maintain my interest in Sci Fi. I told Scott today of my few day plunge into Isaac Asimov... I got lost after 50 pages. I couldn't tell who was a robot and who was a human, which is key. When I was a kid I was a sucker for the book covers. I found one book I bought about some space crew that got left on the moon and thought the cover was so cool. I begged my mom for hours to buy it for me, she did (i was the youngest child...) I read maybe 20 pages and got bored with it. I think the problem with Sci-Fi books sometimes is there has to be to much explaining of the science and the fiction. With fantasy books there's explanation of the fantasy (history of the fantasy world too) but everything else is left to the imagination. In the end a fantasy book doesn't have to make sense... its fantasy. Whereas a Science Fiction book has to make sense in a way to be somewhat scientific.
      I really was looking for something like a Matrix, Gataca, Dark City, 12 Monkeys... then the classics like Blade Runner, Star Wars, 2001 etc. (I put those in no particular order, only the ones that i thought of first). Blade Runner was I think was one of the most creative and vivid movies providing detail, graphics, and sets way ahead of its time. I found the story to be a little slow and Harrison Ford doesn't seem to talk much, but it had that Film Noir/Sci Fi thing going so it worked. Matrix seems to me to be the last well done movie that was way out there, though its very similar to Dark City in some ways. I guess Minority Report was somewhat Sci Fi, but it wasn't out there enough for me, it was cool, but it wasn't super futuristic or anything. Also I left out A.I. I consider this to be a potentially great movie, that Spielberg screwed up. It seems a lot of times that Spielberg took Kubrick's great idea (I realize he did it as somewhat of a homage to Kubrick, never the less still somewhat hacky), then Spielberg sort of watched Blade Runner and said to himself.... "this is what the future should look like..." then put his spielbergian touch to it, "Now I'll take that dark world, and put some of my love into, throw in an obnoxiously cute kid, and throw in some wierd robots that are merely left overs from Close Encounters at the end and I'll have a movie that is nothing like Kubrick would have done and something the whole family can enjoy..."
      Then there's I-Robot opening this week I guess. I don't know, might have a bit too much of a Big Willy Style Feel to it. I like Will Smith, he appeals to the unhip white geek in me, but that doesn't mean I like him fighting robots. I like him as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, teaching those upity rich whitey's how to be cool and hip and turn your blazer inside out.

So I settled for no movie at all.... I was going to get Once Upon a Time In Mexico, but I didn't want something alright... I wanted to be blown away. So I settled for Star Wars Rogure Squandron 3 which incidentally sucks. The flying's ok but they put this lame 3rd person shooting part in that is just annoying. It'd be fine if it was 1st person but the controls are so awkward its not fun, more tedious. Anywho its late.