Sci-Fi

AFTERLAND (2020)

April 23, 2021

I pre-ordered Lauren Beukes’ AFTERLAND before lockdown without knowing anything about the book. I’ve been a fan of hers for years — ZOO CITY, THE SHINING GIRLS * and BROKEN MONSTERS are all worth your time — so I was very excited for her new book. Unfortunately, AFTERLAND didn’t hit my local bookstore until late July.

Around August I glanced at the summary on the slipcover and saw it was a post-pandemic thriller and I immediately shoved it to the bottom of my to-read queue because, for obvious reasons, I didn’t need that at that time.

April rolls around and folks are getting vaccinated. I’ve re-watched 12 MONKEYS (the TV show), THE LEFTOVERS, read and watched SPONTANEOUS, and given the fact that all three of those pieces deal with pandemics and/or the collective grief of dealing with unknown, uncountable deaths, I thought: “Hey, maybe I’m ready to read AFTERLAND now!”

I was not. The book jumps back-and-forth in time, starting with the post-pandemic present, then back to the unknown of the pandemic: a virus that only affects men with a single-Y chromosome which then induces a particularly aggressive, deadly type of prostate cancer. Beukes absolutely nails a lot of the details of living within a pandemic, the uncertainty, the hysterical actions some take, the social fallout.

I imagine that sort of exactitude is a cold comfort for Beukes, as I doubt sales were strong because of the material, which is a damn shame. I’m tempted to say that she read Brian K. Vaughan’s Y THE LAST MAN and exclaimed: ‘This is bullshit! Women wouldn’t act like that!’ and decided to pen her own version. (Given Beukes’ experience in comics, I’m doubtful AFTERLAND was so reactionary, but she does allude to Vaughan’s series.)

Once you can get over the haunting foretelling of Beukes’ pandemic, you can revel in the compelling characters in AFTERLAND, all women except for protagonist Cole’s son, Miles. Cole is one flawed mother, but AFTERLAND seems to give Beukes permission to write absolute shit-heel women, which is exactly what Billie, Cole’s sister, is. There’s a fantastic familial push-and-pull that weaves its way through the novel’s cat-and-mouse game.

It’s great, character-forward speculative fiction that, while it’s a rough read in these times — and probably will be for some time — if you can stomach it, you’ll be rewarded.

Afterland
  • THE SHINING GIRLS is slated to be an Apple TV+ mini-series starring Elisabeth Moss, although I haven’t heard whether it’s entered production yet.

AD ASTRA (2019)

April 15, 2021

(VOD) AD ASTRA is another dude with daddy issues film from James Gray (LOST CITY OF Z) that tries to be a lot of things: action-packed space-faring spectacle, colonialism, existential horror, and a meditation on journeymen, to name a few, and while it doesn’t quite succeed at any of them, it’s certainly the sort of big swing I appreciate.

However, I’m mentioning AD ASTRA to reflect on my initial viewing experience. You may have heard that all Pacific and ArcLight theaters are going to be shuttered permanently, including the previously mentioned Cinerama Dome in L.A. as well as the Chicago ArcLight location.

If a film wasn’t playing at one of the indie theaters in Chicago — such as the Davis Theater, The New 400, The Music Box, or the Siskel Film Center — I’d normally head north to Evanston’s Century 12 (which has also permanently closed, but will almost certainly re-open as a new theater) or head south to the ArcLight. In the case of AD ASTRA, I ventured to the ArcLight for a weekday double-feature of Sad Son in Space and the Chicago premiere of PARASITE.

When I walked into the ArcLight that afternoon, there wasn’t a single employee in sight. No one helming the bar, no one doling out popcorn, no one taking tickets. It was eerily silent, especially as I meandered down the halls to locate the screen, which felt like a perfect prelude to a film in which Brad Pitt spends a fair amount of time alone.

It’s worth noting that the evening screening of PARASITE was a sold-out delight. Seeing that film for the first time with an energetic crowd prone to gasping and belly-laughing was incredible. We figured we were in for something special, but we were not fully prepared for it.

There’s one more screening I’d like to mention, which could have happened in any other theater, but happened to occur at the ArcLight: I was attending a late-night screening of BLACK CHRISTMAS (2019), populated by a handful of bored teens and two older goths. I kept hearing a chain rattling, and I couldn’t quite figure out whether it was a diegetic sound or what, but it kept occurring throughout the film. Turns out, it was the leash and collar of a very large, very well-behaved dog keeping the goths company. Simply put, that’s not a sound you expect to hear in a theater!

I don’t want to oversell the Chicago ArcLight. It’s hardly the Austin Alamo Drafthouse (RIP, even though the Alamo Drafthouse certainly has issues), but it was a fine theater that was nicely kept, comfortable, and you could grab some above-average food and a local draft beer before your film, and I will miss it.

GODZILLA VS. KONG (2021)

April 5, 2021

(HBO MAX/VOD) Please indulge a bit of back-story: as a youth, my parents would occasionally take off for a day-long trip (yes I knew what that meant and no, please don’t point that out to me — they’re my parents) that would dovetail with WPXN’s* Godzilla marathons, and I’d fire up the popcorn popper and melt down some butter — no microwave popcorn for me! — and hunker down for hours of monster madness.

I can’t say I’ve been too keen on the recent Godzilla films — too much human drama, too much forced artistry, too little monster fisticuffs. (Also, US re-appropriation of what was created from a US nuclear bomb still seems squicky to me.) That said, damn, from the opening of GODZILLA VS. KONG, it broadcasts that it’ll be a different monster movie, and it delivers throughout.

It’s everything I loved from my youthful days of WPXN viewing, -and- it has Rebecca Hall as the lead! It’s big, dumb wrestling fun, and the use of Kong is smartly integrated. That said, I do squirm a bit at the bad science, considering how much bad science is being thrown about right now, but I was shocked at how much I enjoyed this. I really hope the Warner Bros. 2019/2020 films are re-released to proper theaters because, holy hell, I should be watching this on the largest screen possible.

  • I may be wrong about that network — it’s been literal decades.

SLEIGHT (2016)

March 30, 2021

(Netflix/VOD)? Like LOVE & BASKETBALL, SLEIGHT also exits at the end of March so, sadly, you don’t have much time to watch it for free, but it’s definitely worth a digital rental fee.

J.D. Dillard seems to specialize in delightfully overstuffed films. SLEIGHT is about a young drug dealer named Bo (Jacob Latimore) that gets in way over his head with supplier Angelo (a somewhat ill-fitting Dulé Hill), but he’s also a street magician who idolizes Houdini, and he also has a crazy superhuman magnetic implant that allows him to pull off some amazing stunts. As he says in the film: “Anyone can learn a trick. Doing something no one else is willing to do makes you a magician.”

It also namedrops West Covina (yeah, I hear you fellow CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND fans) and features Cameron Esposito in a supporting role.

While it’s undeniably high-concept, Dillard keeps matters grounded. Bo’s magnetic powers are slowplayed, lending the film a far more human air than you’d expect, which is what I appreciate the most about the movie. Dillard could’ve cranked this up to 11 and I’m sure it would have been an entertaining film, but he did the opposite and it’s far more interesting because of that choice.

That said, it reads like Dillard was setting this up as a franchise, with Bo becoming some sort of Tesla-ish force of nature, but that never happened. Instead, he went on to write and direct the similarly high-concept SWEETHEART, and is now working on a STAR WARS film.

THE TWILIGHT ZONE: COME WANDER WITH ME (1964)

March 28, 2021

(Hulu/Paramount+, S05E34) This episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE is rarely included in best of lists, which is fair — even if it’s the last-filmed ep and directed by Richard Donner — as its story is a bit strained, even by TWILIGHT ZONE standards. Floyd Burney, known as the “Rock-A-Billy Kid” (Gary Crosby), is on the prowl for a new song in a small, unnamed town. He overhears a woman singing and follows her voice as she repeats the refrain: “Come wander with me love / Come wander with me / Away from this sad world / Come wander with me”

The woman introduces herself as Mary Rachel (Bonnie Beecher) and is reluctant to part with the song, but Floyd is insistent. Matters escalate quickly as the rest of the song is revealed.

While the episode is a bit clunky, it’s the song that makes it memorable. -Come Wander With Me- is a brilliantly haunting ballad and, even though the song was never written or recorded in full, a number of musicians, such as Émilie Satt and British Sea Power, have covered it over the years.

Émilie Satt – Come Wander With Me:

British Sea Power – Come Wander With Me:

Hidden Highways – Come Wander With Me:

Original:

It’s worth noting that, for some inexplicable reason, the episode is titled ‘Come Wander With Us’ on Netflix.

UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD (1991)

March 19, 2021

A warning: today’s entry is a bit more personal and deals with death. My apologies.

(Criterion/YouTube) There are better respected Wim Wenders films than UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD, but it’s long been one of my personal favorites of his. I have yet to see the recent director’s cut — like JUSTICE LEAGUE, like DUNE, folks have been endlessly clamoring for his four-hour edit of this film, which is featured in the new Criterion edition of the film — but the theatrical cut still features all of the hallmarks of quintessential Wenders films, including emotional ennui, distanced communication, and road trips but, atypical for Wenders, it’s contained in a sci-fi neo-noir coating.

It’s one of the first films I recognized as ‘an international affair’, which means that Wenders finagled funding from more than a few countries to realize his vision. It has a lot of people, a lot of odd events, and a lot of languages but, despite all of that, and despite the ramshackle plotting, despite the fact that it takes place in a very prescient future 1999, it’s a very challenging, very soulful and melancholy meditation on technology, humanity, and memories.

Ah, but I’m burying the lede. This movie was one of the first films I bonded over with my college friend Nick. We both loved the high-concept nature of it and, both of us being goths, were enraptured with the soundtrack, especially the contributions from CRIME & THE CITY SOLUTION, Nick Cave, and Julee Cruise.

While we grew in parallel as we aged — over the years we shared a lot about esoteric bands, cooking, the cosmos, and computer science — we always had this film as a touchstone. He’s someone I could always reach out to and instantly reconnect with.

He passed away in his sleep on March 3rd. He was one of the nicest, most accepting people I’ve ever known and, if you were his friend, he always had your back. I’m not exaggerating when I say he saved my life at least once — I was a naive college youth and he was a weathered post-grad — and I’m heartbroken that I was unable to return the favor.

I really miss him and just want to hold those memories close.

TIMER (2009)

March 2, 2021

(N/A) Unfortunately, TIMER is difficult to watch via traditional means: you can’t stream it, it’s been out-of-print for a while, and copies sell for far more than I would expect. Consequently, I haven’t seen it in a number of years. However, I’m recommending it because, not only do I recall it being very charming, but Jac Schaeffer wrote and directed it, and she just happens to be the head writer of WANDAVISION.

TIMER (explicitly spelled as TiMER) is a high-concept romantic drama that would be an immediate Netflix success today, but barely found an audience when it was released. The trailer does a perfect job of succinctly summarizing matters, but I’ll still try: in the future, you can get a visible wrist implant that ticks down the moment to when you meet your soulmate. The lead, Oona (Emma Caulfield Ford, who also appears in WANDAVISION, but is best known as Anya from BUFFY) gets her implant and it’s blank, and the film is about her coping and navigating her love life with that uncertainty.

It’s winsome and smart, without completely leaning on a lot of traditional romantic drama tropes. Folks have their own agency and expectations and insecurities!

Again, I haven’t seen it in a number of years, but it makes sense that the writer/director of this film would do something interesting with a Marvel Cinematic Universe series.

THE QUIET EARTH (1985)

February 17, 2021

(hoopla/kanopy/tubi/VOD) THE QUIET MAN is a ‘last man on earth’ story (loosely based on Craig Harrison’s novel), one that wouldn’t feel out of place in THE TWILIGHT ZONE, but it justifies its existence by featuring an electric performance from Bruno Lawrence, being set in New Zealand, and by containing a number of interesting and cerebral twists, including one hell of an ending.

There’s a trailer, but it’s essentially a condensed summary of the entire film, so I’d refrain from watching it until -after- viewing the movie.

THE WILD BLUE YONDER (2006)

February 13, 2021

(hoopla/Prime/tubi/VOD) The few folks who saw this film after first being exposed to Werner Herzog via his masterful documentary GRIZZLY MAN must have walked out of the theater feeling very confused. THE WILD BLUE YONDER doesn’t fall into Herzog’s lighthearted docudramas, but instead lands closer to his doomsaying visual photo montages, such as the better known LESSONS OF DARKNESS (1992) which took an abstracted, hellish look at the oil fields and general destruction of nature in Kuwait after the Gulf War.

THE WILD BLUE YONDER goes one step further by bringing in Andromedan extraterrestrial Brad Dourif as your personal tour guide through arctic and NASA footage. Herzog’s always been exceptional at crafting visual narratives, but having Dourif here to verbally stitch the montages together is a real treat. That said, if you’re looking for anything resembling a proper narrative, look elsewhere. My wife and I debate to this day as to whether the Gene Siskel Film Center accidentally played the reels out of order.

AWAKE (2012)

February 6, 2021

(VOD) AWAKE was a short-lived high-concept procedural TV crime drama about Michael Britten (Jason Issacs, HARRY POTTER, THE DEATH OF STALIN), a detective who loses his wife (Laura Allen, TERRIERS, THE 4400) in a car accident. He falls asleep and, when he wakes, instead of his wife being dead, it’s his son (13 REASONS WHY’s Dylan Minnette). Next time he falls asleep, his son is still dead. He straddles these two realms, living a fractured life, all while solving crimes and attending therapy sessions with separate therapists (BD Wong in one, Cherry Jones in the other).

The show’s creator, Kyle Killen, previously dabbled in the ‘dual lives’ genre with his infamously truncated FOX series LONE STAR, which featured James Wolk (the Bob in MAD MEN’s ‘Not great, Bob!’. Also, ZOO.) as a bigamist and, while LONE STAR was unjustly canceled too soon, AWAKE feels like a more mature, more interesting take on the material, as it scrutinizes a man who won’t reckon with the schism in his life, so he’s forced to endure all permutations.

AWAKE was one of the rare post-LOST genre shows that used its high-concept to dig deep into the humanity of its characters, while still fueling a remarkable storytelling engine. The season one finale — also the series finale — broke the future potential of the show wide open, or lent the show some closure, depending on how you look at it.

If you do watch it and want to read about what they intended with the finale and potential future of the show, there’s a great interview with Killen here: https://ew.com/article/2012/05/26/awake-finale-kyle-killen-burning-questions/