Mortals! You Defy The Gods! [Review: Interstellar]

Heroic archetype Cooper (Matthew McConnaughey) leaves behind his family and pilots a ring-shaped starship through a wormhole created by mysterious, godlike entities. His voyage takes him across an unfamiliar galaxy, accompanied by a crew who spend most of their time in stasis and a robot with a disturbed sense of humour. Yes! As you have probably guessed, Chris Nolan's new film Interstellar is pretty much a re-make of Ulysses 31.

Interstellar is space opera with a 21st century feel. The first act takes place on a bleak, near-future Earth where the farming ecosystem is slowly failing. The interstellar mission of the middle act is never a voyage to seek out new life and new civilizations but a desperate last chance to avert the death of humanity, and the story remains personal at all times, helped by some soul-wracking performances by McConnaughey and Anne Hathaway.

There are one or two silly scenes - the father-promises-daughter-he-will-return-home subplot (although it's there for a good reason), and the scenes where the Endurance crew brainstorm complex maneuvers and solve physics problems too quickly - it might be totally justified but it sounds like plot-hole technobabble.

On the other hand this is a compelling vision of the future, with so many elements that do make sense, including the technology. No Ulysses 31 remake would be complete without NoNo, but TARS and CASE are worthy additions to the canon of science-fiction robot companions, with their original physical design and programmable levels of honesty, sensitivity and humour. As you would expect from yet another Chris Nolan / Lee Smith collaboration, the cinematography, effects and editing are superb.

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Do Androids Cry Over Electric Sheep [Review: Blade Runner 2049]

What stands out about the world of Blade Runner 2049? Firstly that it's really, really FUBAR. The pollution smog is just the start of it - Los Angeles an expanded city surrounded by favelas and then giant dykes keeping out the rising sea level, another famous American city a radioactive wasteland, Wall-E style refuse dumps, children extracting metals from old circuitry in giant orphanages, the human population fed by millions of acres of protein-maggot farms. The Off World Colonies are a distant dream for a lucky few. And it doesn't appear to be a great time for women generally - more on that story later. Secondly, give Gosling's character a helmet and this would be Judge Dredd. The LA setting is completely Mega City One (the cheap-n-cheerful plastic version from the 2000AD comics, not the boring Stallone movie version). Gosling might not have Dredd's stature but he's the same no-nonsense dispenser of justice, at least when it comes to running down old Nexus 8 repli...

The Director's Cut [Review: Egomaniac]

Struggling horror-movie obsessed filmmaker Catherine Sweeney has a dream - to bring to life her Warm Bodies-style zombie romcom. She has the idea, now all she needs is a script, a cast, a producer, funding, a crew and a camera. Her first taste of reality comes when she draws the attention of a big player willing to come on board as executive producer and provide seven-figure funding - as long as she can write a talking dog into the script. Egomaniac, screened at Horror-On-Sea 2018, is a bittersweet black comedy about the experience of compromising to get the movie made - with a particular emphasis on the treatment of women in the industry. It was made in 2016 but with the Hollywood scandals breaking in the past few months it's deeply relevant right now, and perhaps can serve as a reminder that far from being the clean, happy alternative to Hollywood, the indie world is the Wild West of moviemaking. Catherine Sweeney, played by the real-life director Kate Shenton, carries the film w...

Brain The Size Of A Planet [Review: Lucy]

According to modern science I use 100% of my brain, although not necessarily all at the same time. According to Hollywood - yet again - we all use only 10% of our brains, and unlocking the full 100% could give us godlike powers. I worked hard to deconstruct this myth in my award-winning* short film "We Can Get You Some Really Cheap Gear" so I am a little disappointed that the rest of you haven't moved on. What do you all have for brains? Pudding? In Luc Besson's new film Scarlett Johansson plays Lucy, a tourist who is kidnapped by drug traffickers and receives an unintended dose of an experimental product that has been surgically implanted in her abdomen. As the drug boosts Lucy's intelligence and strength she manages to escape her Triad captors, but as her telekinetic powers grow she realises she only has a limited lifespan, and she must find a way to stay alive - and stay human - long enough to do something meaningful. However, about a third of the way through ...

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