ICFS

It has dawned on Dr. Morbius that our lineup features some of SciFi’s most endearing and enduring beauties. Barbarella (jane fonda) skipped right over sexy and into out-and-out fetish; Forbidden Planet’s most eligible bachelorette Altaira (Anne Francis) was the girl (from the planet) next door. Quilla June Holmes (Susanne Benton) whet the appetites of many a moviegoer in ‘A boy and His Dog’. Raku (Eihi Shiina) fulfills all, Japanese schoolgirl / hot vengeful killercop / monsterbabe hybrid, fantasies in ‘TGP’. ‘Blade Runner’ is a veritable pageant of alluring replicants; Rachael (Sean Young), the smoking and smoking hot object of investigation/affection; the calisthenicly homicidal Pris (Daryl Hannah) and let us not forget the sympathetic, capable and dangerous, Zhora (Joanna Cassidy). After Anne Darrow (Fay Wray) graced the paw of her hairy suitor and before the globularly coiffed Princess was enslaved by Jabba; Kay Lawrence (Julie Adams), was the fatal object of attraction for the scaly manfish from the Black Lagoon. The good doctor has not forgotten that our films also feature pre Miami (and better dressed because of it) Don Johnson, hemanly handsome heroic heartthrob - Harrison Ford, still kickin around - Leslie Nielsen, rugged - Rutger Hauer and John Phillip Law as Barbarella’s - babeman / birdman. Have I forgotten anyone? Who is the most beautiful woman, handsome man, of SciFi?

Visited the soon to be completed EMPAC (Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center) facility at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy this week. EMPAC is meant to be a home for spaces in which art in motion and science meet in the service of our senses. Studio 1, left above in its raw form is 3500 sq feet and its walls will be covered in white acoustical tiles, each individually adjustable. In its current dark state Graeme Mckenna of zombiefeast fame noted “looks like the holodeck” an opinion echoed by NYU student, Lecco Morris, I agreed and although the tiles look cool in the artist’s renderings, I will miss the nefarious look of the bare walls. The studio is prepared for sound sources, projections and the ‘flying’ of subjects or objects through the space… not exactly a holodeck, but a good precursor. Of the interior exterior of the concert hall, above right, Graeme chimed again “the pods from 2001″ these 2 entrances (only one is visible here) are much more dramatic in person. EMPAC opens Oct 3… be there or b2. http://www.empac.rpi.edu/

Rumor has it that Blood the dog from A boy and His Dog is the same pooch that played Tiger on television’s the Brady Bunch. Tiger disappeared apparently without warning from the cast of the Bunch… perhaps it was something he said?

Now that is a pretty open ended question. What is the worst SciFi film I ever saw? It’s not as easy to answer as you might immediately think. Ooh, I could drag out something classically bad like “War of the Robots” or “Santa Clause Conquers the Martians.” But those kind of films are in the so bad, they’re good category. Mystery Science Theater 3000 has made them a home in our hearts. I could pick something from cable television like S.S. Doomtrooper or other SciFI channel original bad CGI Saturday fare. But I really don’t have to watch those, they are plentiful and disposable so therefore, don’t matter. No, to really earn my prize of WORST SCIFI FILM I think I need to have been forced to suffer through it, couldn’t move, couldn’t laugh, had to watch with eyes wired open like the famous scene in A Clockwork Orange. To be THE WORST, I must have seen the film in a Movie Theatre. I can’t just leave a Movie Theater before a film is over, no matter how bad. It’s something about the audience moral contract coupled with he fact that I paid for the entire experience that keeps me in my seat. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to leave, it just means I don’t. So, in a Theatre, have to stay, paid for film and made the choice to go see that film. I submit for you, under these circumstances, THE WORST SCIFI FILM I EVER SAW was…Millennium.
Millennium, wtf?
Go rent it, get it on NETFLIX, watch it on YouTUBE. The ad in the paper said something like this, “A 747 Airplane falls through a hole in time and ends up in the far future! How will they get back?” OK sounds cool. Picture has an airplane on it flying through some sort of Space Warp thingie. Stars Chris Kristofferson. Alright, me and Bobby McGee and a time traveling FutureFi film.
Thats where the fun ends. In Millennium, Kristofferson plays Bill Smith, thats right Bill Smith. Our hero is a member of a Future Cop Strike Force, wait no, he’s a airline pilot who’s parents are from the Future and also there fore his children, no no no. Bill Smith is a member of the National Transportation Safety Board. Hold on to your clipboards!
It seems that when airplanes crash, people from the future collect the passengers before they die and leave charred husks of remains behind. Something about populating the future. We don’t see much of that. We do see a lot of Bill Smith trying to date some blonde chick who we think is from the future, on Airplane body recovery re-con I think. So, when we find out she is really from the future, we get to watch the ENTIRE FIRST HALF of the movie, again, this time from her perspective.
OH yeah, there is something about paradoxes and time-quakes and the future gets destroyed so they all travel through some super-duper-future gate that they spent all the money on the travel even deeper into the future.
If you’ve seen this movie, please comment on this blog. IF you haven’t just share what your least favorite SciFi Film is. Share the pain Cinema-nauts.

An NPR report is warning of a new terror, textwalking! Thumbing away whilst perambulating is not only difficult, not only uncool looking, but it soon may become illegal. SciFi comedy could hardly do better than this. Hyperfocused citizenry absentmindedly walking into streams of motorized vehicles, themselves being blindly piloted by textdrivers. Is our need to communicate so great that we do so at danger to ourselves and others and through a decidedly lame interface? Have you textwalked or textdriven, textbiked, textpiloted, textboarded, textsurfed, downhilltexted, or textdived? In our illustration a careless woman is basketwalking, where are the police when you need them?

September 13 looms and Zanti Misfit (above) Dr. Morbius, Ford Prefect and Wild Zero met at Zanti’s lair to discuss and confirm bookings of films and to schedule our 24 hour happening. Various mad trailers and out-there extras were previewed and discussed, challenging but absurd contests were played out and every minute was inspected and massaged into place. Everything went well except that I, Morbius, forgot the beer.

It Came From Schenectady is disappointed to report that THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, a front runner in the exciting horse race for the our Viewer’s Choice Poll, is not available for screening should it be selected. What possible reason could the combined forces of cinema have to keep the classic off our giant screen? Is it the US Government, attempting to keep quiet the revealing message of GORT? Is it the rival Viewers Choice film A CLOCKWORK ORANGE practicing some sort of cross culture Ultra-Violence? No, the answer is much more sinister than that, the problem is…Keanu Reeves. That’s right, Ted “Theodore” Logan-NEO-Johnny Freakin’ Mnemonic, of all people, has a remake of this classic coming out at Christmas. And until that would-be classic and Walmart $5 bin companion to Tom Cruise’s War of the Worlds hits Theaters, the classic B&W Robert Wise movie of movies is on the shelf. So, thems the breaks. For all of you who voted for TDTESS, express your self loudly by coming to IT CAME FROM SCHENECTADY to ensure the film you love, as we do, is chosen for the next festival. We will listen!

Before the Ring cycle, before King Kong… there was ‘Bad Taste’, Peter Jackson’s first feature film, shot in 16mm over 5 years in his New Zealand. Hang in there with the accents, spotty acting, local references, shabby audio and ham handed special effects and you will have to be impressed by the overall success of this shoestring production. Like John Waters’ Pink Flamingos, this film shows Mr. Jackson’s mettle and ability to get the job done (he acts in 2 roles, even fighting himself!). The plot: Aliens have descended on a little town and replaced the local population, their evil plan? Package a sample run of human meat products for their otherworld corporation. Absurd and funny gore, (no budget leads to actual organ meats, from who knows how many sheep? standing in for human parts), hilarious alien getups replete with rubbery heads and gnarly, exposed, butts, gunfire, a flying house… in all, a surprisingly high level of finish for such a handmade movie. Not one hobbit in the film… just fine for me.

Anyone else dislike the illustration style employed in the new Star Wars the Clone Wars? I suppose it could have been worse, ‘Lego Star Wars… the Movie’… or is that already in the pipeline? OK let’s have it all out in the open. I have always been disappointed by:
Luke: Whiney and drab.
Darth: As scary as a black dustbin.
Anaken: Did anyone care about this petulant twit…. ever?

I have viewed quite a few zombie films in the past month (see zombie feast entry) including, on my home screen, ‘Oasis of the Zombies’ whose alternate title ‘Blood Sucking Nazi Zombies’ is much better than the film itself. ‘Oasis’ had its share of semiclad boys and topless girls, which made me think, really, about the power of youthful nudity in zombie films as a counterpoint to the graphic display of physical disintegration to come. Is every hanging fleshed, slow moving, decaying denizen a frightening harbinger of the ‘death on the bone’ of old age? Is the fear that is played on a real fear of relative physical corruption while still alive, aging?