It’s awesome. Keith David being Keith David.

Trendy shades

This film has everything.

They live. We sleep.

If you like They Live, you should also check out;

Henry Stocks-Fryer

Creatures of the Night: Saturday 5th May 10:30pm Barbarella (1968), based on the French comic series of the same name (by Jean-Claude Forest), is a cult classic for a reason. Several reasons really.

We (the audience) follow the beautiful space adventurer Barbarella (Jane Fonda) on her mission to retrieve the scientist Dr. Durand Durand, to stop his super weapon, the positronic ray, falling into the wrong hands.

The opening scene, iconic and eternal,  Barbarella, floating around her ship, undressing. It just gets better and better. The Sci-Fi adventure is a product of its time, Jean-Claude wanted Barbarella to be representative of a free and liberated woman. This was the 60’s, and it was all about free love. Barbarella faces numerous perils in her journey to find Durand Durand, discovering sex and pleasure along the way. One early sequence, Barbarella is taught what “actual” sex is, as opposed to what has developed on earth in the future (taking pills and touching hands), far from the natural way of doing things. You can really see the films influence on future sci-fi film’s tackling of sex ( see Demolition Man).

From start to finish, the film is steeped in eroticism, fashion and far out ideas. To compare it to another cult classic, 2001:A Space Odyssey which came out the same year, a cold realistic view of space and humanities future. Barbarella came out of the psychedelia of  the 1960s, one of the most striking aspects of the film is the bizarre scenery that the titular character crashes into from scene to scene. It’s far out maaaaan.

Dealing with a chaotic, bizarre and weird worlds, we follow Barbarella on her weird journey of her mission to save the universe, and her own personal sexual exploration. Barbarella’s use of sex is inherent to film and its plot.

The film doesn’t feel hemmed in by tropes or rules, and because of this, we get an enjoyable, if not a little chaotic film. Some aspects of it may seem dated, but that comes with any piece of cinema.

If you are in the mood for a weird sci-fi space adventure with erotic overtones, Barbarella is the film for you.

You may also like these non-erotic recommendations;

Showing  Saturday 24th March – 10.30 PM Released in 1986, the xenomorph returned to the silver screen under the vision of budding Canadian Director James Cameron, who got his start with Piranha II: The Spawning (seriously look it up).

Cameron’s incarnation of the Alien universe is different to the atmospheric space horror that Ridley Scott brought to life, bursting through some poor souls chest and into our collective consciousness. Cameron made Alien into an action-movie. That’s not a bad thing.

We return to Ripley (played by the wonderful Sigourney Weaver), who has been floating around in statis for 57 years. She’s rescued and unfortunately, no one really believes her stories of aliens and blowing up ships for legitimate reasons. The audience can really join in with the Socratic irony of the this, the enraging knowledge that THERE’S ALIENS and no one really believes her. Oh how wrong they were.

Ripley, along with a rag-tag group of marines, is sent to investigate a colony that has gone erily silent. This is where elements of Cameron’s Aliens take hold, where horror shifts gracefully (or not so) into action. Ships, guns and plenty of flame throwers make this ride into the Aliens universe intense in a whole other way, and the ending….oh boy.

Cameron isn’t just explosions and one-liners, he continues to explore the themes set out by Scott in the previous film. Ripley’s distrust of androids and the uncanny valley that comes with that territory is explored further with her interactions with Bishop (Lance Henriksen), a staple of science fiction, with good reason.

The extent of mega corporations power in the future, the ineptitude of those in power, survival and the horrors of things we do not know. Aliens is favourite amongst science fiction fans, because it explores these themes, and at the same time…it’s an adventure.

Ellen Ripley, is the real star of this, not the xenomorph (sorry Giger). Ripley is possibly the start of a long line of amazon-heroines. Sarah Connor, Xena, Buffy…the list goes on. But Ripley was at the forefront, and Weaver’s performance in this well rounded/written character cements her as an icon. This stock character is a firm favourite of mine, and Ellen’s true grit ensures no acid-spitting alien is going to take her down.

Please watch this film. It’s essential.

Stand out performance: Carrie Henn as Newt.

If you like this you should also watch;

Creatures of the Night: Saturday 24th February 10.30 PM The Creature From the Black Lagoon, the title is typical of the science fiction films of the  1950s, especially, Jack Arnold, director of this motion picture. The title does exactly what it says on the tin. Same with Jack Arnold’s other films (which I encourage our readers to see), The Incredible Shrinking Man (one of his best), Tarantula and It Came From Outer Space.

Originally filmed in 3D (a fad which went away eventually…), Arnold takes the audience on a trip deep into the Amazon. The suspense of the piece is carried on masterfully by the director, the constant looming presence of the creature is felt, Jaws before Jaws.

The exploration of evolution, and of the future is a theme in this film. Constant references to the world of tomorrow, and how science can help humanity advance, its pro-science leading man and woman, help cement it as a film ahead of its time. Gil-Man, the creature, is not the only star player in this piece, Richard Carlson alongside the beautiful Julie Adams, bring a classic Hollywood charm to the film.  Carlson’s character (David) is a forward thinking sort, at conflict with his less noble intentioned coworkers. Julie Adams performance as Kay as one to watch out for, playing the girlfriend and coworker of David. A character in her own right (instead of the atypical damsel in distress), bringing a refreshing change to the two dimensional female leads of B-movies. Of course it is not all about scientific discovery, as we see Gil-Man become infatuated with Kay, and his various attempts to carry her off to his lagoon lair bring further drama to this tense film.

We can see that Jack Arnold wanted to portray David and Kay as the future, of what society and people should be striving towards. They are still imperfect, but they are getting there).

Future meets ancient past as the intrepid science team stumbles into the black lagoon, disturbing the Gil-Man, and prompting him into action against these intruders. There are no true bad guys in this film, which makes it all the more well rounded. There’s no cartoonish villain twirling a comic moustache. Gil-Man might be a tragic monster, more akin to Frankenstein’s Monster than Dracula. Although he is not a monster of human creation, merely left behind by evolution….

This is one of my favourite monster-horror films, and was the start of the 50’s sci fi film binge (recommended list below). The atmosphere, the well rounded characters, the action and of course, the design of the monster it(him?)self all come together to create an iconic piece of cinema.

Come join us at the Hyde Park Picture House, Saturday 24th February 10.30pm. Popcorn is essential.

Further viewing, if classic sci-fi is your thing, check out the following;

Showing until 1st November The Death of Stalin, the new film by Armando Iannucci (The Thick of It), based on the graphic novel of the same name, is currently showing at the HPPH.

Iannucci’s world building is second to none, dragging the viewer into the paranoid fear filled world of the U.S.S.R, where no one can be trusted, all rooms are bugged and no one is safe from the terror of the secret police, the NKVD, run by the sinister Beria (portrayed by Simon Beale).

The farcical power struggle that follows immediately after Stalin’s death between the Council of Ministers shows the absurd nature of the Stalinist Russia, and runs deeply into the themes that Iannucci covers in his previous work, The Thick of It, but this time around an added  fear of execution, not Malcolm Tucker shouting at you.

Between the power grabs and scheming, we get a comedic glimpse into the theatre of the absurd that Stalin had created, Molotov (Palin) even quips ‘Stalin would be loving this’ at the height of the infighting. This film is one of the funniest out this year (the rest of the audience agreed with me I believe!), with moments of bleakness and sadness that pin the whole thing down in reality. These things happened and we are following the stories of cruel men, a product of a cruel regime.

Stand out performances for myself were Andrea Riseborough playing Stalin’s daughter Svetlana, whom all the council members were trying to win the favour of after her father’s death.  A special mention for the Yorkshire-accented no nonsense Zhukov played by Jason Issacs (just wait for him to pop up!).

I cannot recommend The Death of Stalin enough, it gives the audience a glimpse into a strange world at a historically significant point in time, that not everyone is familiar with. Its funny, tense, farcical, paranoid and again, very very funny.

If you like The Death of Stalin, you should watch The Thick of It (Iannucci), In the Loop (Iannucci, 2009), and if you want to go old school, Yes Minister (Jay and Lynn).
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