THE ABYSS Screening

The Abyss, the costly, special-effect-laden, deep-sea adventure drama about underwater aliens and a bickering married couple, will be screened at a special 20th anniversary event by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Tuesday, June 23, at 7:30 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood.
This Academy screening will premiere a newly struck 35mm print from the Academy Film Archive. Considering that The Abyss boasts awesome underwater cinematography and first-rate visual and sound effects, this is a great chance to catch it on the big screen.

Presented by the Academy’s Science and Technology Council, the evening will be hosted by film historian and author Eric Lichtenfeld and will feature [...]

IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA d: Robert Gordon

It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955)
Direction: Robert Gordon
Screenplay: George Worthing Yates and Hal Smith
Cast: Kenneth Tobey, Faith Domergue, Donald Curtis, Ian Keith, Dean Maddox Jr, Harry Lauter, Chuck Griffiths, Richard W. Peterson
 

 

By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
I looked through one of my DVD sets, Columbia Pictures’ "The Fantastic Films of Ray Harryhausen, Legendary Science Fiction Series," and plucked an old fave of mine to rewatch: the 78-minute, black-and-white, 1955 classic It Came from Beneath the Sea. While not one of the more hyped Ray Harryhausen productions, this sci-fi effort is still a cut above the usual drive-in fare of that era. As a plus — drum roll — it stars Faith [...]

Hugh Jackman in X MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE Photos

From the Academy Award-winning socially conscious drama Tsotsi to the political melodrama Rendition to X Men Origins: Wolverine. No one can’t say that Gavin Hood isn’t an eclectic filmmaker.
X Men Origins: Wolverine, though leaked online, will probably turn out to be a gigantic hit.
Starring Hugh Jackman, Ryan Reynolds, Liev Schreiber, Dominic Monaghan, Lynn Collins, and Danny Huston, X Men Origins: Wolverine opens in the US on May 1.
Photos: © Twentieth Century Fox / James Fisher (Hugh Jackman image below)

 
Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana at STAR TREK Berlin Premiere
Chris Pine, Eric Bana, Zoe Saldana at STAR TREK Berlin Premiere
Reese Witherspoon at MONSTERS VS. ALIENS London Premiere
STAR TREK’s Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto’s Sydney Photo Shoot
Ben Affleck, Helen Mirren, Rachel [...]

BLADE RUNNER – Harrison Ford – d: Ridley Scott

Blade Runner (1982)
Direction: Ridley Scott
Screenplay: Hampton Fancher and David Peoples; from Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Cast: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, M. Emmet Walsh, Daryl Hannah, Joanna Cassidy, Brion James
 

 

By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
Director Ridley Scott’s dystopian 1982 sci-fi drama Blade Runner is one of those Hollywood productions whose initially mixed reviews were actually closer to the mark than the decades of hagiography that followed. That’s not to say that Blade Runner is a bad film; it’s only a much-ballyhooed mediocrity — due mostly to its sluggish screenplay — rather than a great film.
Adapted by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples [...]

THE INVISIBLE BOY d: Herman Hoffman

FORBIDDEN PLANET DVD Review: Part I
Whereas the Freudian and Shakespearean cocktail of Forbidden Planet is a great example of sci-fi filmmaking — if not of great overall filmmaking — the other film in the package, The Invisible Boy, a black-and-white production directed by Herman Hoffman and based on a short story by Edmund Cooper, is a cute little movie that has moments as silly as Robot Monster, but that also offers some intriguing concepts that predate later sci-fi classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Colossus: The Forbin Project, and The Terminator series.
Like Robot Monster or Invaders from Mars, The Invisible Boy may all be the dream of the title character, for so much of it is propelled by [...]

FORBIDDEN PLANET – Anne Francis, Walter Pidgeon

Forbidden Planet (1956)
Direction: Fred M. Wilcox
Screenplay: Cyril Hume, from a story by Irving Block and Allen Adler
Cast: Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen, Warren Stevens, Earl Holliman, Richard Anderson, Jack Kelly, Robby the Robot, George Wallace, Robert Dix
 

 

By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
When one thinks of 1950s science-fiction films, one thinks of the sort of schlocky black-and-white B movies that were parodied on the old Mystery Science Theater 3000 television show. Yet, while there were a whole lot of films like Plan 9 from Outer Space and Robot Monster, the 1950s did have some very good, if not great, sci-fi movies such as The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The War of [...]