Tag Archives: Science Fiction

Capsules

CAPSULE: LOVE ME (2024)

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Love Me is available on VOD for purchase or rental.

DIRECTED BY: Andrew Zuchero, Sam Zuchero

FEATURING: ,

PLOT: After the apocalypse wipes out Earth’s entire population, an AI-equipped buoy connects with an AI-equipped satellite that holds a digital record of humanity, and together they decide to recreate a human relationship in virtual reality.

Still from love me (2024)

COMMENTS: Love Me, the debut feature from real-life married couple Andrew and Sam Zuchero, debuted at Sundance in 2024 to underwhelming reviews, but managed to get a theatrical release a year later based on the strength of stars Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun. The overall reaction to the film has been tepid, both from critics (who have tended to find it too obvious) and audiences (who have tended to find it too outlandish). Still, although not without flaws—including an unwillingness to pursue the most interesting ideas it raises—Love Me is original and adventurous enough to elevate it above the usual dreck that litters the romance genre.

Although the core romantic relationship inevitably falls into cliché (including the mildly offensive trope of a hysterical girlfriend who demands every detail be storybook perfect as a way of eluding her own insecurities), the film feeds off its high concept post-apocalyptic premise. The most interesting part of Love Me, in fact, is its nearly experimental opening, which shows a spinning globe briefly shrouded in a flash of nuclear flame, before zooming into the planet for a time lapse montage showing the passage of innumerable days. Stewart’s smart buoy, equipped with a scanner shaped like an eye, clicks to life and her speech module gets stuck on stutter mode as her programming resets, post-apocalypse. Meanwhile, Yuen’s satellite, a kind of eternally revolving monument to humanity containing  pedabytes of data, is already fully operational. The two beings connect and, via the satellite’s archive, try to reconstruct what it means to be a human being (in the 21st century, at least).

The film’s take on A.I. remains willfully unexamined (the movie is not about A.I. at all; the characters could just as well have been aliens). The answer as to how these machines developed emotions like loneliness and curiosity is a little thing called “willing suspension of disbelief.” Love Me‘s technological focus is more on current Internet culture and social media, and the take seems positive enough at first: the A.I.s effectively investigate human behavior through YouTubes and memes, encountering genuine human miracles like baby laughter reinforcement loops. As the film goes on, this attitude develops more a satirical edge, as it becomes clear that modeling a relationship on an influencer’s Instagram feed won’t lead to an accurate simulacrum of human connection. But the attempt creates a dual romantic metaphor for the film. On a shallow level, it’s a warning about the destructive influence of the unobtainable sanitized fantasies presented on social media as model lifestyles, as the buoy slaves to in vain to perfectly recreate a spicy quesadillas/whimsical onesie/”Friends” marathon date night video she’s seen starring an Instagrammer (also played by Stewart). On a deeper level, one on which the viewer must do most of his or her own work, Love Me can be viewed as an existential parable about persona and authenticity. The buoy and the satellite can only meaningfully interact in a shared virtual reality where they are represented by their chosen avatars—which is almost a religious scenario, when you think about it.

The film’s audiovisual elements are good, for the budget. Many reviewers complained about the midfilm virtual reality section being too long and repetitive; it’s easy to see where they are coming from, even if I don’t share their level of frustration. Once the movie shifts into live action for the final act, Stewart and Yuen show real chemistry and passion (as they must, since there are no supporting actors to turn our attention to). Josh Jacober’s solo piano accompanies the film throughout, in a fashion reminiscent of a silent movie score. And the film features a one-billion year fast-forward, which sets a record by exceeding even the eons-spanning smash-cut from 2001.

While there’s no question Love Me doesn’t soar to the thoughtful heights of similarly-themed movies like Wall-E, Her, or A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, it easily exceeds the low standards we expect from the romantic movie genre. While it’s not something I’d recommend actively seeking out, if you’re a couple who finds yourself with 90 minutes to kill on an evening, you could do a lot worse on date night (for example, mail-order Mexican food and a “Friends” marathon).

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a daringly weird debut, executed with real style and vision. It’s an oddity that’s bound to appeal to fans of similarly strange high-concept love stories, like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”–Tasha Robinson, Polygon (contemporaneous)

Love Me [Blu-Ray]

Love Me [Blu-Ray]
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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: DEAD MOUNTAINEER’S HOTEL (1979)

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“Hukkunud Alpinisti” Hotell

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This review includes spoilers.

DIRECTED BY: Grigori Kromanov

FEATURING: Uldis Pūcītis, Jüri Järvet, Lembit Peterson, Mikk Mikiver, Tiit Härm, Nijole Ozelyte

PLOT: Called to an Alpine inn and trapped by an avalanche, a police inspector uncovers a bizarre mix of murder, organized crime, paid assassination, and an unexpected twist that leaves the him in way over his head. 

Still from Dead Mountaineer's Hotel (1979)

COMMENTS: Ronald Knox’s Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction are a handy guide to playing fair with the reader. They are not always scrupulously followed, and shouldn’t be considered  inviolable; some of Agatha Christie’s most popular novels make mincemeat of the rules. But they’re valuable as a guide to what might happen when coloring outside the lines. We turn to this list today because Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel takes a weed whacker to Commandment #2: “All supernatural or prenatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.” The result is a mystery that only the most wildly lucky viewer could possibly solve, so reliant is it upon a massive genre swerve. And it’s all exactly as the creators intended.

Brothers Arkadi and Boris Strugatsky (who also wrote the source material for Stalker) adapted their own book, a formal experiment in pulling a switcheroo on the reader. They envisioned a classic locked-room mystery, one in which a smart detective has to choose between a number of suspects at an isolated location, all of whom arouse suspicion in their own way. Think Murder on the Orient Express. Now imagine that the culprit in that classic whodunit was an invisible octopod who entered the train through a transdimensional rift, and you’ll start to get a sense of the sharpness of the left turn in Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel. Because that’s our solution here. It’s aliens. It’s a thoroughly unexpected twist that makes it a failure as a mystery—and a success as something else entirely.

Long before the truth behind the strange goings-on at this remote mountain inn are revealed, there are the strange goings-on themselves. The hotel is decorated in striking 70s modern décor courtesy of set designer Tõnu Virve, with post-space age lines and lots of mirrored surfaces. (The setting is perfectly matched by Sven Grünberg’s groovy synth-based score.) The source of the lodge’s name is peculiarly mundane: a guest disappeared while out climbing and that was that. The unfortunate sportsman left behind his dog, who now works delivering guests’ luggage when he’s not sitting watch beneath a giant portrait of his lost master. And then there are the guests, a motley crew with odd backgrounds and uncertain futures, including a scientist who climbs the walls of the hotel, a beautiful Lothario who seems incapable of making a bad shot on the billiard table, and an older man who curls up on the snow-covered balcony to escape his many allergies.

In every possible respect, our hero does not fit in with these people or in these surroundings. Glebsky, the by-the-book detective, is utterly incapable of drawing outside the lines, and when it appears that there has been a murder, his unswerving dedication to finding a culprit and meting out justice is unshakable. The movie repeatedly tests him: he is asked questions about fanciful theories of the origins of human intelligence, which he sidesteps because they are outside of a cop’s purview. He cannot change his approach to games to meet an unexpectedly strong foe or adjust his dance style to accommodate a freewheeling partner on the floor. When a newcomer arrives at the lodge, Glebsky’s only concern is how this person is connected to the murder. And most crucially, when the plot makes its ultimate transition from mystery to science fiction, and not only are we introduced to aliens but the murder itself is undone, Glebsky is unable to shift his mindset in any way. (Tellingly, actor Pūcītis was a Latvian in a cast of Estonians; he did not speak the same language, and thus was perpetually isolated amidst the production.) He remains utterly committed to his certainty that he’s in a police procedural, and any facts that don’t fit must not be facts at all.

A film made amidst the Cold War in a republic under Soviet domination will inevitably have a political element, and Glebsky is a serviceable stand-in for a state that was so committed to a point of view that stifled dissent in all its forms, even in the shape of contradictory facts. (Thank goodness that’s behind us.) But the extra layer of commentary is not necessary to deliver the tragedy of Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel. Nearly every character demonstrates the ability to perceive new circumstances and adapt to them, even the late alpinist’s dog. But not our hero. He remains shackled to his orders, enables a tragedy because he knows no other way, and ends the film trying to convince himself of the righteousness of his actions. If only he’d been able to roll with the changes when the mystery dropped out from under him.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“This is another of those movies that’s not really within just one genre as there are elements of mystery / suspense, crime, science fiction, surrealism and horror all weaved in plus lots of flashbacks, nightmares, hallucinations and oddball characters and even some bizarrely-placed b/w newsreel footage showing real people falling to their deaths trying to escape from a burning high rise apartment building. While it’s well-made, handsomely-shot and keeps you guessing, it’s at its best as a visual piece…” – Justin McKinney, The Bloody Pit of Horror

(This movie was nominated for review by MrEvilGuy. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: ADELA HAS NOT HAD SUPPER YET (1978)

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Adéla ještě nevečeřela
AKA Dinner For Adele; Nick Carter in Prague; Adele Hasn’t Had Her Dinner Yet

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , , , Nad’a Konvalinkova, Ladislav Pesek, Vaclav Lohinsky,

PLOT: Nick Carter (Dočolomanský), America’s Greatest Detective, is requested to come to Prague to solve the disappearance of a member of a prominent noble family. But even with the help of his local guide Inspector Ledvina (Hrušínský), countless gadgets, and his own American know-how and constant vigilance, it might just not be enough against his greatest adversary, The Gardener, and his creation Adela…

… and Adela has not had supper yet!

Still from Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet (1978)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: It’s fun pastiche like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and high adventure like the Bond films—but done at a fraction of the cost, and more smartly, without getting in the way of the fun.

COMMENTS: We open with the sound of an orchestra tuning up, followed by a conductor leading the start of a symphony which is interrupted by flash cuts of a dime novel illustration and the sounds of a tack-piano. This battle goes on for a few seconds, with the illustration and piano winning out and the credits beginning. High culture and low culture merged into entertainment, which is a pretty good encapsulation of the work of Oldřich Lipský: pastiche and parody merged with satire and (subtle?) commentary.

Adela is another good-natured lark, much like the director’s earlier Western parody Lemonade Joe. This time, the parody features Nick Carter, a dime-novel detective who was a major character of pop culture in the early 20th Century. In this iteration, he’s a combination of Sherlock Holmes (of whom he has an autographed photo and a note of admiration) and James Bond (with an array of gadgets to assist him). “America’s Greatest Detective,” as the sign on his door states, he effortlessly defeats several perpetrators even before the story gets properly underway.

The adventure melodrama is a standardized form, but the basic plot can take a myriad of variations. In this case, it’s also a Victorian slapstick yarn, with hints of steampunk on the fringes. Plus, it’s actually fun and funny. Lipský’s comedy stagings are almost flawless: only Blake Edwards (specifically The Party and The Pink Panther Strikes Again) comes close—although Lipský was more consistent. Think how much better The Great Race would’ve been if it were a Lipský film…

It’s all very genial and innocent, although there’s a tinge of satire present. Czechs are ribbed, from Carter’s description of them as “down to Earth types,” to Inspector Ledvina’s constant consumption of beer and sausages. America is also gently mocked: “America’s Greatest Detective” lives in New York, “America’s Greatest City,” and as Nick himself affirms, “Americans do everything grandly”. But there’s also American arrogance; “Europe is decay,” Nick states to Ledvina during a limburger lunch, and American puritanism surfaces during his encounters with women, both those who are attempting to kill him and those who are slightly friendlier.

Made more than a decade after Lemonade Joe, this was Lipský’s second of three collaborations with write/animator Jiří Brdečka. It was followed by The Mysterious Castle In The Carpathians with much of the same cast. As with Mysterious Castle and Lemonade Joe, Brdečka’s experience as an animator adds to the visual humor; a reference to the Escher portrait ‘Hand With Reflecting Sphere‘, running gags in the background set up early which pay off in the last third of the film, and Brdečka’s animation of the Gardener’s backstory. Jan Svankmajer assists with animating Adela (a man-eating plant with as much personality, but not the vocabulary, of The Little Shop of Horrors‘ Audrey II)—mainly when she’s having her supper.

Like Mysterious Castle, Adela got its first U.S. home video release on a Deaf Crocodile Blu-ray, with a new restoration and a commentary track from Czech film expert Irena Kovarova and film critic Tereza Brdečková (Brdečka’s daughter). Like the previous release, the extras are weighted towards Brdečka’s career rather than focusing on just Adela. Four of Brdečka’s animated shorts are included; Badly Drawn Hen (Špatně namalovaná slepice), Forester’s Song (Do lesíčka na čekanou), What Did I Not Tell The Prince (Co jsem princi neřekla) and The Miner’s Rose (Horníkova růže). The deluxe limited edition includes a 60 page booklet with essays by Walter Chaw and Jonathan Owen as well as excerpts from the 2015 book “JIŘÍ BRDEČKA: Life-Animation-Magic,” with storyboards from Adela and the shorts.

Lipský disappears a bit from the discussion; but Brdečka benefits from having 1) a direct living relative still able to beat the drum for his accomplishments and 2) having been an integral part of the . There’s still a lot of Lipský left to premiere on USA-friendly home video, so future releases may rectify the slight against Lipský, if indeed there is much bonus material on the director.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The dialogue, in subtitles, is strictly 70’s streetrap, and its non sequitur placement in the turn-of-the century provinciality is hysterical. The performances are well timed camp, and the entire colorful romp is strictly for fun.”–Michael Lasky, Bay Area Reporter (contemporaneous)Still from Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet (1978)

Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet [blu-ray]

Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet [blu-ray]
  • The beloved Czech cult comedy / horror / mystery about a handsome but bumbling detective and a man-eating plant
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List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: ALABAMA’S GHOST (1973)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , Peggy Browne, , , Ken Grantham

PLOT: A janitor-turned-magician gets more than he bargains for after signing up with a mysterious impresario, as a conspiracy unfolds around the greatest magic show ever.

Still from Alabama's Ghost (1973)

COMMENTS: When you see a credit for “Go-Go Dancers,” you know you’re in for a good time. Especially when those credits are front-loaded, and an array of oddities is laid out before the movie hits you. Especially especially when there’s a jaunty Dixieland jazz tune dancing through the speakers while the promises unspool (Doctor Caligula? Mama-Bama? Marilyn Midnight?). Alabama’s Ghost segues into a live performance of that opening tune—with an establishing shot of a foreshortened trombone sliding uncannily toward and away from the camera. Yessir, ma’am, there’s jivin’ style to spare in this extravaganza from the inimitable Fredric Hobbs, dealing out countless exciting genres in this slice of wonderment.

Navigating this variety show is the titular Alabama (who, despite what that title implies, is very much alive), leaning back at a bar, high on something (“it’s like a hundred yellow-haired cats, dancing on jade”) but whose mellow is about to harshed by the boss-man. Alabama’s gotta pack up the band’s gear, and stack it nice. After bringing the gear to the basement, he drives his loaded forklift through a false wall, revealing the collected possessions of Carter, a legendary magician who disappeared in Delhi in 1935. So begins the rise of Alabama: King of the Cosmos!

Hobbs pulls out the genre stops like they were going out of style, and so Alabama’s Ghost has something for everyone. Do you like magic? Got it in spades. Questionable ’70s sci-fi science? Let me tell you about the powers—and dangers—of transmitting raw zeta waves (not to mention the atomically adjacent deadly zeta waves). Is music your thing? A Scottish-accented impresario who goes by Otto Max (well illustrated by the steel business card, with his name stamped in the metal) will ensure there’s plenty of grooviness, man. Vampires? Comely Nazi scientists? Doomsday? An elephant?

Frickin’-A. These far-out goodies hop around the plotline like horseflies at a cosmic rodeo. Otto Max, with all his Puritan fop garb swagger, pitches his vision of a giant magic show to Alabama: “Surrealism’s in—surrealism’s where it’s at.” He might as well be pitching this very movie. Fredric Hobbs gave the film world far too few gifts, but his Godmonster/Ghost double-shot is pam-jacked with strange sights to see, peculiar paths to take, and, in the case of his sophomore feature, a vampire so full of ham that the Go-Go Dancers might gorge on pig flesh for weeks.

(As it stands, they gorge on people. Add “cannibalism” to that earlier mix. Peace out.)

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Whatever you can say about the movie, it does appear that director Fredric Hobbs had a vision of sorts… Believe me, low-budget horror doesn’t come much stranger than this one.” — David Sindelar, Fantastic Movie Musings

Capsules

CAPSULE: SLINGSHOT (2024)

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DIRECTED BY: Mikael Håfström

FEATURING: Casey Affleck, Emily Beecham, , Tomer Capone

Still from Slingshot (2024)

PLOT: Nearing Jupiter’s orbit, John develops growing concerns about the structural integrity of his craft and the mental well-being of its crew.

COMMENTS: Laurence Fishburne is obviously enjoying himself. Tomer Capone looks on the verge of a mental breakdown. Emily Beecham is either too wily—or not wily enough. And Casey Affleck, well, it’s kind of hard to say. Some critics have described his performance in unenthusiastic terms, with phrases like “phoned-in” bandied about. However, Affleck’s turn as John the astronaut, a man on a deep space mission kicked in and out of induced hibernation, rang true to me. John’s reactions, and perceptions, are muted, to be sure; but I can’t imagine a better frame of mind for his isolated ordeal.

Early on in the film, we are provided a good enough reason for this trip to Europa, a planet-sized moon orbiting Jupiter whose gravitational pull is to be utilized as a “slingshot” to send the exploration craft (dubbed “Odyssey”—’cause why not?—and frankly, the kind of name I can see a big-tech consortium thinking as both classy and clever) to the methane-rich moon in question. However, there’s a strange malfunction early on. Is it an impact? …Sabotage? John’s captain, Franks (Fishburne, delightful), is adamant that they crew should trust the vessel’s sensors when they say there’s nothing to worry about. The onboard astrophysics expert, Nash (Capone, frazzled), is immediately certain the team is heading toward their death. And John kind of just floats between the two views, while occasionally seeing and hearing hallucinations about the girl he left behind.

Slingshot is firmly along the indie lines of Moon, but with three closely knit characters growing more and more anxious. The vessel design takes inspiration from 2001: A Space Odyssey (and writing that just now, I notice it also drew the shuttle’s moniker from that film), so everything looks like whizzy, astro-chic IKEA. The sharp delineation of the craft makes for a nice contrast to the fuzziness of the narrative. Director Mikael Håfström begins the story mid-voyage, catching the audience up with extensive use of flashbacks. (I had mixed feelings about this, as the film might have played better with scanter backstory; that said, plenty of viewers are less forgiving of ambiguity.) Tensions rise, orders are disobeyed, and—trapped on some glorified tin some hundreds of millions of miles from home—we mysteriously find a firearm’s been thrown in the mix.

So we have here a chamber drama with an unreliable narrator and the pleasure of three very different actors having the screws turned on them. It’s a small movie with simple pleasures, and a triple-shot of plot twists wrapping up the low key adventure. Disagreeing with other reviews, I think Casey Affleck should be commended for his subdued performance. To reference another Kubrick film, he’s much like Barry Lyndon in this way: he will take the good and bad developments with equal magnanimity, never batting an eye because: he’s there. And this is happening. We should all aspire to be so calm when our habitat is mysteriously smashed and those in charge menace our survival with deadly weapons.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“At its best, the film manages to capture the forlornness and desperation John experiences on his long, strange trip, and Affleck does a good job conveying that tone as he keeps waking up and going to sleep, over and over.”–Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter (contemporaneous)