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I received this issue of Remind, or what Alison calls "my old people magazine," which ranks the top 100 Science Fiction movies of the 20th century.
Remind does feature many pop culture stories, primarily from the 1950s through the 1990s, though there are references to earlier decades as well. Each issue focuses on different topics, such as country music, westerns, and "where are they now" issues, among others. I enjoy it, as I love pop history. They also have puzzles and a monthly guide to what's on TCM (Turner Classic Movies).
I thought it would be fun to review the movies on the list in reverse order and share my thoughts on them. The magazine's ranking of the movies is not mine.
I won't go into detailed reviews, but I will share the IMDb ranking and my own on a 1 to 10 scale. I am starting to grade some movies by fraction, such as grading a 7 as 7.3.
65)
No quite what I was expecting. More of a revenge picture, with more muted elements of dystopian science fiction than I was expecting. Nevertheless, Mel Gibson plays his role well, and the basic story is good, if not that surprising. The sequels were right to play up the more "future gone bad" elements of it, and the vehicle racing scenes.
64)
Being a huge H.G Wells fan, I find it hard to beleive I hadn't seen this before. Securing this movie was a real challenge, and that may be part of why. It took a while for even the library to find a copy for me. I rhought it might be timid in showing The Invisible Man in broader settings, but it included village scenes, and that the invisibility had driven him mad. Claude Rains is amazing projecting a complex character descending into madness, even as he is wrapped from head to toe.
63)
I found this movie quite enjoyavble. A delightful and surprising assortment of clever aliens, this is a great blend of comedy and scifi action. Both Will Smith and Tommy Lee Johns are on their A game, and make a great team, with real chemistry and charisma. Sometimes you rewatch a movie, and it does not live up to your memories of it. Not so with this one!
62)
Some ports of this were very pro forma. But, overall, it's another one I found better than I remembered. Although concentreated on Westworld, they do show other parks, and I enjoyed that. Yul Brynner as the relentless gunslinger android was top notch. It was lees than two hours, so it clearly couIdn't get into the depths that that the excellent (if often confusing) TV series could. But you got the gist - wealthy elites using everyone else as background players in their little dramas.
61)
Giant ants! And boy, are they mean! The first of the "big bug" movie, and one that played on the fear of the use of atomic weapons, and the damage that may come just from testing. The beginning and middle is better than the ending. Over the course of the movie, they become less of a threat in that they are fairly easily put down. The real threat lies in their ability to colonize almost faster than they can be eliminated. And the implication that this might not be the last mutation coming out of the atomic era. And from cinema, at least, it wasn't the last one. Atomic mutation became a popular theme for decades to come.
60)
Year: 1957 IMDb: 7.6 Tom: 7.1 Had I seen before? Yes. Service found on: Prime Rental
Speaking of playing off of the atomic theme, going through a cloud of radioactive pesticides results in a man who is slowly shrinking. As he goes through the unrelenting stages, he befriends some little people (until he shrinks smaller than them), lives in a doll house and is threatened by the family cat (chased into the basement), and duels with a spider. The ending is more bleak than I remembered. It tries to play it off as a cosmic wonder, but I'm not buying it. Ant Man he is not. There is no clear promise of some wondrous sub-atomic universe. Adapted from a story by Richard Matheson, one of our most cinematic science fiction writers, who also wrote the book Psycho is based on.
59)
The Fifth Element
Year: 1997 IMDb: 7.6 Tom: 7.5 Had I seen before? Yes. Service found on: Pluto TV
There are a number of movies on this list that use dreamy or borderline incoherent themes, like Barbarella, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and they don't always hit the mark with me as they do with some people. The Fifth Element is the exception that proves the rule. I like its quirkiness and the strange places it goes. It has many over-the-top characters and weird scenes. And for the most part, I loved it. I had forgotten how much I like Bruce Willis, and Gary Oldman's character was a lot of fun. There has been some modern criticism of Leeloo's costuming, but, in the context of the movie, it made a lot of sense. I enjoyed revisiting this movie.
As an added feature, I would like to keep a running list of those movies I have rated 8 or higher.
90) Akira 8
89) Cocoon 9
88) They Live 9
84) Face Off 8
77) The Time Machine 8
75) The Truman Show 8
70) Galaxy Quest 8
68) Time After Time 8
67) Superman 8
63) Men In Black 8
Next up? We have a challenging dystopian dietary choice, John Carpenter's purest sceince fiction opus, a raging virus, Dsvid Bowir, who goes there?, and the bad days of not partying in 1999.
Until next time!
T. M. Strait (thanx, H. G. Wells!)
AOC '28
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