There are some things I cannot understand. Premise: I enjoyed “Fury Road”, I love post-apocalyptic themes, I fully comprehend that in 1981 it was ground-breaking (and in 1979 as well), that it was shot for laughable $2 million, it had the cutie Mel Gibson and it was an Australian movie.
But how the hell in a cult film that is widely recognized as one of the best action movies ever made there is so little action and so much talking?!
Poster by Jock.
Director: Pete Travis. Starring: Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Lena Headey, Domhnall Gleeson. USA, 2012. Budget: $45 million. IMDb: 7.1. RT: 78%. My rating: 3.5/4. Gritty dystopian cyberpunk at its finest.
– Negotiation’s over. Sentence is death.
(Dredd)
– I was wondering when you’d remember you forgot your helmet.
– Sir, a helmet can interfere with my psychic abilities.
– Think a bullet in the head might interfere with them more.
(a dialogue between Dredd and the rookie Judge Anderson)
– I am the law.
(Dredd)
It’s not like I’m keen on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes ratings… but how often does it actually happen that a reboot of a non-Marvel/DC superhero movie has 78% RT and 7.1 IMDb, outgunning by all means the so-bad-that-it’s-good 1995 version?
You’re right – almost never. “Dredd” is probably the only decent superhero sci-fi flick released since Marvel/DC brainstormed (brainwashed?) the world. It seems though that nobody noticed that (myself included, till yesterday).
Director: Konstantin Lopushanky. Starring: Rolan Bykov, Iosif Rykliv, Viktor Mihaylov. USSR, 1986. IMDb: 7.7. My rating: 4/4. Post-apocalyptic portrait of mankind’s last days.
– The whole history of mankind is a history of a slow suicide of a living matter that by sheer accident acquired an ability to think – but that did not know what to do with this fateful ability. It could not find any better use for it than invention of the most effective ways of a total suicide.
(of of the main characters)
Endless piles of rusty metal, interminable yellow twilight, dirty radioactive puddles of mixed water and blood. And dead bodies. Dead bodies everywhere. Children, men, women. Everywhere. There is no hope here. It’s finished. There is no ”if”. The doomsday clock has moved. We are just witnessing the final decay of small group of survivors that will last several months, probably. There is not even a single hint about their survival. It’s a death rattle.
And imagine shot all of this in a Tarkovsky-like manner – the director Konstantin Lopushansky actually worked as assistant during ”Stalker” filming.
Perestroika was a crucial time for Soviet cinema as well. More and more things became allowed – the censorship started to close eyes on occasional nudity, violence, absurdism – things that were all cut ruthlessly before 1985. ”Dead Man’s Letters” and ”City Zero”, probably best examples of Perestroika cinema in the sci-fi genre, are the result and the reflection of that weird epoch, and it would be difficult to imagine them elsewhere. (more…)
Director: Richard Stanley. Starring: Dylan McDermott, Stacey Travis, 
John Lynch, William Hootkins, Lemmy, Iggy Pop. USA, 1990. IMDB: 5.9. My rating: 3.5/4. Cyberpunk.
– My heart…it feels like an alligator.
(Shades)
– This is Angry Bob, the man with the industrial dick, coming to you loud and clear on W.A.R. Radio with the good news and the bad news. Bad news is the heatwave’s not going to let up. As for the good news – there is no fucking good news! So let’s just play some music!
(Angry Bob, the DJ)
Post-apocalyptic future. The world became one big slum covered with radiation. Most seas and oceans have dri
ed, leaving just a devastated radioactive desert. The space marine Moses Baxter (Dylan McDermott) buys a robotic cyborg head that some nomad found in the desert. It’s a gift for his girlfriend, Jill (Stacey Travis), who creates works of art of various metal garbage and broken robots. Pretty soon, the head of the robot reactivates and he starts to rebuild himself, preparing for a violent massacre. (more…)
