Thursday 27 December 2012

Star Trek: The Tholian Web (1968)

Is it?  Isn't it?
Technically perhaps not but as a kid watching this on TV it was definitely a space suit and it's very cool in a mad 60's way so it's in






 
Steve

Tuesday 11 December 2012

Kosmicheskiy reys (1936)

Kosmicheskiy reys: Fantasticheskaya novella is a Soviet science fiction film from 1936.  This silent movie had only a brief release in its native Russia before falling out of favour with the censors.  It resurfaced to a wider world audience in the 1980's where it is now more commonly known as Cosmic Voyage or The Space Voyage.



 


 
 
Steve


Il Pianeta degli uomini spenti (1961)

 
Il Pianeta degli uomini spenti is an Italian sci-fi film from 1961.  It's probably better known over in this neck of the woods as Battle of the Worlds and may well not have surfaced in its English speaking dubbed form until a couple of years later.  It's plot is pure B movie cheese.

A runaway asteroid mysteriously begins orbiting the Earth and threatens it with lethal flying saucers.  If seen at the right age, I can't imagine what more you would want from a movie. 



 
 
Steve
 
 

Sunday 9 December 2012

Marooned (1969)

I was  talking to a friends about Countdown (1968) yesterday and after a few minutes we realised he was thinking about another film.  Although he was fairly sure it was called countdown too.  We talked the plot through and after a while we reckoned it must be this one.
Marooned is perhaps the better known of the two and has if not a similar plot then at least a shared technological peril. Three American astronauts are stranded in space when their retros won't fire. Can they be rescued before their oxygen runs out is the gist of it all.
It's another cautionary tale about the space race, with a countdown to disaster, a lot of melodrama from an equally stunning cast and of course the Russians put an appearance into the proceedings as well.
 

I absolutely remember watching this one.

Steve

Thursday 6 December 2012

Baron Prasil (1962)

The outrageous Baron Munchhausen or Baron Presil as this Czechoslovakian version is known,  tells of his many adventures, from meeting the Man in the Moon to defeating a Turkish army all by himself.
 
 







 
Steve
 


Futureworld (1976)

Futureworld is the sequel to Westworld so you want to like it but its not good.  It's also the worst kind of sequel in as much that it cheapens and damages the original by association so we should probably just pretend it never happened.
All that said it's been a good twenty years since I last saw it and formed that opinion so if anybody wants to tell me I'm wrong and why its much better than I remember, I'm all ears..or should that be eyes.





Steve

Le Orme (1975)

 
Le Orme AKA Footprints on the Moon is an Italian film from 1975 which defies genre and divides tastes.  I would like to think I have already stumbled across this film in the past but neither the images or plot have trigger a memory.  I'm intrigued by what I've read so I'll just have to add it to the list of  To-get-round-to-one-day.




Thanks to Traveller28 for the nudge towards doing this particular post.  I always appreciate recommendations and suggestions.
 
 
Steve

Countdown (1968)


Countdown is a 1968 film directed by Robert Altman and based on the novel The Pilgrim Project by Hank Searls.
It stars James Caan and Robert Duvall as astronauts vying to be the first American to walk on the Moon as part of a crash program to beat the Soviet Union.
It seems not to have garnered too many favourable reviews back in the day but from what little I've seen and read it sounds fairly interesting.  I'll be hunting this down for future viewing pleasure.
 

 

Steve