January 24, 2009 |
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The 31st Annual Science Fiction Marathon
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Featuring special shorts, fun activities, special refreshments, and a variety of sci-fi films. Admission is $6 at 7:00 pm, and drops to $3 after Brazil. The 2009 Marathon features four full-length films, one TV episode, and several short subjects. |
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Rated PG-13
format: 35mm |
Jurassic Park (1993)January 24, 2009 at 7:00 pm in 26-100Steven Spielberg's phenomenally successful sci-fi adventure thriller is graced by state-of-the-art special effects from the team of Stan Winston, Phil Tippett and Michael Lantieri from George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic. The film follows two dinosaur experts -- Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Dr. Ellie Sattler Laura Dern) -- as they are invited by eccentric millionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) to preview his new amusement park on an island off Costa Rica. By cloning DNA harvested from pre-historic insects, Hammond has been able to create living dinosaurs for his new Jurassic Park, an immense animal preserve housing real brachiosaurs, dilophosaurs, triceratops, velociraptors, and a Tyrannosaur Rex. Accompanied by cynical scientist Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), who is obsessed with chaos theory, and Hammond's two grandchildren (Ariana Richards and Joseph Mazzello), they are sent on a tour through Hammond's new resort in computer controlled touring cars. But as a tropical storm hits the island, knocking out the power supply, and an unscrupulous employee (Wayne Knight) sabotages the system so that he can smuggle dinosaur embryos out of the park, the dinosaurs start to rage out of control. Grant then has to bring Hammond's grandchildren back to safety as the group is pursued by the gigantic man-eating beasts. [www.allmovie.com] This is an exhilarating, sometimes terrifying monster of a movie that, once it gets you in its clutches, won't put you down again until the closing credits start to roll. |
Rated G
format: 35mm |
Brazil (1985)January 24, 2009 at 10:00 pm in 26-100Brazil is Terry Gilliam's masterpiece. Cowritten by Gilliam, playwright Tom Stoppard, and Charles McKeown, the cult-favorite film is set in a futuristic society laden with red tape and bureaucracy. When a bug (literally) gets in the system, an innocent man is killed, leading mild-mannered Sam Lowry (an excellent Jonathan Pryce) to reexamine what he wants out of life. He decides to fight the totalitarian system in his search for freedom--and the woman he loves. The terrific, offbeat cast features Robert De Niro as a renegade heating engineer; Katherine Helmond as Sam's ever-younger mother; Michael Palin as a government-sanctioned torturer with a distaste for upsetting the status quo; Bob Hoskins as a vengeful Central Services employee; Jim Broadbent as a wacko plastic surgeon; the wonderful Ian Holm as Sam's nerve-ridden, pitiful boss, afraid of his own signature; and Kim Greist as the rebel Sam falls for. The look of Brazil is relentless, overwhelming, and outrageously spectacular. Giant monoliths rise from the street; government offices are a network of computers, pneumatic tubes, and narrow hallways built with Nazi-like precision; and apartment complexes are a maze of washed-out grays and numbers, all frighteningly uniform. The terrorist explosions actually bring color into this dull, monochramatic world. Brazil is a nightmare vision of the future, yet also hysterically funny and incisive, one of the most inventive, influential, and important films of the 1980s. [www.rottentomatoes.com] Terry Gilliam's ferociously creative black comedy is filled with wild tonal contrasts, swarming details, and unfettered visual invention -- every shot carries a charge of surprise and delight. |
unrated
format: DVD |
Doctor Who: "Blink" (2007)January 25, 2009 at 1:00 am in 26-100In an old, abandoned house, the Weeping Angels wait. However, when people start disappearing, a young woman named Sally finds cryptic messages bleeding through from 1969 -- messages from a mysterious stranger called the Doctor. Can she decipher their meaning before the Angels claim their prize? Written by Steven Moffat. [www.scifi.com] Doctor Who has told a number of supremely clever time travel stories over the years. However, even a series with as many high points as this, "Blink" stands out as one of its finer moments. |
Rated R
format: Blu-ray |
Southland Tales (2006)January 25, 2009 at 2:00 am in 26-100Director Richard Kelly's follow-up to 2001's surprisingly popular Donnie Darko is a sprawling dystopian satire featuring an all-star cast and a storyline that splinters off into strange and unexpected places. The film begins with a nuclear explosion in Texas, which sparks a full-scale war between the U.S., the Middle East, and North Korea. Kelly's central character is action-movie star Boxer Santaros (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson), who is suffering from a bout of amnesia upon returning from the desert. His reasons for being in the desert are hazy, but he's hooked up with porn star Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar), and together they have written a screenplay about the end of the world. Santaros tries to prepare for the film by taking a ride with a cop named Taverner (Sean William Scott). But the cop is actually Taverner's twin brother, who is working for a shadowy group of neo-Marxists who are trying to overthrow the government. Meanwhile, a brilliant scientist (Wallace Shawn) unveils an incredible new energy source, the end of the world as predicted by the Book of Revelations draws ever closer, and Justin Timberlake (who plays an Iraqi war veteran) provides a voiceover that fills in some of the gaps. As the film builds to its explosive climax, the reasons for Santaros's time in the desert become clear, and the various strands of the plot are brilliantly woven together. Southland Tales is packed with ideas, tangents, song-lyrics-as-dialogue (in particular, "Three Days" by Jane's Addiction), cameos from established stars, and plenty of references to the post-9/11 political landscape. Kelly's film is bursting with imagination, and it will undoubtedly need multiple viewings for everything to sink in. Comparisons to films as varied as Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly and David Lynch's Dune are valid, but Kelly's movie inhabits a wonderful world of its own, and is one of 2007's most unique and inspiring pieces of filmmaking. [www.rottentomatoes.com] Southland Tales contains stuff as uproariously out-there as anything in Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove and as unnervingly subversive as Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate. |
Rated G
format: 35mm |
Planet of the Apes (1968)January 25, 2009 at 4:45 am in 26-100This is a new unfaded print with a digital soundtrack. Don't be fooled by LSC's ancient trailer! Complex sociological themes run through this science-fiction classic, about three astronauts marooned on a futuristic planet where apes rule and humans are slaves. The stunned trio discovers that these highly intellectual simians can both walk upright and talk. They have even established a class system and a political structure. The astronauts suddenly find themselves part of a devalued species, trapped and imprisoned by the apes. But one, Taylor, manages to break out and, aided by a pair of compassionate chimps, makes his escape to an uninhabited section of land. However, during the trek Taylor makes a startling, unsettling discovery about the planet--and realizes he's come full circle. Planet of the Apes is based on the novel by Pierre Boulle with a screenplay co-written by Rod Serling. [www.rottentomatoes.com] A film rich with unforgettable imagery, killer lines and physical thrills. |
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