ELYSIUM AND OBLIVION - SIMILARITIES PURELY COINCIDENTAL?

OR

A comment left by my fellow blogger the Sci-Fi Fanatic left me wondering:

Are the similarities of Elysium and Oblivion purely coincidental?

Elysium is an original idea written and directed by Neill Blomkamp, the co-writer and director of District 9 (2009). The film stars Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Wagner Moura, Carly Pope and Alice Braga. It is scheduled to be released on August 9, 2013. Elysium takes place on a ravaged Earth and a space habitat named Elysium.

Oblivion is a science fiction film based on the Radical Comics graphic novel Oblivion created by Joseph Kosinski, but written by Arvid Nelson and illustrated by Andree Wallin. Oblivion will be directed by Kosinski, who co-wrote the screenplay with Karl Gajdusek and Michael Arndt. Interestingly enough, the graphic novel has not yet been released despite a release date of July 19 2011. As far as I know, Radical Comics has not published anything in over a year! It stars Tom Cruise, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Morgan Freeman, Melissa Leo, Zoë Bell, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. The film was initially scheduled to release on July 10, 2013. Since the 3D re-release of Jurassic Park was set for a July 19, 2013 release date, the project was moved forward to April 19, 2013.

Elysium’s plot description:

In the year 2159, two classes of people exist. The first are the very wealthy who live on Elysium, a pristine man-made space station similar in appearance to a Stanford torus built by the Armadyne Corporation. The rest live on an overpopulated, ruined Earth. Secretary Rhodes (Jodie Foster), a hard-nosed government official, will stop at nothing to enforce anti-immigration laws and preserve the luxurious lifestyle of the citizens of Elysium. That does not stop the people of Earth from trying to get in, by any means they can. When unlucky ex-con Max (Matt Damon) is backed into a corner, he agrees to take on a daunting mission that if successful will not only save his life, but could bring equality to these polarized worlds.

Oblivion’s plot description:

Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) is one of the last few drone repairmen stationed on Earth. Part of a massive operation to extract vital resources after decades of war with a terrifying threat known as the Scavs, Jack’s mission is nearly complete. Living in and patrolling the skies from thousands of feet above, his soaring existence is brought crashing down when he rescues an attractive female stranger from a downed spacecraft. Her arrival triggers a chain of events that forces him to question everything.

While the environments of both films look similar, the plots of the films seem dissimilar. Interesting as well is the film After Earth (originally known as 1000 A.E.) an upcoming American science-fiction thriller film directed by M. Night Shyamalan, starring real-life father and son Will and Jaden Smith as Cypher and Kitai Raige, also dealing with a devistade future Earth. I didn’t add this to my list of films that I’m looking forward to because I think M. Night Shyamalan is a terrible filmmaker.

My opinion is that the best film will be Elysium (August 9), based on Neill Blomkamp’s previous film District 9. However, both Oblivion (April 19) and After Earth (June 7) are being released before Elysium and I am concerned it may hurt its chances. What do you think?

A REVIEW OF THE GENRE MOVIES OF 2012

The genre movies of 2012 were plentiful, but the quality was less so. I attended more theatrical films this year than I have for many years. Partly, so that I could write more timely reviews for this blog, but also because I had been anticipating most of them long enough that I knew I didn't want to wait the extra four months before being able to rent them on disc. As I have written in this blog in the past, I am also a firm believer that if, as a genre fan, you wish more Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror films to be made, the best way to tell the film industry to do this is by seeing these films at the theater, where most of the profit for films is still made.

Here is a list of all the genre films I saw in 2012 and most of them I reviewed here in GOTG! I have listed them from best to worst, using my numerical grading system to place them in order.

THE AVENGERS - 98

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS - 96

JOHN CARTER - 96

PROMETHEUS - 95

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN - 95

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY – 92 *
LOOPER - 91

TOTAL RECALL - 91

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES – 90

MEN IN BLACK 3 - 90

IRON SKY – 90

RED LIGHTS – 89

RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION - 88

UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING - 87

THE HUNGER GAMES - 86

DETENTION - 85

CHRONICLE - 82

BATTLESHIP - 82

LOCKOUT - 81

DREDD – 80

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER – 79*

WEREWOLF: THE BEAST AMONG US – 78 *

BAIT – 75 *

STARSHIP TROOPERS: INVASION – 72 *

NAZIS AT THE CENTER OF THE EARTH – 70 *

THE TALL MAN – 65 *

THE DIVIDE – 63

* These films were not reviewed on GOTG! either from lack of time or lack of interest. I still have a difficult time mustering up the effort to write reviews of bad or boring films.

I’m looking forward to 2013 and the many genre films that will be released. At the top of my most anticipated genre movie releases for 2013 are: Pacific Rim, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Iron Man 3, Ender's Game, Elysium, Riddick, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Thor: The Dark World, The Man of Steel, World War Z, Oblivion, I, Frankenstein, and though technically not a SF, Fantasy or Horror film - Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

I’d like to apologize ahead of time because this year I will not be reviewing every genre movie that I see in this blog. I almost made my goal of doing so in 2012 and even then I omitted a few – although only one of them was a theatrical viewing. I find the process of writing film reviews to be more work than fun and my primary goal in starting this blog was to have fun. The most pleasure I get from writing film reviews is the comments that I receive on them and lately there have been fewer than I would like. I hope that it is not the quality of the reviews themselves that have caused this sparsity of comments; but rather the ridiculous CAPTCHAs that Blogger uses to prevent spammers from posting comments. I find these extremely irritating and they have definitely reduced the number of comments that I post on other people’s blogs.

I will still be posting my opinions, my interests and the Zombzany videos on GOTG! I will also still be writing film reviews if time and interest permits.

Thank you to all the followers of this blog for reading and contributing comments to it and to anyone else who has taken the time to read or leave comments here.

Happy 2013 everyone!

THE PARAMOUNT, THE PEDESTRIAN AND THE PUTRID GENRE FILMS OF 2011

For the films of 2010, I posted a best and worst list for all the films I had seen at that time [see: THE BEST AND WORST GENRE MOVIES OF2010]. This year I decided to wait until I had a chance to see almost all the Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror films from 2011, which meant waiting to watch the films I missed seeing at the theater and watching them on Blu-ray video disc at home.  I have finally watched all the genre films I had planned on watching and have only not watched those that I never intended to watch at all. I counted sixty genre films released to theaters or direct to video/on demand last year. Of those, I watched forty-three of them; eleven at the theater and thirty-two on Blu-ray video disc at home. The remaining seventeen genre films that I did not see were for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I knew I would not like them or just had no interest in the subject matter.

I will not be breaking them down into sub-genre categories as I did for the films of 2010, but instead I will just divide them up into three separate categories based on quality: THE PARAMOUNT (films that I rated from 100 to 85), THE PEDESTRIAN (films that I rated from 84 to 70) and THE PUTRID (films that I rated from 69 to 50). By my grading system, which I incorporated this year, a film can do no worse than a 50 – which I regard as a complete failure. Whereas a film can do no better than a 100, which would be a perfect film – something I doubt I will ever see. My grading system is dived into ten categories, which I then assign a grade of 5 (poorest) to 10 (best) for each. The categories are divided into two sub headings: Technical – which I use to intellectualize a film purely on its merits based on technique and Visceral – which are my emotional responses to a film based on its artistic merits. I break down the Technical heading into five subheadings: Acting, Directing, Cinematography, Script and Special Effects. I break down the Visceral heading into five subheadings: Visual, Auditory, Intellectual, Emotional and Involvement. I’ve been using this system for some time for my own purposes, because I find it keeps me from reacting to a film too viscerally on initial viewings of films I really like, and over-intellectualizing films on initial viewings that I don’t enjoy. I will list the overall grade for each film and give a brief explanation of the films that I have not reviewed previously on this blog.

THE PARAMOUNT

Super 8 – 96  SUPER 8 – 2011 – SUPER HUMANIST SCIENCE FICTION

Captain America: The First Avenger – 95  CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER – 2011 – A FIRST RATE ADVENTURE!

Cowboys and Aliens – 94  COWBOYS & ALIENS – 2011 – A SATISFYING WESTERN SCI-FI MÉLANGE

Sherlock Holmes: Game of Thrones – 93  SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS (2011)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 – 93

A very satisfying conclusion to a consistently excellent fantasy series!

Midnight In Paris – 92

Difficult to rate as a fantasy film – which it is – but a deeply rooted time-fixated film that pulls you in.

Attack the Block – 91  ATTACK THE BLOCK (2011) INNER CITY KIDS KICK OUTER SPACE ALIEN ASS!

Thor – 90  THOR – 2011 – A MIGHTY THUNDEROUS TAKEOFF!

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides – 89  PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES - 2011 - A VOYAGE WORTH TAKING!

Transformers: the Dark of the Moon – 89

The ultimate guiltily pleasure film that makes the twelve-year-old in me jump up and shout, “Wicked cool!”

The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn – 89

Beautiful, yet sometimes disturbing, animation that perfectly captures the magic of Hergé’s comics.

Sucker Punch – 88  SUCKER PUNCH – 2011 – OR SUCKER PUNCHED?

Fright Night – 88  FRIGHT NIGHT - 2011 - A FRIGHTFULLY FUN REMAKE!

Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol – 88

Just a great escapist adventure, shot in a fantastic dizzying style!

Drive Angry – 87  DRIVE ANGRY – 2011 – TEN REASONS WHY DRIVE ANGRY IS WORTH A SPIN!

Source Code – 87

The premise is fascinating and the characters draw you in enough not to question the logic too much.

The Darkest Hour – 86 THE DARKEST HOUR – 2011 – AN ESCAPIST ALIEN INVASION

X-Men: First Class – 86

A beautiful looking, well-acted take on the first X-Men, but ultimately it stills feels a little too familiar.

  

Hugo – 86

An amazing visual achievement that is somewhat hampered by a convoluted and sentimental story.

Scream 4 – 85

I still think Wes Craven is one of the best horror directors alive and this is his best film franchise. Scream still works as a satire of the slasher and horror genre in general.

THE PEDESTRIAN

Battle Los Angeles – 84  BATTLE: LOS ANGELES - 2011 - SCIENCE FICTION AT WAR!

Phase 7 – 84  PHASE 7 (2011) A PERSONALIZED PANDEMIC PICTURE

The Green Lantern – 84

A wonderful visual presentation of space-operatic super-heroics marred by underdeveloped characters.

The Adjustment Bureau – 83

An unrealistic premise that is well executed, but is unfortunately still mostly a muddled mess.

Limitless – 83 

An interesting idea that is taken to an illogical and somewhat pedestrian conclusion.

The Skin I Live In – 83

Gorgeous cinema photography hides the hideous misdeeds of the main character, until the conclusion that I found too predictable.

Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World - 82  SPY KIDS: ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD IN 4D (2011)

Rise of the Planet of the Apes – 81  RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (2011) APES RISE TOO HIGH OVER HUMANS

I Am Number Four – 80

A fun film overall, but just lacking in any real depth of character or emotion.

The Ward  - 80

I love John Carpenter’s style of filmmaking, but the story of this one just isn’t complex enough to carry a feature film; plus the horror element felt forced at best.

Trollhunter – 79  Fantastic special effects, wonderfully added to the handheld-footage cannot make up for a lack of interesting characters or story; it also could have benefited from some more humor.

In Time – 77  IN TIME (2011) IS TOO TIMELESS

Super – 76

A very disturbing take on super-heroics that pushes the boundaries of dark satire into poor taste.

The Thing – 74  THE THING – 2011 – A PALE IMITATION OF THE REAL THING

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil – 73

A funny idea for a short subject film; unfortunately the wonderful performances of the leads cannot carry it to a feature-length film.

Real Steel - 71  REAL STEEL - 2011 - A REAL TIME STEALER

THE PUTRID

Insidious – 69

Vissualy stunning traditional effects cannot make up for a silly premise and a horror film that lacks any true horror.

Piranha – 69

As dumb as it looks and it doesn’t deliver enough guiltily giggles as it should have.

Immortals – 69

A stunning painting come to life. The story and characters are unfortunately uninteresting and unimaginative.

Priest – 68

A fun mess, that should have worked out a better story, but unfortunately spent more effort on cool looking effects and fight scenes.

Conan the Barbarian – 68

This is not Howard’s Conan and actually makes the pervious film look competent. What a waste of a great character and fantasy setting.

Apollo 18 – 67  APOLLO 18 - 2011 - ANOTHER FOUND FOOTAGE FRIGHT FLICK FAILURE

The Green Hornet – 55

Whoever gave Seth Rogan the money to write and star in this dumb-comedic twist on a classic pulp/radio character should have their miniscule brains removed!

The following genre films from 2011 are ones that I may eventually watch, but will most likely not enjoy anyway, but I’ll list them here for completion sake: Suing the Devil, Paul, Final Destination 5, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark and Creature. These films I will not be watching under any circumstance: The Rite, Red Riding Hood, Beastly, Your Highness, The Tree of Life, Another Earth, Dream House, The Human Centipede II: Full Sequence, Contagion, Paranormal Activity 3 and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1. If anyone can make a convincing argument as to why I should see any of these films, leave your comments as to why and I’ll at least listen.

Overall I think 2011 was a better year for entertaining genre films, if not quality films. The quantity was also bigger, so that no doubt helped push up the averages of quality. Let me know what you think of my list – I’m sure many will shake their heads in disbelief at some of my marks for some films – and I’ll be glad to discuss with you in a civil manner why you think I’m right or wrong in my choices.

PODCAST OF THE MONTH! SCREEN RANT UNDERGROUND!

Podcast of the Month for July 2012 is:

Screen Rant Underground

Screen Rant Underground has quickly become my “go to” movie review podcast! It is the weekly podcast of the web site Screen Rant, an excellent TV and movie news web site in its own right.

Here is what they have to say about their Screen Rant web site:

Screen Rant had a humble start back in 2003 as a place to rant about some of the dumber stuff related to the movie industry. Although there was absolutely no plan to do anything beyond venting to a few online friends about movies, over the years the site has grown to cover more and more TV and movie news (and not just the dumb stuff) along with sometimes controversial movie reviews.

The goal here at Screen Rant is to cover stories and review movies from a middle ground/average person perspective. We try to take a common sense approach to movie and TV news: stepping back and looking at the big picture to determine whether something is a good idea… or an idiotic one.

Movie reviews are written from the point of view of “was it a fun/exciting/scary/compelling movie” instead of from some high-brow, esoteric level that only other movie critics will relate to. On the other hand a movie has to have more than just big stars and fantastic special effects to be considered great by the folks at Screen Rant.

The reason that I like their podcast so much is that their weekly schedule allows them to keep very current with all the movies that are released each week. While they don’t review every movie that comes out every week, they do review every genre movie that is released, which is what is important to me. There are four regular podcasters on every cast, which gives you a nice blend of various viewpoints on each film. While Screen Rant Underground does veer off the topic of films occasionally, they spend the vast majority of their casts on films and most importantly reviewing the movie of the week.

Their format opens with the latest movie news. They are very opinionated about their genre films and TV programs. They once spent twenty minutes talking about the photograph of the new CW Green Arrow TV show and look of The Arrow’s costume. Their second segment is Rants and Raves in which each of the podcasters talks about the films and TV shows that each of the casters has watched in the week since the last podcast. This segment allows each caster to “rave” on their favorite TV shows and movies that they may have missed on its initial theatrical release and “rant” on the ones that they didn’t like. The third segment is Box Office Battle in which each of casters must pick the Box Office results for the top five films of following weekend, with the tenth film as the tie breaker. The winner of each week is allowed to be the last person to talk about the film reviewed for that week. The final segment is the film that is reviewed for that week. Each podcaster gives his opinion of the film, without spoiling specifics of the film. The spoiler segment follows this and the casters delve deeply into the details of the film reviewed. These segments can be quite heated – especially when the casters’ opinions differ on a film – and it is these segments that usually earn their explicit tag on iTunes.

The regular casters include:

Kofi Outlaw who is originally from Philadelphia, PA but now lives in New York City. Addiction to comic books, movies and a love of writing sent Kofi to the University of Pittsburgh where he received a dual B.A. in Writing and Literature with a minor in Film Studies. More recently, Kofi received his graduate MFA in Writing from The New School. Kofi loves all kinds of films from brainless blockbusters to fancy art-house pleasers. He says that nothing really specific makes him geek out all that much.

Robert Keyes (Screen Rant‘s only Canadian writer), started writing for the site in September 2008. He was offered a writing position based on his participation on the site as a long-time commenter and story-submitter. Not long later, Rob became an Editor for the site where he helps publish the growing number of articles we write. Rob is also the Editor-in-Chief of the newly launched sister site for Screen Rant, GameRant.com which keeping in the style of the flagship site, covers video game news/previews/reviews (without the sugar coating of course). Rob is 24 years old with a Master’s Degree in Economics. He wishes to eventually mesh his business, computer, economics and finance backgrounds with his love of the media entertainment industry with hopes of a career in one of the fields down the road. (So if you work for a major studio and have an open position – contact him!). Rob is an avid viewer of all kinds of film and television and is also a big video gamer. Much of his spare time is spent with friends playing and/or watching sports and all of the entertainment forms listed above. That is, when he’s not working at his day job or the two sites.

Ben Kendrick is a graduate of the New School’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program, with an emphasis in fiction. Currently, he’s nearing completion on his novel: How I Saw Myself on America’s Most Wanted and serves as an editor-at-large for the literary magazine LIT. Ben has been passionate about movies ever since standing in line for a midnight showing of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when he was eight. As a result of his background in creative writing, Ben is drawn to films that make story and character a priority; however, that never stops him from enjoying a range of Hollywood offerings – from blockbuster action flicks to campy so-bad-they’re-good B-movies. He’s also an avid gamer and is a regular contributor at Screen Rant’s sister site, Game Rant. Visit Ben’s website if for no other reason than to get a better sense of the conditions under which he was conceived.

Anthony Ocasio is Screen Rant’s television editor, and gets yelled at by fans of every television show on the air. It’s not his fault that “your favorite show is terrible.”

Between the great personalities and their passionate opinions, Screen Rant Underground makes for a fun and exciting listen. If you are a movie fan and a genre movie fan in particular, you should definitely give Screen Rant Underground a listen.

You can find out more about Screen Rant Underground at: http://screenrant.com/podcasts/