Category: Science fiction

Plot:

Ambition short film is about one of the most important space exploration endeavours of this decade. Just as Gillen’s enigmatic Master encourages Franciosi’s Apprentice to seek out the key to life amidst a rugged alien landscape, ESA has been on a decade-long ambitious journey of its own, to unlock the mysteries of a comet and the origins of our Solar System with its Rosetta spacecraft, hundreds of millions of kilometres from Earth. Ambition complements the ongoing communication about Rosetta and adds a “human dimension” to the scientific and technological achievements of the mission, which include curiosity, drive and ambition.

Ambition short film (2014) Review:

This is a beautifully produced short film to draw attention to the Rosetta mission that’s sent a probe to a comet in order to determine if it contains water, and which then could explain how water ended up on earth.

Cast and Crew:

Directed by Tomek Baginski
Starring Aidan Gillen, Aisling Franciosi

Plot:

State Zero is set in the near future. The capital of Sweden has turned into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. We join four soldiers on a routine mission in ‘Zone 3’, with the assignment to investigate an old surveillance tower that just went offline.

State Zero (2015) Review:

A post-apocalyptic film with a touch of horror at the end. The world Wallin creates is mysteriously dead and the fear in the characters is real so you know it’ll happen soon, you just have to enjoy the tense ride until it’s done. Andrée Wallin is an internationally renowned visual concept artist which is currently working on Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It is his first short film and he takes us into a post-apocalyptic world within a fresh new setting for the genre; Vampires and Sweden.

Cast and Crew

Directed by Andrée Wallin
Starring Charles Babalola, Nicklas Hansson, Kayla Meikle

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Doomsday Machine (1972) – China has built a machine to destroy the Earth!

Doomsday Machine (1972) – Spies discover that the Red Chinese have built a “doomsday machine” capable of destroying the surface of the Earth, and that they plan to use it within a matter of days. Meanwhile, Project Astra, a manned U.S. space mission to Venus, is in its final hours before launch when it is taken over by the military and nearly half of its all-male crew is replaced by women. The reason for this becomes apparent when, shortly after Astra leaves orbit, the Earth is completely destroyed in a global cataclysm! Is the human race doomed? What dangers and wonders await the crew of the Astra on their journey to Venus?

This is a movie that has something of a multiple split personality, it has a very authentic 1950’s B-movie Sci-fi feel flowing through the narrative, a lovely vibrant kaleidoscopic 1960’s visual look to it and finally something of a 1970’s style voice-over and credit sequence. It is all in all, an enjoyable but at the same time a rather confusing and fragmented experience. And yet, And yet…..it still makes for a largely enjoyable cinematic experience. Yes there will be some that say that the final segment, which is quite obviously the lazy and somewhat botched attempt to add an ending (yes ‘Roll ‘Em’, I’m looking at you, matey) dilutes what up to that point had been a confident exercise in character development (albeit, b-movie character development). And yes, some of those people will also point out to a plethora of inconsistencies and illogical sequences throughout the film. However for me, these problems don’t retract from the experience of watching a movie like The Doomsday machine, on the contrary, they add to the experience. – 5D The Fifth Dimension

Director: Harry Hope
Starring: Bobby Van, Ruta Lee, Mala Powers

A strange signal arrives on the Earth disturbing all communications, while an ufo appears above the Antarctic sea. Captain Alex Hamilton is sent with his spaceship and crew to the space outside the Solar System to find the origin of that signal. They reach an unknow planet where a giant robot enslaved a whole population of humanoids by taking their psychic energies. The robot’s got his eyes on the Earth, too…

This is a muddled, confusing, badly edited and occasionally completely unwatchable Italian science fiction movie, a rambling wreck of a film that tries so desperately hard to be impressive but fails miserably on almost every count. Still, I kinda liked its funky vibe. While bad, it’s campy fun and certainly worth the five hours I spent watching the movie and writing this review.
Cosmos: War of the Planets was first released in 1977, riding the massive groundswell caused by Star Wars. Since that time, it has bounced around under various names, including Cosmos 2000: Planet Without a Name, Battle of the Stars, War in Space and even Battaglie Negli Spazi Stellari(!). At some point it was cast down into public domain hell and was picked up by b-movie pimps Brentwood Home Video, who released it on cheap-ass DVD under the name Cosmos: War of the Planets. – millionmonkeytheater

Director: Alfonso Brescia
Starring: John Richardson, Yanti Somer, West Buchanan

Jupiter II (2014) – in a distant future, a couple is exploring new planet!

Jupiter II (2014) – Beautifully shot science fiction film is set in a distant futuristic world where a young couple is exploring an infertile planet. It’s an abstract piece of art so its open for an interpretation, it reminds of 2001: A Space Odyssey and music videos by Tool.

Maxim Zhestkov is a director and artist with a design, photography and fine art background mixing live action, CG, animation and storytelling. There are many reasons to have a fascination with science fiction. It helps open doors to alternate ways of viewing our reality. It introduces new concepts from the realms of science, philosophy and metaphysics. It consistently shows the triumph of the human will over mental afflictions such as greed, ignorance and anger, all the while promoting tolerance, reason and compassion.

Any composition needs to begin with one or two main elements. The smaller the elements, the greater number of them there should be. You need to start with one or two main ideas and gradually build up the smaller elements until the space becomes rich with life. Simple comments can deploy new worlds and expose things that were on the surface, but you had not noticed – Maxim Zhestkov

Written, Directed and Produced by Maxim Zhestkov

Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973) – Men die for excessive effort during sexual intercourse. What Does it Have to do with bees?

Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973) – In the small town of Peckham, California, many men die for excessive effort during sexual intercourse. When a scientist from the Brandt research laboratory is found dead in a motel, the government sends Agent Neil Agar (William Smith) to investigate the mysterious deaths. He suspects that the deaths may be related to some experiments of Dr. Susan Harris (Anitra Ford), who is researching bees in the Brandt facility.

“Invasion of the Bee Girls” is the best schlock soft-core science fiction movie since maybe “The Vengeance of She.” It may, in fact, provide a clue to the most puzzling aspect of that 1968 epic. You will recall that Olinka Berova, who played She, was plagued by a strange buzzing in her ears. This was in fact the sound track calling her back to the trackless wastes of lost eons, although for a long time we didn’t catch on. All we knew was that every time she heard the buzzing, Olinka started taking off her clothes. Members of the audience were even moved to float a few tentative buzzes themselves. Now comes a movie in which every time we hear the buzzing on the sound track a man drops dead of an acute coronary. What salvages this somewhat unlikely plot is the movie’s sense of style. It looks good, it moves fairly well, the girls are pretty, Big Bill frowns impressively and there are a lot of near s-f gimmicks. My favorite was a sort of Redi-Whip cocoon that not only turns the girls into queen bees, but gives them a facial and a hairdo at the same time.  – Roger Ebert

Directed by Denis Sanders
Starring: William Smith, Anitra Ford, Victoria Vetri, Cliff Osmond.

Atomic scientist/pilot Doug Martin is missing after his plane crashes on an reconnaissance mission after a nuclear test. Miraculously appearing unhurt at the base later, he is given sodium amethol, but authorities are skeptical of his story that he was captured by aliens determined to conquer the Earth with giant monsters and insects. Martin vows to use existing technology to destroy them.

Killers From Space is a quick, crude, but strangely entertaining b-movie from 1954. A lot of people put this on their Worst Movies of All Time lists, and while it’s rough at times, I still found enough here to keep me interested. Then again, I’m fairly easy to please… – Millionmonkeytheater

Director: W. Lee Wilder
Starring: Peter Graves, James Seay, Steve Pendleton