When Science Fiction Becomes Science Fact

A pressing issue for the times that we are currently living in is concerning the potential risks surrounding artificial intelligience. Could the increasing rise in robotics lead to a brand new civilisation, and one that could in time turn against us in order to become the dominant species?

It's a concept that has been explored far and wide in cinema, with titles such as 'The Matrix' (1999) and '2001: A Space Odyssey' (1968) often being among the first to be mentioned. However, many of these films tell a tale that is far in our future and perhaps not as easy to envisage as actually being possible. But when considering some of the predictions from one of the leading experts in artificial intelligience, Ray Kurzweil, films such as 'Surrogates' (2009), 'I, Robot' (2004) or even the recently released 'Transcendence' (2014) may not seem so far fetched. That is; if you give any merit to Kurzweil's predictions.

A much more realistic and relevant vision is portrayed in 'Colossus: The Forbin Project' (1970), a film rumoured to be on course for a remake. It tells the story of a new supercomputer (codenamed "Colossus") put in place by the US department of defence to regulate its weapon systems and detect any threats automatically. Almost immediately after going live, Colossus detects a similiar system in Russia and requests that the two be allowed to communicate. This inevitably becomes the turning point for humanity, and the rest of the film plays out as you might expect.

Though it does paint a potentially bleak vision of the future, these views are coming from the persons in the narrative that haven't fully considered the results of their own project. The humans end up feeling repressed, but any negative retaliation from the supercomputer only comes from actions where the the humans have attempted to restrict its own right to be free.

The outcome is left to our own imagination, but the film serves as a warning to those who are at the cusp of turning this fantasy into a reality.

Masculinity in a Post-Apocalyptic World

When you think of post-apocalyptic movies, the soon to be rebooted 'Mad Max' series tends to be among the first that spring to mind. They paint a bleak but not unfamiliar image of the future; with barren and flattened landscapes, oil living up to its name as being "black gold", and an aggressive male-dominated world where violence, slavery and sexual abuse are the norm.

There are many films like this of which most are, more often than not, humourously bad low budget affairs. However, one such movie in particular that I had the chance of seeing last year has remained with me, but not for the reasons that you might expect.

'The New Barbarians' (1983), set in the aftermath of nuclear war, follows a ruthless gang by the name of "The Templars"; intent on eliminating what dregs of humanity remain. Meanwhile, a bunch of lone warriors band together as a resistance to their tyranny.

The film itself is nothing special, but its protagonist "Scorpion" goes through an experience which seemed to me like quite a strange idea to explore. Towards the final third of the movie he is captured by The Templars, and in front of the entire gang is forced to bend over before being sexually abused by their also male leader; "One".

In a dystopian world where leadership tends to be determined by virility, Scorpion not only recovers from this trauma the next morning but also manages to maintain his masculinity and gain the respect of the people as their appointed leader. All of this respect is earned despite a bizarre change in his wardrobe to a slightly homoerotic suit of see-through armour.

However, One does eventually get his comeuppance during a final moderately high speed car chase, whereby Scorpion manages to drive a large pneumatic drill into his backside. His final demise being the head-on collision and subsequent explosion of his vehicle, naturally.

Sacrifice safety and ethics for the sake of cinema?

Over the past week or so, I have been doing a spot of research on movies set during World War II. And although most of the titles were familiar to me, though I may not have seen them, there was one film that seemed to crop up on lists everywhere; 'Come and See' (1985).

I'd never heard of it. But the more I read about it, the more eager I was to seek it out. And I finally got to see it yesterday evening.

The film follows a teenage Belarusian boy named Florya. Excited by the prospect of joining the Soviet Army, the ensuing two hours depict his descent into madness as he experiences first-hand the tyranny of war.

You really do get a sense of the change in the character going into the final third of the movie, and various scenes throughout are quite vividly presented. I often found myself thinking about the actors themselves, as they must have gone through quite an ordeal to achieve what they did. And it is in this that lies the issue proposed in the title of the post.

In order to create a realistic atmosphere and performance from the actors, live rounds were used during filming of the movie. Aleksey Kravchenko (Florya) comments in an interview how these real bullets were flying just mere centimeters above his head, and that the crew also attempted to use hypnosis on him to induce a shellshocked state. Additional to this are a number of scenes which seem to suggest that some animals were harmed, and although there is no statement to clarify this it is clear to see in one instance that a horse is seemingly struggling on the ground.

So it does beg the question of how far the bounderies should be pushed for the sake of an authentic film experience. It's probably hard to imagine in the current state of cinema, and perhaps we'll never see films as gritty and dark as this one again, but those risks certainly paid for this production. I wouldn't particularly call 'Come and See' a great film, but I think it is one that will certainly stay with me for a long time.

The split cinema release trend

Around the time of the early to mid-noughties, there seemed to be a popular trend of film studios releasing finished back-to-back sequels at the cinema several months apart. Examples of this include 'Kill Bill' volume 1 & 2, the 'The Matrix' sequels and most notably the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy; each of which hit the big screen at Christmas time for three consecutive years. A decade later this decision has been repeated for the associated 'Hobbit' trilogy, due to conclude at the end of this; the third and final year.

However, this trend is not quite as new as you might think. There are previous examples, though more out of a need than a want to separate releases. An early Chinese film which unfortunately no longer exists,'The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple' (1928), had a total runtime of around 27 hours and had to be screened in a number of sittings over several years. Similarly, the 1957 Russian Revolution movie 'And Quiet Flows the Don' was shorter at around 5 hours but still saw a separated release.

There were also cases prior to the digital age of cinema where theatres in remote areas could only show so much of certain movie releases, due to them having not received all of the reels. In this case the cinema and audience had to resume the film at a later date when the rest of the spools had arrived. As most of the films released today are filmed digitally onto hard disk drives rather than traditional celluloid film, the cost of updating projection technology suggests that some of these areas may still not be able to see some of the latest releases.

WINNER: Bad Lieutenant (1992)

I finally got around to watching this film at the weekend, having seen the recent remake a few months back.
I enjoyed it, but half expected a comedy following the opening scene in which Harvey Keitel's character discusses bathroom politics with his children.

I only really had one problem with the film, and you may not wish to read on for the sake of spoilers.

Due to the scene early on where the lieutenant has a sex romp filled with drugs and sobbing, I had assumed that the raping of a nun shortly after was part of a porn film that he was possibly involved in. The gritty close-up shots and film quality seemed to suggest this to me, but it was only later when the rape case was brought to attention that I realised my confusion.