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Ever since George Melies shot a rocket into the eye of the Man in the Moon or when Protazanov entertained the possibility of a proletarian uprising on Mars, and Fritz Lang spellbindingly dramatized the space travel, cinema has started gazing into the outer space and speculating about the mysteries lying beyond the reaches of Earth. Subsequently, the space race between the 1950 and 1970s encouraged the craving for space-set sci-fi narratives. Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) might not be the greatest blockbuster hit like the later-era space operas like Star Wars and Star Trek franchise. Yet, it was one of the earlier films to offer a deeply perceptive look at humans’ existence in the universe.

The more we learned about the cosmos, our feelings of wonderment were mixed with feelings of dread. The question of what’s out there continues to haunt these creators. But the problem with most...

Sci-fi cinema is shaped by visionary directors who push technological boundaries and create immersive, futuristic worlds. Directors like George Méliès and Stanley Kubrick paved the way for modern sci-fi storytelling with innovative techniques. From George Lucas to James Cameron, sci-fi directors continue to redefine the genre and influence filmmaking on a global scale.

Sci-fi is one of the most innovative and experimental genres in cinema, frequently pushing the boundaries of what is possible in film, with these efforts led by incredible visionary directors. Sci-fi as a genre has existed for as long as moving pictures have been a popular form of entertainment. These are stories that explore futuristic technology, imaginative new worlds, space travel, time travel, and a multitude of other things that frequently push real-world technology toward greater advancement.

In the history of cinema, there have been plenty of visionary sci-fi directors who have inspired new methods for creating...

Science fiction on film has been around almost as long as cinema itself. Starting in 1895 when the first public showings of motion pictures commenced in France and the United States, and as filmmakers began to realize that they could string scenes together to tell a complete, coherent story, the genres of sci-fi, horror, and fantasy were part of the equation.

Celluloid offered ambitious storytellers the chance to put images on the screen—crude at the time, but still groundbreaking—that had only been glimpsed in the pages of novels, short stories, and later, comic books and pulp magazines. And as filmmaking techniques themselves progressed, and the motion picture industry began to take shape in the early 20th century, visionaries came along with audacious ideas that moved the art form, the technology, and the genres forward well into the new millennium.

Below are 16 such visionaries; men and women who either grew...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Before we highlight this week’s picks, I want to give a special shout-out to our newly-launched Twitter account for Michael Snydel’s podcast Intermission. He’s sharing daily, well-curated streaming recommendations, so be sure to give it a follow!

Burial (Ben Parker)

From Tarantino to Mann to Marvel, mining Word War II for fictional storytelling purposes is nothing new in cinema. The latest to take the leap is Ben Parker’s Burial, a staid action thriller following Russian soldiers who are transporting the corpse of Hitler back to their homeland, per Stalin’s request. While Parker suggests some interesting ideas about conflicted nationalism at the end of a war, and he gets the table-setting right when it comes to mood, Burial...

Oh, have you reached the right page? We know you were looking for the review of Aunt Minerva’s Hymns of Faith in 3-D. We instead have uncovered a blistering, too-too spicy duo of ‘adult movies,’ created for dirty old men in the prehistoric days before humanity was transformed by X-rated porn. The first show may be the professional screen directing debut of Francis Coppola, moonlighting from UCLA. It’s something of a wreck, but he was not one to miss an opportunity to write and direct. The second picture, in gorgeous color and eye-popping 3-D, is so good as to suggest an art revival, if today’s PC culture wasn’t so likely to condemn a vintage girlie entertainment out of hand. But then again, the sub-genre is supposed to be forbidden and Taboo. Blu-ray 3-D conquers all!

The 3-D Nudie-Cuties Collection

3-D Blu-ray

The Bellboy and the Playgirls...

This is the first time the transcript of this interview has been made available in its entirety, although an edited version (entitled “The Lost Interview”) was published in Movie Maker Magazine in February 2004. At the time of the interview, Fritz Lang was recently home from hospital, recuperating from an operation. The interviewers, Lloyd Chesley and Michael Gould, were recent film graduates from York University in Toronto. Gould is the author of Surrealism and the Cinema: Open-eyed Screening 1972), one of the first English language books on this topic. One can access the complete audio of the Lang interview by buying an electronic version of the revised book at his website. Lloyd Chesley is the owner of Legends Comics and Books in Victoria, Canada. Fritz Lang: Danke schoen.Lloyd Chesley: Interviewing you here in the Hollywood Hills, and you started off in Austria, and you’ve been an expatriate it seems all your life,...

Hard-media home video is making a comeback, and Kino Lorber shows its faith in the medium with an extravagant collection of its entire silent holdings of the Fritz Lang library. Mythical heroes, sacrificing heroines, criminal madmen and uncontrolled super-science are his themes; it’s a paranoid’s view of the first half of the 20th Century, expressed with fantastic innovations that literally re-write the rules of cinema.

Fritz Lang The Silent Films

Blu-ray

Kino Classics

1919-1929 / B&W / 1:37 Silent Aperture / 1894 min. / Street Date November 21, 2017 / “The Complete Silent Films of German Cinema’s Supreme Stylist” / Available through Kino Lorber / 149.95

Films: The Spiders, Harakiri, The Wandering Shadow, Four Around the Woman, Destiny, Dr. Mabuse The Gambler, Die Nibelungen, Metropolis, Spies, Woman in the Moon, The Plague of Florence.

Directed by Fritz Lang

Kino Lorber has been a happy home for many marvelous discs of silent German classics. Thanks to their ongoing...

Wow! Fritz Lang's second western is a marvel -- a combo of matinee innocence and that old Germanic edict that character equals fate. It has a master's sense of color and design. Robert Young is an odd fit but Randolph Scott is nothing less than terrific. You'd think Lang was born on the Pecos. Western Union Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1941 / Color /1:37 flat Academy / 95 min. / Street Date November 8, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Randolph Scott, Robert Young, Virginia Gilmore, Dean Jagger, John Carradine, Chill Wills, Slim Summerville, Barton MacLane, Victor Kilian, George Chandler, Chief John Big Tree, Iron Eyes Cody, Jay Silverheels. Cinematography Edward Cronjager, Allen M. Davey Original Music David Buttolph Written by Robert Carson from the novel by Zane Grey Produced by Harry Joe Brown (associate) Directed by Fritz Lang

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Darryl Zanuck of 20th Fox treated most writers well, was good for John Ford...

Earlier this year, it was announced that Turner Classic Movies and the Criterion Collection — perhaps the two most trusted names in the distribution and exhibition of important classic and contemporary cinema — would be joining forces to create a streaming service dedicated to sharing their combined library with cinephiles around the world. For months, it sounded too good to be true. Today, it suddenly became as real as the screen in front of your face.

If the movies are truly as dead as they say, then FilmStruck is nothing short of heaven on Earth. It’s here, it’s alive, and hot damn has it come out of the gate swinging. Hundreds of essential titles are ready to go on launch day, and while hundreds more are imminently on the way, there’s already more than enough to satisfy whatever mood you’re in and scratch itches that you didn’t even know you had.

Death doesn't take a holiday in this, the granddaddy of movies about the woeful duties of the Grim Reaper. Fritz Lang's heavy-duty Expressionist fable is as German as they get -- a morbid folk tale with an emotionally powerful finish. Destiny Blu-ray Kino Classics 1921 / B&W / 1:33 flat / 98 min. / Street Date August 30, 2016 / Der müde Tod / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Lil Dagover, Walter Janssen, Bernhard Goetzke, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Georg John. Cinematography Bruno Mondi, Erich Nitzschmann, Herrmann Saalfrank, Bruno Timm, Fritz Arno Wagner Film Editor Fritz Lang Written by Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou Produced by Erich Pommer Directed by Fritz Lang

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari takes the prize for the most influential work of early German Expressionism, but coming in a close second is the film in which Fritz Lang first got his act (completely) together, 1921's Destiny (Der müde Tod). A wholly cinematic...

The Nazis can't even keep the National Socialist propaganda out of a simple science fiction fable. Hans Albers is the Aryan King Midas as a scientist, and gorgeous Brigitte Helm the Englishwoman who thinks he's peachy keen. The climax is pure Sci-Fi heaven, an unstable 'Atomic Fracturing' installation, wa-ay deep down in a mineshaft under the ocean. Gold (1934) Blu-ray Kino Classics 1934 / B&W / 1:33 flat Full Frame / 117 min. / Street Date June 14, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Hans Albers, Friedrich Kayßler, Brigitte Helm, Michael Bohnen, Ernst Karchow, Lien Deyers, Eberhard Leithoff, Rudolf Platte. Cinematography Otto Baecker, Werner Bohne, Günther Rittau Art Direction Otto Hunte Film Editor Wolfgang Becker Original Music Hans-Otto Borgmann Written by Rolf E. Vanloo Produced by Alfred Zeisler Directed by Karl Hartl

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The Hardy Encyclopedia of Science Fiction still teases Sci-fi fans that want to see everything listed in its pages. Thankfully, videodisc companies catering to collectors make possible the sale of titles that might never show up on some (authorized) streaming service. Video disc has brought us the original Der Schweigende Stern and Alraune from Germany, and I hope to someday see good copies of Kurt Siodmak and Karl Hartl's F.P. 1 Does Not Answer and the Harry Piel Sci-fi trilogy An Invisible Man Roams the City, The World Unmasked (an X-ray television camera) and Master of the World (a robot with a death ray). I've read about Karl Hartl's 1934 Gold for at least fifty years, since John Baxter's Science Fiction in the Cinema told us (not quite correctly) that its final reel had been borrowed for the conclusion of Ivan Tors' 1953 Sci-fi picture The Magnetic Monster. As it turns out, Kino is releasing both movies in the same week. Sometimes referred to as the Nazi Metropolis, Hartl's Gold is a follow-up to the director's very successful F.P.1. Does Not Answer, a spy thriller about a fantastic airport in the mid-Atlantic called Floating Platform One. Both pictures were filmed in simultaneous foreign versions to maximize the box office take. The German original of F.P. 1 starred matinee idol Hans Albers (The Blue Angel) Sybille Schmitz (Vampyr) and Peter Lorre, while a concurrent French version used Charles Boyer, Danièle Parola and Pierre Brasseur. A third English version starred Conrad Veidt, Jill Esmond and Donald Calthrop. The French version starred Brigitte Helm in the same role, but star Hans Albers reportedly rebelled at making two movies for the price of one. According to reports, the exceedingly expensive Gold was in production for fifteen months. We can see the cost immediately in the enormous main set for the 'atomic fracturing' machine built to transmute lead into gold. Otto Hunte and Günther Rittau designed and filmed special effects for Metropolis and the impressive set is very much in the same style. Off the top of my head I can't think of any technical apparatus quite so elaborate (and solid-looking) built for a film until the 1960s and Ken Adam's outlandish settings for UA's James Bond films. Writer Rolf E. Vanloo had worked on the silent classic Asphalt and is the sole writer credited on the popular Marlene Dietrich vehicle I Kiss Your Hand, Madame. His screenplay for Gold is tight and credible, even if its theme is even more simplistic than -- and somewhat similar to -- that of Thea von Harbou for Metropolis. Scientist Werner Holk (Hans Albers) aids the visionary Professor Achenbach (Friedrich Kayßler) in testing what looks like an electric atom smasher. The experiment: to turn lead into gold. The 'Atomic Fracturer' explodes, killing the old genius, whose work is discredited. Holk barely survives, thanks to a blood transfusion from his faithful girlfriend Margit Moller (Lien Deyers). When agents for the fabulously wealthy Englishman John Wills (Michael Bohnen) contact Holk, he realizes that the experiment was sabotaged. Werner allows himself to be taken to a fabulous yacht and from there to a Scottish castle, where, hundreds of feet under the ocean, Wills has constructed his own, far larger atom smasher with plans stolen from Achenbach. Split between his need for revenge and a desire to prove the dead Achenbach's theories, Holk goes through with the experiment. Wills' daughter Florence (Brigitte Helm), a gorgeous playgirl, is attracted to the German visitor, Holk finds that the workers' foreman, Schwarz (Rudolf Platte) is of a like mind on economic issues. But Wills' engineer Harris (Eberhard Leithoff) is jealous of Holk's talent, and cannot be trusted. Gold begins by repeating the 'big money hostile takeover of science' theme from Fritz Lang's Frau im mond: a pioneering German scientific exploit is siezed by an unscrupulous international business entity. The unspoken message is that the weakened Germany is being cheated in the world economy because it lacks the resources to exploit its superior technology. The avaricious John Wills makes big financial decisions all day long. There's no gray area in this conflict, as Wells murders, steals and spies on people to get what he wants. We've seen his ruthless agents wreck Achenbach's original, modest experiment. This 'England plays dirty' theme mirrors Germany's bitterness toward England for at least the better part of a century of colonial, naval and financial competition. Versailles and WW1 aren't mentioned, but that had to be on the minds of the audience as well: Germany innovates and works hard, but is consistently handed a raw deal. The scenes with the sleek, fascinating Brigitte Helm would be better if they went somewhere; her Florence does what she can to entice Herr Holk but withdraws when he declares his love for his faithful girl back home, the one whose life blood now flows in his veins. 'Das Blut' cannot be dishonored, even if Holk is half convinced that Wills is going to have him murdered after the giant machine starts turning out Gold by the ton. Act Two instead becomes a conflict between Big Capitalism and the lowly-but-virtuous Working Man. Down in the underground warren of tunnels (another Metropolis parallel) Wills' Scottish workforce of sandhogs and technicians side with Holk against their boss. After a preliminary test yields a tiny bit of gold, we get the expected montages of worldwide economic panic, standard material in socially oriented sci-fi as diverse as La fin du monde and Red Planet Mars. Wells plans to grow rich by flooding the world with his artificially produced gold, a strategy that will have to be explained to me. Gold is the world's standard of value precisely because it's rare; it can't be printed up like money. Thirty years later, the surprisingly sophisticated scheme of Auric Goldfinger is to increase the value of his stash of gold bullion by rendering America's gold reserves radioactive, and therefore worthless. If scarcity raises the value of the element, making more should do the opposite. (On the other hand, what about artificial diamonds? Is there any correspondence there?) [I'm acutely aware that discussing the subject matter of movies mainly points up how much I don't know, about anything but movies.] The Incredible Holk convinces the mob of workers that he represents their interests better than the greedy John Wills. The idea that rich English capitalists need to be rejected in favor of honest German morality is the only real message here. It's as simple as the 'heart mediating between the hands and the brain' slogan of Metropolis, but with a slightly arrogant nationalism added. The lavishly produced Gold was filmed on a series of truly impressive sets, including Wills' enormous Scottish mansion. But the giant setting for the climax, deep in a mine under the ocean floor, is the stuff of core Sci-fi. Millions of volts of electricity are harnessed to transmute lead into Gold. That's got to be a heck of an electricity bill; factor in the other enormous overhead costs and we wonder if Wills will ever turn a profit. The special effects for this sequence are sensational. The enormous apparatus is suspended on huge oversized porcelain insulators. The giant glass tubes atop the specimen stage are apparently visualized with mattes and foreground miniatures. But the camera pans and trucks all over the hangar-sized set; it all looks real, with bolts of electricity flashing like crazy. It's a dynamic special effect highlight of the 1930s. The actors sell the conflict well. Beefy Hans Albers sometimes looks like George C. Scott. He exudes personal integrity and a calm force of will. Lien Dyers is as wholesome here as she was wantonly sexualized six years earlier in Fritz Lang's Spies. Michael Bohnen is more than convincing as a powerful man trying to corner all business on an international scale. Although mostly in for decoration, Brigitte Helm is a sophisticated dazzler. Those penciled eyebrows remind us that she had become the Marlene Dietrich that didn't go to Hollywood. Although she did have offers, Helm wanted to stay in Germany. The Nazification of the film industry and the appalling political climate motivated her to leave for Switzerland in 1935, abandoning her career. Although the gist of Gold fits in with Josef Goebbels' National Socialist propaganda aims, the movie doesn't attack England directly. Ufa may have held hopes of foreign distribution. The one man in Scotland that Holk knows he can trust is the captain of Wills' yacht, a fellow German. Nine years later, Josef Goebbels' anti-British version of Titanic would make a German the single ethical person in authority on the doomed ocean liner. The fellow is constantly badmouthing the craven captain and the venal English ship owner. When Hans Albers finishes this movie with a ten-cent moral about love being the only real treasure, the show seems plenty dumb. But that amazing special effect set piece is too good to dismiss so easily. Gold is a classic of giddy '30s science fiction. The Kino Classics Blu-ray of Gold (1934) is a good encoding of the Wilhelm Murnau Stiftung's best copy of this once-rare item. The print we see is intact and with has good audio, but the contrast is rough. It shifts and flutters a bit, especially in some scenes in the middle. I did notice that the final special effects sequences looked better than much of the rest of this surviving print. But the parts of the movie repurposed for The Magnetic Monster look better on that 1953 science fiction film than they do here. In his book Film in the Third Reich David Stewart Hull explains that when the occupation forces reviewed the recovered German films, they ordered this one destroyed. They were concerned that the Alchemy / Atomic Fracturing machine might have some connection to Germany's wartime nuclear program. So how could Ivan Tors have bought the footage from Ufa, if the U.S. Army had seized it? I have a feeling - just idle speculation -- that it might have been obtained in a special deal made through government connections. Since the image looks much better on The Magnetic Monster, Ivan Tors might even have cut up Gold's only existing printing element to make his movie. After finally seeing Gold, one more thing impresses me besides the grandiose special effects. It's sort of a 'brain-drain' movie. In the '30s, Germany had a reputation for the best precision engineering in the world. Werner Holk is semi-kidnapped to serve John Wills' greedy science project, which was pirated from Germany in the first place. Also in awe of German scientific prowess is Brigitte Helm's Florence. The playgirl finds Werner Wolk's brilliance and clarity of mission irresistible. He's both smarter and more ethical than her father. Holk just stands there looking like he's posing for a statue, and Florence is carried away. Ms. Helm is terrific, but it would be nice if her character had a more central role to play in the story. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Gold (1934) Blu-ray rates: Movie: Very Good Video: Fair + This may be a rare surviving print. Sound: Good - Minus Supplements: none Deaf and Hearing Impaired Friendly? Yes; Subtitles: English Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: June 10, 2016 (5137)

Visit DVD Savant's Main Column Page Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: dvdsavant@mindspring.com

Text © Copyright 2016 Glenn Erickson...

Mark and Aaron explore the popular genre that is science fiction. At the core of our discussion is a science fiction project that Aaron has been working on, but we also explore the genre on Criterion, and delve into Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s World on a Wire.

Episode Links & Notes

0:00 – Welcome and Intro

3:00 – The War Room, Thanks Keith

8:30 – Short Takes (Frau im Mond, The Fits, Captain America: Civil War, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, Mysterious Island, Stalker)

29:00 – The Sci-Fi List Project

50:30 – Sci-Fi Criterion Titles

57:00 – World on a Wire

CCU39: The War Room Wonders in the Dark CCU12: The Brood & Early Cronenberg Musical Notation: Metropolis Great Criterion Sci-Fi (Corby D.) Criterion Science Fiction (kafkaesque) Taste of Cinema: 15 Great Scientific Movies in the Criterion Collection Episode Credits Mark Hurne: Twitter | Letterboxd Aaron West: Twitter | Blog | Letterboxd Criterion Close-Up: Facebook | Twitter | Email

Next time on the...

Guns! Bombs! Assassinations! Blackmail! Fritz Lang invents the escapist super-spy thriller! To seize a set of political documents the evil Haghi dispatches the seductive agents Kitty and Sonya to neutralize a Japanese security man and our own top spy No. 236. (that's 007 x 33,714.2857!) It's a top-rank silent winner from the maker of Metropolis. Spies (Spione) Blu-ray Kino Classics 1928 / B&W /1:33 Silent Aperture / 150 min. / Street Date February 23, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Gerda Maurus, Lien Deyers, Willy Fritsch, Lupu Pick, Hertha von Walther, Fritz Rasp, Craighall Sherry, Hans Heinrich von Twardowsky, Gustl Gstettenbaur. Cinematography Fritz Arno Wagner Art Directors Otto Hunte, Karl Vollbrecht Set Designer Edgar G. Ulmer (reported) Original Music Werner R. Heymann (original) Neil Brand piano score on this disc. Written by Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou from her novel Produced by Erich Pommer Directed by Fritz Lang

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

How did Fritz Lang...

In this special episode of Off The Shelf, Ryan and Brian take a look at the new DVD and Blu-ray releases for Tuesday, February 23rd 2016.

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Follow-Up Criterion Collection Flash Sale News Love on Netflix Anchor Bay / TWC: Hateful Eight Blu-ray Road show version? Warner Archive: Susan Slept Here Kino – Certain Fury, American Dreamer Episode Links & Notes The Adventures of Gumby: 60’s Series Volume 1 Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! Season One Part One [The Bees] Big Sleep [Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things] The Curse / Curse II: The Bite Demonoid Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song Entertainment Extraction Fargo: Season 2 The Good Dinosaur The Graduate Gumby: 60’s Series V1 I Knew Her Well Jesus Of Nazareth: The Complete Miniseries Key Largo The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar Millennium / R.O.T.O.R. Moonwalkers Pauline at the Beach Secret in Their Eyes The Serpent and the Rainbow Shaun the Sheep: Season...

Fritz Lang applies rigorous realism and excellent science in the first half of his final silent film, a treat for fantasy fans and those impressed by a Nasa-like moon rocket forty years before the reality. The action on the moon is pure green-cheese fantasy, with breathable air, deposits of gold and evidence of a human civilization. Let's go! Woman in the Moon Blu-ray Kino Classics 1929 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 169 min. / Street Date February 23, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Willy Frisch, Gerda Maurus, Gustav von Wangenheim, Klaus Phol, Fritz Rasp, Gustl Gstettenbaur. Cinematography: Curt Courant, Oskar Fischinger, Konstantin Irmen-Tschet, Otto Kanturek Art Direction: Joseph Danilowitz, Emil Hasler, Otto Hunte, Karl Vollbrecht, Prof. Gustav Wolff Technical Advisors Willy Ley, Hermann Oberth Special Effects Oskar Fischinger, Konstantin Irmen-Tschet Original Music Willy Schmidt-Gentner Written by Fritz Lang, Hermann Oberth, Thea von Harbou Produced and Directed by Fritz Lang

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson...

Well, this is lousy timing. Several horror movies, including "The Exorcist," "Night of the Living Dead," and "Interview with the Vampire" are leaving Netflix on October 1, right before Halloween.

Also leaving October 1, some spooky TV titles, including "The Dead Files."

More than 150 titles are leaving Netflix in October; here's the entire list of movies and TV shows that will disappear from Netflix streaming in October.

Leaving Oct. 1, 2015

"Aces High" (1976)

"A Fond Kiss" (2004)

"Agata And The Storm" (2004)

"A Good Day to Die" (2013)

"Alakazam The Great" (1960)

"All Is Lost" (2013)

"An Affair to Remember" (1957)

"Agora" (2009)

"A Liar's Autobiography" (2012)

"America Declassified" (2013)

"Analyze This" (1999)

"Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues " (2013)

"Angela's Ashes" (1999)

"Annie Hall" (1977)

"Another Woman" (1988)

"Apocalypse Now" (1979)

"Apocalypse Now Redux" (2001)

"Axed" (2012)

"Baby's Day Out" (1994)

"Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession" (1980)

"Baron Blood" (1972)

"Beaufort" (2007)

"Belle of the Yukon" (1944)

"Big Night" (1996)

"Blue Velvet" (1986)

"Brewster's Millions" (1945)

"Buying & Selling" (2013)

"Caesar and Cleopatra" (1945)

"Caprica" (2009)

"Carve Her Name With Pride" (1958)

"Casanova...

This story first appeared in the Nov. 14 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. In 1929, Fritz Lang, The visionary director of Metropolis, faced the challenge of how to stage a rocket ship launch for his silent science-fiction film Woman in the Moon. His solution was to create a "countdown," in which the blastoff would be preceded by a reverse ticking of seconds — "Ten, nine, eight ..." — until the rockets were fired. The filmmaker also accurately conceived of the multistage rocket, conjured a realistic sense of weightlessness and conveyed the experience of a figure-eight flight

read more...

★★★☆☆Fritz Lang is a behemoth entity who encompasses cinema from the Weimar age to playing a director called 'Fritz Lang' in Jean-Luc Godard's Le Mepris (1963). Within this startling career are elements of his disdain for the influence of the powerful and how guilt destroys and enables. Frau im Mond (1929) is the latest instalment of Eureka's Masters of Cinema look at early Lang following on from Metropolis, M, the Mabuse films and Die Nibelungen. After Metropolis in 1927 was there anywhere for Lang to go? He ventured after escape, imagination and the boy's own thrill of space flight. Two years after his operatic yearning for communality he gazed towards the moon - that friend for the lonesome to talk to.

In 1929, just two years after changing the face of cinematic science fiction with Metropolis, German filmmaker Fritz Lang returned to the genre with the infinitely more grounded and realistic Frau Im Mond (Woman In The Moon).Far less well-known than its predecessor, Frau Im Mond would prove Lang's only other foray into the sci-fi genre, despite numerous attempts to get similarly themed projects off the ground after moving to Hollywood. In this film, Lang strives for a documentary-style authenticity in his tale of rival entrepreneurs battling to be part of mankind's first manned lunar mission. Many of the film's technical details prove incredibly accurate, influential and prescient, with Lang often credited with coining the take-off countdown in this film that would be adopted by space...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

"A real-life film noir featuring danger, betrayal, selflessness and close encounters with movie stars, the Hollywood blacklist is a juicy narrative and remains an enduring object of fascination," writes J. Hoberman in the New York Times. Today's roundup of news and views begins with his overview of two series running in NYC this month. Also: An interview with Joaquim Pinto (What Now? Remind Me), Ben Sachs on Chantal Akerman, revisiting Fritz Lang's Woman in the Moon (1929) and M (1931)—and Robert Downey and Elliott Gould swap stories. » - David Hudson...

"A real-life film noir featuring danger, betrayal, selflessness and close encounters with movie stars, the Hollywood blacklist is a juicy narrative and remains an enduring object of fascination," writes J. Hoberman in the New York Times. Today's roundup of news and views begins with his overview of two series running in NYC this month. Also: An interview with Joaquim Pinto (What Now? Remind Me), Ben Sachs on Chantal Akerman, revisiting Fritz Lang's Woman in the Moon (1929) and M (1931)—and Robert Downey and Elliott Gould swap stories. » - David Hudson...

Eureka Entertainment has announced the UK release of Fritz Lang's silent science-fiction epic Frau Im Mond (Woman In The Moon) on dual format Blu-ray and DVD on 25 August. Previously available in the Masters of Cinema series as a DVD-only release, this newly remastered version will join other Lang masterpieces including Metropolis, M, Die Nibelungen and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse on the boutique Blu-ray label. The package will include a new 1080p transfer of the F.W. Murnau-Stiftung restoration, original German intertitles with newly-translated English subtitles and The First Science-Fiction Film - a German documentary on the film from Gabriele Jacobi.From the press release:Frau im Mond. [Woman in the Moon.] is: (a) The first feature-length film to portray space-exploration in a serious manner, paying close attention...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Montgomery Clift | Once Upon A Time In Japan | No & Gael García Bernal | Jane Birkin's Songs Of Serge

Montgomery Clift, London

Despite being one of the most handsome and talented actors ever to grace the screen, Clift is forever associated with tragedy. Partly because of his torment over his sexuality, partly because of the car crash in 1956 that sent his life into a downward spiral, and partly because he didn't make nearly enough movies. In the ones he did, Clift often stole the show, playing anguished, un-macho outsiders in Red River, I Confess, From Here To Eternity and A Place In The Sun. The latter, one of several collaborations with his friend Elizabeth Taylor, goes on extended release as part of this retrospective, which also includes the best of his post-crash movies.

BFI Southbank, SE1, Fri to 14 Feb

Once Upon A Time In Japan, on tour

Japan has made some...

This pioneer of experimental animation grew up in a brewery, was branded a degenerate by the Nazis, did animations for Disney and influenced John Cage. Prepare to be mesmerised

Here come the circles, radiating from a single point to fill the screen. They keep on coming. Are they approaching or vanishing? Am I looking up at a dome of light or down into a black hole? Patterns collapse inward, and circles of light turn and turn. Everything spirals and surges with an abstract radiation.

"It's just like Bridget Riley!" someone in the dark gallery at the Eye film Museum in Amsterdam says – but even as she speaks the image has moved on. Spirals, a series of patched-together experiments in abstract animation by Oskar Fischinger, was made in his studio in Munich in the mid-1920s, and comes near the start of a major exhibition of the animator's work.

The Eye...

Tags: Afternoon DelightDolly PartonLady GagaWNBATegan and SaraIMDbREI

Good afternoon my lovelies! Are you all watching Shark Week on Discovery channel? If not, check out my homemade Shark Week video for inspiration. (And yes, the video is supposed to be bad.)

Happy birthday to Mila Kunis, Halle Berry, Marcia Gay Harden, Jackee Harry and Sarah Brightman!

Mila Kunis at the Hollywood premiere of "Ted"

Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

In true Lady Gaga fashion, the superstar created an over the top trailer for her perfume Fame. Who knew a fragrance could be so scary?

Attention Gleeks! The Glee cast will cover Carly Rae Jepsen's infectious summer hit song “Call Me Maybe” on the show's Season 4 premiere, airing September 13.

Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes star in the most recent adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. Watch the film's international trailer below.

Recreational equipment and outdoor retailer Rei supports marriage equality.

This futuristic Nazi space movie takes off with some well-researched historical references, but soon veers off the rails into student improvisation

Entertainment grade: D

History grade: Fail

The Soviet and American space programmes of the mid-20th century had their roots in German rocket research of the 1930s, which was partly carried out under the Nazi regime.

Technology

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that Iron Sky is not technically history. It's set in 2018, a date currently in the future. Furthermore, this is a future in which the Nazis, after losing the second world war, escaped to the moon, whence they are now returning in flying saucers to conquer Earth. On the face of it, this film wouldn't appear to concern itself too much with historical accuracy. On the other hand, it does have a tenuous factual basis. Late in the second world war, German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun considered that...

If you think Quentin Tarantino invented the splitting up of one movie into two then think again. Although it’s a trend at the moment, Fritz Lang pulled this stunt way back in 1958 with his Indian Epic.

Believing audiences would be bored sitting through a movie pushing four hours he and the producers re-cut it into two instalments: The Tiger of Eschnapur and The Indian Tomb. It's a strange reason, really, given it was produced during the age of the historical-religious epic.

Although leaving Nazi Germany for Hollywood in the mid 1930s and becoming a Us citizen Lang was enticed back to his homeland to make an exotic action adventure yarn set in India. After years of battling studios bosses and churning out, admittedly, excellent B-pictures, the project gave Lang an opportunity to paint a movie on a broad canvas much like he was allowed to do in the 1920s...

Think of all the ridiculous, crazy things you've ever seen in science fiction movies: X-Wing Fighters flying through trenches, aliens bleeding acid blood, giant robots that transform into cars. Take all of those things into consideration and then realize this. Nasa has named Roland Emmerich's film 2012 the least plausible science fiction movie ever made. They also made an inverse list, naming Andrew Niccol's Gattaca as the most plausible science fiction movie ever made. Want to know what else is on each list? You've gotta hit the jump. According to The Australian [1], the whole impetus behind these lists seems to be that Nasa received so many questions based on the misinformation in 2012, they actually had to create a website [2] that would set the record straight. Here's what Donald Yeomans, the head of Nasa's Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission, had to say. The film makers took advantage of public worries about...

American space scientists at Nasa have named Roland Emmerich's disaster movie 2012 the worst sci-fi movie of all time.

The apocalyptic tale, starring John Cusack and Amanda Peet, saw our planet's core cooked by neutrino particles from the sun, leading to the collapse of the Earth's crust accompanied by devastating earthquakes, eruptions and tsunamis.

At a day-long conference in California, scientists from Nasa and the Science & Entertainment Exchange decided 2012 was the most risible sci-fi film ever made, a title it snatches from previous winner The Core.

The full list of good and bad science-fiction releases is featured below.

The scientists attacked 2012 on the grounds that neutrinos are neutral and do not interact with physical substances and because the speed of the core's overheating was grossly accelerated.

"It's absurd", bemoaned Donald Yeomans, head of Nasa's Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission, which monitors the threat from rocks hurtling through space.

But, even with...

HollywoodNews.com: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that they will explore the physical realities of science fiction movies in the three-evening series “Out of This World: The Science of Space Movies” beginning on Thursday, August 5. “Out of This World” will continue on Friday, August 6, with a presentation of Fritz Lang’s 1929 silent classic “Woman in the Moon” and conclude on Saturday, August 7, with screenings of “Project Apollo” (1968) and “For All Mankind” (1989), documentaries that focus on Nasa’s Apollo program.

All three evenings are being presented by the Academy’s Science and Technology Council. The following is information for each night:

“Out of This World: The Science of Space Movies”

Thursday, August 5, 7:30 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater, Beverly Hills

Hosted by Adam Weiner, the program will examine the physics principles behind many science fiction movies and explore how the fictional world...

M

It is somewhat customary in the review of a classic to point out the age of the opus in question before insisting that it still feels “as fresh as ever.” It’s a lazy shorthand that can be used for Wagner’s Ring cycle, Joyce’s Ulysses and Citizen Kane in the same breath, a write-off that attempts to reassure the reader that hallmarks of art do not have to sit in a museum, not even collecting dust because of protective cases. The statement is usually presented on its own, a Qed “proof” without demonstration, allowing the writer to move on quickly out of fear that he or she has nothing to add on an already thoroughly analyzed work (”What can I say about ____ that hasn’t already been said?” is also a trite shortcut that we have all used at some point no matter how much everyone hates to read the sentence). But,...

In Volume 1, Episode 14 of the Cinefantastique Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction Podcast, Dan Persons, Lawrence French, and Steve Biodrowski visit the futuristic city of Metropolis, the 1927 science fiction classic from director Fritz Lang. The subject of a recent restoration that added over twenty minutes of footage, the film is ripe for reappraisal. Is it even better than before, or is the additional running time a mere marketing ploy to get you to buy more DVDs? Also under consideration this week: a Frank Frazetta obituary, Dario Argento does Dracula in 3D, plus a week's worth of news and a look at upcoming home video releases. Click on the player to hear the show. Check out previous episodes of the Cfq Podcast v1n13 - Iron Man 2 v1n12 - A Nightmare on Elm Street v1n11 - Langarama! The Woman in the Moon and...

'Nothing in my life has been more magical than the moment I decided to come out,' country singer says, revealing her sexuality.

By Josh Wigler

Photo: Stephen Lovekin/ Getty Images

Country music singer Richell Rene "Chely" Wright has come out. In an interview with People.com, the "Shut Up and Drive" singer revealed her sexual preference, saying that she had previously resisted the urge to publicly address her homosexuality because she didn't want to be the first country star to do so.

"There had never, ever been a country music artist who had acknowledged his or her homosexuality," she told the magazine in an article published Monday (May 3). "I wasn't going to be the first" — but she changed her mind.

"Nothing in my life has been more magical than the moment I decided to come out," she said.

Wright, 39, said she'd kept her sexuality from the public in order...

In anticipation of the release of the almost-fully-restored silent science-fiction classic, Metropolis, the Cinefantastique Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction Podcast presents Langarama!, an episode focusing back on two classics of yesteryear from renowned German master filmmaker Fritz Lang: Woman in the Moon (1929) and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933). The first is an ambitious early example of serious cinematic science fiction; the latter is a masterful crime thriller with overtones of the supernatural. Dan Persons, Lawrence French, and Steve Biodrowski also delve into the week's news and home video releases. Click on the player to hear the episode. Check out previous episodes of the Cfq Podcast v1n10 - Kick-Ass v1n9 - After.Life v1n7 - How to Train Your Dragon For the latest news on horror, fantasy, and science fiction film and television, visit Cinefantastique online....