Joe brought the Blu-Ray of Oblivion. That's the Tom Cruse movie that was released earlier this year. It's set about 65 years in the future and the Earth is a shambles. Tom tells us about the big alien invasion while he's getting ready to go off to work in his flying car. There was a war to end all wars and it killed many millions of people and pretty much wrecked the planet. The Earth people won the war but lost their world. The people are being housed on a floating station before they are sent to Titan to colonize. Tom's job is drone maintenance and he's one of the two people left on the earth. He flies to the damaged drones and repairs them. They are heavily armed flying balls who mostly maintain and protect the huge plants that are sucking up water from the ocean to turn to fusion power. It powers the waiting station and the colony ships that go to Titan. Tom lives with Victoria in a combination work station and living quarters. He does the repair work and she manages the station work. There are some left over aliens on the planet and they keep attacking the drones and stealing stuff. Turns out it's all a lie. Tom finds out what's really going on when his ex-wife shows up.
The movie is a feast of special effects and fancy geegaws. There's plenty of fighting, slaughter and explosions. The scenery is great, much of it was filmed in Iceland's volcanic area. It looks cool, all desolate and rocky. I still have flashes of scenery from the year we lived in Churchill Manitoba. It was all rocky and spare, no trees, lots of water and ice in Hudson's Bay. I haven't had much interest in actually going back there. It's far. I thought the story was very much like a 1950's sf novel. One lone man, against all odds, brings down a much more powerful entity. I liked a lot of those novels when I was younger and still like the story idea. The story in the movie is a bit weak and it makes the 124 minute running time seem longer. So much of the movie reminds me of scenes from other movies. Director Joseph Kosinski says in an interview that the film is an homage to SF movies of the 1970's. He'd directed some video game commercials and that got him the job to direct Tron: Legacy in 2010. He does great on the special effects and whooshing about but it would be a better film if he was more of a story teller. I enjoyed it well enough but doubt I would bother buying a copy.
The Colossus Of New York is a 1958 movie by Eugène Lourié. He directed 4 movies and the other three are all giant monster movies. You might have seen The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Behemoth, the Sea Monster or Gorgo. All are entertaining and so is TCONY. It's not perfect by any stretch but it's got a good idea and some fairly good actors. The script is a bit weak at times and I like the movie enough to have seen it 3 or 4 times so far. I have a copy I recorded off of tv and watched it for Science Fiction Sunday in 2009. The post about the movie follows the posters below.
It's the same with robots that go out of control, they get smashed down. That's the sad story of The Colossus of New York. It's a low-budget film from 1958 directed by Eugène Lourié. He did not direct many films, he mostly worked as a production designer or art director. His directorial debut was 1953's The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms which is based on a Ray Bradbury story. I like it, it's fun to watch, and Ray Harryhausen worked on the stop motion beast. Lourié would go on to direct The Giant Behemoth and Gorgo would be his last directed film in 1961. In TCONY Ross Martin is a brilliant doctor. He's the son of another brilliant doctor played by Otto Kruger. Ross is hit by a truck and dies. Oh, no. His dad saves the brain. Good idea? I don't think so but the deed is done. The dead doctor's brother is a mechanical genius and he works with dad to put the brain in a robot body. Much as I might like to get my brain put into a robot body so I could take over the word, I would not want to be in this hulking behemoth. He's huge. Well, as you might image things get worse and worse for everyone and robot man has to be destroyed. Seen that coming. Don't put brains into robots I guess. It hardly ever seems to work out well.
I like the the posters. I found a bunch of the lobby cards and posted them here. Yay, for Google.
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