Science Fiction | Cagey Films

Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on June 11, 2025June 14, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Office drone Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) has heroic fantasies in Terry Gilliam's Brazil (1985)

Criterion’s new edition of Terry Gilliam’s masterpiece Brazil (1985) presents an impressive new 4K restoration which highlights the dense, endlessly inventive production design of Gilliam’s blackly comic dystopian vision of a world run by an oppressive but utterly incompetent bureaucracy, even more pertinent now than it was in the middle of Reagan’s presidency. The three-disk, dual-format set includes a comprehensive history of the production and the controversy surrounding Gilliam’s fight to get the film released, as well as the truly awful alternate “Love Conquers All” cut put together by Universal in a misguided attempt to make the film “more commercial”.

Theatrical viewing, early 2025

Posted on June 4, 2025June 1, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Paddington leads the Brown family on an adventure in Dougal Wilson's Paddington in Peru (2024)

One of the benefits of retirement is being able to go to weekday matinees, which means seeing movies in almost empty theatres – the best way as far as I’m concerned. So this year I’ve already seen more movies than all of last year or the year before . But that also means I’ve seen a few movies I probably wouldn’t have bothered with before. Among the duds, though, have been some good – or at least interesting – movies I’m glad I saw on a big screen.

The mind-bending paradox of Nacho Vigalondo’s Timecrimes (2007)

Posted on May 28, 2025May 28, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

The identity of the menacing man in the woods comes as a surprise in Nacho Vigalondo's Timecrimes (2007)

Nacho Vigalondo’s Timecrimes (2007) is one of the best – and most mind-bending – time travel paradox movies, a rigorous, darkly comic puzzle in which cause and effect are twisted in knots as a middle-class man finds his identity fragmented by repeated short jumps in time.

The destructive power of fragile masculinity: Terence Fisher’s Four Sided Triangle (1953)

Posted on May 21, 2025May 17, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Bill (Stephen Murray) is so tightly focused on his research that he becomes blind to consequences in Terence Fisher's Four Sided Triangle (1953)

In 1953 Hammer Films took the first step on a path which would soon give the company an international reputation as a key purveyor of horror movies. Terence Fisher’s Four Sided Triangle, a modest production which combined science fiction, psychological horror and romantic melodrama in a prosaic English village setting laid the groundwork which would lead two year later to Val Guest’s The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), and two more years beyond that to Terence Fisher’s The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), the movie which changed the course of modern horror cinema. Hammer’s 4K restoration of Four Sided Triangle will hopefully dispel the film’s rather low reputation, with a beautiful new transfer, two commentaries and three interview featurettes which argue for its value as a pioneering contribution to British genre cinema.

David Cronenberg contemplates mortality in The Shrouds (2025)

Posted on May 17, 2025May 16, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Karsh Relikh (Vincent Cassel) begins to doubt the technology he has helped to develop in David Cronenberg's The Shrouds (2024)

In his latest film, The Shrouds (2024), David Cronenberg has made his most personal work since The Brood (1979), transforming grief into a meditation of mortality which, while at times uncomfortably revelatory, is nonetheless shot through with a dark vein of humour.

Horrors old and new

Posted on April 30, 2025April 24, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Kronos (Horst Janson) uses his modified sword to deflect the vampire's hypnotic gaze in Brian Clemens' Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974)

Horror is a flexible genre, capable of using science fiction, history, adventure, action and terrible real-life events to touch on existential questions as well as provide escape with a frisson of pleasurable fear. Three recent releases span a broad range of the possibilities – Roger Corman’s X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963), arguably his best film; Brian Clemens’ Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974), one of the best late films from Hammer Films; and Nick Kozakis’s Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism (2023), a bleak examination of the dangers of fundamentalist religious beliefs based on a tragic case which occurred in Australia in 1993.

Late winter/early spring Arrow viewing, part two

Posted on April 23, 2025April 22, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Dr. Ellis (Richard Dysart) inserts electrodes into Harry Benson (George Segal)'s brain in Mike Hodges' The Terminal Man (1974)

Some recent Arrow releases provide an opportunity to revisit a few familiar movies and – perhaps – reevaluate them. Each of them presents some problems, but Tarsem Singh’s The Cell (2000), Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects (1995) and Mike Hodges’ The Terminal Man (1974) were all worth another look.

Late winter/early spring Arrow viewing, part one

Posted on April 9, 2025April 7, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Gunsfighter J.B. Books, dying of cancer, is played by John Wayne, who was dying of cancer, in Don Siegel's The Shootist (1976)

Recent Arrow disks offer an alien invasion (Oliver Hirschbiegel’s The Invasion [2007]), stylish horror (Rampo Noir [2005]), a classic western (Don Siegel’s The Shootist [1976]) and a note-perfect homage to ’70s low-budget exploitation (Francis Galluppi’s The Last Stop in Yuma County [2023]).

Dipping another toe into the online stream, part two

Posted on March 19, 2025March 19, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Nicholas Cage goes full Nic Cage in Longlegs (2024)

My recent streaming seems to lean heavily into horror, with a few animated movies to lighten the tone.

Dipping another toe into the online stream, part one

Posted on March 15, 2025March 10, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Bud Spencer and Terence Hill as mismatched brothers in Enzo Barboni's They Call Me Trinity (1970)

My plunge into streaming has been more rewarding than not, catching up with a slew of recent action movies as well as a variety of older movies I missed decades ago, or remember from television screenings back in the ’70s.

Tag: Science Fiction