Sundays at our house have become a favourite of mine in recent months, so much so that I\’ve taken to referring to the day as \”Sci-Fi Sunday\”. The reason for this is that the local UK television channels almost always air one or more sci-fi films in the late afternoon and evenings. Then, at night, my friends pay a visit and we always finish off Sundays by watching two, maybe three more sci-fi movies on DVD. Well, yesterday was no different.
Beginning with television, by hopping between two channels, Channel 4 and Channel 5, I managed to find three sci-fi films in a row. We started off with Barry Sonnenfeld\’s fun 1999 steampunk western Wild Wild West, based on the rather strange 1960\’s sci-fi TV series of the same name. It\’s not exactly a masterpiece, but is definitely a fun way to spend a couple of hours.
Next up was Simon Wells\’s 2002 reimagining of George Pal\’s classic 1960 film The Time Machine. I recall when I first watched this one that I wasn\’t very impressed, and considered it a poor remake of the original. But I\’ve mellowed over the years, and the film has definitely grown on me with each subsequent viewing.
Finally, we were treated to a real classic, George Lucas\’s epic 1980 Star Wars sequel, The Empire Strikes Back. As far as I\’m concerned, this one was EASILY the best of the original Star Wars trilogy, by the proverbial country mile. I\’ve seen it dozens of times, and I still enjoy it every single time.
That was it with the sci-fi films from the television channels, but there was still more to come, as the DVDs came out. The 1998 Alex Proyas-directed noir-sci-fi classic Dark City has always been a particular favourite of mine. It\’s moody, atmospheric and simply gorgeous visually. I hadn\’t seen it in quite a while, so it was an absolute pleasure to sit down to this one again. This film was probably the highlight of the evening for me.
Finally, to round off the night, we had the classic 2001 first film of Peter Jackson\’s epic fantasy Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring. This one is a gorgeous Big Screen classic in every way. I really enjoyed all three films in the trilogy, which is the height of irony, as I absolutely hated the books (I dislike Tolkein and that particular brand of fantasy immensely). The films work for me visually, and distill everything that was good in the novels, while cutting out all the endless padding and rambling (in other words, most of the novels). I find it weird that I\’ve always liked fantasy onscreen, but not in books. Very strange indeed.
That\’s a few classic movies and many hours of fun movie-watching for one day (more than the rest of the week combined). Roll on the next \”Sci-Fi Sunday\”! 🙂