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meltedbrain
Reviews
The Helix... Loaded (2005)
Satisfying Spoof Movie
The Helix Loaded is a low budget spoof of The Matrix trilogy, Minority Report, The Incredible Hulk, Fight Club and many more. As a low budget feature shot on miniDV it is certainly rough around the edges, though that adds to the charm. What elevates this film above the drek of low-budget indies are some surprisingly good special effects (impressive bullet-time, wire-fu effects) as well as its irreverent sense of psychedelic humor. This one has the potential to be a cult classic.
Who could not be charmed by a guy in a bunny suit, an enlightenment drug in the shape of a gummy bear and VANILLA ICE kicking ass?!? :-) And Scotty Levy's 'The Other One' is a dead-on take on Keannu Reeves.
Funny stuff.
The Starlost (1973)
I thought it was kind of cool.
Of course I was only 8 years old at the time. But in retrospect, the storylines, weird synthesizer music and general atmoshphere were wonderfully creepy. Yes it had super-cheap production values but what could you expect from Canadian TV in the early 70s? The highest budgeted entertainment of the day would have been Hockey Night in Canada or the Irish Rovers Show (remember that one?).
The Starlost is a giant Ark ship hurtling through space on a collision course with a star. The earth has long since been destroyed and the ark ship itself was crippled by a meteor collision several generations into it's long journey. The technical people are dead. What is left are multitudes of biospheres, each with different sub-cultures of human "tribes", all cut-off from one another. These descendents of the original travellers have lost all knowledge of their journey and history. None of them even know they are on a space ship. Their biosphere is simply their home. You have to admit there is something mythic about that premise. I thought it was a nifty idea.
The series follows the adventures of 3 inhabitants, Devin, Rachel and Garth, who escape their biosphere, slowly find out the truth of the Ark, and travel from dome to dome.
I remember catching a few reruns of The Starlost in the early 80s and it was still as good (relatively speaking) as I remembered it. The use of those super-cheesy chroma effects did add a certain other-worldliness to the production that is hard to describe. It was as if it was so bad that it was actually effective (or almost). Certainly if this was redone today with a bunch of flashy, overblown, modern cgi, all the spookiness and creepyness of the original series would be diminished.
I think the reason why this series actually worked for me is because it had that "Space 1999" theme of being disconnected, alienated and lost, while scrambling like mad to get back to "somewhere" more connected. There is something metaphysical and tragic about that set-up which I guess appeals to introspective individuals.
I also liked the way that almost every episode ended on a down note, with the trio jumping to yet another Dome filled with raving madmen of one sort or the other.
Anyway, too bad this series seems to have disappeared. It would have been cool to watch a few episodes again. But I guess the original videotape that it was shot on has since decayed! :)
Zardoz (1974)
An Original Science Fiction Masterpiece
It truly saddens me to see a layerd, thought provoking film like ZARDOZ get low viewer ratings when absolute kiddie c**p like Phantom Menace and Armageddon get high ratings. Have audiences really dumbed down that much since the 70s?
ZARDOZ is a bold, original film with amazing imagery and philosophical underpinnings. This is not just another candy coated, overbloated, computer generated, merchandizing sci-fi piece of c**p that Hollywood has been churning out in droves the last 10 years - thank God!. This is REAL science fiction, one of only a half dozen REAL science fiction films ever made. This is a movie that moves at a mature pace and challenges the viewer's intellect. If you bother to look closely you will see that ZARDOZ explores nihlism, existentialism and even zen buddhism. It presents one of the most original visions of the future ever put to film. It is wonderful in its weirdness.
If you only see Sean Connery running around in a loin cloth and some bare breasted women, then by all means continue to wear your Jar Jar Binks underwear and plunk down money for c**p like Mission to Mars.
Okay perhaps I'm being a tad bit condescending to those who don't share my tastes. But it just disturbs me profoundly that the market for thought provoking science fiction films is being killed by kiddie c**p and the people who pay to see it. Maybe the internet will open up avenues for independent filmmakers to make movies like ZARDOZ again.