Looker (1981)
Aug 5, 1999Virtual Models
Michael Crichton’s works are about fears of science and technology going amok. Here he attempts to address tv and advertising in a film about virtual models but the ideas in his script are muddled
The Ladd Company
Outland (1981)
Feb 7, 2001Action Set on One of Jupiter's Moons
The film‘s Space Western idea aside – the plot is High Noon transplanted into orbit – this is a solid and well-made science-fiction film with Sean Connery as a long marshal on Jupiter's moon Io
Blade Runner (1982)
Jan 8, 2000Cyberpunk Future/Hunt for Escaped Androids
Ridley Scott's film was not a success at the time but has since been regarded as a SF masterpiece, one of the defining screen treatments of android themes while the incredibly dense Cyberpunk vision of the future was copied by many subsequent films
The Right Stuff (1983)
Aug 26, 2002Story of the True Life Space Mission
Philip Kaufman's adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s book about the astronauts of the Mercury Space Program comes out halfway between admiration of the sheer ballsiness of the astronauts and buying into the flag-waving nationalism the Space Race represented.
Star 80 (1983)
Apr 30, 1999Real-Life Playmate Murder
Bob Fosse's riveting biopic of murdered Playmate Dorothy Stratten with Eric Roberts giving his best performance ever
Lovesick (1983)
May 9, 2001Psychotherapy Romantic Comedy/Freud's Ghost
A comedy in which Sigmund Freud's ghost pops up to offer advice to psychologist Dudley Moore after he falls in love with patient Elizabeth McGovern
The Phantom (1996)
May 1, 2003Comic-Book Superhero
Big screen adaptation of the popular comic-strip superhero. This aims for the tone of an old fashioned serial adventure and is nicely mounted but crucially never comes to life.