Altered States (1980)

Altered States (1980) poster
Rating: ★★★★
Drug Trips & The Meaning of Life/Reversion to Caveman

Ken Russell’s big studio-backed film about drug trips, the meaning of life and William Hurt reverting to a caveman is a glorious madcap and visually stunning work that reaches for the same cosmological grandeur that 2001: A Space Odyssey does

Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)

Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010) poster
Rating:
Sinister Institute/Mysterious Experiments

A homage to 1970s SF cinema, full of trippy journeys through transcendental space and white antisceptic corridors. In aiming for this look, the film also forgot a small thing like a plot or coherent explanation of what is happening

Einstein’s God Model (2016)

Einstein's God Model (2016) poster
Rating: ★★★
Scientific Experiment in Contacting the Dead

A conceptually wild film about the use of a device that can contact the dead that winds in the use of Thomas Edison’s spirit phone, modern physics and multiverse theory in something uniquely different

Evangelion: 3.0+1.01 Thrice Upon a Time (2021)

Evangelion 3.0+1.01 Thrice Upon a Time (2021) poster
Rating: ★★
Anime/Invasion by Vast Alien Machines

This was the fourth film in the Neon Genesis Evangelion reboot film series and concludes the saga. Rather than offering any answers or solution to the cryptic world we are in, this opts for a major letdown of a wrap-up

The Fountain (2006)

The Fountain (2006) poster
Rating: ★★
Mystical Quest for Immortality

Darren Aronofsky’s version of 2001: A Space Odyssey. A cryptic and baffling story that takes place in three different eras, all featuring the same actors. Aronofsky engages in much symbolic interplay but what is happening is a scratch of the head

Love (2011)

Love (2011) poster
Rating: ★★
Astronaut Stranded Aboard the Space Station

Melancholy film that does some ambitious things on a low-budget about a lone astronaut stranded aboard the International Space Station after contact with Earth goes dead

Star Trek – The Motion Picture (1979)

Star Trek - The Motion Picture (1979) poster
Rating: ★★★½
AI Encounter

Long-awaited revival of the tv series on the big screen. While this has a mixed fan reception, it is well worth re-evaluation. It is the only one of the Trek films that reaches for epic, mind-expanding places to find something of a 2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) poster
Rating: ★★★★★
Stargate/Amok AI/Human Evolution/Space Mission

The greatest science-fiction film ever made? Stanley Kubrick goes against all convention – the film is slow, has no clear story and reaches an enigmatic ending and yet it is a work of brilliance, both visually and in terms of effects technology

UFO: Target Earth (1974)

UFO: Target Earth (1974) poster
Rating:
Investigation Into UFO Phenomena

Interest in UFO phenomena peaked in the 1970s with numerous books seriously studying it and twice as many crackpot ones. While there had been various flying saucers in 1950s alien invasion cinema, this obscure and rather dull oddity was the first fictional film investigating the phenomena