In the history of cinema, there is no twist more groan-inducing than the “it was all a dream” trope (notable exceptions like The Wizard of Oz aside). Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael Caine, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Elliot Page, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger More than an achievement, Jurassic Park is an infinitely fun action adventure that also manages to insert some prescient themes into the mix-like whether or not humanity should interfere, on a deeply intimate level, with Nature-affording a moral angle that the sequels have pretty much abandoned or just plain bungled so far. The magic behind the film’s ability to bring dinosaurs to life could be in Spielberg’s expertise in approaching special effects on a shot-by-shot basis, merging each sequence with reliable miniature and animatronic work, making the connective tissue between these tricks as unnoticeable as possible. Jurassic Park’s standing as a technical milestone in cinematic storytelling isn’t only dependent on its then-revolutionary use of computer generated imagery: The special effects look as groundbreaking and seamless today as they did 25 years ago.
Stars: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Samuel L. That the end of Kubrick’s odyssey returns us to the beginning only reaffirms that purpose: We are, and have always been, the navigators of our destiny.
So much more than a speculative document about the human race colonizing the Solar System, 2001 asks why we do what we do-why, against so many oppositional forces, seen and otherwise, do we push outward, past the fringes of all that we know, all that we ever need to know? Amidst long shots of bodies sifting through space, of vessels and cosmonauts floating silently through the unknown, Kubrick finds grace-aided, of course, by an epic classical soundtrack we today can’t extricate from Kubrick’s indelible images-and in grace he finds purpose: If we can transcend our terrestrial roots with curiosity and fearlessness, then we should. And yet, despite its ambitious leaps and barely comprehensible scope, every lofty symbolic gesture Kubrick matches with a moment of intimate humanity: the sadness of a mighty intellect’s death the shock of cold-blooded murder the minutiae and boredom of keeping our bodies functioning on a daily basis the struggle and awe of encountering something we can’t explain the unspoken need to survive, never questioned because it will never be answered. Clarke (whose novel, conceived alongside the screenplay, saw release not long after the film’s premiere), 2001: A Space Odyssey begins with the origins of the human race and ends with the dawn of whatever comes after us-spinning above our planet, god-like, a seemingly all-knowing, hopefully benevolent fifth-dimensional space fetus-spanning countless light years and millennia between. Stars: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, Douglas Rain, William Sylvesterįifty years ago, Stanley Kubrick told the story of everything-of life, of the universe, of pain and loss and the way reality and time changes as we, these insignificant voyagers, sail through it all, attempting to change it all, unsure if we’ve changed anything. You may also want to consult the following, sci-fi centric lists: In fact, of all the major streamers, HBO Max likely has the library most focused on what you’d call older “classics,” rather than newer releases-fine with us, considering that segment tends to be less well represented. There are alien classics here, and sentient robots, and plenty of action and horror crossovers as well. That makes for an interesting sci-fi library indeed, one that balances total schlock with acclaimed works by the likes of Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott and Stanley Kubrick. Rather, almost everything here received a wide release at some point. That’s because unlike the catalog of Netflix, Hulu or (especially) Amazon Prime, the bulk of the selections here aren’t made up of modern, straight-to-VOD, zero-budget productions with vague, one-word titles. The overall scope of the service might not be quite as broad as something like Netflix, but you’re likely to have heard of far more of these films. The first thing one notices, looking at the sci-fi genre as it exists on HBO Max, is that there’s an unusual level of genuine curation involved here.
0 kommentar(er)
