It is no secret, particularly to those who have known me awhile, that I’m a science fiction junkie. My late father turned me on to the genre when I was a boy with the works of Robert A. Heinlein, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Larry Niven and I never looked back. I read everything I could get my hands on, from classics by Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury to novelizations of Star Trek movies.
I was pretty young when I discovered science fiction in the movie theater and was blown away by the movies of the time – Marooned and Silent Running among them. Later, as I got older, I was delighted by Star Wars and its antecedents and stand-alone movies like Blade Runner and E.T. to name just a few.
So when thinking of a mini-festival to run in September, science fiction seemed a natural fit. I tend to look forward to films in that genre all year long and even if the movies rarely turn out to be really good, I still love them just the same, even the bad ones.
However I do take my role as critic seriously and so my reviews will be as balanced as I can make them and the excessive affection I may feel for a movie that I know deep down is mediocre will hopefully not show through. In any case, this new festival begins today and will cover three movies that may be universally admired or barely heard of but all will hopefully tap into your sense of wonder as much as they did mine. Enjoy!
Cinema365 