Two Riders Were Approaching: Sci-Fi Post #1

Godsdamnit this post is long bloody overdue!  Newly inspired by Comicon weekend, I decided to finish this post, POST-HASTE!!  I might add some more movies a little later but here are some great godsdamn sci-fi flicks that have immediately zipped into this mind's eye!

• The Quiet Earth (1984):  This is a really well-done, slow-paced, old-school apocalypse-type movie.  Everyone dies and the only survivors are those who were at the brink of death at a certain point in time.  Now I am certainly no scientist-matitian and the techno-jargon they use are pretty awful but still, if you suspend belief for those moments, it is a pretty great movie!
• Solaris (1972):  I really like this movie.  It is about an astronaut whose wife has passed away but when he goes off to space, she somehow reappears to him again, corporeal form and all!  Very artsy and slow-paced.  This is a foreign film so if you are no fan of subtitles, watch the shorter, english version instead because they are both pretty good!
• Solaris (2002): So George Clooney stars in this version of the 1972 movie of the same title.  When I first saw that Clooney was in it, I was worried that hollywood may have bastardized the story but I was pleasantly surprised!  It is shorter and more to the point; the poetry/ artsy aspect of the older version is definitely missing but they definitely captured the storyline and character relationships very well.
• The Man From Earth (2007):  I was pretty crazy about this movie when I first saw it.  Not only does it have TONY FREAKIN' TODD, it is one of the few movies I have ever seen with incredibly strong and powerful dialogue.  I do not want to overhype it because I do not want you to focus on its flaws.  I just want to stress that the entire movie basically takes place in one location and for the duration of the movie, you are simply hearing a bunch of people talk to one another.  There is no clever animation, no nudity, no violence, just dialogue.  It is a bloody symposium, like, REALLY old school!
• Pi (1998): This is a Darren Aronofsky movie so you know it is going to be pretty damn good.  It is filmed in black and white, and it has a great soundtrack too!  The lead character is a mathematician named Max and well, he is trying to decipher codes within number systems that lead to god.  Pretty interesting movie!
• Another Earth (2011): Alright, this movie has its flaws but I like that when I think back on it, all I can remember is a really solid storyline.  (Actually, this storyline is a bit of a rip off from an older movie that I have not seen yet.  I cannot remember the name but I will get back to this tangent.. eventually!)  Anyway, this movie is about two identical earths in the universe where everything that happens on one earth simultaneously happens on the other until one day, some sort of dimentional shift or something happens that reveals these two earths to one another.  At that moment, things that happen within one earth no longer mirrors those that take place within the other earth.  So on earth A, for instance, Alice A gets into an accident but on earth B, Alice B does not get into that accident, etc. so we follow the reprecussions of the planetary reveal!  The lead actress is pretty talented, I believe she also co-wrote the movie.  Tom Cruise's cousin is in it too.
• Blade Runner (1982):  Ah, Sci-Fi gold!  What does it mean to be human?  What if we created a cyborg with free will and a capacity to have abstract thoughts/ ideas, and to feel emotions like love and sadness?  What if we also inputted memories and told it it was human so that it truly believes itself to be human?  Sci-Fi gold, that's what!  Edward James Almos has a small but very memorable part in this movie!  Also starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Darryl Hannah!  Seriously, stop reading and go watch this!!
• Children Of Men (2006): I love this movie.  What a perfect sci-fi scenario; remove man's ability to procreate and multiply!  Earth and evolution resulting in the self-culling of humanity!  There is also a pretty cool chase-scene filmed in one long action-packed shot!  Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, and Michael Caine star in this really great sci-fi flick.
• The Fifth Element (1997):  Ok so this is sexy hollywood sci-fi chic!  Lots of famous faces, lots of colourful outfits, lots of fun aliens, lots of action, lots of supermodels, etc. 
• Brainstorm (1983):  Awesome old school Christopher Walken movie!  Excellent concept/ storyline.  What if we could invent a device that would allow us to experience another person's human experience so completely?  Not just the images, the sounds, the smells, but the contexts, the bodily reactions, etc.  Really beautiful movie.  What if indeed.  --Oh, sorry, Sci-fi gold, that's what!!
• The Matrix (1999):  Chances are you have probably seen this movie.  If you have not, it is a pretty fun movie about the philosophical 'brain in a vat' concept (a.k.a. Wittgenstein's "Beetle In A Box", Descartes' "Meditations", etc.).  It is a bit of a twist from Brainstorm (1983) in that it does not assume that we necessarily share a world with others in the first place.  Rather, it is possible that all of our experiences are induced while we are trapped within a dream-like state.  In a sense, it is asking a skewed version of the question that Blade Runner (1982) asks of us.  What makes US human?  What if OUR experiences are fabricated?  
• Contact (1997):  Another excellent movie.  This is moving into extraterrestrial territory and really, what a wonderful territory for movie land!  Starring Jodi Foster, this is a really beautifully made movie about what our first contact of extraterrestrial life might be like (i.e. Earth's "Post-Detection Protocols").

 Definitely more to come!!!