DVD Review: Starcrash (1978)

Beautiful Caroline Munro as space-bikini babe, Stella Star!  Gold-clad Christopher Plummer using mystical powers to "halt the flow of time"!  Kung fu fighting Amazons, acrobatic Troglodytes, and lightsaber battles with stop-motion robots!  The Hoff firing frickin' laser beams from his eyes!  Is Starcrash the greatest movie ever made?  Probably not, but it's awfully good fun.  Second best of the late seventies Star Wars rip-offs, behind Kinji Fukasaku's mind-blowing Message from Space (1978). 

Italian writer-director and sci-fi buff Luigi Cozzi weaves a wild yarn full of in-jokes and genre references.  The magnificent super-spaceship "Murray Leinster" (named after the s-f writer/magazine editor) goes missing and is sought by the Emperor of the Stars (Christopher Plummer) and his cape-swishing arch-enemy, Count Zarth Arn (erstwhile Maniac (1980) Joe Spinell).  Fleeing the Galactic Police, interstellar rogue Stella Star and her bubble-permed, mystical sidekick Akton (faith healer-turned-trash film star (yes, really) Marjoe Gortner) stumble on some survivors who babble about "red monsters."

DVD Review: Gandahar (1988)

The third and final animated feature in René Laloux’s sparse but luminous career is often compared unfavourably to his groundbreaking The Fantastic Planet (1973). In fact Gandahar is a compelling, moody, visually stunning work which though flawed evokes a genuine sense of the alien and the dreamlike.

Warrior Sylvain has been tasked by the Council of Women to discover the cause of a recent spate of deaths and abductions in peaceful, agrarian Gandahar. He travels across the ‘circumscribing oceans’ and discovers a race of mute, murderous androids who have been petrifying Gandaharians and spiriting them through a mysterious door. And the mystery deepens: for each body brought through the door, another android marches out.

Before solving the puzzle – an unusually satisfying and cerebral solution for animated SF – Sylvain has time to meet beautiful blue-skinned Airelle and a race of deformed mutants, both of whom are of help in his quest. Indeed, the imaginary menagerie of alien creatures is one of the film’s highlights.

Cult Clip: The Mysterians (1957)

The Mysterians (aka Chikyu Boeigun, 1957) is a great Japanese science fiction film produced by Toho Studios in 1957 and directed by Ishiro Honda, who's mostly remembered for his Godzilla movies.

The story involves a group of aliens called the Mysterians who arrive on earth from the planet Mysteroid with their giant destructive robot and immediately demand three-square kilometers of land and some Earth women to breed with. Naturally they are refused and humanity declares war on the Mysterians.

The Mysterians was one of the first Japanese films shot in anamorphic widescreen. Toho Studios called their anamorphic system "TohoScope" and they specifically made The Mysterians to showcase this new process. You can enjoy some vintage TohoScope space action in this great trailer for The Mysterians:

- Kimberly Lindbergs

BBC does Science Fiction Britannia

Starting on Monday 13th November on BBC Four is the BBC's tribute to the weird, wonderful and quirky world of British science fiction - the Science Fiction Britannia season.

Details of the series are still not complete, but there's already some great highlights confirmed for the coming weeks. These include a classic Jon Pertwee Doctor Who story (Spearhead From Space) and Tom Baker's The Ark In Space, the excellent BBC version of The Day Of The Triffids (six episodes), Adam Adamant (plus a documentary on the show - The Cult Of...Adam Adamant) plus allsorts of specials about a diverse arrange of people and subjects, including Nigel Kneale, HG Wells, Iain Banks, Terry Pratchett, Doomwatch, Quatermass, robots, British sc-fi movies and the best of British TV sci-fi.

Expect more to be added to the schedule in the coming weeks. And don't forget to set the recorder.

Find out more at the Science Fiction Britannia website

Metropolis at The Barbican

Arguably the most famous silent movie of all time, Metropolis gets an outing at London's Barbican Hall in October with a twist - a live orchestra will be playing the original score.

Fritz Lang's 1926 futuristic masterpiece was also the first ever sci-fi blockbuster - set in 2000 in the mechanised city of Metropolis, the rich enjoy life on the ground, while the oppressed workers toil below-deck to keep the upper classes in their life of luxury. This one-off presentation features the original score, performed live by the renowned German Film Orchestra Babelsberg.

You can catch it on 2nd October as part of the Barbican's Silent Film series, with tickets starting at £8.50. You never know, it might wash away memories of that truly awful Queen-initiated 80s score.

Find out more from the Barbican website