A list of the eight films shown at the Science Fiction Film Festival. Each Wednesday at 3:30PM these films were shown at the Prescott College Chapel. We put canvas over the windows, rented out the projector and speakers, and served free pizza to the attendees. A trailer for each film was shown at community lunch; the April edition of Prescott's FreeSkool put the Science Fiction Film Festival on their front page. The films shown include...
March 10th: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) Directed by Phil Lord & Chris Miller
Selected by Sam Coodley, co-hosted by Lauren Brule
March 17th: The Thing (1982) Directed by John Carpenter
Selected by Rell Ohlson, co-hosted by Will Tatman
March 31st: Dawn of the Dead (1978) Directed by George Romero
Selected by Will Tatman, co-hosted by Sam Coodley
April 7th: Children of Men (2006)
Selected by Wallis Mautner, co-hosted by Rachel Pearson
April 14th: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Selected by Rachel Pearson, co-hosted by Sam Kassel
April 21st: A Scanner Darkly (2006) Directed by Richard Linklater
Selected by Lauren Brule, co-hosted by Sam Coodley
April 28th: Wizards (1977) Directed by Ralph Bakshi
Selected by Sam Kassel, co-hosted by Rell Ohlson
The following dialogue response postings show how the Film Festival was imagined and implemented. The clips and explanation that follow help to show and explain its significance.
Here is the schedule. Please edit it!
March 10th Sam C. and Lauren, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
March 24th Rell and Will, The Thing
March 31st Will and Sam, Dawn of the Dead, or Total Recall
April 7th Wallis and Rachel, Children of Men
April 14th Rachel and Sam K., 2001
April 21st Lauren and Maddy, A Scanner Darkly
April 28th Sam K. and Rell, Wizards
May 5th Maddy and Wallis, Sci Fi TV selections
RO:
Hey all, I made a flyer for tomorrow's showing, that I will be putting up today. It's pretty bare bones. This weekend I will work on a better flyer for the whole series once we have all of our movie titles down. As far as food stuff for showings, I can volunteer myself to bake some goods for each showing, with the exception of this first one (no time!).
SCI FI FILM FESTIVAL.docx
Torchwood trailer:
SC:
I am still rather unsure what precisely I want this project to be, but I think I will be focusing on recent science fiction cinema. I will inevitably comment on the genre's ascension throughout the past decade. More specifically, I think I would like to focus on violence in science fiction. At one point in class Will remarked that "Sleep Dealer (and Moon) may be the only science fiction film from this year without a single explosion." There are a couple of theories I have as to why science fiction films are so commonly filled with gore. One would be that science fiction only usually sells when mixed with the horror or action genre, whereas less violent science fiction dramas, satires, and comedies have floundered at the box office. This is debilitating to the genre because it so often requires hard science fiction stories to devolve into formulaic shoot 'em ups. Another idea is that the rise of the video game. Many science fiction games are first-person shooters (fps) or involve the player kill aliens/monsters/etc. There may be puzzle-oriented or society building science fiction, but it is not as popular as Halo. Science fiction is considered eternally the geek genre, whether in film, literature, or game form. So perhaps movie producers assume that science fiction gamers will turn out for similarly violent movies. Or perhaps, and this is probably pessimistic, the quantity of violence could stem from science fiction as a genre being colder, more clinical than say... The romance. But this would imply that science fiction film and literature has always been violent/had a casual disregard for human life. Older science fiction I'm familiar with does not suggest this. But then again, all movies were significantly less violent 40, 50, 60+ years ago. In any event, I want to examine what type of violence is prevalent in science fiction today, why it may exist and why science fiction stories don't need anyone exploding or getting mutilated to still fit the gnere.
WM:
I like Will's idea of exploring the presence of violence in todays science fiction movies. If we could collectively come up with a selection of films that portray this need for action and gore balanced with some that break away from the generic violence and watch them in our free time. We could then hold some sort of socratic discussion in class after each viewing where everyone will have the opportunity to introduce some discussion topics so that as a class we can gain a deeper understanding of the films. Another great thing to do would be to add in some short stories in place of films as we already have the film festival going on and we should keep a good balance of film and literature. Something to discuss would be to determine what each individual is responsible so that we have some sort of project form.
SC:
So I still want to examine more recent science fiction, but I am interested in what science fiction stories have been most prophetic of today. 'Videodrome' for instance predicated YouTube, brain tumors and our dependence on technology: "Cronenberg films raise compelling questions—deep philosophical ones, where the issues of metaphysics, phylogeny, psychology, and technology meet. Decades before biologist Donna Haraway hypothesized that human dependence on computers and cell phones have made our species a human/technological hybrid, Cronenberg mapped it in Videodrome." - Carrie Rickey, Videodrome: Make Mine Cronenberg Exploring why modern science fiction tends to be so incredibly violent still interests me. If the Crossroads Center were somehow magically available, I think it would be badass to have multiple projectors showing scenes from District 9/Gamer/Starship Troopers/Children of Men/Watchmen/G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra/any Alien or Predator film/Transformers/The Thing as well as people playing the video games Fallout/Bioshock/Multiwinia - "You've never seen carnage quite like this before. Each map in Multiwinia is a battleground where the weapons are centipedes, spiders, ants, UFOs, plagues, firebombing, nuclear strikes, and meteors, plus the obligatory hundreds of pew-pew lasers. In this violent digital landscape, you'll see hints of some sort of civilization and culture: statues, temples, holy trees, and the masses of shuffling jostling multiwinians themselves. It helps if you've played Darwinia, the predecessor puzzle game that explained how this weird virtual reality came to be so violent. Believe it or not, the reason is spam email." - Tom Chick, Ten Videogames that Redefine Science Fiction Honestly, I could see this becoming a nightmarish version of "Whack a Mole" where each screen needs constant attention. On the other hand, I do sort of appreciate it when films barrage you with violence instead of having their cake and eating it too by either ignoring or excusing the wanton gore on-screen. Ok, so that's just my nutty idea. I'm totally with you Will in rolling through some science fiction games - but is there a console available?