The Sci-Fi List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

[knives]

Time After Time is a real good one. If you like fun, this applies to all, it's worth searching out.

[bottled spider]

Contact (Zemeckis 1997).[/color] (revisit) This film sure tries to pack a lot in. That first hour or so of receiving and decoding the signal is still thrilling and wondrous, recreating a bit of the magic of Close Encounters. But seeing it again now it strikes me how the rest of the film is so weighed down in its thematics and story-telling by the inclusion and focus on the hoary, sanctimonious argument between science and faith (everything about the McConaughey character, just to name one thing) - it says something a bit depressing about America that the film feels necessary to engage this cultural obsession when Spielberg’s similar movie of twenty years earlier didn’t give a moment of thought to it. And the dialogue between the characters on that topic is pretty vapid. Zemeckis’ style also occasionally tends to get obvious and overly cute (e.g. the Forrest Gump-ish footage of Clinton).

Agreed that the dialogue around religion was vapid, which is a shame, since the religious response to first contact is potentially interesting.

Given that the movie has a scientifically serious tone, the ending irritated me:

Spoiler

At the hearing, the James Wood character browbeats Foster into conceding that the alien signal could have been sent by a satellite, as a hoax. But surely distinguishing distant signals from ones originating nearby is an elementary matter of parallax.

[zedz]

The 10th Victim (Petri 1965). (1st viewing) For those who may not already know, this is about a future society where government-endorsed human hunting games channel our violent tendencies so as to prevent wars. It’s a satirical comedy thriller with the accent on the romantic entanglement between hunter Ursula Andress and victim Marcello Mastroianni. It’s stylish and can look good but the satire isn’t that biting and unfortunately overall it’s pretty dull.

I've never seen this film, but if you want to see a more serious take on this idea (and Battle Royale), check out Peter Watkins' The Gladiators. Punishment Park and probably The War Game would also be eligible for this list.

[therewillbeblus]

Does anyone have anything good to say about the third chapter?

I'm glad you liked 10 Cloverfield Lane, but no, you should probably stop here. I really like the first installment (one of like two found footage films I find watchable), but The Cloverfield Paradox is a pointless exercise in sci-fi. I don't hate the movie like critics did.. it wasn't exactly painful to sit through, but it was totally uninteresting, even when playing with some theoretically appealing concepts, which makes it worse. Good cast though.

[Rayon Vert]

I liked the first one too, although probably not enough to give it a revisit; this one is in another league though. Thanks for confirming that I'll skip the third.

@zedz, I'll try to find room for The Gladiators (if I can find the film). From reading the descriptions, I'm not sure if I see a sci-fi connection to Punishment Park, but The War Game, inasmuch as it's about nuclear war, should probably fit also. In any event, both sound interesting.

[knives]

Punishment Park is definitely sci-fi in the sense of being a speculative fiction, so basically in the same way as The Handmaid’s Tale. Now that I think about it Privilege probably also counts.

[colinr0380]

I quite like Contact but yes certain parts are a bit silly, such as why save how much tape was recorded as a final zinger to James Woods rather than actually bring that up at the hearing itself. Aside from it being a cinematically triumphant way to put that character in his place and end things. And also Matthew McConaughey's character is so smug and constantly unruffled, with so much time given to him creating moral dilemmas out of the ether and eventually literally lording it over Jodie Foster's character finally being able to 'believe' in the end (when she was actually 'believing' and more open minded about more things that went on than he ever was. I suppose in a way that makes him a good matching pair with Tom Skerritt's 'older and wiser' character who tries to muscle in on her achievements, and pays the price for it), that it was a bit aggravating. But I suppose he is there to placate certain sections of the audience too.

Speaking of Contact, the Aricebo telescope which features in the early part of the film is in a bad way and partially collapsed in November, destroying parts of the dish and putting it in an economically unviable state.

[bottled spider]

Some movies are enjoyable as they unfold, but suffer on recollection. I remember that I liked Contact better at the time, but not very specifically what I liked, whereas I have a clear memory of its sillier aspects. I know I laughed many times when I watched E.T. recently, but can no longer remember what was so funny. What sticks in my memory most is what I liked least, the levitating bicycle crap and that dreadful score.

Which reminds me I keep forgetting to comment on things I've watched.
Extraterrestre (Vigalondo, 2011). An alien invasion romcom where the joke is that the extraterrestrials never make an appearance, and the romance consists almost entirely of fumbling, guilt-ridden handjobs in the dark (the best kind!). First Vigalondo for me. I like his congenial, deadpan absurdism. The shorts included on the disc are amusing, three of which are eligible for this project (Domingo, Marisa, and Cambiar el Mundo).

Man Facing Southeast (Subiela, 1986). A new patient mysteriously appears in a psychiatric ward, claiming to be an alien. There is some evidence that he may well be as he claims, but it is ambiguous and conflicting. Quite a bizarre film, and hard to place tonally -- how much of it is ironic, how much of it is darkly political. (The plot is remarkably similar to the 1995 novel K-PAX, and subsequent film. There was a lawsuit, but I haven't delved into the matter).

[therewillbeblus]

Revisiting Neon Genesis Evangelion, it'll probably rank lower than I expected, though it's still great and hits on some very deep truths about avoidance in succumbing to core beliefs against social risks, and the finale drives home competing philosophies of optimal existence: nirvana-oneness v. separatism that allows for feeling, growing, and learning, in all its inevitable pain and glory (and I greatly appreciate the decision Shinji makes, as well as the holistic take on identity and subjective realities). One key issue I have with the new English dub is

Spoiler

Kaworu saying "I like you" instead of "I love you" (from the original dub). The word "love" is crucial because it's the first time Shinji has heard this from someone in the narrative, and he gets it from the most unusual suspect after desperately pining for those words for so long (which is also relatably accurate to real life gifts falling outside of expectations).

[therewillbeblus]

Spoiler

I did not see that see as a recognition of growth at all, but rather his need to make himself the hero in all situations and sort of a real world replication of the we all love you seen from the end of the series. To the end he’s trying to see himself as the guiltless hero. Asuka knows the score though.

Seeing the end of the series and End of Eva again, I can see more where you and Never Cursed are coming from, though I still maintain my view of the ending of the film as the first step towards growth.

Spoiler

The ending of the show, in all its simple-fix Happy-ending-ness, is definitely a laughable look at that incel wish-fulfillment, and the middle of the film calls them on on their self-pitying misogyny. But I love the end of the film because it shows how choosing a yin/yang universe, rather than the avoidance of nirvana Instrumentality, is still ‘reality’ not on Shinji’s terms- shattering those subconscious expectations for viewer and ‘hero’ alike after such an existential climax. He’s in the same place as he was before, growth will not be a 180-degree turn overnight, and he still must sit with his isolation, self-esteem issues, and both externally and internally-inflicted social pains. He’s terribly afraid, and still possesses his defective characteristics, though it’s bittersweet in assuming that the best choice is still to risk turning into his father- and places the responsibility on Shinji to do the hard therapeutic work to love himself and others authentically (not in absolute terms like the end of the show, but imperfectly as it goes in real life). Reading it any other way- especially existing solely to shame Shinji and the audience- is too nihilistic and defeats the philosophical greyness and psychological validation of the entire series, though the film isn’t promising any other path to true growth other than facing the tough truths either, so it can have its cake and eat it too: call the weebs out, and prompt them to do the hard work if they want to be better people- though that extends to all of us, and to ‘other’ the “nerds” as those this message is exclusively for rather than all of humanity is a pretty condescending analysis of unearned superiority. None of us are too good for the lessons on display here. And if we think we are, we are no better than the oblivious “nerds” this is (also) aimed at.

[Mr Sausage]

Invaders from Mars (Tobe Hooper, 1986)
For remakes of 50s sci-fi B movies, it’s well below Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing, but probably on the same level as The Blob remake: goofy and explicit, with good special effects but a corny script. I haven’t seen the original, so I can’t tell if the silly tone is true to its spirit or the invention of Hooper and co. It’s hard to take a film seriously when it has Louise Fletcher in a dress and heels chasing a car down the street shouting “I’ll get you!” But it’s hard to see the point of being so ridiculous at such moments. Why hire Louise Fletcher as your villain and direct her to be convincing if you’re also going to have her swallow frogs and run about in a floral print dress shaking her fists? Hooper tread a line between serious and absurd in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and he could successfully veer to either side, to comedy in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and serious horror in Poltergeist. This one? I’m not sure what it’s going for. I’d guess it’s meant to be someone’s idea of ‘B-movie fun’, a mix of seriousness, camp, goofiness, and violence that approximates watching old sci-fi on tv: something that’s not a comedy, but shouldn’t be taken seriously. In that, I suppose it’s successful, but then there’s only a very small and select group this movie could be for (people who saw this on tv as kids most likely). I didn’t hate it, but I was never invested in anything.

Lifeforce (Tobe Hooper, 1985)
A 70s Eurotrash exploitation film that ordinarily would’ve been made by Umberto Lenzi or Joe D’Amato or, if lucky, Antonio Margheriti, but has somehow ended up being made in America in the 80s by Tobe Hooper of all people. So there’s plenty of goofiness and sleaze, but none of the stodge, pacing, or budget issues of your average Euro horror. The film is not only competent, but stylish. There’s an amount of gravitas to the performances that contrasts oddly with the nuttery that comprises the script and visuals, but does actually help sell everything. The special effects are wild, especially the living desiccated bodies. Parts of this movie anticipate Under the Skin, while the finale is a rather good zombie apocalypse. This manages to be the fun B-movie romp that Invaders from Mars aspired towards. A movie that wears the flaws of its source material so outwardly that it’s endearing.

[colinr0380]

It has been a while since I last saw it but I seem to remember the original 1950s Invaders From Mars being a great 'fairy tale' take on childhood fears of losing parents and security, and certainly worth noting its sensitivity to the child point of view that is just as good as The Curse of the Cat People. Also being made a couple of years before Invasion of the Body Snatchers it certainly anticipates some of the paranoia themes that would later appear there. There is also a kind of heady film noir influence to the original Invaders From Mars, albeit candy-coloured visually and just with a child in the wronged man role with no safe authority figures left to turn to for recourse! (I may be wrong about this after all this time but isn't the police station that the boy runs into in order to report his concerns about his father the same one the protagonist goes to at the beginning of the original D.O.A.?)

Its certainly one of the most notable of the 50s sci-fi films, up there with The Incredible Shrinking Man in transcending its pulpy origins with unexpectedly deeper themes emerging.

I like your point about the Tobe Hooper 1980s remake being for a small and select group of people who saw it on television as kids. That film stuck with me as I partially saw it as a kid until my mother who had rented it out and was watching it with me got so disgusted by the effects that she turned it off. The antennae emerging from the backs of the necks of the possessed soldiers who get killed was her breaking point (but really the finger had been hovering over the off button from the Louise Fletcher frogs legs moment, and I think it is a good example of a film that, like Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2 in some ways, is just 'off' tonally in such a way as to weirdly disturb on a first viewing until you realise everything is just a big old joke), and on finally getting to see the film over three decades later I found that this sequence takes place almost at the very end of the film! In retrospect my mother turned that screening of the film off at the perfect/most childhood scarring point she possibly could have, as it seared this 'uncompleted' film into my memory and got turned off just at the most tense point at which the boy ventures into the spaceship (which doesn't happen in the original film) and it becomes impossible to really avoid the humour in the rubbery monsters and James Karen desperately shouting at his soldiers not to foolhardedly keep charging into battle and getting swallowed up by quicksand!

The remake is sort of following the plot of original version of Invaders From Mars but heavily embellished with bits of business and a lot of the tone is much closer to his other more adult audience focused, but still blackly comic, Cannon Film productions Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2 and LifeForce, which is probably also where the tonal dissonance arises. This was the great era of adventure, sci-fi and horror films straddling and occasionally pushing across that kid-teen-adult borderline with their content (something like The Goonies at the lower end), and whilst the best of them nailed the scary-but-fun tone well (in contrast to my mother turning off this film in disgust both she and my dad, after cautiously vetting it, were surprisingly happy to let me watch Gremlins around the same time! And of course the ultimate video nasty, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, was regularly screened on TV, masses of insects, spike room traps, chilled monkey brains and eyeball soup, heart removal scene and everything else), I don't really think that Invaders From Mars manages to pull it off. Its a bit too scary for children (and some adults!), especially in the way it pushes a bit of a domestic abuse angle more explicitly with the child being disturbed by his parent's sudden and inexplicable behavioural changes towards him, yet also is too goofy and broad for adults wanting an actual sci-fi horror picture that actually takes things seriously and does not just devolve into a giant lark at the end.

Its also probably best seen as an entry in a post-Cronenberg, post-The Thing remake, same year as From Beyond 'body horror' genre too, where the possessions are a lot more gooey, physical and bodily violating than just being brainwashed in the original film, which was probably another reason why my mother found it a bit overwhelming tonally. I still find it a bit more extreme than even LifeForce, where is it more bodies being sucked dry rather than actually penetrated, even if the desiccated skeletons reaching out desperate for a hug were the thing that really impacted on me when I first saw that film in my teens! Amusingly my mother really liked that film!

And it is hard to get away from the influence that Spielberg had over almost all sci-fi films in the 1980s, with this film in particular kind of feeling like a pointedly comic rebuke to all of the the flashing awe inspiring UFO visuals of Close Encounters by crudening the imagery into the most obnoxious light show possible that makes it seem rather bizarre that the little boy could have possibly been the only person to have witnessed it coming in to land at the beginning of the film! (Though that in itself ties in a bit with the dream-like tone, maybe making it Tobe Hooper's take on The Snowman? )

[therewillbeblus]

Thinking specifically about The Birds again, it clearly has that apocalyptic dimension (that classic ending) that also relates it to other classic horror sci-fi films.

Watching this for the nth time (as promised with the sci-fi reading in mind) I can get behind the 'sci-fi manifesting as horror' reading, though I'm not sure I'll be considering it for my list. One of the most unsettling themes in sci-fi and horror for me is the notion of unpredictability as the Real coming in to burst our safe false exteriors to reveal innate schematic instability. Tandy is deeply disturbed by her conflict between her own valid selfish desires and her selfless desire for affinity with -and empathy for- others. She can't even articulate what's important to her once the birds come with Hedren to shake up her world. And this is the function of the birds- and what's so troubling about them: that their behavior never follows a predictable logic. They don't attack our lead characters (the winners of the film that Hitchcock's camera has granted sharper shades of dignity and worth against the rest of humanity) with lethality. They sit and watch, come and swoop in or raise chaos in the house for reminders of this instability, but don't kill the core group. We know they could, but they don't. There's even a sense that death may be the easy way out- for like a slasher movie, the leads must sit in fear and confusion, facing their own mortality and fall into a relentless loop of sobriety to how ungrounded they are in both knowledge and power within their environments.

The birds function as ushers for the narrative, revolving around these central characters, picking off the weakling side characters like a cinematic form of social darwinism, and pushing the main cast into corners- bringing them together, like God forcing unions rather than allowing them to operate with free will, yet also robbing them of that agency. It's a curse to live in a world with lingering uncommunicative creatures who could operate with animalistic or satanic instincts, but don't follow even that expected logic, instead on standby disallowing any possibility to slip back into comfortable states of being, a permanent shattering of freedom. In normal sci-fi/horror films of this kind, the heroes figure out the Achilles' heel or some kind of pattern using their own brand of critical thinking skills, but here the birds just stop at times, the heroes notice this, and it's never explained.. they're impotent to comprehend or preserve themselves with the tools available. Similarly, the side characters are rendered unimportant but not wholly stripped of their humanity. The shot from Hedren's POV of Annie sitting in the chair alone, facing the other direction with a drink and a cigarette as Hedren talks to Mitch on the phone, is one of Hitchock's most harrowing shots. She's acknowledged, the camera- or Hedren's attention- lingers on her, but she's aloof and conservatively just not important enough for us to change our narrative. There's only one woman for Mitch, and the sad truth is that Hedren is the winner and Annie is the loser, and both of them know it.

The "why"s that get tossed around have as much value as any other: Is this a film about solipsism coming undone, where our narratives have everyone revolve around us sacrificed without too much consciousness, finally invading our comfort zones? I love the woman in the cafe blaming Hedren as if she's a messiah... our supporting players turning on us unpredictably, where for once it's unbearable to be the center of the universe, because there's no explanation to deserve it! So strange to be spared without a rationale to turn to- indirectly granted special treatment but without catharsis in an ego boost that necessitates reason to induce... and that is the kicker, a reminder that we are dictated by dialectics, a rigid framework for dissecting experience which is so easy to disrupt since the world doesn't actually operate on the terms we've tailored it to. When we get that bird's eye view shot from the sky, and the birds become the subjects of mastery, that's our prompt: that our principles of "reality" are from a socially-constructed schema that the laws of nature didn't agree upon. So yeah, I guess it works as sci-fi.

[colinr0380]

I wanted to put a word in for my favourite Neil Marshall film that may be (a little too) pertinent to our current times. Not The Descent (though if things get worse hiding underground may be the only escape!) but the astonishingly ambitious, especially for a UK film, Doomsday from back in 2008, probably best described as Mad Max meets Braveheart meets Escape From New York meets Resident Evil with a dash of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

The film begins with a deadly and virulent virus sweeping across the land (uh oh!) and in a moment that feels similar to the opening of Resident Evil: Apocalypse the British government takes the drastic step of re-building Hadrian's Wall and locking all of the Scottish people within the country in order to 'starve' the virus (along with the population) out. We then jump a couple of decades into a presumed idyllic Scotsmen-free world but the peace and quiet of dystopian cyberpunk London (in which our main character, Eden Sinclair, can pop her camera eyeball out of her head and roll it across a dirty floor in order to perform remote surveillance of a boatload of illegal immigrants before the big guns are brought in) is suddenly shattered when there seems to surprisingly be visible life 'beyond the Wall'. A group of soldiers are sent on a mission into the Scottish Wildlands in order to retrieve any cure whilst back in flood damaged, and virus resurgent, London Bob Hoskins (in a great late role as Eden's police superior who picked her for the job) and the rather nervous British Prime Minister watch on from their secure control room bunker.

What do they find there? Well I don't want to spoil too much but they find that instead of starving to death the Scottish people have adapted to the both the virus, the collapse of society and the lack of a steady supply of shortbread by turning into mohawk-wearing Mad Max style cannibals! (Sean Pertwee gets another inevitable horrible death to match his Dog Soldiers role, as things go all Cannibal Ferox for a scene), and after the remaining soldiers make their escape from Glasgow by steam train(!) they get chased further and further across the country, and the film morphs genres yet again, as the group end up in front of the new ruler of the country. Surprisingly not Nicola Sturgeon but instead Malcolm McDowell, chewing the scenery with gusto and ruling a medieval castle imperiously as if he is auditioning for a role in Game of Thrones! (One of the funniest moments of the entire film is that, instead of being purely period appropriate, there are still all of the anachronistic tourist directing signs hanging over all of the exits and entrances!) Eden herself gets forced to have a big duel in the courtyard of the castle, that rather anticipates the duel with The Mountain in Game of Thrones.

Plus simultaneously back in London we get a slightly Shakespearian subplot of Hoskins looking on whilst the Prime Minister starts getting more and more upset about the situation falling apart, and at the bleakest point after a terrorist attack on the building that infects him we get the magnificent scene of the PM being 'overthrown' by simply being ushered back into his office with a convenient gun to use in case of emergency!

Its an amazing film, mashing up genres and switching tones very adeptly, and very blackly comic throughout. I suppose the black comedy may work against the horror and sci-fi elements (but its always pointedly comic moments, rather than flippant) and that may have stopped it from getting a wide release but I am honestly astonished that this has not got a better reputation in the twelve years since it was released. Perhaps that may be down to it having never aired in UK television at all so far in order to build up that kind of cult following (in contrast to Film4 never stopping showing The Descent every week or two), but at the very least it makes for a great late role for Hoskins and would be a perfect candidate for a lavish Arrow Video rescue at some point, if that were at all possible.

[Rayon Vert]

Day of the Animals (Girdle 1977). (1st viewing) So with these 70s going berserk animal eco-horror films, I’m not being choosy but just intrigued to watch what I can find and see what filmmakers came up with. This film comes in surprisingly early historically in regards to the knowledge that aerosols damage the ozone layer. The premise is that the result of that damage means the ultraviolet rays at higher altitudes are creating psychosis in all animals. We follow a group of mountain trekkers somewhere in Northern California who get attacked by all kinds of mammals and birds (wolves, mountain lions, bears, hawks and eagles, even dogs), until they also have to deal with one another (it definitely takes you back to see Leslie Nielsen turn into an absolute human monster). This should not be mistaken for a good film but, Phase IV aside, which actually has an artistic value, this one is better than the others I’ve seen so far and good for a few cheap thrills. There aren’t any bad effects and all the animal scenes appear to be the result of training - it surprises you they could gather all these animals together and stage pretty decent attack scenes with animals like the lions and the eagles/hawks. Not too much to recommend in terms of the human drama, but it’s enough for what this B-film is supposed to be.


Code 46 (Winterbottom 2003). (revisit) Kind of appropriate that my memory of this was only very partial. A slightly noir-ish tale of forbidden love in a future society that prevents “genetic incest” given how commonplace technologies like cloning have become. The memory-erasing dimension predates the Gondry film by a year. A very mood-driven piece, with the constant, upfront score (a little annoying for me). An interesting start but the story is a bit underdeveloped and ultimately there’s a little too much focus on eros without the requisite development in the characters to make you care enough about them.


The Creation of the Humanoids (Barry 1962). (1st viewing) In a post-nuclear war future, a reactionary human organization feels threatened by the robot humanoids now assisting the very reduced-in-numbers human survivors. Meanwhile a scientist is working on a process whereby the personality and memories of deceased humans can be made to continue to live in humanoid replicas. There’s a clever and surprising plot twist near the end that feels ahead of its time for this period. The word on this film is usually that it’s unusually intelligent but painfully uncinematic, a verdict I have to agree with. The ideas might be interesting but this entire film is watching static characters having Spock-ish scientific and philosophical conversations, shot against the most basic of backdrops, almost Brechtian. Points for being an original oddity but pretty much the definition of whatever is the opposite of entertainment.


Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Reeves 2014). (1st viewing) Another film about othering the other, which this marathon of sci fi flicks is revealing to be a regularly occurring theme. I kind of expected this sequel to be less interesting just because it was obviously going to be an action film about humans and apes battling each other, without an equivalent to the arc of following the development of Caesar’s journey in the original or the many intriguing twists and turns in the set up of that first narrative. And that’s pretty how much what it is, but at the same time the filmmakers do a good job of making that as entertaining as it can be. You’re especially drawn to the performances of the ape actors (you have to love Maurice the orangutang), but the warring narrative is a bit by the books, and it didn’t leave me excited about seeing the final chapter.


Zardoz (Boorman 1974). (1st viewing) Apart from the flying stone head that’s like something out of Monty Python, I didn’t think this was as strange and ridiculous as its reputation makes it out to be. The basic set up here about the different societies/classes/worlds of the Brutals and the leisured Eternals is basically a variation on Wells’ The Time Machine, but Boorman incorporates a lot of additional fanciful stuff and goes a little heavy on the violence and sex. There are some aesthetically pleasing scenes and it’s engaging enough, if uneven, for the most part, but the film became less interesting following the climactic discovery of Zed’s true past and nature, especially so in the chaotic last reel.


Edge of Tomorrow (Liman 2014). (1st viewing) Out of the many time loop thrillers, this one really comes closest to the original Groundhog Day premise of redoing an entire day for a gazillion times. I’d be tempted to call it a rip-off if it wasn’t as creative and fun in its own way and applying the concept to a completely different genre and context. It’s a monstrously hyperactive action ride, not going for anything resembling deep but firing on all cylinders for a film of this type and wildly entertaining. I especially liked being taken along with the adventure with the main character for the first part, not knowing why this is happening, but just experiencing it blindly, parallel in a way to just being thrown into this chaotic context where we only have the vaguest notion that this is about an alien takeover of the planet and what that looks like. Just the right dose of humor as well, making me laugh out loud at several points, but not undermining the drama and suspense. Easily my favorite in this round-up.

[therewillbeblus]

For what it’s worth, I was also very disappointed by the second Apes film, but the third was overall a return to form, involving us back into Caesar’s earned emotional development and providing entertaining narrative intrigue with similar genre-emulation found in the first installment. I still like the first best, but the second is a dud outlier.

[Rayon Vert]

That's good to hear!

[knives]

I think the third, especially with Harrelson’s performance, is the best of these new movies to be honest. It’s like a Laurie Anderson action movie.

[therewillbeblus]

It’s like a Laurie Anderson action movie.

I'm intrigued by this take, but without context I'm stumped to what you mean to support a reading. Can you elaborate?

[knives]

Spoiler

It's a joking reference to this song. Though I do think the film is genuinely interested in what are the essential tools of being which is a theme throughout her songs.

[therewillbeblus]

I could say the same about the first film though, so I was curious what makes the third installment different along that view

[knives]

Woody Harrelson is much more charming to me then James Franco.

[therewillbeblus]

Well that’s one way to be deliberately evasive.. I’m genuinely curious what separates them along your thesis, but if you don’t have an answer that’s fine. I just don’t know why you’d throw it out there as an opinion that directly responds to differentiating the film from the others along said thesis, if not.

[knives]

Because I was being silly and not making a thesis.

[therewillbeblus]

Okay. I took "Though I do think the film is genuinely interested in what are the essential tools of being which is a theme throughout her songs" to be a the beginnings of a reason with some promise that expressed why the third film worked for you in particular. But I guess I'll take the L because I don't get how that's silly and not phrased as a reading on the film.