The Anomaly film festival closes on Sunday, Nov. 7 with Junta Yamaguchi’s wacky, at times clunky, but ultimately endearing “Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes.”
sci-fi
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Film Review: “Interstellar”
Any intrepid voyager through the vast space of science fiction should recognize the origins and context of Christopher Nolan’s new movie, “Interstellar.” The picture owes a great deal to all those contemporary doomsday flicks, along with some special debts to the “Star Trek” series and the landmark Stanley Kubrick film, “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Its […]
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Film Review: “RoboCop”
“RoboCop” is the latest film remake to hit theaters — on a weekend that saw no fewer than three 80’s movies getting modern adaptations — giving the Paul Verhoeven sci-fi-action classic a shiny new hardware upgrade. While it is leaps and bounds better than the previous attempt to duplicate a Verhoeven masterwork (2012’s dreadful “Total […]
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“Black Nativity”
Every so often, movie-studio executives suddenly seem to wake up and realize that white people aren’t the only ones who go see movies, and that black audiences in particular are an underserved market. That results in periods like the current holiday season, which sees the release of a whopping three Christmas-themed releases targeted toward African-American […]
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“The Last Days on Mars”
Despite mostly skipping theaters and receiving a quiet release on Video On Demand, I had hopes that “The Last Days On Mars” might turn out to be an undiscovered gem. It has impressive production values, an audience-friendly, sci-fi thriller premise, a talented cast including Liev Schreiber, Olivia Williams, Elias Koteas, and Tom Cullen, and received […]
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‘Elysium’
After the success of his highly unusual 2009 science-fiction film, “District 9,” Neill Blomkamp now moves into the big time, Hollywood version, with another excursion into the genre, “Elysium.” Instead of a cast of relatively unknown players, the director this time benefits from the luster and the talents of a couple of big stars — […]
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“Pacific Rim”
The fact that the great beast from the depths of the sea haunts the human imagination may account in part at least for the appearance of “Pacific Rim,” perhaps the most excessive blockbuster of the season. The sea monster that threatened Andromeda, the mother and son duo that Beowulf fought, Moby Dick, the great white […]
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“After Earth”
Despite the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Evil Empire, the empty fears about Y2K, the uneventful coming and going of the millennium, the film industry regards the future with a love for both panic and profit. For some decades now, the post-apocalyptic vision has dominated science fiction movies, and when Hollywood […]
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“Star Trek Into Darkness”
Decades after the famous TV show and its several sequels, after numerous feature-length adaptations, after wearing out generations of crew members, including the most famous captains, Kirk and Picard, the “Star Trek” franchise continues to boldly go where it has gone many times before. For the latest addition to the franchise, “Star Trek Into Darkness,” […]
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“Oblivion”
Whatever their merits, the devotion of their many fans, and the panegyrics of a whole gaggle of critics, those phenomenally successful semi-literary works known as graphic novels (in my day they were pretty much just comic books) often generate a certain pretension. The writers and illustrators introduce learned allusions, copy established literary patterns, interweave complicated […]
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“The Host”
The millions of fans of Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” novels and the execrable film series based on them should take great pleasure in the release of “The Host,” the new movie adapted from another of her works. Like the jazz musician who said that after hearing Lawrence Welk he’d have to rethink Guy Lombardo, this picture […]
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FEATURE: The geek guide to Rochester
Let’s be honest: Rochester is a pretty geeky city. Everybody knows about The Strong’s National Museum of Play, which currently sits on various national lists as a must-see geek destination, especially with its burgeoning International Center for the History of Electronic Games.
