Barbarella

From my 1960s Science Fiction Marathon, part 6 of 6.



Barbarella, 1968. A sexy space agent searches for a dangerous man on an alien planet.

Directed by Roger Vadim. Written by Terry Southern & Vadim, with Vittorio Bonicelli, Clement Biddle Wood, Brian Degas & Tudor Gates, based on a comic by Jean-Claude Forest. Starring Jane Fonda.

Concept: 3/4 (Good)
Story: 1/4 (Bad)
Characters: 1/4 (Bad)
Dialog: 1/4 (Bad)
Pacing: 1/4 (Bad)
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good). Mostly great. Occasionally terrible.
Acting: 2/4 (Indifferent). Fonda is good. She has the perfect delivery to turn bad lines into funny lines.
Music: 1/4 (Bad). I really want to love this soundtrack. Its heart is in the right place. It just happens to be awful.
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay, 2/4). The sole point of this movie is Jane Fonda in (and out of) a series of skimpy costumes. And in that they have succeeded. Otherwise, though, there's not much. There's some humor, but not enough. There's an attempt at campy space adventure, but it's not any fun. And there's even some action - some of the worst action scenes this side of Michael Bay.
Objective Rating (Average): 1.7/4 (Eh)

Fahrenheit 451

From my 1960s Science Fiction Marathon, part 5 of 6.



Fahrenheit 451, 1966. A member of the dystopian book-burning brigade takes up reading.

Directed by François Truffaut. Written by Truffaut & Jean-Louis Richard, based on a book by Ray Bradbury. Starring Julie Christie & Oskar Werner.

Concept: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Story: 1/4 (Bad)
Characters: 1/4 (Bad)
Dialog: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Pacing: 1/4 (Bad)
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 1/4 (Bad)
Acting: 1/4 (Bad)
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Subjective Rating: 4/10 (Eh, 2/4). Soooo boring. According to IMDb's trivia, Werner insisted on giving a robotic performance. Considering that the movie has essentially the story of a character study, and 90% of the character development needed to be conveyed through the performance, you're left with no movie. Again from the trivia page: "[Truffaut] later declared that if he hadn't wasted six years attempting to make the film, he would have left the set like a shot." That pretty well sums up the movie.
Objective Rating (Average): 1.5/4 (Eh)

Fantastic Voyage

From my 1960s Science Fiction Marathon, part 4 of 6.



Fantastic Voyage, 1966. A submarine is shrunk and sent inside someone.

Directed by Richard Fleischer. Written by Harry Kleiner; adapted by David Duncan from a story by Otto Klement & Jerome Bixby. Starring Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Donald Pleasence & Arthur Kennedy.

Concept: 3/4 (Good)
Story: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Characters: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Dialog: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Pacing: 4/4 (Great)
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good). The sets and miniatures are great, but any shots that combine people with effects look pretty bad.
Acting: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Music: 3/4 (Good)
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, 3/4). I'm quite surprised that this wasn't crap. Even though it's often silly and has a fair amount of bad science, it reminds me a lot of A Space Odyssey. It has that slow, deliberate pacing (especially during the shrinking sequence), and usually seems more interested with science fiction ideas and visual spectacle than with plot and characters.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.6/4 (Good)

Alphaville

From my 1960s Science Fiction Marathon, part 3 of 6.



Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution, 1965. A secret agent investigates a city (or maybe a planet?) ruled by a computer.

Written & directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Starring Eddie Constantine.

Concept: 3/4 (Good)
Story: 0/4 (Terrible). If you remove the poetry and philosophy, you're left with almost nothing.
Characters: 1/4 (Bad)
Dialog: 1/4 (Bad)
Pacing: 1/4 (Bad)
Cinematography: 3/4 (Good). I might say great, if it weren't for the random shots in negative.
Special effects/design: 1/4 (Bad). If you watched it with the subtitles off, you wouldn't even know it's a science fiction film. I don't know if Godard means to be doing that for some sort of effect, or if he just doesn't care about his budget restrictions. Either way, it doesn't work.
Acting: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Music: 3/4 (Good)
Subjective Rating: 3/10 (Bad, 1/4). A pretentious, boring mess.
Objective Rating (Average): 1.6/4 (Eh)

"La Jetée"

From my 1960s Science Fiction Marathon, part 2 of 6.



"La Jetée" (short), 1962. A man from a post-apocalyptic future is sent back in time.

Written & directed by Chris Marker. Starring Jean Négroni, Hélène Chatelain & Davos Hanich.

Concept: 4/4 (Great)
Story: 4/4 (Great)
Characters: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Dialog: 3/4 (Good)
Pacing: 3/4 (Good)
Cinematography: 4/4 (Great)
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good)
Acting: 3/4 (Good)
Music: 4/4 (Great)
Subjective Rating: 8/10 (Great, 4/4). It's no Twelve Monkeys, but it's pretty great. I don't think I'd usually be a fan of this style (a series of still photographs with narration), but with this particular story it's effective.
Objective Rating (Average): 3.4/4 (Very good)

The Time Machine

From my 1960s Science Fiction Marathon, part 1 of 6.



The Time Machine, 1960. A Victorian inventor travels to the distant future.

Directed by George Pal. Written by David Duncan, based on a book by H.G. Wells. Starring Rod Taylor.

Concept: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Story: 1/4 (Bad). There isn't much to Wells' story to begin with, but they did an appalling job of adapting it. They seem to have tried to turn it into the standard Atomic Age anti-war morality tale, but by the end of it wound up with an unambiguously pro-war morality tale instead.
Characters: 1/4 (Bad)
Dialog: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Pacing: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 2/4 (Indifferent). Lots of great, and lots of terrible.
Acting: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Subjective Rating: 5/10 (Indifferent, 2/4). I didn't expect much, and I didn't get much. The book is not particularly suited to being a movie, and despite all of their changes to the story, they didn't do a single thing to address that problem. And the few things that the movie should have been able to have in its favor - adventure, suspense, and a sense of wonder - are absent.
Objective Rating (Average): 1.8/4 (Eh)

VSM: 1960s Science Fiction

We've done this with the 50s and 70s, so the 60s were inevitable. They're a relatively sparse decade when it comes to iconic sci-fi (if you don't count tv shows), and I'm impatient anyway, so it's a short list. I think that might be the new norm for these marathons - just hit the few most important/most promising titles and move on.

These are all movies that we've either never seen or haven't seen in a very long time (no need to re-watch Planet of the Apes and A Space Odyssey for the third times in as many years).

Very Slow Marathon #13 - 1960s Science Fiction
1. The Time Machine, 1960
2. "La Jetée," 1962
3. Alphaville, 1965
4. Fantastic Voyage, 1966
5. Fahrenheit 451, 1966
6. Barbarella, 1968