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I have been active in the Science Fiction field for over 50 years.
In that time I have read many books and seen countless movies. My favorite SF movies of all time are probably
Blade Runner and 2001. These were popular movies, but there were many more that I liked
that did not receive much attention at the time. I was paging through Amazon used movies on DVD and saw
one of my favorites- Puppet Masters- for only nine cents (plus postage)!
When I found that great movies are available for such cheap prices, I decided to publish my personal list
of underrated movies. I have provided a link so you can purchase these from Amazon. The link is to a new DVD.
On the same page there are usually used copies available at greatly reduced prices- a necessity in these lean times.
homepage | Number | Movie Title |
Starring | Year Rating |
Description | click on DVD to order from Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Alison Routledge Peter Smith |
unrated |
At exactly 6:12 am, government research scientist Zac Hobson awakens to discover that he may be the last man on earth: homes, highways and entire cities are deserted. Empty planes have fallen from the sky. Every living thing has disappeared. But for Hobson, the ultimate shock is still to come months later when he finds that he is not alone. With the addition of a beautiful young woman and a Maori trucker, the apocalypse suddenly becomes very personal. What has happened to everyone else on the planet? Why has Zac himself survived? Will sexual tension lead to sudden violence? And what is the ultimate responsibility for a man of science when the end of the world may be just the beginning? | ||
|
Leigh Taylor-Young Chuck Connors Edward G. Robinson |
PG |
The year 2022. Overcrowding, pollution, and resource depletion have reduced society's leaders to finding food for the teeming masses. The answer is Soylent Green - an artificial nourishment whose actual ingredients are not known by the public. Thorn is the tough homicide detective who stumbles onto the secret so terrifying no one would dare believe him. A classic Global warming story years ahead of its time. It is particularly satisfying as the time period is not too far off, and we have made out OK so far. Hope Saturday Night Live parodies have not ruined it for everyone | ||
|
Don Carter Ron Feinberg Michael Hershman |
R |
Based on a novella by Harlan Ellison, this postapocalyptic black comedy has emerged as a cult favorite since its release in 1975, when Don Johnson was a relative unknown and still years away from TV stardom on Miami Vice. Here Johnson plays a young, libidinous loner named Vic who roams the postnuclear wasteland with his loyal dog, Blood, a remarkable hound with keen intelligence and the ability to telepathically communicate with his less-intelligent master. It's survival of the fittest, so food and sex are Vic's highest priorities, and he gets plenty of both when recruited into a mysterious underground society in desperate need of young fertile males. While Blood must fend for himself on the unfriendly surface, Vic realizes that he's an exploited prisoner and must escape to return to the canine friend he left behind. Thanks in large part to the sly wit of Blood (whose sarcastic voice is splendidly provided by Tim McIntire), this clever and disturbing film readily earns its lasting reputation as a low-budget classic, and features a funny yet chilling supporting role for Jason Robards Jr. | ||
|
Robert De Niro John Flanagan Kim Greist |
R |
If Franz Kafka had been an animator and film director, and a member of Monty Python's Flying Circus--this is the sort of outrageously dystopian satire one could easily imagine him making. However, Brazil was made by Terry Gilliam, who is all of the above except, of course, Franz Kafka. Be that as it may, Gilliam sure captures the paranoid-subversive spirit of Kafka's The Trial (along with his own Python animation) in this bureaucratic nightmare-comedy about a meek governmental clerk named Sam Lowry whose life is destroyed by a simple bug. Not a software bug, a real bug that gets smooshed in a printer and causes a typographical error unjustly identifying an innocent citizen, one Mr. Buttle, as suspected terrorist Harry Tuttle. When Sam becomes enmeshed in unraveling this bureaucratic glitch, he himself winds up labeled as a miscreant. The movie presents such an unrelentingly imaginative and savage vision of 20th-century bureaucracy that it almost became a victim of small-minded studio management itself--until Gilliam surreptitiously screened his cut for the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, who named it the best movie of 1985 and virtually embarrassed Universal into releasing it. | ||
|
Gail Lyon Georgia Kacandes Joshua Levinson Michael Shamberg |
PG-13 |
An engrossing sci-fi thriller about an all-too-human man who dares to defy a system obsessed with genetic perfection. Hawke stars as Vincent, an "In-Valid" who assumes the identity of a member of the genetic elite to pursue his goal of traveling into space with the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation. However, a week before his mission, a murder marks Vincent as a suspect. With a relentless investigator in pursuit and the colleague he has fallen in love with beginning to suspect his deception, Vincent's dreams steadily unravel. | ||
|
Eric Thal Julie Warner Keith David Will Patton |
R |
Based on and fairly true to the Heinlein classic book. Donald Sutherland leads a team of top-level government agents who make a chilling discovery: extraterrestrial beings have landed and are quickly taking control of the residents of a small midwestern town -- manipulating their bodies and minds like puppets! Faced with an escalating crisis as the creatures multiply and spread, the team must somehow eliminate the seemingly unstoppable aliens. This movie did not make it at the time because it was advertised aa a horror flick. It is far too cerebral for the audience it attracted. | ||
|
Kenneth Tobey Margaret Sheridan |
unrated |
With its modest special effects, lean plot, and small cast of lesser stars, this 1951 thriller remains a sturdy blueprint for fusing horror and science fiction. The formula has been employed countless times since, fleshed out with more extensive and elaborate production values, and manned by higher profiled marquee names, but the results have yet to improve on The Thing from Another World, Howard Hawks's lone foray into sci-fi. The story begins as military airmen are dispatched to a remote Arctic research station where scientists have detected the crash of a spacecraft. An effort to retrieve the saucer-shaped vehicle fails, but the team returns to the station with the frozen body of its sole occupant. When the extraterrestrial pilot is accidentally thawed, the crew, headed by a tough-talking pilot (Kenneth Tobey), grapples with a massive, chlorophyll-based humanoid (James Arness) thirsty for blood and in no mood for galactic diplomacy. | ||
|
Danielle Mason Peter Feeney Tammy Davis Glenis Levestam |
unrated |
An experiment in genetic engineering turns harmless sheep into blood-thirsty killers that terrorize a sprawling New Zealand farm. A mix of broad comedy and wall-to-wall splatter, this New Zealand feature makes a convincing case for sheep as the new modern horror icon. These sheep aren't the garden variety grass eaters, however; they're genetically altered sheep who develop a ravenous hunger for human flesh after an experimental fetus is accidentally unleashed on a sprawling ranch by a hapless environmentalist. . And to make matters worse, those bitten by the monster sheep transform into monstrous "were-sheep". The resulting clash between man and sheep is soaked in gore, but the violence is taken to such outlandish extremes that only the easily nauseated or grumpy will find it offensive. | ||
|
Dina Meyer Denise Richards Jake Busey Neil Patrick Harris |
R |
Starship Troopers charts the lives of elite members of the Mobile Infantry, a corps of dedicated young men and women soldiers fighting side-by-side in the ultimate intergalactic war... the battle to save humankind. The enemy is mysterious and incredibly powerful with only one mission: survival of their species no matter what the human cost. OK, it's not as good as the book, but it is Heinlein, who is still my favorite author | ||
|
Olivia Barash Susan Barnes Emilio Estevez Tom Finnegan |
R |
A mixture of satire and nihilism, road movie and science fiction, violence and comedy, the unclassifiable sensibility of Alex Cox's Repo Man is the model and inspiration for a movies such as Pulp Fiction, early Coen brothers, Men in Black, and others. Otto, a baby-face punk played by Emilio Estevez, becomes an apprentice to Bud, a coke-snorting, veteran repo-man-of-honor prowling the streets of a Los Angeles wasteland populated by hoods, wackos, burnouts, conspiracy theorists, and aliens of every stripe. It may seem chaotic at first glance, but there's a "latticework of coincidence" (as Tracey Walter puts it) underlying everything. Repo Man is a key American movie of the 1980s--just as Taxi Driver, Nashville, and Chinatown are key American movies of the '70s. |