List Price: $19.99 Our Price: $17.99YOU SAVE $2!
Buy it
DVD The Black Hole
Disney's foray into big-budget science fiction, close on the heels of Star Wars, had some of the most impressive special effects to grace theater screens in the 1970s. Graced by handsome production design--most notably a glass and latticework interstellar craft that looks like a battleship crossed with a modern skyscraper--The Black Hole is in many ways the most beautiful science fiction film of its era. Unfortunately, the graceful and gorgeous picture is jarred by dialogue that wouldn't pass muster in a comic book and a silly conclusion that plays like a murky, dime-store knockoff of 2001. Too bad, because the visual realization of the film is a veritable haunted house of futuristic phenomena, from the cloaked zombie-like drones shuffling through corridors to the devilish, crimson robot Maximillian, the strong arm of the mad scientist played by Maximilian Schell (a kind of wild man Captain Nemo with an even more ruthless temperament). Only the way-too-cute robot V.I.N.CENT (voiced by Roddy McDowall), a merchandising gimmick that looks like a Fisher-Price toy, mars the technological landscape. Robert Forster is the quietly authoritative captain of an exploration ship that stumbles across the seemingly derelict ship, and Anthony Perkins, Yvette Mimieux, Ernest Borgnine, and Joseph Bottoms fill out his crew. This is one case of a triumph of art direction and special effects over story--it's worth sitting through it to see the magnificent scene of the fireball rolling through the ship's enormous hull alone. The rest is just atmospheric gravy. --Sean Axmaker
This film is so close to being a truly great, great sci-fi epic. But the flaws are so painfully fatal...I have been fond of this film since I was a child and in later years realized just how close they came to greatness. What's great: it is the most visually stunning sci-fi film ever made (the wayward Cygnus ship, while completely impractical for its supposed purpose, is a masterpiece of sci-fi gothic weirdness), inspired casting and performances (notably from Maximilian Schell as the mad Dr. Reinhardt, Anthony Perkins as impressionable science officer Alex, cowardly reporter Ernest Borgnine, and stalwart commander Robert Forrester), a fantastic premise, majestic musical score in parts (but not so great in other parts), a wildly trippy but nonsensical ending worthy of "Clockwork Orange" mixed with "Fantasia", and one of the most genuinely frightening villains ever in the mechanized Frankenstein monster created by Reinhardt named Maximilian. With such a great premise and dark atmosphere, it is shocking at how cheesy and just plain bad the dialogue is. Perhaps it is the fact that it was a Disney film, they couldn't fully commit to the dark masterpiece they almost had on their hands. The cheesy robots Vincent and `Old Bob' are hard to take (clearly created to attract the kids, Disney tried to create another R2D2 and C3PO). Some of the supporting cast falls off precipitously from the quality of the big names. The action sequences could have been done a lot better as well. A fascinating case study of an almost great film, but I love it anyway. Of all of the remakes out there, this is the one that I think is most ripe for another look and to be done right.
A classic!
This movie is all about artistic SFX. The dialogue is silly at times and the characters are fairly uni-dimensional. Vincent the robot is really a cheesy looking droid compared to something like R2D2. So, why am I giving it 4 stars? because I like this film mostly for the way it looks. I love the Cygnus, I think it is a very elegant ship and I am in the process of building a 10" model from scratch. Overall: GOOD in a different way.
Just as I remember it...
I was really young when I first saw The Black Hole. As I remembered I loved the film. Well, being 31 years old now and watching again many years later, I'd have to say that this film is really bad. Poor quality, bad acting and V.I.N.CENT is so damned annoying you want to take that tin can and a roll of duct tape and wrap him up in it so you don't have to hear his really bad one liners.
And Maximillian, you gotta be afraid of his paper shredder hands. So damned comical.
When I was young, I thought that the visual effect of the black hole looked cool. But even way back when the movie was made the theory of the black hole is that it could not be seen. Well, it's bright as day in this movie. But I suppose the had to display it movie purposes.
The special effects in this movie were obviously some sort of bad after thought because there was no detail to them whatsoever. The laser blasts are aweful and the robots move stiffly if they come across anything that isn't a flat surface they'd topple over.
Anyways, poor film, poor acting, poor special effects and really not worth your time.
The surprising truth about Disney's 1982 computer-game fantasy is that it's still visually impressive (though technologically quaint by later high-definition standards) and a lot of fun. It's about a computer wizard named Flynn (Jeff Bridges) who is digitally broken down into a data stream by a villainous software pirate (David Warner) and reconstituted into the internal, 3-D graphical world of computers. It is there, in the blazingly colorful, geometrically intense landscapes of cyberspace, that Flynn joins forces with Tron (Bruce Boxleitner) to outmaneuver the Master Control program that holds them captive in the equivalent of a gigantic, infinitely challenging computer game. Disney's wizards used a variety of cinematic techniques and early-'80s state-of-the-art computer-generated... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Jeff Bridges - Bruce Boxleitner Director(s): Steven Lisberger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 January 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.99 Your Price: $15.99YOU SAVE $4!
Buy it
Ray Bradbury adapted his own novel for Something Wicked This Way Comes, Jack Clayton's beautiful rendering of the turn-of-the-century fantasy of a mysterious carnival that literally blows into a small town to taunt and tempt the inhabitants. Jonathan Pryce (Brazil), the handsome but demonic proprietor of Dark's Pandemonium Carnival, preys upon the vanities, the delusions, and the regrets of the townspeople by granting their wishes at the expense of their souls. Jason Robards, as the meek librarian Charles Halloway, becomes his unlikely nemesis when his son Will, with his best friend Jim Nightshade (a deliciously dark name in its own right), discovers the secret of Dark's nightmarish carnival. When they become hunted by Dark's minions (including Pam Grier as the beautiful and... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Jack Clayton DVD Release Date: Released the 03 August 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.99 Your Price: $15.99YOU SAVE $4!
Buy it
The swashbuckler genre bumped into science fiction in 1954 for one of Hollywood's great entertainments. The Jules Verne story of adventure under the sea was Walt Disney's magnificent debut into live-action films. A professor (Paul Lukas) seeks the truth about a legendary sea monster in the years just after the Civil War. When his ship is sunk, he, his aide (Peter Lorre), and a harpoon master (Kirk Douglas) survive to discover that the monster is actually a metal submarine run by Captain Nemo (James Mason). Along with the rollicking adventure, it's fun to see the future technology that Verne dreamed up in his novel, including diving equipment and sea farming. The film's physical prowess is anchored by the Nautilus, an impressive full-scale gothic submarine complete with red carpet and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Kirk Douglas - James Mason Director(s): Richard Fleischer DVD Release Date: Released the 20 May 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.99 Your Price: $15.99YOU SAVE $4!
Buy it
I have always been a big fan of Disney movies. When this movie came out in the 1970s I chose to spend my money on this movie rather than other (better, as I found out later) movies. I was somewhat disappointed at that time that the movie was relatively cheesy in the special effects department. I had to wonder whether my perceptions had changed in 30+ years.
The story begins with a lot of promise. Sir Anthony Ross (Donald Sinden) is on a mission to find his son, who was lost on an Artic expedition. He "recruits" Professor John Ivarsson (David Hartman) to go on the trip. Ivarsson is an American archeologist who also happens to speak the language of the Vikings. Sorry. He has read the language of the ancient Vikings.
At the time of its original release in 1984, this modestly budgeted sci-fi excursion had the distinction of offering some of the first examples of purely computer-generated animation, an apt (and frugal) special-effects solution for a movie with a plot line rooted in computer games. Both the computer-generated visuals and the arcade game now look quaint, but writer-director Nick Castle's affable, good- hearted adventure holds up nicely, thanks to a clever premise--the title game is actually a test for prospective starship pilots, planted by embattled aliens under siege from an evil invader. When a restless teenager (Lance Guest) racks up an impressive score, he finds himself spirited away to the besieged planet and thrust into the midst of an intergalactic war. Apart from Castle's skill... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Nick Castle DVD Release Date: Released the 08 June 1999 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.98 Your Price: $10.99YOU SAVE $3.99!
Buy it
