Alex Cox (REPO MAN) directed this stylized adaptation of Jorge Luis Borges labyrinthine detective story about a totalitarian city of the future plagued by a rash of bizarre crimes. Peter Boyle stars as Lonnrot, a decidedly even headed detective prone to philosophizing and Christopher Eccleston is his nemesis, Red Scarlach, whom Lonnrot believes could be behind these ritualistic crimes. Set in a surreal landscape that provokes Lonnrot’s philosophical musings and leads him through mystical cabals and conspiracies within conspiracies, DEATH AND THE COMPASS is a remarkable adaptation of Borges’ story, and a fascinating, often exhilarating film.
Category: Sci-Fi
This Hungarian black comedy is set at a very special fantasy park that allows visitors to play organized war games. It proves to be a very popular attraction amongst the bored tourists until they suddenly realize that they are shooting real bullets. The authorities quickly close the park, but then recruits its director to begin using it to train real troops.
Petra Going is a migrant cyborg, an agent of the Global Nomad Project: an international “Experience Data Agency” which sends hundreds of “receivers” like her to wander the globe and record a succession of random encounters. Periodically, they return to agency headquarters where they deposit their accumulated memories into an archive. This archive is available to users who then vicariously and virtually inhabit the ready-made landscapes of touristic consciousness. The motto of the GNP: “Nostalgia For Rent.”
A patient escapes from a lunatic asylum and runs into a woman being chased by an apparently indestructible maniacal cackling goon who works for a mysterious mobster. He decides to help her, but nothing is what it seems. Not even the past.
Komori Tiaki is a budding tennis student, however one day in training her coach hits the ball into her eye accidentally. She is taken to hospital but it advised that she will never regain the sight in her eye. Her coach knows of a mysterious doctor ‘Blackjack’ who lives in a secluded house, who might be able to help. ‘Blackjack’ agrees to do the operation, but for a ‘substantial reward’!
In this futuristic martial arts thriller, kickboxing champ Chance O’Brien refuses to join a tournament featuring cyborg fighters, but when the event sponsor kidnaps his fiancée, Jo, Chance’s human powers are her only hope for survival.
A phantasmagoric, definition-defying film from perhaps France’s premier underground filmmaker, Treasure of the Bitch Islands begins with the mysterious disappearance of an engineer who has discovered a new energy source, and follows a post-nuclear Ulysses’ voyage to find the substances used in the engineer’s formula, only to be harvested on an island of mad scientists and headhunters.
Mobster Ron Candell is set up by his underlings – principally Andy Damon – and is convicted of murder. He escapes but finds himself in a nuclear testing area. He survives the blast but his body begins to undergo change at the cellular level, making him a man of steel. He makes his way back to town seeking revenge on those who testified against him, including his ex-girlfriend Linda Marlow. As he continues to mutate however, he become ever more dangerous. Stopping him however is easier said than done.