Mad men make mad mechanical people. Mad horny mechanical people. We take a look at Stanley Donen and John Barry's 1980 feature SATURN 3 starring Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett, and compare that with Alex Garland's 2014 film EX MACHINA. Two wildly different takes on the Frankenstein archetype, both with wildly different takes on gender politics and…

Two Artificial Intelligences hold human life in the balance. One is a monstrous, untrustworthy abuser. The other is Kevin Spacey. We take a look at the legendary Stanely Kubrick classic 1968 feature 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, and compare that with Duncan Jones's low budget 2009 film MOON starring Sam Rockwell, Sam Rockwell and Sam Rockwell. Both have o…

Two future sports that tease the prospect of freedom. One is a meat grinder on wheels, the other is barely a game at all. We take a look at the classic 1975 feature ROLLERBALL starring James Caan, and compare that with Robert Rodriguez's big budget cyberpunk-ish 2019 manga adaptation film ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL. Do these films represent the future of …

Two terrifying tesseracts piercing time and space, and the dumb humans that throw themselves into them. We take a look at the 1979 Disney sci-fi feature THE BLACK HOLE starring Robert Forster & Yvette Mimieux, and contrast that with Christopher Nolan's hard sci-fi art-house melodrama INTERSTELLAR. Which one takes a dive? Or do neither escape the pu…

Two detectives surrounded by robots (possibly), trying to make sense of the noir world around them. We take a look at Jean-Luc Godard's 1965 feature ALPHAVILLE starring Eddie Constantine and Anna Karina, and compare that art house flick with the hypermodern, stylish and groundbreaking 1982 film BLADE RUNNER by Ridley Scott. When does style get in t…

Two men trapped in societies that rule the masses with an iron fist. Two men that defeat the odds and break on through. One of them does it for the betterment of all of humanity. The other one is a bit of a jerk. We take a look at George Lucas' 1971 debut feature THX 1138 starring Robert Duvall, and compare that meditation on the automation of the …