solaris Tagged Articles at Cinematical

With this weekend's The Day the Earth Stood Still, Hollywood continues its attempt to remake every remotely viable classic property it can get its hands on. (It also conjures up the perfect role for Keanu Reeves, but that's another post.) The science-fiction genre has been a particularly inviting target, which makes sense since the ability to use modern effects makes filmmakers think that they are improving on their source material regardless of whether that's actually true. But it hasn't been all bad. Hollywood still churns out some good sci-fi from time to time, and some of the remakes have hit their mark. Here's a list of seven that worked for me -- though I warn you that my tastes in genre films are somewhat idiosyncratic. I'm fond of some black sheep.

1. War of the Worlds (2005) - Some of you may want to get off the train right here. But I saw Spielberg's War of the Worlds before the bad buzz, and I found the first ninety minutes just ridiculously intense -- the realest alien invasion ever put on screen. This was Spielberg the wizard, the technician, in top form. Sure, he chose to play out his daddy issues instead of giving us a believable ending; everyone is right about that. But to me, that's barely a smudge on this movie's accomplishments.

The decision for any actor or actress to appear naked, whether on screen, on stage, or in photographs, can sometimes help, sometimes hurt, and sometimes not make any difference at all to the performer's career. In the case of Lindsay Lohan, her freckle-baring photos in New York Magazine may reinforce the public's perception of her as a "bad girl." We saw a very different reaction when "good guy" Daniel Radcliffe, better known as Harry Potter, stripped down for a production of the stage play Equus. While some decried the example he was setting, young women reportedly attended in droves for the opportunity to admire his (acting) form. From a career standpoint, he widened his future possibilities far beyond the family market.

On the big screen, Viggo Mortensen's deadly naked spa duel in Eastern Promises caught everyone's eye. Playing a "bad boy" with a good heart, Mortensen's willingness to display every inch of his physique only expanded his appeal. His performance earned him a nomination for an Academy Award as Best Actor. Portraying both "bad boys" and "good guys," none of the other Best Actor candidates appeared in the buff in their nominated films, though all have in the past.

As we did yesterday with the women, today we offer a selection of five Academy Award-nominated men. All have appeared naked on the big screen, either this year or in the past, with their most revealing appearance noted. Whose career benefited the most from their willingness to bare all?

I don't want to turn Vintage Image of the Day into Obituary-Related Image of the Day, but the opportunity to share a photo from this particular film was too tempting. Science-fiction author Stanislaw Lem died on Monday after battling heart disease, at age 84. A number of his novels were translated into English and were quite popular ... and a few were adapted into films. The best-known movies adapted from Lem's work are probably the 1972 Russian film Solaris and Steven Soderbergh's 2002 remake.

I've never seen the original Solaris, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. In college, I fell asleep watching Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice, and decided that the Russian director's deliberately paced films were not to my taste. A few years later, I had much better luck with Andrei Rublev, so perhaps I was wrong. The variety of striking images from Solaris, such as the one above, and universally glowing reviews make me feel that I really ought to give the film a fair trial.

However, my increased interest in the material doesn't extend to Soderbergh's version of Solaris. My sister, who is no science-fiction fan, saw it simply because she'd heard the film included some, er, rather revealing shots of George Clooney. She reported that it wasn't worth suffering through such a dull movie for the scant reward of a few glimpses of her favorite film star unclothed. Obviously, she was not the target audience. Although I am a science-fiction fan who also enjoys the films of Soderbergh and the many attributes of Clooney, I think I'll start with Tarkovsky's film.