Issue 50: Aliens


The Man Who Fell to Earth

Aliens: Spaced out pop stars, extra-terrestrials and foreign organisms

As the 10th Sci-Fi London opens on April 27, we celebrate Aliens with an article on The Man Who Fell to Earth, whose central character is also sci-fi author Philip Palmer‘s alien alter ego. We have articles on racism and science fiction, Tim Burton and Long Weekend, and our Online Movie column looks at alien fashion films while Reel Sounds focuses on the soundtrack of Liquid Sky.

In cinema releases, we review the excellent sci-fi thriller Source Code – read the interview with Duncan Jones. We also have seasoned provocateur Sion Sono’s deliriously bloody Cold Fish, thought-provoking Danish war documentary Armadillo, brooding Western Meek’s Cutoff, slow-paced Arctic drama How I Ended this Summer, Johnnie To’s light-hearted Sparrow, supernatural 1937 Yiddish drama The Dybbuk, and Korean serial killer drama I Saw the Devil – read the interview with director Kim Ji-woon. Intense survival tale starring Vincent Gallo Essential Killing is also out, and we have an interview with legendary Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski. Our Comic Strip tackles the Luc Besson adaptation of the well-known comic book heroine Adele Blanc-Sec.

New DVDs include Quentin Dupieux’s killer tyre horror Rubber, Zhang Yimou’s reimagining of the Coen brothers’ Blood Simple, Oxide Pang’s murder mystery The Detective and sci-fi romance Monsters. Rockabilly gunslinger Dan Sartain picks this month’s Film Jukebox and in the Blog we have a feature on the Flatpack festival, an extract from the book Trashfiend and you can watch a trailer for the fantastic-looking sci-fi Kenyan short Pumzi.

PODCAST:
Indie Movies Online: With more and more people wanting to download movies off the internet, a new company has come along to help people do this legally with a wide range of films that includes British gems and cult classics. Alex Fitch talks to James Rowley-Ashwood about indiemoviesonline.com: they discuss how the collection of films on the site were curated – from Evil Aliens to the site’s one paying movie A Serbian Film, short films by Lotte Reiniger and the Brothers Quay and back catalogue titles from Peter Greenaway and Alex Cox, some of which are out of print on DVD – and how the site’s funding and distribution are achieved.