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CanVention 22 and the Aurora Awards
If It's Tuesday,
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Feature Interview:
Ken Macleod
Feature Review:
Cosmonaut Keep by Ken Macleod
Book Reviews:
The Alchemists Door
by Lisa Goldstein
Alternate Generals
ed by Harry Turtledove
Argonaut
by Stanley Schmidt
Fire
Logic by Laurie J. Marks
The
Iron Grail by John Woodstock
The Sacred Pool by L. Warren Douglas
The Sky So Big And Black by John Barnes
Spaceland by Rudy Rucker
Straw Men by Michael
Marshall Smith
Sisters of the Raven by Barbara Hambly
To Trade The Stars
by Julie
E. Czerneda
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, Ellen Datlow and
Terri Windling
Graphic Novel:
Murder Mysteries. Original short
story and radio play by Neil Gaiman. Graphic story script and art by P.
Craig Russell
Zine:
The
Journal of Pulse Pounding Narratives
SFMedia:
Film:
Austin Powers:
GoldMember
Metropolis (2002)
Restoration
& Metropolis Essay
PowerPuff Girls
Reign of Fire
Signs
Simone
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Freder: It was their hands that built this
city of ours, Father. But where do the hands belong in your scheme?
Joh Frederson: In their proper place, the depths. |
Editorial License:
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by Ernest Lilley - Editor/SFRevu
Kino films released a new digital print of
Metropolis last month, and its playing in limited engagement in theaters
across the country. Amy Harlib went to see it and came back with more
than a review, adding a lot of good insights about the film and the
period it was made in. Check out her review:
Metropolis Review: Amy Harlib.
I've always been fond of the film, and am really
excited about the new release, which contains footage you've probably
never seen, since the video version was made from a damaged copy. A lot
of the direction that made SF what it was in the golden age came from
the images in this film, even though it's more dystopic than our wishful
dreams would become. But if looking ahead helps us understand the
dangers of things to come, then let the projector roll.
Metropolis is the seminal SF Film work of
class warfare, though H.G. Wells had written The Time Machine: An
Invention three decades before, begun in what can only be considered
one of the earliest SF Fanzines ever produced before even that. Where
Wells' Morlocks were the subterranean under lords of evolved humanity
and his Eloi the placid cattle on which they fed, Fritz Lang's vision
showed, at least in the short run, the reverse, with Thinkers on top,
and Workers in the caves of steel.
 The
film's most enduring image is of Futura, a robot made in the image of
Maria (Bridgette Helm) who has been stirring up the workers to revolt.
The robot impersonates Maria and leads the workers into temptation
rather than deliverance, but she does make the mech-erotic look
attractive, if ultimately unfulfilling. Bridgette went on to simmer
across the silver screen for the next 50 or so years, and Futura left a
legacy embraced by every Robot that reciprocated the act of being turned
on.
The 2002 digital restoration of Metropolis is everything you
could hope for in a print. The images crystal clarity draw you into
Fritz Lang's world, making a sumptuous piece of world building, pristine
in its noirish glory. It's classic story of class warfare is as
appropriate now as ever, and one expects will be as long as there are
humans to tell stories about.
Ernest Lilley
Editor – SFRevu
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