6. They Call Me Jeeg (2015)
Another super hero movie, somewhat more conventional this time, with the classic ‘powers by toxic waste’ origin story and an over the top, crazy villain included.
The Italian ‘They Calll Me Jeeg’ is about the young crook Enzo, whom gains super strength after he falls in the river Tiber when he’s fleeing for the police for stealing a watch. When he tries to sell the stolen watch, he comes in contact with criminal Sergio and his psychologically damaged daughter Alessia. Alessia comes to believe that Enzo is the hero ‘Steel Jeeg’ from a Japanese anime she religiously watches. After Sergio gets killed, Alessia convinces Enzo to go after the crazy gangster that did it.
It’s a somewhat disturbing anti-hero story which is inspired by characters like Batman and the Joker and of course the Steel Jeeg anime. When the villain goes full evil, the movie shifts into full comic mode with over the top plot points that are a blast to watch unfold.
7. Overlord (2018)
Overlord is mostly a horror-war movie, but it has some horrific science fiction elements. A group of American soldier gets dropped behind enemy lines for a quick mission in a little town, but things turn sinister when they discover the gruesome Nazi experiments that happen beneath their feet. The story quickly turns into a full on gorefest when Nazi zombies are unleashed on the soldiers. A weird, but surprisingly fun genre combo.
Since the movie was produced by household name J.J. Abrams a lot of speculation went around whether or not this would fit in the Cloverfield universe. Although debunked by Abrams himself, it’s still surprising not more people went to check this out during initial release. Maybe the R-rated genre-mix was too much for the imagination, but since release luckily more people have found their way to the movie.
Besides the very much b-movie feel and the fantastic gory sequences, the movie has a ton of fun story and somewhat well fletched out characters to accompany it with, making it not only dumb fun as people might suspect. There’s plenty of dumb fun to go around, but for people wanting more from a movie watching experience there’s no need to shy away from this one!
8. Dirty Computer (2018)
There’s a long history of musical artists using the art of film to enhance their audible art with visual art. From the The Beatles in the 60’s with their wide variety of movies including Yellow Submarine and A Hard Day’s Night, to Pink Floyd – The Wall in the 80’s. But these last few years it seems that more and more artists come out with something that’s more than music alone. Beyonce’s Lemonade is a prime example of a popular visual album, but also interesting are movies that go further than just an album like Childish Gambino’s ‘Guava Island.’
Dirty Computer is the visual album of Janelle Monáe’s third studio album of the same name. Janelle Monáe plays a young woman, Jane, living in a homophobic, totalitarian society from which she tries to break free. The government of the society tries to ‘clean’ her mind by erasing memories that don’t align with their views. The memories are visuals of Jane’s past life in freedom, accompanied by the songs from the album.
Clocking in just below 50 minutes it’s impressive that it accomplishes to tell a story, show off music videos, and convey an important message to top it off.
9. 24 (2016)
The movie industry is a big deal in India, producing more movies yearly than any other country. Indian cinema is not only popular in the country itself, noticeable by the many Indian movies that are on streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime internationally. With the many languages in India there are a lot of different segments in the industry, Bollywood being the most prominently known one. Segmented by language, 24 is a movie that belongs to Kollywood with its Tamil-spoken dialogue. Indian cinema like Bollywood and Kollywood lends itself great for science fiction. With big budgets and huge productions, they are well-equipped to tackle a CGI-heavy science fiction concept.
In 24 a scientist invents a watch that operates as a time machine, able of going back and forward 24 hours in time. Before putting the device to use he gets killed by his evil twin brother whom wants to use the device for evil, but not before the scientist hides the watch with his baby son. When the son grows up, he discovers the use of the device and soon his evil uncle gets word of this, leading into a cat and mouse game between the two.
24 has everything you’d expect from an Indian film, from sometimes over the top CGI to a random musical sequence once in a while. Mostly it’s a fun action-packed story that has another interesting take on the time travel genre.
10. High Life (2018)
In High Life Monte, played by Robert Pattinson, and his daughter are the lone survivors on a space ship floating towards a black hole. The film follows their struggle to survive the isolation in deep space. Robert Pattinson has had some difficulty to shake of a certain image and set himself up as an established actor, but he always had the skill to pull it off. In recent years he has chosen the right projects to accomplish a changing image and has grown out to be a well-respected name in the industry. In movies like High Life, Robert Eggers’ ‘The Lighthouse’ and the Safdie brothers’ ‘Good Time’ he set himself up to be an actor to look out for at future award seasons.
High Life being Claire Denis her first venture into space and her first venture into an English language film makes it a unique film in her filmography. Produced by A24 it would seem like an indie powerhouse, but High Life had a mixed reception from the public. However, the beautiful visuals, some inspired from Tarkovsky’s own Solaris, and the touching story lend for a must watch for fans of the science fiction genre.