The side-street shops of London can herald some pleasant surprises, especially for cinephiles, and last week I chanced upon the Aurum Science Fiction Encyclopedia - a comprehensive guide to sci-fi cinema from 1895 to 1983; a real treasure. I've been powering through the book this weekend and realized just how many sci-fi films I haven't seen; whether they be established classics or obscurities not even on video. So I've decided, alongside VHS Quest and Cinema Strange (which, yes, I know I'm behind on), to review some of the more interesting titles from the encyclopedia for your reading pleasure. Below is a preliminary collection of titles due for immediate review; you can expect these within the next couple of months, and the first one will be up tomorrow. Some films are discoveries of my own, not present in the encyclopedia, and they will be highlighted in bold. Sometimes The Aurum Quest will cross over with VHS/Strange, notably with the upcoming review of Le voyage dans la lune (Georges Méliès, 1902). So, check out the list below, and I'll see you in the not-too-distant future...
Voyage à Travers l'Impossible (Georges Méliès, 1904)
Paris qui dort (René Claire, 1925)
Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)
Frau Im Mond (Fritz Lang, 1929)
Things To Come (William Cameron Menzies, 1936)
Destination Moon (Irving Pichel, 1950)
When Worlds Collide (Rudolph Maté, 1951)
Invaders From Mars (William Cameron Menzies, 1953)
THEM! (Gordon Douglas, 1954)
The Quatermass Xperiment (Val Guest, 1955)
This Island Earth (Joseph M. Newman, 1955)
The Mind Benders (Basil Dearden, 1963)
Robinson Crusoe On Mars (Byron Haskin, 1964)
Fahrenheit 451 (François Truffaut, 1966)
Seconds (John Frankenheimer, 1966)
The President's Analyst (Theodore J. Flicker, 1967)
Privilege (Peter Watkins, 1967)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
Marooned (John Sturgess, 1969)
Punishment Park (Peter Watkins, 1971)
THX 1138 (George Lucas, 1971)
Slaughterhouse-Five (George Roy Hill, 1971)
Soylent Green (Richard Fleischer, 1973)
Coma (Michael Crichton, 1978)
The Dead Mountaineer Hotel (Grigori Kromanov, 1979)
Outland (Peter Hyams, 1981)
Brainstorm (Douglas Trumbull, 1983)
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