<![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction - io9 Comments]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction - io9 Comments]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @MajorMattMason: I got that it was satire, but that still didn't make it a good film. I think its a lot more interesting and creative to write a plausible and completely divergent history that reflect our world. What they did in CSA was just lazy, lazy writing.

Loserface

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> I'm going to get stoned for this...but...Frequency was a nice little time-travel movie.

Spoony Bard

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> I can think of a far better kids film to replace "Babe: Pig in the City" - try the "Secret of NIMH". This was about rats and mice and other lab animals that had their intelligence raised by a lab experiment. Definitely sci-fi, but it might not be as "slipstream" as the other films you've mentioned (although I'd say that "Pleasantville" is more a fantasy film, as the only possible hint of sci-fi would be the remote/TV that got the kids there in the first place).

I have to admit, I've never seen Babe 2, but the film "Babe" is based on the kid's book called "Sheepdog" by Dick-King Smith, an English farmer turned writer. Sheepdog was not a mutant, as not all animals are stupid. If you want a story about a "mutant" pig, try Daggy Dogfoot, written by the same author - this is about a pig, who, like Sheepdog, was the runt of the litter. But his front trotters were the wrong way round - so they were round and smooth at the front instead, and he learns to swim. But Sheepdog is not sci-fi in any sense, although god knows what they did in the sequel, as I don't think Dick-King Smith wrote a sequel.

Louiz

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Wow,After reading all the comments here,all I could think was the aliens have landed and planted chips in our heads so we waste our time arguing over the exact definition of science fiction!! Sometimes a list is just a list.

alienkismet

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> I guess Rushmore is sci-fi because it's so perfect it can't be real. Plus, the ghost of Edward Appleby. And Brian Cox.

danwaterhouse

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Primer.

Enjoy.

timtimes

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Here's a nice list to trailers. Enjoy!

Link eLibrary Projekt (eLib):

[www.literature.at]

gego

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @eviltimes: We probably should have included Fight Club.

Charlie Jane Anders

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> I think that you are mistaking Fiction, Fantasy, and Magic Realism for Science Fiction. These are not the same thing. Or, you are simply defining Science Fiction too broadly.

I dispute your claim that Ghost Dog is Sci Fi, because the supernatural plot elements are not driven by a relationship to technology, or speculations based on the current, or future state of science. It is a super hero movie, but that just means its fiction, or fantasy of some kind.

ludwigk

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Listen to foggyhurt. None of that is sci fi.

Off the radar SF would be stuff like Fight Club (medical condition).

You don't need spaceships, but you do need science.

eviltimes

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @foggytortured: I agree

MaxTwice

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> I've spent several years writing 'Sneakers' fan fiction.

cardboardbelt

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> I am a science-fiction writer but to be perfectly honest I think most of these operate on a definition of science-fiction that I would not recognize. Some of these would certainly characterize as fantasy. No difference is also made to characterize metaphor and surrealism (as in 8 1/2) as a narrative device from science-fiction. Either that or science-fictional explanations are attached to a film where the story does not ie. Babe: Pig in the City, Ghost Dog, Brimstone and Treacle

To me science-fiction is a story that derives from a projection of science, technology or soft sciences into a realm of what might happen. What causes SF to differ from fantasy is that SF always has a direct or implied use of some type of science or technology beneath it.

foggyhurt

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Holy SHIT! Ok, I've never seen Sneakers before, but seeing it on the list prompted me to open source rent it tonight, and watch it. Ok, I'm actually only about 2/3 of the way through it at the moment but...

1) so far it is quite god awful, with a few funny bits and lots of bad acting from an A list cast.

2) Mary McDonnell is one of the stars, who you may recall plays "Madame President" on the current iteration of Battlestar Galactica

3) One of her lines is... and I shit you not... "Oh my gods..." - I replayed the scene a few times and I'm damn sure that's what she says. Granted it's obviously a slip, but still, by the Lords of Kobol!

Ok, back to the movie now...

Pham Nuwen

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Too much stress on the 'fiction' and not enough on the science me thinks...

For that matter, any film of fiction can be considered as an alternate reality fiction. Because along with Magritte's pipe, it is not 'reality'.

Just because a given director is 'artsy' does not make something sci-fi. A made up flower? Twins?Speculative perhaps....but not sci-fi.

Elements may be present, yes. But a drop of wine in a glass of water, does not make it wine.

Cantonkid

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @Imipolex_G-Unit:

Every single movie ever is science fiction by that logic.

lukeoneil47

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> How about "The Truman Show"? While echoing the dire warnings of the coming Panopticon found in "The Conversation", it marries it with a healthy dose of scathing criticism of American media; particularly the
"reality" T.V. genre; as well as pointing a long finger at us, the consumer of said media, for helping to perpetuate the de-humanizing and atomizing effects of these shows that are supposedly meant to present to us "real" people but, in fact, do quite the opposite, just by the act of our watching. It's made double-extra subversive by packaging its message with an A-list director and actors paired with some slick Hollywood production values.


GunboatDiplomat

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @Annalee... good to know there are more of us out there; I've gone through VHS, a tape made from a late night Movie Network showing and am trying to find a decent DVD version of it. Fingers crossed for the Criterion edition someday...

QED2006

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> > Modern Times. The original movie about human alienation from
> technology is also, arguably, the first cyborg movie

Modern Times -- 1936
Metropolis -- 1927

Need I say more?

darcymcgee

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> "Science Fiction is making the probable possible.
Science Fantasy is making the impossible probable."

"So there!"


Zantor

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @Charlie Jane Anders:
You IO9er's idea of "rigidity" is far different than mine then. And probably 90% of the commenters, I woud guess. But it's your monopoly board, so play as you wish.

Plague

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @Zantor: *snort*

JennaW

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @Charlie Jane Anders: Oh yeah, I forgot about the whole "great movie" thing LOL

SeeingI

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @JennaW: Going by that criteria, so is "Sex and the City".

Zantor

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Titanic, in which a bunch of characters travel back in time to the early 20th century to act out a metaphor for the end of the 20th century [then go on to acting careers in other movies]. The sf-ish technology involved is the same as that normally used to make movies.

tezby

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @QED2006: I love Deep Cover. I've watched it WAY too many times.

Annalee Newitz

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> ghost dog is comic book. that's a good call. but not all comic book stuff qualifies as sci fi. so yah, yellow card.

jinchoung

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> You... you mean I'm not the only one who watched 'Deep Cover'?

QED2006

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Y'know, CSA isn't supposed to be "real" alternate history. It's supposed to be a satirical examination of OUR world, done in a sideshow mirror. If it was a truly realistic attempt to create an "alternate history", then it would be more like Harry Harrison's stories, where the narrative gets further and further away from our timeline as the story progresses- and, as a result, further and further from our concerns in the modern day.

Instead, Kevin Willmott made up a plausible historical structure- not to say, "this is what would happen", but to say "this is what DID happen". In many ways, the South DID win the Civil War- segregation, for instance, did not become a national policy until AFTER the war. (SPOILER) And all of the horribly "racist" commercials in the film were for REAL products, that existed (in some cases) after the Civil War and up until the very recent past.

Willmott's timeline is not a parallel universe- it's more like a strand of DNA, wrapping around our history so that they can show a picture of Grant surrendering to Lee (which is the same famous painting we know, just recontexturalized), and still have President Kennedy (as a Republican!) assassinated in 1963 (after trying to free the slaves, just like that other famous Republican, Abe Lincoln.)

Those who insist on historical rigidity and say that this isn't "realistic" are missing the point (although I thought the history created worked well as the framework for a satire.)

MajorMattMason

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @Charlie Jane Anders

I still think you might wanted to have considered...
"Monty Pythons The Meaning Of Life" in this list too, as several portions of that movie used established SciFi themes as their settings.

(makes note to self to add CJA to my friends list so i can track her commemts too... lol)

dOk

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @JennaW

I see that you are not "just back"...
But "back in a big way"...

Welcome back!

dOk

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @Plague: We follow our own rules with a shocking rigidity... at least as far as we understand them ourselves.

Charlie Jane Anders

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @JennaW: "I'm not sure something that parses other genres can then be elevated above them." Which is the fundamental problem with it. It's not a sub-genre, it does not parse the sf genre. It extends beyond the genre, excludes the genre, and then re-encompasses it as a sub-genre (at least according to its promoters).

Tim Faulkner

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @JennaW: I like putting forth topics for discussion, but I think they too often go for the quick route without really thinkng them through. A sentiment echoed by Annalee on the last Horrorhead post. The burden is on them to produce the content, if they don't we have the right... NAY THE DUTY!!! to pick them apart with our words born out of boredom at work.

I would say CQ is more sci-fi than 8 1/2

While I dont' agree that Sci-Fi falls under the umbrella of Fantasy, I do feel that Sci-Fi, Horror, Fantasy all walk hand in hand often. And I feel this site does limit themselves by picking and choosing what is Sci-Fi to suit their needs. They either need to stick to true sci-fi, or bring in the Freddies, Jasons, and Orcs to the familiy.

Garrison Dean, King Awesome

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @JennaW:
"But then I also think that this site should be about Spec Fic and not *just* SF because too often the line is so blurry"

Agreed. But alas, we aren't the ones making up the rules, then arbitrarily abandoning them when something shiny strikes their eyes.

Plague

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @Tim Faulkner: When you can find two people to agree on a definition of slipstream, then we can discuss its placement in the continuum! *slaps knee in hilarity*

My own encounters with slipstream have all been on the SF side of the slipperiness, but I'm not sure something that parses other genres can then be elevated above them. It can be a subgenre of both, however (as can steampunk in my experience).

JennaW

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @Garrison Dean: I meant that generally -- fans do get all worked up and outraged that someone would imply the Serious SF they are enjoying might be FANTASY!!!! *dun-dun-duuuuuuun*

I think proposing such topics is a good way to get conversations going which is the point of a blog like this, so that's cool. I argued against 8 1/2. I think a case could be made for The Conversation but the fun is more in the discussion than in deciding absolutely either way.

But then I also think that this site should be about Spec Fic and not *just* SF because too often the line is so blurry, we're either avoiding really good topics or stepping into Fantasy territory anyway and trying to make the SF case for it (e.g. BABE: Pig in the City).

JennaW

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Sigh. Yet another utterly crap list from I09. If you knew anything, you'd include movies like the one I mentioned earlier, Brother John, where Sidney Poitier is revealed in the film's final scene to be an alien who, like Klaatu has been sent to Earth because it posed a danger to universe, only his judgment was the humanity could not be served and should be wiped out before they could spread.

And where's Pi where we learn the device is sentient in the end?

Again, your list blows.

Macloserboy

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @JennaW: Wouldn't (yuck) "slipstream" be further up the food chain than fantasy and science fiction, since it really is a broader category incorporating anything that uses a fantastical element in its story, while excluding all that explicitly can be agreed to be science fiction and fantasy? And then, somehow, the sfers reincorporate it back into sf. Slipstream is science fiction, but science fiction is not slipstream. It boggles the mind.

Tim Faulkner

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @AmishJohn: Thanks! Good to be back.

JennaW

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @JennaW: Yup, I guess that works. Toss out all the rules. Let the chips fall where they may.

I'm not being picky here by the way. Tell me you have watched any...ANY of these movies above before and said. Hey.. this is kind of sci-fi. CSA is the only one I can think that works. I mean, they hardly have a sci-fi element in them. We can debate what sci-fi is til the womp rats come home. But you can't honestly tell me that these are sci-fi. I can think of the list that they wanted to make and at the top would be Moulin Rouge, but I don't think thats Sci-Fi.

Garrison Dean, King Awesome

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @Garrison Dean: Isn't that Lois McMaster Bujold? She says something to the effect of all mainstream novels comprising the largest shared-world fictional universe in existence.

We can make a chart where ">" equals "encompasses"

Fiction > Fantasy > SF > Slipstream > irate fans who get all weird about little sub-sub-subgenre categories and take classifications *way* too seriously

Or not ;)

JennaW

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @JennaW: Ah, but we're pickers-and-choosers here; blasters, not wands, you know.
Good Ghod, I'm channeling Minsk!
Welcome back, BTW.



AmishJohn

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Oh yeah, "slipstream" is a terrible term, makes my eyes itch. yuk.

Grey_Area

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> The one connecting theme for all these films is... ready?...THEY NEVER REALLY HAPPENED. There, I said it. All pure fiction, someone Made It All Up, fantasy. So let's stop all this fussin' & a fuedin' and watch "Two Snakes II" on SciFi Channel! Yay!

Grey_Area

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @JennaW: No it falls under the umbrella of Fiction, as does Fantasy. If Sci-Fi is any old thing that has sort of weird stuff init or laserbeams then anything could be sci-fi. What is wonderful about true sci-fi, be it any of its sub genres is that it does work under some set of rules. Those rules are not in play here. Not to mention that CJA is stretching it way thin with some of these things.

I'd like to see a cyborg crossover film with the Little Tramp and Tetsuo the Iron Man now that I've read this.

Garrison Dean, King Awesome

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @Garrison Dean: Oh, but the dirty little truth about SF is that it *all* falls under the larger umbrella of Fantasy!

/beam me up!

JennaW

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @JennaW: Fair enough, but that is kind of my point. In the films above, based on what science fiction is... Which ones use speculative science and or sociology as the driving force behind their plot to examine the world and its cultures. And how many of them just have "weird stuff" happening, some of it technological, but still falling, at best, under the umbrella of Fantasy.

Garrison Dean, King Awesome

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> I hate the notion of slipstream (well-noted and, again, Yuck!) but I love this post for its ability to irk the scifi audience so I offer my own nomination: Cronenberg's Spider. Completely overlooked by most, Spider may be the last "classic" Cronenberg flick (while being completely unique in its own right) before he moved on to more traditional stories like History of Violence and Eastern Promises and his tightest, most perfect offering since Dead Ringers.

Tim Faulkner

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> What seems most stretchy to me among all of the stretchiness of this list is the notion that one can say of any Makavejev film that it's the strangest of them all. W.R. is probably the one of the most cohesive, thematically, therefore not so strange. Sweet Movie is way more strange.

Ray Gunn

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @Garrison Dean: Is Macbeth sci-fi because it has witches...

Well, no, that would make it a fantasy -- which The Tempest very unarguably is ;)

JennaW

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @Charlie Jane Anders: You know the more I look at this list, the more I gotta call BS on it. In almost every one of these films the only thing that could make it Sci-Fi is almost always merely a cheap plot device to allow the director to do what they want. The Code in Sneakers, The Brainwashing, the Magic Remote, Stress Induced fantasy world, Chemical Superdrug. I think most of these are amazing films, but in no way are they sci-fi. I think things have gotten so literal in the creative world nowadays that we forgot how far the reach of "Fiction" can be.

Is Don Quixote sci-fi because he has visions? Is Beowulf sci-fi because it has a monster? Is Macbeth sci-fi because it has witches, or Romeo and Juliet that has a super drug that simulates death.. No, they're all fiction that use fantastical creative elements to move the plot forward. they were created in a time before people rolled their eyes at any weird thing in a story that may not make perfect sense in the real world.

Garrison Dean, King Awesome

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> So, a movie featuring alienation is science fiction? I suppose that Red Desert and Fargo and Macbeth are all science fiction, as well.

This almost justifies the "Sci Fi" channel's Saturday film line up. Bring on Ghost and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!

BadUncle

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @Charlie Jane Anders: *beams* Thank you!

Okay, but what he's doing is making an SF film which is a real thing to be doing, but it's his *fantasy* life that causes things to go weird even if that blends in elements of his real life as the maker of an SF film. I don't see how that makes the movie itself SF.

And, yeah, I was just using Brazil as an example of the same plot device rather than as an example of an unsuspected SF film. Plus, any chance to reference Brazil *and* 8 1/2 in one comment is a film geek slam dunk

JennaW

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @JennaW: OMG you're back! W00t! Well, 8 1/2 is SF because he's making an SF movie and his dream world blends in with it. Plus Brazil is way way too obvious. We were trying to avoid the slam-dunk movies here, the ones everyone pretty much acknowledges as SF already.

Charlie Jane Anders

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @SeeingI: Actually, Dude Where's My Car was on the longlist. But it's so obviously SF that people would have been like, "Duh!" Plus, many people would argue it is not a great movie. Including me.

Charlie Jane Anders

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Okay, I don't want to jump on this bandwagon, but how is 8 1/2 SF and not fantasy? The same basic device powers Brazil, but at least that's set in a dystopian steampunk SF near-future making it SF in a fairly obvious way with the fantasy being inside the main character's head and not in the movie's supposed reality.

8 1/2 is set in the ostensible real world Italy while the fantasy is, again, in the main character's head. Where's the SF?

I laughed *so hard* at Babe: Pig in the City. I still feel bad that the reviewers were so brutal. It was delightful and weird in a good way.

JennaW

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> You left off "Dude, Where's My Car?".

SeeingI

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @PVIII: are you thinking of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari?" I guess it's technically a psychodrama, though some classify it as horror. There was a remake with sound in 2005 that is pretty well regarded as well.

Groovymarlin

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> I was actually IN Zelig! Now I can brag that I was in a sci-fi movie! Yay!

Honestly, I didn't think anyone but Me, my mom and Woody saw it.

Elle Menopi

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Thunbs up to Sneakers, which I think is underrated and one of the more realistic "hacker" movies around. (OTOH, considering how realistic the average hacker movie is, that's not too high a bar to clear.)

edosan

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> You're REALLLLY reaching, to the point of dislocating your shoulder, on most of these.

BRIMSTONE & TREACLE's antagonist isn't an "alien"--he's a psychopath. Period. You'd have to include SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, PSYCHO & PEEPING TOM on the list using this criteria.

SECONDS with Rock Hudson is veiled sci-fi posing as horror. So was Cronenberg's SHIVERS & RABID.

Cacafuego

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> I'd actually add Delicatessen to this list... it's showing on TMC this week, I believe, if you haven't had the canabalistic pleasure.

Rus

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Oooo! Almost forgot the slapstick contingent...
"Amazon Women on the Moon", "The Burbs", "UHF"....Sure they have sci-fi elements, but would they be considered sci-fi? (or just damn, funny...well to some people, at least)

Miranda Kali

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> The Death of a President, a couple years ago, would fit this list quite well. Done in the style of a documentary from the future about, well, the Death of a President. It's almost more like alternate history about history that hasn't happened.

David Lynch tends to tell sci-fi stories without the sci-fi. Mulholland Drive had some very SF-ish aspects with identity swapping and time loops. Inland Empire explored similar themes.

etho

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @bcapirigi: My bad. I was thinking about the one with the horse and the city. The HBO show they're making a movie of. The one with Chris Noth.

(Never gets old.)

moff

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @Seth L: Well they use technology to get inside the TV set.

Annalee Newitz

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Someone told me once that science fiction should have some science in it. Crazy, right?

Imipolex_G-Unit

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Pleasanville? That's fantasy. And rather poorly thought out too, watch for the anvils.

Yay for the Sneakers nod though.

Seth L

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Makavejev rocks.

"I like scratches. They look like rain."

aspiringexpatriate

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @moff: was it? that's crazy.

bcapirigi

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @Miranda Kali: We almost included some David Lynch movies, but ended up going for the Jim Jarmusch instead b/c people wouldn't think of him as much.

Charlie Jane Anders

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @Garrison Dean: Tristram Shandy is clearly scifi.

Annalee Newitz

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Wouldn't Mulholland Drive kinda fit in with these? Videodrome? I'm also thinking about this old german film about a psychotic guy where the sets show his skewed vision (black and white), but can't think of the name. At the end I think he's in an insane asylum...

PVIII

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> @bcapirigi: Amazing, but based on a true story, so I'm not sure it counts here.

moff

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> The Conversation is one of my favorite movies. I had never thought to classify it as science fiction, but nevertheless I think it is a movie that sci-fi fans would really enjoy. It has a fantastic soundtrack.

animagnum

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Sneakers was a pretty good movie. I liked that one.

braak

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> I haven't seen most of these films, tho from descriptions I want to see some now, so thank you.

But Ghost Dog as scifi? I generally have a very loose idea of scifi, but I don't recall anything in that film that made me think it was scifi. Perhaps there was something I missed. I thought it was overrated too, so perhaps with the proper enthusiasm for it, the argument for scifi is more clear.

Spiral

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Sting's not the Devil? I was fooled, (seriously, I thought he was supposed to be a demonic entity of some sort in that movie).

Also...A whole bunch of David Lynch stuff. Twin Peakes (Fire Walk With Me), Wild at Heart...Just about anything with him attached to it has quite an otherworldly feel. It's like watching someone's acid trip.

Miranda Kali

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> What about Tron?

Dr. Spaceman, Esq.

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Bit of a stretch on some of these, but there are a few forgotten gems in there. Sneakers was written by the guys behind Wargames and is the only real Mission Impossible movie ever made. Zelig is a clever meta-Forest Gump told through newsreals. And The Conversation is simply one of Coppola's best, hands down. Quieter and more intimate than Apocolypse Now but just as devestating.

Rus

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> CSA is awful, awful, AWFUL Alternate History, making no attempt to create a plausible history. While the issues it raises are important, the timeline it invents is completely implausible had the writers done any research.

Loserface

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> What's science-fictional about The Conversation. They had a bunch of parabolic microphones recording two people in an open area, then used the various tapes to mix out the background noise. High tech, but nothing beyond the means of people at the time the movie was made.

And Ghost Dog? Being quixotic doesn't make you SFnal. You might as well call Down in the Valley, where Ed Norton acts like a cowboy in LA, science fiction.

Why not The Hunt for Red October or the James Bond films where people really do use technology that isn't real.

SeanOHara

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> Yuck.

Tim Faulkner

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> pig in the city is amazing. pleasantville, less so.

bcapirigi

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> I don't know about some of these. There is a fine line between "Weird" and "Sci-Fi". By the rationalization here you could also include "Pulp Fiction" "Tristram Shandy" and all of the Bond films. All great, none sci fi.

Garrison Dean, King Awesome

]]> <![CDATA[15 Great Movies You Didn't Know Were Science Fiction]]> No.

Plague

]]>