Far Out, Man!

Seemingly unaware that ‘sci fi’ is a phrase loathed by all self-respecting nerds who take their, er, sci fi very seriously indeed, the BFI has just launched an epic three-month celebration under the banner Sci Fi: Days of Fear and Wonder. Locally, there’s plenty of suitably mind-blowing stuff, ranging from cinema classics back on the big screen to rarely seen vintage TV, live re-scores, family events and cinema under the stars, spanning venues from the Cube and Watershed to the at-Bristol Planetarium.

The Watershed has a series of cautionary late-nighters exploring the unexpected consequences of technology, including Under the Skin, Terminator 2 and the Cronenberg version of The Fly. Reissues at the ‘shed include a brand, spanking new digital transfer of Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, plus Spielberg’s cuddly E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. E.T. also forms the centrepiece of the venue’s Family Arts Festival on Oct 25, which includes a sci fi workshop for the tykes. (If you fancy venturing further afield, it’s also being shown at Clevedon’s historic Curzon cinema on Oct 24, preceded by a ‘spooky tour’ of the fabulous old place, which now claims to be haunted.)

AfroFuturism, which straddles both Black History Month and the sci-fi season, pitches in with several screenings, including Sun Ra’s pleasingly cosmic, barking mad and highly enjoyable Space is the Place (Oct 23), which dramatises the late avant-jazzer’s claim to be from Saturn. That’s why the late Mr. Ra chose to dress like an Egyptian pharaoh, obviously.

Also at the Watershed, DJ Cheeba conjures up a new score to Ed Wood’s enduringly awful Plan Nine from Outer Space on Nov 21

Chris Marker’s 1962 time travel short La Jetee was massively influential – not least on Terry Gilliam, whose Twelve Monkeys owes what might be described as a very heavy debt to Marker’s 28 minute film. Its legacy is explored in a Watershed lecture by Dr Mark Bould, Reader in Film and Literature at the University of the West of England, on Nov 11. Two days later, you can see the film itself as part of an Encounters programme of cosmic shorts under the stars at the at-Bristol Planetarium.

Finally, the Cube has some typically left-field contributions. Robert Fuest’s wigged-out 1973 adaptation of Michael Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius novel The Final Programme (Oct 23) remains the only Moorcock book adapted for the screen. Even more fascinating is Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale’s prescient, satirical 1968 TV play The Year of the Sex Olympics (Oct 16), which was all but forgotten until it was observed that Kneale had anticipated the reality TV of Castaway, Survivor and Big Brother more than 30 years before they blighted our screens. The rarely screened film adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s Low-Flying Aircraft arrives on Nov 26, while the Hellfire Video Club teams up with 20th Century flicks on Nov 28 for a double-bill of very eightes weirdness in the form of Repo Man and Liquid Sky.

Further ahead, regular Cube visitor and film archivist Jack Stevenson arrives on Dec 4 with his latest irresistible programme, Plan 9 from Church: The Frightening World of Religious Science Fiction  – a selection of suitably alarming short films produced by religious organisations who co-opt science fiction ideas and imagery to promulgate their god-bothering.