Posts Tagged ‘Frankenstein’

Short Take: Intriguing, with unsettling cautionary messages

Director: Vincenzo Natali (Cube)

Screenwriter: Vincenzo Natali (Cube), Antionette Terry Bryant, Doug Taylor (They Wait)

Cast: Adrien Brody (King King), Sarah Polley (Dawn of the Dead), Delphine Chaneac

Length: 1h 44m

Synopsis: Elsa (Polley) and Clive (Brody) are a couple who are top-notch geneticists trying to splice the correct combination of DNA strands that will create an organism that produces certain kinds of proteins that can be used to help fight any number of diseases. After enjoying much success with their latest experiments (unique male and female organisms that have the capacity to mate) they are brought down to earth with the news that their company will go bankrupt unless there is a more significant breakthrough sometime soon. Elsa convinces Clive to break the law and try experimenting with human/animal splicing in order to have the resulting organism’s proteins be more readily usable, but from the get-go things don’t go quite as planned. The new organism begins growing like a child, but the older it gets the more dangerous it becomes until eventually the two scientists are forced to fight for their lives.

Warning: This review contains information that might be considered spoiling Read the rest of this entry »

9 - Produced by Tim Burton

Director: Shane Acker (9 (2005; short))

Screenplay: Pamela Pettler

Story: Shane Acker

Cast: Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, Crispin Glover

Length: 1h 20m

Synopsis: Thanks to mankind’s technological ambitions the world is now ruled by the machines it created. Man himself has long been extinct, and all that is left of actual life can be found in a small group of mechanical dolls that are the creations of the very scientist who helped spawn the race of machines that led to man’s demise. The goal of the living dolls becomes clear: survive at any cost and keep life alive. Read the rest of this entry »