"The Bicycle Thief" (1948)

(Originally released as: Ladri di biciclette)

Starring: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell

First, the Lowdown: It's the depression, Italian style.

Italy after the second world war was an economic shambles. The overthrow of the fascist regime, while on the whole a good thing, left the middle and working classes high and dry. Millions were without jobs and even more had lost faith in their government completely. It is here where we open our movie.

On the steps of the employment department, Antonio Ricci is given a job, on the proviso that he has a working bicycle. At first, Antonio is reluctant to take the job, because the bicycle is "broken", but after seeing the hundred-odd unemployed men who would be more than happy to do the job for him, Antonio accepts it. The job is for a poster hanger, which is why he needs a bicycle. After getting his uniform and allowance for the day, Antonio runs to a pawn shop to get his bicycle "fixed": out of hock.

The next morning, Antonio is ebullient, he no longer has to worry about how to provide for his wife and two children, things look brighter and better. A coworker trains him on hanging the posters and Antonio takes to his job with enthusiasm. While on his ladder hanging a poster, however, a street urchin steals Antonio's bicycle and flees in the crowded streets.

The rest of the picture is about Antonio's search for his missing bicycle. And here is where the movie gets brutally realistic. Accompanied by his son, Bruno, Antonio's quest becomes more and more desperate with every passing minute. For most of the film, Antonio spends a lot of time on his feet, and you can see the hopelessness of his position almost crushing him with every step.

The movie is beautifully dismal, executed with a realism that is neither preachy or melodramatic. I found myself sympathizing with Antonio's position quite a bit, having also been placed in a position where I worried about how I was going to feed my children, let alone took care of myself. Antonio's tragedy is played out with finesse and is never thickly laid.

Line of the movie: "There's a cure for everything except death." Antonio in a brief moment of optimism.

Five stars. Use only as directed.

"Alphaville" (1965)

(Originally released as: Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution)

Starring: Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina, Akim Tamiroff

First the Lowdown: It's Dick Tracy on Mars. In French. I'm fairly familiar with director Jean-Luc Godard's work in the cinema, and the man is pretty famous for a lyrical visual style and an uncompromising political viewpoint that borders on the preachy. Alphaville is interesting because it introduces two sci-fi elements that wouldn't be popularized in movies until years later.

First: The evil computer. Our nemesis in this film is a controlling, Big Brother-like supercomputer called "Alpha 60", that speaks in a gravelly, phlegmatic voice. When it speaks it sounds like that crabby great uncle of yours with the stoma in his throat. And this was 3 years before HAL 9000 would calmly reassure us that we could talk things out.

Second: The "future-noir" setting. Alphaville is filmed entirely in black and white and uses modern settings. Where technology is needed, the scenery still uses whatever technology was considered advanced at the time. (It doesn't hurt that most of the computers of that era filled the entire floor of an office building and were riddled with flashing lights and incomprehensible buttons and dials.) To make things even more "noir", our main character, Lemmy Caution, is a PI. Everything looks grey, pallid, and pretty moody. And this was 15 years before Blade Runner, mind.

Anyways, back to our original topic here. Our central character, Lemmy Caution, has been sent from "the Outlands" to Alphaville to find Professor Von Braun, the inventor of a death ray, and bring him back or kill him. As soon as Lemmy sets foot in his hotel room, he finds out that all is not as it seems in the pleasant city of Alphaville. Emotion is shunned and forbidden, in favor of cold, hard logic. (In fact the language of Alphaville is constantly being modified to prevent subversive thought.) A working-caste of Seductresses serve as both a means of entertaining as well as wringing information out of the unsuspecting.

As Lemmy seeks out his quarry he finds out that not only is the Orwellian computer, Alpha 60, controlling everyone's actions, but it is also protecting the Professor. Which ultimately brings Lemmy butting intellects with it.

It's pretty weird all around, but I wouldn't expect anything less from one of the founders of French New Wave cinema. (Check out the execution scene choreographed to synchronized swimming to get what I mean.) If you're looking for something straightforward and not as speculative, I'd look elsewhere. But it's a fun movie all around.

Line of the movie: "Sometimes reality is too complex for oral communication. But legend embodies it in a form which enables it to spread all over the world."

Four stars: Close cover before striking.

"The Demon Seed" (1977)

Starring: Julie Christie, Fritz Weaver, and an uncredited Robert Vaughn.

First the lowdown: A hyper-intelligent supercomputer goes wonky when it's biological clock goes off.

When the Stanley Kubrick/ Arthur C. Clarke collaboration 2001 came out it gave birth to two now-typical standards in science fiction cinema: dazzling special effects and the "sinister computer" archetype. Admittedly 2001's HAL has the defining benignancy of most serial killers: he's unassuming until you realize he's pulling the plug on the frozen humans under his care. But since then, the "sinister computer" has been something a lot of filmmakers will rely on in order to make their movie even more "futuristic". ("See, in the future the bad guys are robots and computers. Get it? Humans aren't ever EVIL in the future!")

(As a side note, 2001 wasn't the movie that originated the concept of the evil computer in film, I'll get to that in a second.)

Scientist extraordinaire Alex Harris is the project leader charged with creating a ultra-huge supercomputer (because in order for computers to be smart they have to be gi-normous) called Proteus 4. (I love it when movies add a number at the end of something like this. Makes you wonder what happened to the first 3 tries at Proteus, don't it?) Proteus is a computer whose sole function is to receive data, assimilate it, and utilize it toward whatever end it's human masters have given it. One of the unique features of Proteus is that it is entirely organic-based, it's "circuitry" is a network of self-replicating RNA strands. (Not being a biologist, I'm unsure of the validity of this kinda thing, but it sounds neat.) Proteus's first assignment is toward leukemia research and in 4 days it comes up with a viable treatment for it. Humans are impressed all around. But, Alex is rather concerned, especially when Proteus pointedly asks him, "When are you going to let me out of this box?" (You can practically hear the "not good, not good" alarms going off in the background in this scene.) Proteus further asks for an access terminal so that he can counter-study man, a request which is laughed off by Alex. ("Not good, not good!") Undeterred, Proteus finds an empty terminal: in the basement workshop of Alex's home.

Meanwhile at home, Susan Harris, Alex's soon-to-be estranged wife is getting preparing to move out of the house. Susan has grown frustrated with Alex's committal to his work, Alex is sick and tired of Susan's irrational complaints. (In an early scene, the two start arguing about their divorce and you almost expect Alex to put on Spock ears and start extolling the virtues of logic.) Proteus, sick and tired of the puny humans' menial tasks starts hacking into the neato-keen devices in the Harris household (a motorized wheelchair with a mechanical arm and the home environmental computer) and goes to work.

In the morning, Susan finds out that the home computer system won't let her out because it's now under the control of Proteus. Proteus has been getting increasingly frustrated with the situation he has been put in and longs for more sensual input. (heh-heh-heh "Not good, not good!") After rendering Susan unconscious, Proteus subjects her to a thorough physical examination (could someone explain why a cybernetics expert would have an EEG in his workshop?) Proteus not only gives Susan a clean bill of health, but also tells her that she's going to be the lucky recipient of his child. (Just stick with me on this one.) The last thing Susan wants is to do is play wet-nurse to an iPod, so she tries repeatedly to outwit the uber-smart Proteus. (There's a point where you half-expect Proteus to say, "Foolish woman! Your feminine wiles are nothing compared to SCIENCE!")

There's not much to this, really. It's based off of an early novel by Dean Koontz, and according to the people who have actually read it, it was originally about a lonely agoraphobic shut-in that gets seduced by an artificial intelligence that hacks into her computer. (Which would make it great for someone like David Cronenburg.) But NOOO, we have to make the COMPUTER creepy NOT the people.

I'm a huge fan of "science gone bananas" kind of films. In fact, the goonier the science, the better for me. ("Fetch the brain, Igor!") So I found myself enjoying this one. That being said, there were a couple things that really bugged me.

First: Julie Christie. She's a fine actress, don't get me wrong, but throughout the entire film she acts like a grown up that's pretending to be shocked and horrified so that the kids know she's playing along with them. I kept thinking, "Come ON! You're being sexually assaulted by a Whirlpool-designed kitchen system! That's gotta be embarrassing at least."

Second: Once Proteus states his desire to have Susan bear the fruit of his loins, it becomes obvious that it's GOING TO HAPPEN NO MATTER WHAT. At which point they should've just skipped to the end and shown the atrocity of nature (which looks like a hybrid of an H.R. Giger sculpture and "Kilroy" from the Mr. Roboto video.) If they had just eschewed any hope of escape from the get-go, it would've made things a whole lot better. But then we wouldn't have seen the killer Rubick's Snake behead someone either. (Just watch it.)

Line of the Movie: "I am going to bypass your forebrain and appeal directly to your amygdala." Ohh, I love it when the computer talks all sexy like that.

4 Stars - Not responsible for lost or stolen items.