....something from this list of films, compiled by Patrick Gulke, library assistant and Kate Skinner, reference librarian at Kitsap Regional Library.
Alphaville
Secret agent Lemmy Caution travels to another galaxy and finds himself in a computer-run society which is dedicated to technology and outlaws emotion.
Animal Farm
The classic political fable of the dangers of individuality to an oppressive political order.
Brazil
A daydreaming bureaucrat becomes involved with an underground superhero and a beautiful mysterious woman and becomes the tragic victim of his own romantic illusions.
Children of Men
London, 2027. Humanity has become infertile and no child has been born for 18 years. Science is at loss to explain the reason. Immigration is a crime and refugees are caged like animals. African and East European societies have collapsed and their dwindling populations are migrating toward England and other wealthy nations. Torn apart by nuclear fallout, rampant terrorism and political rebellion. In this climate of nationalistic violence, a London peace activist turned bureaucrat Theo Faron, joins forces with Julian, his revolutionary ex-wife, in order to save mankind by protecting a woman who has mysteriously became pregnant. These three set out on a desperate struggle to deliver the world's only pregnant woman to the Human Project with hope that they can discover the cure for global infertility. As they carefully navigate between the battling forces of military police and a pro-immigration insurgency this small group must endure a death-defying ordeal of urban warfare.
The City of Lost Children
This fantastically-twisted fairy tale is chock-full of curious characters and special effects. A sad and heartbroken madman, Krank, is aging prematurely because he can't dream. He kidnaps little children, hoping that eventually he will find a way to steal their sleeping thoughts. The story takes the form of a quest, as a sentimental harpooner-turned-fairground strongman, One, sets out to find his young brother on a dilapidated oil rig. He soon falls in love with the gutsy nine-year old girl (who is head of the orphan gang), and together they run a gauntlet of fantastical dangers as they join hearts and hands to save a small boy's dreams from the madman's master plan.
A Clockwork Orange
Depicts a harrowing journey through a near-future world of decaying cities, murderous adolescents and nightmarish technologies of punishment and crime.
Dr Strangelove
A satire in which the U.S. president and his military advisors struggle ineptly to avert a holocaust after a psychotic Air Force general launches a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union because he fears that the Russians are poisoning the water supply in the United States.
Gattaca
Story about an all-too-human man who dares to defy a system obsessed with genetic perfection. Vincent is an "In-Valid," who assumes the identity of a member of the genetic elite to pursue his goal of traveling into space with the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation. However, a week before his mission, a murder marks Vincent as a suspect. With a relentless investigator in pursuit and the colleague he has fallen in love with beginning to suspect his deception, Vincent's dreams steadily unravel.
The Handmaid’s Tale
Set in the near future, the handmaids of the title are women who can still bear children after the ravages of war caused wide-spread sterility. One of the handmaids, Kate, is caught trying to escape the Republic of Gilead and sent to the prison-like training center. She is sent from there to the home of the commander to bear his child, but revolutionary forces have other plans for her!
La Jetee
An unnamed man experiments with time travel, in hopes of finding a solution to the problems of his post-apocalyptic home era. Narrated almost entirely using black-and-white still photographs.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Winston Smith (Hurt) endures a squalid existence in totalitarian Oceania under the constant surveillance of Big Brother. But his life takes a horrifying turn when he begins a forbidden love affair and commits the crime of independent thought. Sent to the chillingly labeled 'Ministry of Love, ' he is placed at the mercy of O'Brien (Burton), a coolly treacherous leader determined to control his thoughts ... and crush his soul
A Scanner Darkly
Set in a future world where America has lost the war on drugs, and L.A. undercover agents change their faces along with their identities. One officer's liberal ingestion of the drug "Substance D" causes him to develop a split personality, a notorious drug dealer. Along with his superior officers, the police set up an elaborate scheme to catch his drug dealer alter-ego and tear down his operation. Filmed using an animation technique called interpolated rotoscope, with animation over filmed sequences.
Soylent Green
Charlton Heston plays a cop in this 21st century science-fiction horror story. The setting is New York, teeming with 40 million citizens, most of whom are out of work. Environmental erosion is almost complete and voluntary death is encouraged by government-sponsored clinics. For their food, the people have grown to rely almost totally on a greenish, wafer-like substance called soylent. As Heston investigates the murder of a magnate in the dictatorial Soylent Company, he comes face to face with the hideous truth about the secret ingredient of "Soylent Green."
Stalker
At the center of an outlawed region called The Zone lies a mystical room altered by unnatural forces. Armed guards are the first in a series of lethal obstructions that prevent outsiders from reaching the place where fantastic powers can fulfill man's greatest desires. Only the Stalker can lead a scientist and writer through The Zone where an obstacle course of mental and physical barriers tests the limits of their endurance. At the end they must face a room where the center of power and evil confronts them and the future of mankind.
THX – 1138
Like all other drones in the sprawling subterranean technocracy, he has a designation: THX 1138. He's the product of a number-crunching, soul-numbing society. But there's a flaw: He's human and wants out.
Time After Time
H.G. Wells, whose time-travel pursuit of Jack the Ripper delivers him to a modern-day San Francisco, discovers a society far different from the utopia he had envisioned.
The Time Machine
Desperate to alter the course of time, a visionary scientist invents a revolutionary machine that propels him 800,000 years into the future. There he discovers that humans have evolved into two groups: the hunters and the hunted. Now he must fight to save himself, and all of mankind, in a final, desperate battle.
Twelve Monkeys
An inmate from a futuristic prison is sent to the past to gather information about the virus that sent the human race to live underground.
V is for Vendetta
Set against the futuristic landscape of totalitarian Britain, the story of a young working-class woman, Evey, who is rescued from a life-and-death situation by a masked man known only as 'V.' Incomparably charismatic and ferociously skilled in the art of combat and deception, 'V' ignites a revolution when he urges his fellow citizens to rise up against tyranny and oppression. As Evey uncovers the truth about 'V's' mysterious background, she also discovers the truth about herself. She becomes his ally in his plan to bring freedom and justice to a cruel and corrupt society.
Compiled by Patrick Gulke and Kate Skinner
January 2008
