Richard Fleischer directed a shitload of films during his 40-year career, though one of the most popular of those was Soylent Green, a sci-fi mystery-thriller that gives us a deadly vision of the year 2022, where overpopulation, pollution and global warming have rendered the world in a near-unliveable state. Thankfully we're in the year 2018 and we're not quite close in those conditions yet, but anything is possible, right?

Anyway, Living conditions are dire, and the only source of food and energy is that provided by the Soylent Corporation. Soylent Red and Yellow are sadly no more, while Soylent Green is the new product on the block. That of course, is where Frank Thorn (Charlton Heston) comes in, an NYPD…

Me and Stevie G on a Sci Fi spree

Even though the big reveal is practically common knowledge, Soylent Green is still an interesting stroll through a remarkably well fleshed out dystopian future.

In Soylent Green the future is overcrowded and sticky. There is an oppressive heat director Fleischer manages to convey rather well. There is always a sense of being in a cramped space when we're with the protagonists, which is contrasted really well with simple pleasures that have become valuable commodities only available to the rich. The world building is one of the film's strongest assets, with the idea of the Exchange (a group of scholars tucked away like some living Wikipedia) being my favourite. The past is…

The June-ar Module

The worst film of this project so far - and I really wasn't expecting it to be.

Of course, everyone knows the ending to this film. Even though it's not exactly one of the most watched films of all time, the originality of the twist behind it, certainly for its time, has allowed it to attain a fair amount of attention for that fact. But I think the fact that it is attained very little attention for anything else here is very telling.

It's half a silly sci-fi parable and half serious futuristic mystery and never do the two feel like they come together at all. It's filled with kitschy scenes that do feel fitting for the…

It's 2022, the world is overpopulated, food is scarce and the most popular food is soylent green. Soylent Green stars Charlton Heston as a cop investigating the murder of a top level Soylent executive. Movie is proof that you can make a top notch science fiction movie without the heavy use of computer aided special effects. Movie paints a future that my favorite author, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. would appreciate.

There are lots of great scenes in this movie...the ones that stand out to me:
1. Edward G. Robinson's final scene in the movie and the final scene in his long movie career....he died 10 days after film wrapped.
2. Heston and Robinson eating a real meal for the first in…

Charlton Heston plays a police detective investigating the murder of a wealthy executive of a company that manufactures a food source for the masses who live in abject poverty. He's sort of what's left of the middle class, this wafer thin layer between the hordes of the poor and this corrupt wealthy class and there's no shortage of people who'd take his job in an instant if he pushes too hard. The scenes of poverty and social breakdown are pretty dark but kind of give you that dystopian nightmare vision that other films, such as Blade Runner did. It features Edward G Robinson in his last film as Heston's roommate who is old enough to remember better times. He almost…

Richard Fleischer's Soylent Green is one of the 70's almost forgotten science-fiction gems. It may not have had the impact of some of the other genre defining films of the early 70's, but what it did do was have one of the most quotable lines of dialogue of any science-fiction film ever.

Soylent Green starred one of old Hollywood's last acting greats. No, not Charlton Heston, a legend in his own right, but Edward G. Robinson in his final performance, and what a performance it was. A story set in 2022, that came around quickly didn't it for a film made back in 1973, this has a dystopian New York City smothering under the greenhouse effect that's left the city…