Dune (1984)

Review: Dune (1984)

Director: David Lynch

Cast: Kyle MacLachlan, Francesca Annis, Patrick Stewart, Linda Hunt, José Ferrer,

Kyle MacLachlan
Kyle MacLachlan
Francesca Annis
Francesca Annis
Patrick Stewart
Patrick Stewart
Linda Hunt
Linda Hunt
José Ferrer
José Ferrer

Plot: In the year 10,191, the most precious substance in the universe is the spice Melange. The spice extends life. The spice expands consciousness. The spice is vital to space travel. The spice exists on only one planet in the entire universe, the vast desert planet Arrakis, also known as Dune. Its native inhabitants, the Fremen, have long held a prophecy that a man would come, a messiah who would lead them to true freedom.

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Murder, witchcraft, doppelgangers and stranded astronauts from Imprint

Murder, witchcraft, doppelgangers and stranded astronauts from Imprint

A batch of new releases from Imprint in Australia introduced me to the first feature of Gordon Hessler, a noirish mystery called Catacombs (1965), and provided an opportunity to revisit Sidney Hayers’ excellent supernatural tale Night of […]

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David Lynch&#8217;s <i>Dune</i> redux

David Lynch’s Dune redux

With a new 4K restoration of David Lynch’s Dune (1984), Arrow Films and Koch Media have given us pretty much the final word on this magnificent, yet almost fatally crippled, epic, surrounding it with hours of new and archival extras […]

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Podcasting again &#8230;

Podcasting again …

I was recently contacted by Swedish filmmaker Henrik Möller with an invitation to talk to him for his podcast Udda Ting (Other Things) about my experiences with David Lynch. That conversation is now available on-line on SoundCloud and […]

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Pulp Epics

Pulp Epics

Big budgets don’t necessarily guarantee success in genre filmmaking; in fact, the bigger the budget the more likely a genre movie will be met with derision which is often […]

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Entering Other Worlds, part 3

Entering Other Worlds, part 3

My final brief look at one-off science fiction projects by mainstream filmmakers deals with three films which conjure up alternate worlds (or universes) with differing scales of resources. Quintet (Robert Altman, 1979) Robert Altman was one of […]

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