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Syd Mead, the visionary futurist who worked on such classic fantasy/sci-fi films as Tron, Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049, died today in Pasadena. He was 86. Roger Servick, his spouse and business partner of 40 years, told Deadline that Mead had been in failing health due to lymphoma cancer and he was undergoing treatment at City of Hope in Duarte, CA. Servick, who was by Mead’s side when he died, said his last words were: “I’m done here. They’re coming to take me back.” Mead’s art department credits include Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Aliens, Timecop, Mission: Impossible III,...

German prosecutors said Thursday they had shut down a major platform used by “elite pedophiles” for organizing the sexual abuse of children, arresting its suspected ringleader and senior members of the “pedophile community” in Germany and abroad. According to police, the arrests include “high level politicians” as well as entertainers, white-collar professionals, and high-ranking clergy members. The sting, dubbed Operation Elysium, was launched on the eve of the G20 in Hamburg, throwing the global summit into disarray after key members of at least two European delegations were held by police. The elite pedophile community, operating through a website known as...

Does watching a movie nowadays leave you with the feeling that you’ve just been preached to? Quite likely it’s because you have. The whole Hollywood industry has abandoned its primary cause of entertainment and moved into the field of social conditioning. And the agenda is not in our interests; it’s in the interests of the big corporations and the liberal elites. Consider one example: Neill Blomkamp’s 2013 blockbuster Elysium. The human race lives in two divided societies, one in the space station Elysium, where all is clean and diseases are miraculously cured, and the other on the poor, polluted planet...

Neill Blomkamp’s 2013 science-fiction film Elysium, starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster, takes place in Los Angeles, circa 2154. The wealthy have moved into an orbiting luxury satellite—the Elysium of the title—while the wretched majority of humans remain in squalor on Earth. The film works passably as an allegory for its director’s native South Africa, where racial apartheid was enforced for nearly 50 years, but it’s a rather cartoonish vision of the American future. Some critics panned the film for pushing a socialist message. Elysium’s dystopian world, however, is a near-perfect metaphor for an actually existing socialist nation just 90...

After reading some positive FR reviews I decided to give the movie a try. Yes, the movie is blatantly political. The plot revolves around a mishmash of liberal lunacy about healthcare and immigration. But the worst thing I can say is the movie stinks. Damon's acting is weak. The plot has huge holes in it. The characters are one dimensional. The big fight scene at the end looks like a bad imitation of a WWE fight. Worst of all, the futuristic scenario is not written in a way that has any logic of its own. Sure, I could believe that...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog Movie review: “Elysium” is implausible, because it’s based on a medical device manufacturer that does not employ any salespeople Elysium has too many loud, noisy action scenes, and not enough calm, quiet, reflective scenes of thoughtful contemplation. It didn’t have any lines of dialogue that I can see myself wanting to quote in the future. None of the characters were particularly interesting. And if I was a child, I couldn’t see myself wanting to buy any of the action figures that might be based on this movie.The machine that instantly cures cancer seems perfectly plausible. However,...

Matt Damon, the star of the movie "Elysium" and its director, Neill Blomkamp, have both vociferously denied that their film is political. Well, perhaps they might want to consult with Jodie Foster who also stars in this movie to get their stories in proper alignment because she expressed a very different opinion. First let us read the not very convincing denial by Blomkamp of any political motivation as reported by Fox News: "’Elysium’ doesn’t have a message,” Blomkamp told Wired Magazine, saying he found it unfortunate that critics were drawing parallels between his movie and the Occupy movement, a phenomenon...

One smart-as-a-whip sci-fi thriller does not a summer make, but "Elysium" is good enough to suggest that the cyborgs of Hollywood have not, in fact, risen up and taken over. Starring Matt Damon in extra muscles and a shaven skull, it contains enough hardware for all the Home Depots of the future, and an atmosphere of grimy oppression one can almost taste.... The year is 2154. A dusty, rusted, wasted Earth has become the despoiled home of the have-nots; the haves are in residence aboard a wagon-wheel-shaped space station named for the Elysian Fields of the ancients Greeks, the inside...

Matt Damon’s new sci-fi blockbuster 'Elysium' has received a deluge of criticism that it is pushing a socialist agenda - inspired by the Occupy movement - down moviegoers’ throats. Set in the year 2154, ‘Elysium’ imagines a world where the wealthy elite have abandoned an overcrowded Earth for a better life aboard a luxury space station. While Earth is characterized by crime-riddled and poverty-stricken slums, the super-rich live in Elysium, an exclusive gated community in space complete with a cure for all illnesses and robots that enforce strict anti-immigration laws. The extreme disparity between the haves and have nots in...

The new movie Elysium, starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster, is more loaded with liberal politics than an Organizing For America fundraising pitch. It’s more loaded with liberalism than an Ivy League gender studies department. More loaded, even, than an MSNBC roundtable discussion.   Still, it’s a pretty cool movie, featuring an intelligent, if scary, take on the future. And so it merits our attention, because even if one doesn’t agree with its liberal slant, one must realize that liberals have half, at least, of the marbles in American politics--that is, the White House, the Senate, and, of course, the...

The Hollywood Reporter calls it a “politically charged flight of speculative fiction.” Newsmax refers to it “sci-fi socialism” and “political propaganda.” Variety said its one of the “more openly socialist political agendas of any Hollywood movie in memory, beating the drum loudly not just for universal healthcare, but for open borders, unconditional amnesty and the abolition of class distinctions as well.” [snip] Blomkamp, who rose to fame with the Oscar-nominated sci-fi hit “District 9” in 2009, said his highly-anticipated film has no agenda whatsoever, and claims he isn’t a political filmmaker. “’Elysium’ doesn’t have a message,” Blomkamp told Wired Magazine,...

A few hours ago at the Arclight theater in Hollywood, director Neill Blomkamp showed off a rock-em-sock-em trailer for his new sci-fi epic Elysium, followed by an even more revealing ten-minute clip reel … but if he'd had his druthers, he'd have shown nothing at all. "I try to show as little as I can," he told reporters afterward. "The thing is, if you're a responsible, functioning filmmaker in the 21st century, you can't spend a hundred million dollars and then try to behave as though you're going to keep [the movie] wrapped under a blanket … I realize that...

The Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy shouldn't be surprised that director Neil Blokamp's "latest politically tinged sci-fi feature" falls apart during the third act. So did Blokamp's first politically tinged sci-fi feature, the overrated but promising "District 9." According to McCarthy's astute review, though, "Elysium" goes a step further into the arena of wild left-wing, Hollywood hypocrisy. Here is how McCarthy describes the world and plot of what is likely another box-office bomb from star Matt Damon: Blomkamp sets the dystopian juices flowing with images of future sprawling slums and urban ruin that one might initially take to be Mexico City...

Here’s part of the synopsis: In the year 2159, two classes of people exist: the very wealthy who live on a pristine manmade space station called Elysium, and the rest, who live on an overpopulated, ruined Earth… A hardline government official will stop at nothing to enforce anti-immigration laws and preserve the luxurious lifestyle of the citizens of Elysium. Anti-immigration politicians, environmental devastation, One Percenters… all this movie needs is a futuristic racist Tea Party congregating in a homophobic chicken restaurant and it will have addressed all the left’s current favorite targets.