A few I’ve come across over the years:
- The Dish: A true story adaptation of the Australian observatory responsible for broadcasting the 1969 moon landings across the continent. Heart warming is not the word.
- Frequency: Thanks to an unexplained eruption of the Aurora Borealis, An NYPD Officer in 1999 finds he is able to use his ham radio to communicate with a Fireman in 1969 who he quickly learns is his deceased father. After saving his fathers’ life with advice from the future, the two of them quickly learn they have changed the timeline and must hunt down a serial killer to prevent the death of his mother. A riveting and unique twist on the time travel genre starring Dennis Quaid and Jim Caviezel. Probably my favourite movie of all time.
- Pleasantville: 1998 Siblings Toby Maguire and Reese Witherspoon end up inside an old episode of the eponymous 1950’s black and white TV show. Their 1990’s social attitudes quickly introduce shades of colour into the world as the film tackles the social commentary of its day with some mind-blowing special effects as the B&W world starts to turn to colour.
- Torchwood: Children of Earth. Less a movie and more a 5-part serial, this was originally broadcast by the BBC every night at 9pm over one week. A race of aliens known as the Four-Five-Six (based on the radio frequency they communicate on) return to the earth with an offer: A cure for a pandemic yet to happen in return for 20% of the Earths’ children. When the aliens communicate globally via the mouths of every child, world governments are forced to capitulate behind the curtain in scenes that will make any parent shudder. The remnant agents of defunct British ET-watching agency Torchwood must leap back into action to save the day. Riveting watching with a heck of an ending.
Torchwood was a spinoff of Doctor Who and this series went to great lengths to show what humans must resort to when their heroes are not around to save them. I list it here as a replacement for Signs. I enjoyed the film but a race of aliens that can be dissolved by water must be a bit stupid to invade a planet full of the stuff.
