Future ’38
“Future ‘38” is a fun throwback to science fiction movies from the 1930’s that mimics not only the style, but the acting and the overall tone. It never took itself too seriously and I must admit, I was really hooked from the beginning. That may or may not be because of an awesome cameo of a well-respected scientist giving a small monologue about “Future ‘38” – you’ll know who I’m talking about and you’ll just wonder how they got him to get involved. This whole film as a whole is clever.
It’s about a Man in the 1930’s who is set on a mission to 2018. A huge time jump. Now, I have to be honest… I was first convinced that this film was truly from the 1930’s because of how it is shot and because of the special cameo being rather convincing in the very beginning. I soon realized what the filmmakers had done. It’s smart, charming, and clever. The film as a whole takes a different approach to the year of 2018 and tries to envision it from the perspective of those from the 1930’s. There is familiar technology and then there is merged technology that you can’t help but smile at due to how creative it genuinely is. It uses all the cliches you can think of from the 1930 movies to add a unique voice to the film overall. I’m not going to give too much away with the plot because it’ll keep you intrigued from the very beginning.
I loved the acting. It echoes that of the 1930’s and their performances are strong. A lot of that goes hand in hand with where the camera placements are to really bring out the actors and actresses performances. There is a different acting style nowadays that feels natural. What I like about old movies is the acting felt very theatrical, which this certainly does and it really helps sell this movie as being “possibly” (because of my assumption it was) made in the 1930’s. You can tell there is passion in the acting and I would imagine a lot of research went into play to really pull the performances off.
The cinematography is really beautiful as well. The lighting for the black and white scenes really emphasizes certain characteristic traits and adds a punch to the quality of the overall film. When the films turns into color, there is a nice balance between the contrast and saturation to really make the clothing stand out as being unique (it’s not what we see nowadays; it’s more 70’s/80’s). It echoes the same colors we would see in the first colored films of the era, but with an added punch to make it look clean and nicer.
Overall I really enjoyed the film. The writing, direction, acting, and all the technical stuff felt authentic and believable to actually have been made in the 1930’s. I was impressed all the way to the end. This whole film shows the cast and crew alike have a real talent to still keep a sense of originality with added fun. There is passion for older films, but there is also passion to bring new ideas to the table. It’s clever and most importantly, smart.
