Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana are one sexy couple in The Time Traveler's Wife, the film based on Audrey Niffenegger's popular novel about the guy (Bana) whose genetic anomaly causes him to slip in and out of time. But am I the only one who gets brain cramp during time-travel movies such as this where the past is dependent upon future that is dependent upon the past? As Roger Ebert noted earlier this year of J.J. Abrams' Star Trek -- where alternative universes intersected, enabling the Old Spock and the Young to be in the same mobius-strip timespace -- these movies are more fiction than science. It didn't bother me so much in Star Trek, but when I start thinking whether it's possible for a character to be in and out of time at the same time, it takes me out of the movie. (Having said that, the Harry Potter film -- was it Azkaban? -- where Harry and Hermione warn themselves of imminent danger, had a reasonable explanation, which I can't remember.)
Still, from The Time Machine to Time Bandits, I've always been a sucker for time-travel stories (including, as I admitted sheepishly in another post, the much-maligned but preposterously entertaining The Lake House and Kate & Leopold). In time-travel films I much prefer the wormhole explanation to most others. Very much like Contact, and also a little-known film called Happy Accidents (with Marisa Tomei and Vicent D'Onofrio), and Alain Resnais' underrated Je t'aime, Je t'aime. Also Terry Gilliam's The Twelve Monkeys and the movie that inspired it, Chris Marker's La Jetee, And of course, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Terminator and Peggy Sue Got Married. Your favorites?
SOMEWHERE IN TIME with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour--one of the hokiest, but I have a strange soft spot in my heart for it. I haven't seen it in yikes(!) almost 30 years. I bet it doesn't hold up, but back then, it was the gold standard!— garyk- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Kirk and Spock board a bus, then are asked to leave, and Spock says, "What did he mean by exact change?" Or Kirk trying to swear using "20th century profanity" that he learned from such literary "giants" as Harold Robbins and Jacqueline Suzanne.— jonc
- Contact is very good. Frequency with Jim Caviezel is a sentimental favorite of mine. I like what they're doing on the TV show Lost, but they've created their own rules where the past is not necessarily dependent on the future...— mariopd
- Back to the Future.
- I suppose The Time Machine with Rod Taylor and Time After Time with David Warner and Malcolm McDowell. Currently I'm reading Patrick Hamilton's Impromptu In Moribundia, a time/space travel novel, which I recommend highly.— ccjroberts
- Perhaps one of the reasons you found "The Lakehouse" preposterously entertaining is that it was a remake of the classic Korean film "Il Mare," a huge hit in Asia. The Koreans actually have a whole genre of romantic time travel films. The connection is a magic mailbox in "Il Mare," a ham radio in "Ditto," and a bed in "The Gingko Bed." (trivia: Yunjin Kim from "Lost" starred in the "Gingko Bed" sequel.)— Reid
- I've seen "Il Mare" -- and love it. Didn't know about "The Gingko Bed." (Speaking of "Lost," JJ Abrams without time travel is like Picasso without blue.) But I repeat, am I the only one who gets taken out of the time-travel movie when the physics of time travel is over-complicated?— carrierickey
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- Nice to find a fellow "Lake House" fan. It's not art, but when I find myself watching it for the umpteenth time, I don't care. As far as Complex vs. Simple, I prefer when little or no explanation is offered: since there can be no real explanation, why bother? Accepting that premise is akin to saying, "Once upon a time..." A favorite of mine from the time travel genre is a made-for TV from 1998 called "The Love Letter." Campbell Scott, in the present day, buys an antique desk in which he finds a letter written by a Civil War-era woman. On a whim, he writes a reply - and then receives a response from her. (No explanation is offered, by the way - it just happens.) The story upon which the script was based was by Jack Finney, who is the king of time travel yarns, thanks to his wonderful novel, "Time and Again." I've always thought that would make a terrific movie, come to think of it.— wwolfe
- For a time-travel comedy where there are no explanations, you might enjoy "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension" (the fourth, firth sicth and seventh dimensions are "irrelevant") starring Peter Weller, John Lithgow and Ellen Barkin. It's tagline: "No matter where you go, there you are."— carrierickey
- Yup, Azkaban...but Harry and Hermione don't warn themselves about anything; when they go back to rescue Buckbeak and free Sirius, they have to be careful not to be seen - to prevent a tear in the time-space continuum, I guess— javafiend
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- Don't Harry and Hermione throw pebbles at themselves to warn against their enemies coming?— carrierickey
- Terminator II (or was it III?), when Ahhnold comes back as the good-guy robot to warn Linda Hamilton and her now-teenage son of the impending nuclear holocaust. In fact, isn't the premise of the whole Terminator franchise time travel?— Nancy KC
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