Book Progress; Movie Review: 'Time After Time'

I’ll start this post off with some of the latest on my book progress for my upcoming short story collection, "Bad Apps". I finished, with the assistance of Grammarly, a round of grammar edits on the last of my stories for the book about a week ago and so was getting ready to do an oral-read revision that weekend. I only read full stories on paper, but my printer ran out of ink. But I bought a fresh ink cartridge and so am in the oral-revision stage where I’m reading it out loud to revise for sentence structure and other grammatical problems. I’m also in the planning stages for the book’s introduction.

Pretty soon I’ll just need to get the book formatted and, after that, it should be ready to release for beta reading. If any of you are interested in beta reading "Bad Apps", email me at sarellanoroseATgmaildotcom. My post from 24 July 2022 gives more details about the beta reading. 

Besides revising stories for "Bad Apps", I've been trying to catch up on some movie viewing these last few weeks, mostly on streaming TV. One movie was a 1970s science fiction featuring as the two main characters H.G. Wells and Jack the Ripper. I have a review of it below!

Movie Review: 'Time After Time', 1979

Promotion poster for the movie, "Time After Time". Credit: Wikipedia

 

In the late 1970s, "Star Wars" was the big, ongoing craze in science fiction. Part of that craze was the movie’s inspiration on other space opera of that time, such as the original "Battlestar Galactica" TV series and Disney’s “The Black Hole”. So, "Star Wars" was the science fiction movie of that period. Or so it was treated as such. As much as I’ve been a big “Star Wars” fan since age seven, its overratedness overshadowed other great science fiction films of period. One of these was 1979's "Time After Time", directed by Nicholas Meyer (“Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”, 1986) and starring Malcolm McDowell (“A Clockwork Orange”), Mary Steenburgen (“Back to the Future Part III”), and David Warner (“Tron”). It's a time travel movie with a well-developed plot and great acting among other high qualities, but the atmosphere could have been darker for a movie involving Jack the Ripper as a main character.

The Plot

The story to "Time After Time": After murdering a London prostitute, Jack the Ripper (Warner) escapes arrest by transporting himself from the late 19th century to the late 20th century in a time machine built by a fictional H.G. Wells (McDowell). Wells feels responsible for the serial killer’s escape, and so when the time machine materialises on its own back into the 19th century, he transports himself to 1979 San Francisco to track down Jack. There he meets a young banker by the name of Amy Robbins (Steenburgen) whom he befriends, and eventually forms a romance with, as she acts as his guide to the city and the time period. The couple try to track down Jack the Ripper who goes on a misogynistic killing spree throughout the city. Soon, Wells and Robbins discover that Jack is out to kill her making it more crucial than ever to track him down in time and turn him in. 

The Movie’s Strengths

The movie overall is made really good with a clever plot and convincing acting as well as likeable characters. It contains sufficient action, plenty of suspense and romance.  The cinematography has some clever moments with long, panoramic shots of San Francisco and its coastal terrain as well as a bug's eye view of an elevator chase scene. 

The special effects are dazzling although few because of the nature of the story. The story emphasises characterization and character interaction more than anything. However, a notable special effects moment is when the time machine travels between time periods, laser-like lights run past it giving an appearance of psychedelia from the earlier part of the movie's decade. The film even has scenes that pay tribute to H.G. Wells and his work, such as one set in a museum that exhibits the 19th century science fiction writer’s work. So, there are plenty of strengths in this film.

The Movie’s Weaknesses

One of the few weaknesses in “Time After Time” is actually kind of a big one. Jack the Ripper's identity (which is a fictional one since, to this day, the historical Ripper's identity is still unknown) is revealed early on in the film. Also, for this being a film about one of the world's most notorious serial killers who’s been an influence on numerous horror movies and stories, too much of it takes place in broad daylight, especially in the San Francisco setting. 

There are only two night scenes that set the tone for a movie about a murderer. One is the London street scene at the very beginning. The other is towards the end in San Francisco’s cyclopean, Greco-Roman-style Palace of Fine Arts. These two scenes save the movie from being just mediocre and so give at least some degree of a dark mood.

"Time After Time" is an underrated science fiction film that was shadowed out due to the "Star Wars" hyperbole of its time. It's kind of a lost gem, although it has its dull points but not as far as action and suspense go. Instead, the dull points are more in the area of setting the overall tone for a movie about a historical character who has become a part of horror pop culture. Everything else about “Time After Time”, at least according to my criteria of films, is a winner. As of this writing, you can watch the movie for free at Tubi.  

I'm going to try to come out with another newsletter before we get into the Fall and Halloween seasons. Look out for updates on that at my Facebook page. If you’re not subscribed to my author’s newsletter, you can do so for free here! Be here next Wednesday for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group blog hop! Have you seen "Time After Time"? What other time travel movies or movies featuring Jack the Ripper or H.G. Wells as characters have you seen? 

Until next time . . .