Neptune Frost, dir. Williams & Uzeyman (2021)

Neptune Frost, dir. Saul Williams & Anisia Uzeyman. Swan Films, 2021. Starring Elvis Ngabo, Cheryl Isheja, Kaya Free. 110 minutes.

Reviewed by Francesca Forrest

Neptune Frost, a mystical sci-fi musical set in Burundi and filmed in Rwanda, is the creation of codirectors Saul Williams (a songwriter and poet) and Anisia Uzeyman (a director and actor). It draws on Williams’s albums Martyr Loser King (2016) and Encrypted and Vulnerable (2019) and was financed via a 2018 Kickstarter campaign.

Greenfield, The Time Machine (2017)

James W. Greenfield, The Time Machine. 89 minutes. Starring Don McCorkindale, Michael Orenstein, Nathan Nasby, Juliet Lyons. $14.99.

Reviewed by Andy Sawyer

Apparently inspired by Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds, audio engineer/musician Greenfield’s double album takes H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine and re-interprets it as a musical project, loosely adapting the text and offering musical interpretations.

Strange Frame (2013)

Strange Frame. Directed by G.B. Hajim. Island Planet One production, 2013. Starring Tim Curry, Claudia Black, Tara Strong, George Takei. 96 minutes.

Reviewed by Brian Eisley

Strange Frame is almost certainly the world's premier animated lesbian sci-fi rock musical. For many, that one sentence will tell them all they need to know to decide if they want to see it. But this complex and visually enthralling tale resists easy categorization. Featuring an array of beloved genre performers and a groundbreaking animation style, Strange Frame presents a story of obsessive love and the seductions of fame set in a gritty posthuman future.