Fiorina 161 (Alien 3, 1992, dir. David Fincher)
Menu: Orange juice and palpable temptation
Cinematographer Alex Thomson keeps the camera slightly below the mess hall tables, obscuring the audience’s view from the food in the bowls and on the trays. Except for orange juice in old-fashioned glassware, the odd ashtray, and a few men chewing; this frugal setup evokes a sense of starvation. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) enters the room, and her presence is undeniable, being the only female among 22 former prisoners. For deplorable minds, Ripley is a palate cleanser to their monotonous lives and a true test of their celibate habituation and communal sensibility. And all of them, yet to know, are themselves on the menu for the titular alien.
The year is 2179. The inoperative lead foundry and former penal labour camp, once operated by Weyland-Yutani Corporation, is now a derelict, deep space deep secret. This future is bleak, but if the bovine carcass that the xenomorph** emerges from (in the Assembly Cut) is any indication of their diet, I’d say these men were eating well enough.
Rating: Space beef… good! 4/5
Absolom Island (No Escape, 1994, dir. Martin Campbell)
Menu: Porridge / turpentine beverages / and/or cannibalism
Capt. JT Robbins (Ray Liotta) has porridge for breakfast with his new tribe of 98 banded-together outdoor inmates. Their source of sustenance is cultivated from the land around them. Resource management and survival of the fittest is the name of the game on this island penitentiary. Determined to escape, Robbins and companions find themselves outnumbered by 600 more outcast prisoners who willingly give in to debauchery. Who has the upper hand in this dystopian thrill, where jungles are still jungly and criminal bungholes are still bungly?
Life depicted on Absolom is eccentric and melancholic. Theirs is an original-state-of-man sausage* fest of an existence. However, civility is achievable, and all are free to roam within the vicinity of a fish-abundant sea. Meal possibilities seem extremely good there, if anyone could be bothered to cook, that is.
Rating: 2/5
Moon 44 (Moon 44, 1990, dir. Roland Emmerich)
Menu: Fruit / mashed potatoes / "secret sauce" dish liquid if you rile the kitchenhand
Butch convicts and computer whiz-kids congregate in the mess. They’re tasked with defending a mining outpost from robotic drone attackers by reluctantly teaming up together to pilot man-operated gunships. Their multinational corporation keeps them well fed. However, the filmmakers cheaped out in the props department because a lot of silver trays are shiny clean. Plenty of clattering cutlery though, which is suggestive of good eats. Not paying attention, not to worry, the subliminal audio cues will carry you through.
ClAnK! sCrApE! cLiNkiDy! ClAnK!
Fighting over galactic resources in the year 2038 isn't so bad when you spot a familiar yellow banana, ripe orange, potato starch, and what I assumed to be tuna but could well have been tinned cat** food.
Rating: Future fruit… good! 5/5
Spiderhead (Spiderhead, 2022, dir. Joseph Kosinksi)
Menu: Nectarines / prosciutto / bean dip hors d'oeuvres / unlimited burgers* for Dave
Mixed-sex inmates prepare food in the snack room. Slivers of cured ham and a fruit bowl full of ripe nectarines sit on the kitchen island, alongside at least a dozen pointy toothpicks and a sharp paring knife. They’re relaxed and convivial in their mufti clothing. Spiderhead is atypical of other correctional unit settings. The penitentiary is state of the art and very chillax. Situated on a private island, inmates enjoy an open door policy, freely interact with one another, eat when they desire, and they can even do the sex! Food appears as luxury throughout this psychological sci-fi thriller, for emphasis, they even serve their healthy appetisers on Japanese kobachi bowls. Fancy. Yummy-looking, too.
So, what’s the rub? Experimental drugs are administered to these willing guinea-pig** prisoners through a dispensary device embedded in the body called a MobiPak. Participation in using advanced technology, and being used by it, is an idea closer to current reality than it is far-flung and far-fetched. You must watch the movie yourself to answer whether the price of admission is worth it. Keep up the hospitable, albeit conditional, work, Steve Abnesti (Chris Hemsworth).
Rating: Mealtimes at Spiderhead get a 5/5
Slayers Gaming Arena (Gamer, 2009, dir. Mark Neveldine/Brian Taylor)
Menu: Tea bags / pistachio butter with grape jelly on wholemeal bread, no crusts
A slice of bread gets slathered in green butter, followed by a tube of purple jam being generously squeezed over. Breakfast fit for a champion. There is more than meets the eye in this bombastic vision of the year 2034. Death-row prisoners compete for their freedom, playing an IRL deathmatch shooter game called Slayers. Fan favourite Kable (Gerard Butler) is the top player, whose violent accolades are shared with his young mind-controller, Simon (Logan Lerman). Nanex technology allows people to be willingly controlled like video game avatars.** Gamer’s future looks insanely addictive, sickly vibrant, and kinetic AF. Unfortunately, there are no scenes of inmate eating habits to justify giving Gamer fair verdict. @00:51:18mins, Street vendor drizzles a line of mayo over a gross looking sushi roll,* Kable is loitering near, but not chewing.
Rating: It pains me to say, Gamer gets a N/A game over
Men-Tel Corporation’s Zed-10 Fortress (Fortress, 1992, dir. Stuart Gordon)
Menu: Unknown cuisine in individual plastic serving trays / mention of it but no culo**
John (Christopher Lambert) sits with fellow inmates on a staircase. Every speaking role and background extra is miming eating, no one's grimacing, which is indicative of a savoury meal. Micro expressions (non-acting, really) inform me that the food must be legit. Possibly rice, short-grain. The scene is disproportionate to the extreme levels of coercion that Prison Director Poe (Kurtwood Smith) gets Zed-10 computer to inflict via "intesinator" behaviour control devices, mind wipe chambers, super-heated laser parameters, gun-toting cyber-clone guards, and neutron cannons that "destroy only organic matter." That being said, it is super reassuring seeing food treated as vital and not included in the underground maximum security prison’s methods of invasive torture, in wakefulness or in dream state.
Rating: Sustained inmate health garners this autocratic future a solid 3/5
Upon overview, "synthetic aminos, vitamins, and minerals" serving as the number 1 seems harsh. I love my boiled oatmeal gruel during cold weather, real talk. The next film is an honourable mention that doesn’t redefine the evaluation metric, it does take the cake* though for cruel and unusual punishment.
Unknown (Cube, 1997, dir. Vincenzo Natali)
Menu: Buttons
Joan Leaven (Nicole de Boer) asks her fellow amnesiacs, "Well, they have to feed us, don’t they?" Rennes (Wayne Robson), a resourceful man on the move, rips a button off Dr. Holloway’s (Nicky Guadagni) provided uniform and tells her to "Suck on it" because it "Keeps the saliva flowing."
There is no food in Cube.
Six people are trapped inside of a homicidal three-dimensional enigma, where exploration could result in sudden death, or provide key information for escaping. For the duration of this psychological prison break, we empathise cluelessness and dread with the puzzling cellmates. Non-spoiler factoid; all the characters are named after prisons (Leavenworth, Holloway Women’s, San Quentin State, Centre pénitentiaire de Rennes-Vezin).
Cube’s seeming lack of oversight and experimental physics compel me to bend the rules and dish out a negative score.
Rating: n³/5
Human rights violations could have a totally different meaning for people living in the future. Throughout all our science fictions however, the oral intake of sustenance remains constant. People gotta eat. A toast! Should the lowly schmucks of the future have some edible resource to chew on, I think we all will be alright.
*Dishes that have asterisk can be prepared vegan
**Speak with the chef
Fiorina 161 (Alien 3, 1992, dir. David Fincher)
Menu: Orange juice and palpable temptation
Cinematographer Alex Thomson keeps the camera slightly below the mess hall tables, obscuring the audience’s view from the food in the bowls and on the trays. Except for orange juice in old-fashioned glassware, the odd ashtray, and a few men chewing; this frugal setup evokes a sense of starvation. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) enters the room, and her presence is undeniable, being the only female among 22 former prisoners. For deplorable minds, Ripley is a palate cleanser to their monotonous lives and a true test of their celibate habituation and communal sensibility. And all of them, yet to know, are themselves on the menu for the titular alien.
The year is 2179. The inoperative lead foundry and former penal labour camp, once operated by Weyland-Yutani Corporation, is now a derelict, deep space deep secret. This future is bleak, but if the bovine carcass that the xenomorph** emerges from (in the Assembly Cut) is any indication of their diet, I’d say these men were eating well enough.
Rating: Space beef… good! 4/5
Absolom Island (No Escape, 1994, dir. Martin Campbell)
Menu: Porridge / turpentine beverages / and/or cannibalism
Capt. JT Robbins (Ray Liotta) has porridge for breakfast with his new tribe of 98 banded-together outdoor inmates. Their source of sustenance is cultivated from the land around them. Resource management and survival of the fittest is the name of the game on this island penitentiary. Determined to escape, Robbins and companions find themselves outnumbered by 600 more outcast prisoners who willingly give in to debauchery. Who has the upper hand in this dystopian thrill, where jungles are still jungly and criminal bungholes are still bungly?
Life depicted on Absolom is eccentric and melancholic. Theirs is an original-state-of-man sausage* fest of an existence. However, civility is achievable, and all are free to roam within the vicinity of a fish-abundant sea. Meal possibilities seem extremely good there, if anyone could be bothered to cook, that is.
Rating: 2/5
Moon 44 (Moon 44, 1990, dir. Roland Emmerich)
Menu: Fruit / mashed potatoes / "secret sauce" dish liquid if you rile the kitchenhand
Butch convicts and computer whiz-kids congregate in the mess. They’re tasked with defending a mining outpost from robotic drone attackers by reluctantly teaming up together to pilot man-operated gunships. Their multinational corporation keeps them well fed. However, the filmmakers cheaped out in the props department because a lot of silver trays are shiny clean. Plenty of clattering cutlery though, which is suggestive of good eats. Not paying attention, not to worry, the subliminal audio cues will carry you through.
ClAnK! sCrApE! cLiNkiDy! ClAnK!
Fighting over galactic resources in the year 2038 isn't so bad when you spot a familiar yellow banana, ripe orange, potato starch, and what I assumed to be tuna but could well have been tinned cat** food.
Rating: Future fruit… good! 5/5
Spiderhead (Spiderhead, 2022, dir. Joseph Kosinksi)
Menu: Nectarines / prosciutto / bean dip hors d'oeuvres / unlimited burgers* for Dave
Mixed-sex inmates prepare food in the snack room. Slivers of cured ham and a fruit bowl full of ripe nectarines sit on the kitchen island, alongside at least a dozen pointy toothpicks and a sharp paring knife. They’re relaxed and convivial in their mufti clothing. Spiderhead is atypical of other correctional unit settings. The penitentiary is state of the art and very chillax. Situated on a private island, inmates enjoy an open door policy, freely interact with one another, eat when they desire, and they can even do the sex! Food appears as luxury throughout this psychological sci-fi thriller, for emphasis, they even serve their healthy appetisers on Japanese kobachi bowls. Fancy. Yummy-looking, too.
So, what’s the rub? Experimental drugs are administered to these willing guinea-pig** prisoners through a dispensary device embedded in the body called a MobiPak. Participation in using advanced technology, and being used by it, is an idea closer to current reality than it is far-flung and far-fetched. You must watch the movie yourself to answer whether the price of admission is worth it. Keep up the hospitable, albeit conditional, work, Steve Abnesti (Chris Hemsworth).
Rating: Mealtimes at Spiderhead get a 5/5
Slayers Gaming Arena (Gamer, 2009, dir. Mark Neveldine/Brian Taylor)
Menu: Tea bags / pistachio butter with grape jelly on wholemeal bread, no crusts
A slice of bread gets slathered in green butter, followed by a tube of purple jam being generously squeezed over. Breakfast fit for a champion. There is more than meets the eye in this bombastic vision of the year 2034. Death-row prisoners compete for their freedom, playing an IRL deathmatch shooter game called Slayers. Fan favourite Kable (Gerard Butler) is the top player, whose violent accolades are shared with his young mind-controller, Simon (Logan Lerman). Nanex technology allows people to be willingly controlled like video game avatars.** Gamer’s future looks insanely addictive, sickly vibrant, and kinetic AF. Unfortunately, there are no scenes of inmate eating habits to justify giving Gamer fair verdict. @00:51:18mins, Street vendor drizzles a line of mayo over a gross looking sushi roll,* Kable is loitering near, but not chewing.
Rating: It pains me to say, Gamer gets a N/A game over
Men-Tel Corporation’s Zed-10 Fortress (Fortress, 1992, dir. Stuart Gordon)
Menu: Unknown cuisine in individual plastic serving trays / mention of it but no culo**
John (Christopher Lambert) sits with fellow inmates on a staircase. Every speaking role and background extra is miming eating, no one's grimacing, which is indicative of a savoury meal. Micro expressions (non-acting, really) inform me that the food must be legit. Possibly rice, short-grain. The scene is disproportionate to the extreme levels of coercion that Prison Director Poe (Kurtwood Smith) gets Zed-10 computer to inflict via "intesinator" behaviour control devices, mind wipe chambers, super-heated laser parameters, gun-toting cyber-clone guards, and neutron cannons that "destroy only organic matter." That being said, it is super reassuring seeing food treated as vital and not included in the underground maximum security prison’s methods of invasive torture, in wakefulness or in dream state.
Rating: Sustained inmate health garners this autocratic future a solid 3/5
Upon overview, "synthetic aminos, vitamins, and minerals" serving as the number 1 seems harsh. I love my boiled oatmeal gruel during cold weather, real talk. The next film is an honourable mention that doesn’t redefine the evaluation metric, it does take the cake* though for cruel and unusual punishment.
Unknown (Cube, 1997, dir. Vincenzo Natali)
Menu: Buttons
Joan Leaven (Nicole de Boer) asks her fellow amnesiacs, "Well, they have to feed us, don’t they?" Rennes (Wayne Robson), a resourceful man on the move, rips a button off Dr. Holloway’s (Nicky Guadagni) provided uniform and tells her to "Suck on it" because it "Keeps the saliva flowing."
There is no food in Cube.
Six people are trapped inside of a homicidal three-dimensional enigma, where exploration could result in sudden death, or provide key information for escaping. For the duration of this psychological prison break, we empathise cluelessness and dread with the puzzling cellmates. Non-spoiler factoid; all the characters are named after prisons (Leavenworth, Holloway Women’s, San Quentin State, Centre pénitentiaire de Rennes-Vezin).
Cube’s seeming lack of oversight and experimental physics compel me to bend the rules and dish out a negative score.
Rating: n³/5
Human rights violations could have a totally different meaning for people living in the future. Throughout all our science fictions however, the oral intake of sustenance remains constant. People gotta eat. A toast! Should the lowly schmucks of the future have some edible resource to chew on, I think we all will be alright.
*Dishes that have asterisk can be prepared vegan
**Speak with the chef