Dear Watchers,Are you telling me they built a time machine … out of a bumper car? In this week’s genre-movie recommendations, we have two sci-fi movies that offer laughs with their heady concepts. And one indeed uses a certain amusement park vehicle as its mode of transport to the past. Our sci-fi expert Elisabeth Vincentelli praises that British film below, which takes a documentarylike approach to its shenanigans. Her other pick this week is a queer animated space comedy with neon-tinged cosmic visuals. Both should jazz up your streaming diet and offer a little something different. Read on for more of what Elisabeth has to say about each movie, then head here for three more of her picks. Happy Watching. ‘Time Travel Is Dangerous!’
Where to watch: Stream it on Xumo Play. This deadpan comedy from Chris Reading has a great premise: The owners of a vintage shop travel back in time to find inventory. Shot mockumentary style, this British movie follows Ruth (Ruth Syratt) and Megan (Megan Stevenson) as they stumble on a time machine that looks like a repurposed bumper car and start using it to source trinkets for their London emporium, Cha Cha Cha (the two stars’ actual shop). In the Middle Ages, for instance, it’s easy to find pewter artifacts in mint condition because they are brand-new. Our dingbats draw the attention of a local science club led by the autocratic Martin (Guy Henry), but the real problems start when all those trips through centuries wreck the time-space continuum and Megan ends up stuck in a “temporal sinkhole.” “Time Travel Is Dangerous!” made me think of a D.I.Y. version of Terry Gilliam at his surreal peak, and it is a sterling example of a particular kind of British humor about the foibles of eccentric characters. Fans of that style will delight in fun bit turns by Stephen Fry as a voice-over narrator and Jane Horrocks as a scary aviator. ‘Lesbian Space Princess’
Where to watch: Stream it on Fandor and Hoopla. Don’t be fooled by the bright colors, retro-basic animation and general childlike effervescence: This Australian animated comedy is sweet, but it isn’t for young kids. Written and directed by Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese, the film is an interstellar caper that doubles as an anthology of lesbian jokes — for example, Princess Saira (voiced by Shabana Azeez of “The Pitt”) falls so hard for the bounty hunter Kiki (Bernie Van Tiel) that she is basically ready to rent a space U-Haul after dating for a couple of weeks. This is too much too soon for Kiki, who dumps Saira and then is promptly kidnapped by “straight white maliens” (Mark Samual Bonanno, Broden Kelly and Zachary Ruane, of the comedy group Aunty Donna). Naturally, our princess goes on a quest to find Kiki, accompanied by the guitar-wielding Willow (Gemma Chua-Tran) — yes, there are songs. Zaniness ensues, with wall-to-wall nods to lesbian culture, as when Saira’s ship computer (Richard Roxburgh) asks about the sex scene in “Blue Is the Warmest Color.”
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