"Life imitates Art...

...far more often than Art imitates Life" wrote Oscar Wilde in 1889.  And the sci-fi pulp magazines of the 1920s and 30s were inspiration enough for Germany's top scientists in World War II. At least in design terms, sci-fi art was brought to reality.

Here is the Ruhrstahl X4 (below) and a variation, the Kramer X4 (below that), the world's first air-to-air missiles. They were wire-guided to their targets, and even though neither saw actual combat before the war ended, the technology was adopted by many other nations and is still in use today.

But the point is, when Dr Max Kramer first put pencil to paper, was he not seeing in his mind's eye the pulp fiction rocket ships of his youth ?  Sci-fi was big in pre-war Germany (as, strangely, was Western pulp fiction -- they couldn't get enough of cowboys and Indians).

Even Wernher Von Braun grew up on stories of space travel. In fact, his aim was to get to the moon, and when the first V2 rocket hit London in late 1944, he famously said, "The operational test of the V2 was completely successful. Only it landed on the wrong planet."

And just look at the lines on the V2 (above)...haven't we seen that shape before ? On a dozen sci-fi magazine covers ?  Von Braun kept the faith and helped the Americans get their space programme off the ground, and ultimately wrote his own sci-fi novel, 'First Men on the Moon'.

Of course many other sci-fi ideas were brought to life; In a 1911 novel, Hugo Gernsback, the founder of Amazing Stories magazine (the Hugo Awards for science fiction are named in his honour) accurately predicted radar and its underlying technology. It would take up till 1935 for Life to catch up. 

Arthur C. Clarke described the concept of 'geostationary satellite communications' and GPS decades before they became a reality.  And long before Google and Wikipedia were conceived, Isaac Asimov predicted that networked computers would bring libraries to individual homes and transform education.

Today's sci-fi art may inspire real life wonders of the future. And yet...contemporary sci-fi book covers seem strangely timid compared to the space faring days of yore. As if the great leaps of imagination have already been taken.  Sci-fi pulp is dead, true. And e-books are swiftly replacing the volumes we would pluck out of the bookshelf and drool over, back in the day.  The cover art doesn't seem to be so relevant anymore. I hope I am wrong...

But, damn, weren't those rocket ships funky ?

Ritchie at his Roots

 

Thank God. One of my favourite directors, Guy Ritchie, has returned to his senses and to the genre where he shines -- the London underworld drama. The heist flick is where he began, and where he introduced British low-life actors like Jason Stratham.  

After the likes of 'King Arthur' and 'Aladdin' (delicate shudder) Ritchie is back with 'The Gentlemen' and his partners in crime are an ensemble cast led by the evergreen Mathew McConaughey as an expat American drug lord.  Or weed lord, to be precise, as the film carefully makes the distinction between recreational marijuana and the hard stuff.

One pleasant surprise is scene-stealer Hugh Grant, who -- given the chance to be anything other than the romcom silly duffer -- proves his acting chops with his portrayal of the seedy (and camp) private investigator.  Michelle Dockery trades her cut glass Downton Abbey accent for street smart on-the-way-up Cockney patter, and Colin Farrell is excellent as the earnest mixed martial arts coach.

And the director, with his own mix of blue blood (posh lineage, public school) and blue collar experience (expelled at 15, mean streets livelihood) knows exactly the right balance to strike.

Ritchie returns to his roots but keeps it contemporary with manic YouTubers, rising Asian influences in the UK and the coming legalization of weed (and the profits to be accrued thereof).

Altogether an excellent romp and a worthy successor to 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels', 'Snatch' and 'RocknRolla'.