Friday, January 30, 2009

Full Metal Psycho

Blade Runner (1982)



Blade Runner is a american science fiction film, directed by Ridley Scott. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick. The film depicts a dystopian Los Angeles in November 2019 in which genetically manufactured beings called replicants – visually indistinguishable from adult humans – are used for dangerous and degrading work on Earth’s “off-world colonies”. Following a small replicant uprising, replicants become illegal on Earth and specialist police called “blade runners” are trained to hunt down and “retire” (kill) escaped replicants on Earth. The plot focuses on a brutal and cunning group of recently-escaped replicants hiding in Los Angeles and the semi-retired blade runner, Rick Deckard (Ford), who reluctantly agrees to take on one more assignment. Blade Runner initially polarized critics: some were displeased with the pacing, while others enjoyed its thematic complexity. The film performed poorly in North American theaters. Despite the box office failure of the film, it has since become a cult classic. Blade Runner has been hailed for its production design, depicting a “retrofitted” future. The film is credited with prefiguring important concerns of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, such as overpopulation, globalization, climate change and genetic engineering. It remains a leading example of the neo-noir genre. Blade Runner brought author Philip K. Dick to the attention of Hollywood, and several more films have since been based on his work. Ridley Scott regards Blade Runner as “probably” his most complete and personal film. In 1993, Blade Runner was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. In 2007, the American Film Institute named it the 97th greatest American film of all time in the 10th Anniversary edition of its 100 years… 100 Movies list.

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Friday, January 23, 2009

Brazil (1985)



Brazil (1985) is from director and co-screenwriter Terry Gilliam - a combination science-fiction, despairing black comedy and fantasy that combines elements of Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1964), Fahrenheit 451 (1966), George Orwell's novel 1984 (and director Michael Radford's 1984 (1984) that opened at about the same time), Kafka's The Trial, Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange (and Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971)), and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982). Throughout this superb film that satirizes modern technological society, one can glimpse numerous government propaganda signs, billboards, posters and writings that preach conformity and Big Brother wariness - all references to Orwell's 1984. [The signs are credited to co-scriptwriter Charles McKeown.] Police are represented as storm troopers (Nazi-like), and the names of two major officials have stereotypical German names: Kurtzmann and Helpmann. The influential film's enigmatic title refers to the popular Latin song from the late 1930s by Arry Barroso, often used as an escapist theme in the orchestral soundtrack (by Michael Kamen). Other titles were considered for the film: The Ministry of Torture, 1984 1/2 (homage to Fellini's 8 1/2), and How I Learned to Live with the System - So Far. The normal workers in society are docile, powerless, and obedient - to avoid calling attention to themselves and ending up eradicated (literally and figuratively) from the files in the Ministry of Information's flawed computer system.

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Wednesday, January 21, 2009

A Clockwork Orange (1971)



A Clockwork Orange is a satirical science fiction film adaptation of a 1962 novel of the same name, written by Anthony Burgess. The adaptation was produced, co-written, and directed by Stanley Kubrick. It stars Malcolm McDowell as the charismatic and psychopathic delinquent Alex DeLarge whose pleasures are classical music (especially Beethoven), rape, and ultra-violence. He is the leader of a small gang of thugs (Pete, Georgie and Dim), whom he calls his "droogs" (from the Russian word друг meaning "friend" or "buddy"). Alex narrates most of the film in "Nadsat", a fractured contemporary adolescent argot comprising Slavic (especially Russian), English, and Cockney rhyming slang. A Clockwork Orange features disturbing, violent imagery to facilitate social commentary on psychiatry, youth gangs, and other topics in a futuristic dystopian Britain. The film features a soundtrack comprising mostly classical music selections and Moog synthesizer compositions by Wendy (then Walter) Carlos. One notable exception is "Singing in the Rain," which was chosen because it was a song actor Malcolm McDowell knew all the words to. To underline the assaultive nature of the film's content, much of its camera work is deliberately in-out, with few pans or much lateral/horizontal movement. Because of the copy-cat violence that the film was blamed for, Kubrick withdrew it from circulation in Britain about a year after its release. [Shortly after the ban was instituted, a 17-year old Dutch girl was raped in 1973 in Lancashire, at the hands of men singing Singing in the Rain. And a 16-year-old boy had beaten a younger child while wearing Alex's uniform of white overalls, black bowler hat and combat boots. Both were considered 'proof', after the fact, that the film had an influential effect on violence in society.] In preparation for a new 1972 release for US audiences, Kubrick replaced about 30 seconds of footage to get an R-rating, as opposed to the X-rating that the MPAA initially assigned to it. (The replacement footage was for two scenes: the high-speed orgy scene in Alex's bedroom, and the rape scene projected at the Ludovico Medical Center.) In the spring of 2000, an uncut version of the film was re-released to British screens.

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