So You’ve All Seen Blade Runner 2049, Right?

Looks like he has a hat instead of an arm. Is that what’s going on here?

Just bad perspective where the hat covers all of an outstretched arm.

for me Blade Runner 2049 and Interstellar were two films I have enjoyed most lately. there's plenty other movies I've enjoyed, but those two were like out there for me.

Saw it last night. It was great, just great. I'm not gonna say it was perfect cos i it wasn't, but some of the stuff in it blew me away.

Too bad. I was totally ready for the wacky hat-arm guy movie I was envisioning.

Yes. yes yes. Close to perfect though. Nothing bad about it, in my opinion. Never love Leto, but he was barely there, and did OK. Great film

I like you. I like ^ this guy.

You still can, I believe in you.

Still can what?

Believe that it's some wacky hat/arm thing.

Oh I do. Means I can never watch the movie, but I’m loving the way it’s playing out in my head.

Sooooo many puns in this non-existent film. ;)

so...

blade runner 2049 for me was really great. blew my mind, better than the original.

loved it except for a handful of details

the cinematography was exceptional— probably teh best thing roger deakins has ever done. visually it’s fucking glorious.

while watching, especially at the beginning, i felt that very little story was stretched out over brooding mood shots— but i actually liked it here because those reflections on water, or falling snowflakes, or rusted textures, or sparks flying sparks, or barren landscapes or whatever were so amazingly done, that i said: “okay, i accept this.” the movie could have been a lot shorter without that, but i’m glad it wasn’t.

with all that spectacle in mind it was really well worth it going to a wall-to-wall screen with recliner seats that stretched like a lounger and sound that rattled the back of your head. it was totally immersive.

having said all this, i think it was hard for people who have not seen the original to fully grasp the story— to get who deckard was or to understand the whole backstory of the tyrell corporation or to get what jared leto, what’s his name, was trying to do. a quick written intro at the beginning is not enough. it was barely enough for me having seen the original many times.

plus there were nods and allusions and quotations— they were so well done! they did not feel contrived or mercenary—that someone who didn’t see the original misses out.

plus this one really elaborates on (and twists) the plot of the original. it’s really a sequel, not a standalone. but it’s one of the rare cases when (i think so anyway) the sequel is better than the original (like the godfather, for example).

the movie of course has its limits. it’s aimed at nerdy boys and it’s sort of out of touch with the times when it comes to gender issues— it sort of pays lip service to them for a few minutes but doesn’t quite do the job and ultimately stays within the usual machismo of the genre. a wasted opportunity there, which is a pity, because with some tweaking it could have bolted ahead of the curve in this front only to add to its greatness.

eta: unless the promise is finally fulfilled in the next installment! :D

YAY! YESSSS!!!! YAAASSSS!

Agree that it was for Blade Runner fans only, but I always thought that was going to be the deal. Who would go see this without having seen the first one? Seriously. Who hasnt seen Blade Runner? Well, lots of people I guess. And somehow, not sure why, this film managed to set itself up as a some huge reboot or independent installment, making all those folks who haven’t seen the original think “Oh cool! Gosling doing dark future stuff!” And then they got bored because it’s 3 hours of ... y’know... story that is *inexorably intertwined with Blade Runner.*

I almost agree that it was better than the original (err, the Final Cut whatever blah blah), in a way that, yes Godfather II was better than Godfather. And Dark Knight was better than Batman Begins. But closer to Godfather, since the story is both new and also completely wrapped up in the original.

I’ll need to re-watch BR before I can really comment on whether or not this is one of the few examples in history of a sequel outdoing an original. Never a bad thing. (Oh, Empire Strikes Back and The Wrath of Khan are both also examples of this rare phenomenon in the SF genre).

Anyway... I’m SO GLAD you liked it.

I agree there were a few missed opportunities in terms of gender dynamics, but the villain (the “I’m the best one!” gal) kind of turned gender roles on their ear a bit. Her complete subservience to the Leto dude (Wallace?) was unsettling, but it’s her job to obey.

Robin Wright also did a nice job in her role, and the entire twist at the end took focus away from the sausage fest and placed it squarely on you-know-who in you-know-where. So that was cool.

I found myself wondering if there would be a third installment. My guess is probably not for a while. Not until the stars align again. But the stars TOTALLY aligned for this motherfucker.

The music was insanely great, even if Johan Johansson wasn’t involved. The movie felt like an ambient noise segment at a Nine Inch Nails concert at times, and definitely had a deliciously skull-vibrating and immersive feel to it.


Soooo... what do you think of my assertion that Villeneuve might be starting to do Nolan better than Nolan? I know I’m the Nolan goober around here, but I’m curious. I’ve always loved his epic and intensely personal approach to films, and the weirdness and darkness that he infuses even his most mundane work with. I think Blade Runner 2049 had a lot of Nolan-esque moments to it, especially with respect to the swell and release of tension, but I think Villeneuve MIGHT (*might*) be even better at this kind of thing than Nolan.
If Arrival was Villenueve’s Interstellar, then Blade Runner 2049 was definitely his cerebral Dark Knight/Inception bullet-to-the-brain. But he just might have a better handle on balancing artistry and crowd-pleasing action than Nolan....

Anyway, I could talk about this movie all day and night. It’s hilarious how far this series has wandered off from the PKD source material at this point, but whatever. I haven’t been this blown away by a film in theaters in for-fucking-ever.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to !@#$%! again.

Dog Day Afternoon

It feels like this has been buried a bit, under all the other great films from this era, but still brilliant.

"A-tti-Ca!"

i don’t rate nolan as high as you do so i haven’t paid attention to it as much as you have— and therefore i haven’t elucidated his personal “stamp”.

i liked nolan best with memento, which was so raw and so well done on the cheap. inception had all this money and special effects and shit but i’m not sure the whole dance of memory and loss and uncertainty in it was an improvement from the tattoos and faded polaroids of memento.

i have not seen insterstellar or dunkirk yet— i should within the year most likely. this and that happened. i am just not a fan of the batman. i loved batman when i was literally 3. it’s hard for me to keep the same interests for life. i feel these movies are too ponderous for the subject matter. not saying this to piss anyone off, just it’s how i see it— i’ve witnessed them as inevitable pop culture phenomena, but wasn’t moved by them in any important way.

anyway i didn’t know villeneuve before this either, i think, looking at his credits, so it’s doubly hard to compare them.

where it’s easy for me to compare is between this and the original movue. and it may be the money or the technology or i don’t know what but aesthetically for me this blows the older one out of the water. it’s roger deakins for sure but also maybe the director’s vision.

***SPOILERS FOLLOW***

in terms of story, the original is pretty straightforward, with just one big reveal, whereas this has multiple twists and turns and surprises—including a twist that changes the original film.

thematically also it’s more ambitious because while in the first one you knew (were told) the earth was a shithole and everybody who could would go off-world, here you actually see huge landscapes, which are presumably worse after the first story, and instead of being stuck mostly in obvious sets (crammed urban streets or the house of the dna designer, what’s his name) here you get this epic sense of a devastated planet. the LA landfill in san diego—ha! there is a whole ecological subtext here that was missing from the original. the bees, and those statues like the planet of the apes.

and the other thing is that here the levels of artificiality are stacked on top of each other—it’s not just human vs replicatn but there’s also digital “life” which we can’t tell about it— is it conscious and does it feel or is it just faking it? this one isn’t spike jonze’s “her” but just a more ambiguous sower of doubts about what’s “real” and what’s not (“i’ve felt inside you and there isn’t as much there as you think”— ha ha ha ha).

but anyway there were some embryonic ideas there that i wanted to see more of— the role of women as the future— the whole movie is about women and their wombs, really, but for all their cosmic importance they get a) very little screen time vs. the menzes, and b) we look at them only from the outside/from a distance c) sorta fill these usual stereotypes (with the exception of robin wright). re: b), even if supposedly every replicant gets to see inside the child messiah’s head— we the audience don’t get to know her the way we get to know k, who is the center of this film the way deckard was the previous one. so when he returns there’s 2 people we know and they’re both dudes. the “girlfriend”— is sweet, but might just be a mirage. the rebellion leader has 30 seconds of screen time. the replicant girl who evokes pris from the old one— is there only briefly.

and this is why i think this movie points towards a sequel— it actually implies it. the future belongs to women, as one review online states (replicant women, i should add), but we haven’t gotten to that part yet. when is it coming?

***SPOILERS END****

Saw this movie last night. Eng Translation The Lady in a Car with Glasses and a Gun and really enjoyed it. Cool French thriller. A remake of a movie I never seen. This one was pretty good.

Very good, except for that nonsense about the he Dark Knight movies not being moving or whatever. It’s like you had a little seizure there in the middle of a perfectly coherent thought. Poor thing. ;)


But yes, I agree about the women.

HOWEVER... I was impressed by just how well Ryan Gosling can hold a movie together on his own. I mean, think about it... he has NEVER be so front-and-Center in a film from beginning to end. Not even in Drive. In this, it was Gosling/K, from minute 3 to the end. He really carried the emotional weight of the entire three hour movie, and he did it surprisingly well.

It doesn’t make the stereotype women any less disappointing, but it’s interestung to see an actor really take the audience trough essentially EVERY SINGLE SCENE. Not just anyone could do that. Not just any film could do that and have it work.

Cinematography was exceptional and I think Deakins will win an Oscar.

I like the way you describe the expanded ecology of this film too. The bee scene was utterly fucking badass.

You might be right. This might be better than the original.

i was coherent enough not to insult you while explaining why i haven’t paid that much attention to nolan’s work, but i guess could start going off about the moronic mass audiences looking in overproduced blockbusters for some deeper meaning that’s just not there—or nah, i just won’t. who has the time? :p ;)


yeah i’ve been reading reviews by women and the issue with female representation is brought up often but not always negatively— one critic i read was saying that the film does not portray an idealized world but rather the world as it is (as blade runner does) and therefore it’s clearly justified in its depictions, even though they are, in themselves, bothersome.

i wasn’t suprised by gosling. he managed to carry drive with an even more inexpressive face than this one. but yeah that movie lasted 1/2 the time as this one.

but you gotta remember though— the other character here is the cinematography itself and all those moody, abstract shots. so it’s kind of a tag-team job betwee him and deakins. i don’t give 3 fucks about oscars so to me they’re irrelevant to his great work. if a bunch of hacks recognize his greatness, fine. if they don’t, the work is unmarred by it.

what i was suprised with is that i could not just endure but actually enjoy all of the ambient shots. usually i’m first to condemn what i see as such gimmicks— like in, say, various mathew barney movies. but here, with a great display of balls for an “action” movie, it works very well. maybe because it paces and punctuates the action sequences. there was some of that in the original, sure, with the vangelis music, but here it goes far beyond.

and to add— extra thanks to the director for not filling the whole 3 hours with a bunch of fuking explosions.