MOAR SPOILLARZ FOR THE UNWARY

no, it is not a mystery anymore and hasn’t been for ages. even the new blade runner is now evidently a replicant himself. so that mystery was solved and delivered and wrapped in a bow.

the new movie made a point to say that deckard was not just a replicant, but that his creation/programming was designed to impregnate rachel—it’s in the dialogue. so, tyrell found the secret of reproduction (gonna guess “love” is the secret) which continues to elude gut-cutting wallace or what was his name. i’ll keep calling him leto. like in dune.

the problem is that brief exposition is not sufficient to make these points clear in such an epic scenario. the movie relies too much on exposition and backstory from the outset. i’ve been saying from day 1 that it might be a little inaccessible for the uninitiated. and it is, obviously. and that’s a problem. makes for a confusing story if you weren’t already in it.

Yeah. Some of the heavy-handed soap-opera-y moments kind of make me cringe, but it’s all framed in this dreamlike style that precipices a total nightmare, so I can handle it. Hellraiser has always been my favorite of the big “iconic bad-guy” horror flicks of the ‘80s... y’know, like Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, etc. I guess I might prefer Halloween, but I’m not sure. Oh, and, like, Puppetmaster and Child’s Play and so on.

Hellraiser II: Hellbound actually holds up pretty goddamn well too. They both just have obscenely low RT and Metacritic scores (why?), but Hellraiser II was the one I preferred last time I watched them both. Shit gets weird as fuck, and the hell is actualt a fairly convincing one.

Now, after that the Hellraiser movies entered into a never-ending war to put-shitty each other. I can’t even begin to tell you how much Hellraiser III fucked me up. It was SOO BAD. With grunge music! And then Hellraiser IV took us into deep space AND the 1700s for a shit salad that was EVEN WORSE.


But those first two movies will live in forever. Good fucking shit.

Not just “evidently.” They put it right out there, front and center, no fucking about like 5 minutes in. That threw me. Ok, this one is a robot, knows it, and is cool with that. Huh. Moving on!


Oh, see, I don’t think I caught that bit. Thanks.


See, I figured the number of “uninitiated” was nearly non-existent after 30 years of it being a classic. I guess I misjudged though.

Nobody was lost during Star Wars: the Phantom Menace. Blade Runner is obviously better than every Star Wars movie, so I figured nobody would have any trouble. Shows what I know.

Oh well. Sucks to be those people who decided for some reason to not ever watch Blade Runner. Who the fuck would.... y’know what? Never mind. Whatever. Means it’s still a little bit “mine”/“ours” and a little bit not “theirs,” and I’m OK with that. Ticket sales be damned. Great fucking movie.

Stranger than Paradise

Love this to bits

well yeah star wars is definitely a much more popular movie—it’s actually a religion.

and yeah, star wars begins with a huge chunk of exposition in those fucking opening credits— but star wars is also dumb as bricks and so any 11 year old can get the idea very quickly.

i don’t give a shit/judge the quality of a movie by ticket sales (or, ultimately, awards, except as a measure of its cultural impact at the time), but big movies are a mass medium and the box office does definitely will have an impact on the potential making of sequels.

in a way im glad this is the end— because i would much rather see it fail financially than turned into some hokey piece of crowd-pleasing bullshit.

oh hell yes

have not seen it in ages but now i wanna

Same. I hadn't seen it in years and just felt in the mood. Glad to say it hasn't lost an ounce of its charm.

From what I've heard is the Hellraiser series is a series with two and a half good movies, meaning that Hellraiser III starts out fine, but somewhere in the middle or by the end it just falls apart and the series was never the same again. Did that Hellraiser movie with Heather Langenkamp (Nancy from Nightmare on Elm Street) ever get released?

Last movie I watched. This was good.

i watched hellraiser last year and i thought it was shit. or so i remember now.

because i didn’t remember it and downloaded it from amazon for the season and then i remembered i had seen it after all, and how shitty it was, and deleted it.

the whole pain dimension business was kinda cool as i recall but gets 5 minutes screentime vs. whatever hours of plodding, ridiculous business in some house where a monster/ex-lover of some chick is trying to reconstruct itself with... blood and guts or something? anyway, ugh! real estate horror.

so the 2nd one is better? and if so what’s it called?

Yeah, I've never got the whole Hellraiser thing. I don't hate it I just don't understood its classic status. The Cenobites are cool enough and the idea overall is great. I also like that it had the guts not to play for laughs - something that ruined so many horror films from the 80s for me. But apart from the scenes with Pinhead, it just seems really flat. It's a film I admire more than like.

Wait. Who said it was “the end?”

I think the plot is wide open for a potential third volume, but I expect it will take a LONG time for it to be made. Labor of love from some talented next-gen director. Though I guess there is a bit of an incentive to do it sooner rather than later, as Harrison Ford is getting up there.

Oh well. I’m satisfied. If a third movie did happen, I would be nervous all over again about the legacy being ruined. A legacy that’s now twice as big.

Hope it gets a Best Picture nod, ticket sales or no ticket sales. Sometimes big movies are just, like, actually really fucking good. Like The Godfather. Or Gladiator. Or (yea-huh!) The Dark Knight. This is one of those times, and it it would be folly not to give this film its asterisk in history by nominating it for BP.

#BR4BP

Oh man. Great movie. Such a great movie.

well a movie that’s losing money is not going to get a next installment so where do you go from here—comics?

but another installment is not necessarily a good thing. think of how fucking horrible were the sequels to the matrix.

best to leave it on a mysterious ending. revolution and all that— very easy to do cheesy (yeah, im thinking of the OWS installment of batman, indeed.)

Lots of great films get overlooked. The Best Picture Oscar usually tells us more about what the industry's thinking about at any given time than the film it's awarded to. Right now, the industry's having to deal with the Harvey Weintein stuff and given how a few critics have complained (rightly or wrongly) that BR objectifies women, that may ultimately go against it. Equally if a movie comes out that reflects Hollywood's antipathy to Trump, that might get the nod.

Instead of the announcer saying "the award for best picture goes to ...", they should say "the award for picture that makes the industry feel best about itself goes to ..."

Hahah.

I think you read more OWS into Dark Knight Rises than I do.

you must have been asleep during the scene when they literally occupy the stock market. i don’t blame you though :D

batman is not about the “real” OWS of course— batman alluded to it in its time but it’s precisely the opposite— batman is against the organized masses.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...cal-right-turn
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/sandi...b_1695599.html

i caled it the ows installment because i don’t remember what’s called what.

but anyway i was talking about cheesy revolutions. remember? so yeah i dont want a hollywoo-style replicant messiah ruining blade runner as it threatens to do. or raves at the center of the earth as the machines dig down. or a bunch of cops charging frontally at tanks (lol). ugh!

i’d much rather enjoy the intriguing suggestion of a replicant revolution than a corny depiction of one.

Ha!

Watched this again last night. It was someone else's choice as he'd never seen it before and I wasn't relishing the idea of watching this again. Honestly, both Truffaut and the film are massively overrated. To mind boggling levels at that

No, I totally remember that. It just didn’t make me think of OWS at all. I don’t think there was any intention to make it “about” OWS like, say, “Aliens” is “about” Vietnam. The similarities between OWS and the League of Shadows’ activity in The Dark Knight Rises are.... uhh... both have to do with the stock market, briefly. These scenes in TDKR are about terrorism that wears an “everyman justice” mask. But it’s a ruse, and it’s just terrorism. Authoritarianism. The fact that OWS was a gaining momentum at the time may have influenced the imagery, and the tone, but it’s hardly the “OWS Batman” movie. You’re talking about 4 minutes of a 3-hour movie.



When are you gonna learn to stop worrying and love the Nolan? ;)



Totally agree with you there.

I felt that wat about the first BR. I was nervous as hell when I learned Deckard’s identity question was going to be definitively answered. I’d much rather have a suggestion, or vague intimation, of an existential crisis than be beaten over the head with one.

The question, when it comes to stuff like this, is always more interesting than the answer. To take it back to Batman (because BAAAAHAHAH!), Heath Ledger’s Joker is infinitely more interesting than Jack Nicholson’s or anyone else’s, because the guy’s a ghost, and you imagination is the limit when it comes to his “origin story.” Guy with nothing in his pockets but knives and lint, who doesn’t even exist officially, is a MUCH more interesting and more frightening threat than a guy who falls into a vat of acid and turns into a clown for some reason blah.

BR2049 managed to not fuck up the answering of the Deckard question, thank god. Shit was still interesting and compelling. But it succeeded against all odds, and chances are a third film would not be as successful at *tastefully* depicting a robot overthrow (ever seen Terminator: Genesis? Bleh).

I absolutely ADORE Hellbound: Hellraiser II. It's just so fucking weird I love it (Phantasm is the only other movie I can think of that is as insane as this, and I love it too). I gave it 5 stars out of 5
I think Hellraiser 3 was okay but I honestly haven't watched any of the movies beyond that. Maybe I should do that some day.