Oh Sev, you really do take things to heart when someone dislikes (not even that harshly really) something you love don't you.

Bless.

i sort of agree with some of the things gogol bordello said

the fact that it’s a sequel does hamper things. forces you to remember stuff that you shouldn’t need. could have been shown a little instead of just told (in very small letters). i know the original movie well so i didn’t need to ask myself— “who is this guy the dude is killing?” — but non-fans had to, and did not understand.

the lines that leto spouted appeared as serious bullshit but not really. he’s been described as having been modeled after a silicon valley entrepreneur— and yeah he’s like an elon musk gone bonkers.

the problem with not understanding what he’s saying, again, comes from this being a sequel, and the background not made fully clear. we know from the original that replicants were being used to conquer new words. leto here throws that back in but again it’s telling not showing. and it’s a bit too much information to just tell. could have used some of the time from the mood shots to show.

so even near the end when deckard asks where are we going and the sociopath android says “home”, took me a bit to realize they were going off world not to tyrell headquarters (or wherever their company headquarters were). from what happens here, the pools, the new model revealed etc, it would look like hq building is on earth.

as for the need for harrison ford— all that he does in the end is go to the dotter. his job is basically to inform sad eyes that he’s not the messiah. and it provides a nice nostalgic filler but it’s not really essential to the plot is it? i mean, i loved the whole part where he’s in it, enjoyed the most his line about the dog, but that’s just candy for fanboys like me. and why did he have to be the last shot of the movie? i don’t know. the whole rigamarole about him being tempted with cgi rachel is just a ploy for him to reveal the whereabouts of the baby. it’s all about the damn baby. he’s a diversion— a great one for fans, but a diversion in the end.

it’s a wonderful movie and i enjoyed it greatly but it does have its limits. rather than going into denial of other perspectives i find more interesting to see why people read things in certain ways.

Dog Star Man

One of those films where I sort of forget I'm watching a film while watching it. Saw it on a big screen so the hugeness just became even huger.

^^ i remember starting that, and quitting midway, and now i’ve forgotten it

it as from a dvd on an old tv, before i got a thx plasmaand as forever corrupted, so pretty confined

so— how was it?

This was a proper projection in a cinema club. Very clean print. It's something that either absorbs you or it doesn't. Some people did walk out, which is normal with a film like this. No reflection on them or the film; it either grabs you hard or it drives you to distraction. But if you can zone into it, it's a real epiphany film.

Gogol Bordello. Hah!

I think the best parts of the movie (as in the original), are the part where the movie is exploring the atmosphere of cyberpunk dystopian LA. As far as I'm concerned the movie did that so well that it didn't need much of a story. It seems that by tying it in to the first movie they constrained themselves. Part of what I liked about the first movie was how they left whether Deckard was a replicant or not ambiguous. Now that it's basically canon, it sort of takes something away for me.

Part of my criticism stems from my sheer technical incredulity of what's going on in the movie. What would be the point of building replicants with fully functioning sex organs? Why would the replicants being able to reproduce be the thing that causes a revolution, when the replicants apparently have to listen to what humans say? They already have human emotions, was that not enough?

Didn't realize Johannsson was removed from the project. Still some great sound design. Hans Zimmer must be a very busy man.

Ok, THIS is a legitimate complaint that I can totally understand and respect. I wasn’t old enough to go to R-rated movies when the first BR came out, so I’m not sure about this, but I *believe* the “is he or isn’t he?” element of the ending, with the Edward James Olmos overdub and the origami unicorn was part of one of the later cuts of the film (“Directors” or “Final” or somesuch), but ever since I first saw that version, that part — that lingering question — has ALWAYS been one of my favorite things about the movie. Indeed, it’s THE THING that took the movie over the top for me, from “solid, classic cult SF film” to “fucking masterpiece and one of the best movies ever.” (Well, OK, that and Rutger Hauer’s phenomenal performance as Roy Batty.)

When I first hear that “2049” was going to definitively answer that question, I was SUPER wary, and even a little bit pissed off. The original is a masterclass in cerebral storytelling from eons before the likes of “Inception” because it left reality in the hands and minds of the viewers. I was NOT ready to be happy about the answer to this question.

But I personally feel that it was handled beautifully, and it won me over. Partially because Deckard was such a smart part of the actual narrative, and that “is he/isn’t he” question was replaced by several other, larger questions aboit life and humanity and society and, y’kbow, rights.

[/quote]
Part of my criticism stems from my sheer technical incredulity of what's going on in the movie. What would be the point of building replicants with fully functioning sex organs? Why would the replicants being able to reproduce be the thing that causes a revolution, when the replicants apparently have to listen to what humans say? They already have human emotions, was that not enough?
[/quote]

***SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN BLADE RUNNER 2049 AHEAD***

...
..
.

Ok, well... No offense, but I think you may have missed something along the way. Not all replicants “obey” and even those who do (like K) have the capacity to not obey. Meaning, they have free will. Meaning, they’re just slaves. Mass-marketed slaves.

The point of the “messiah” child is that it symbolizes that (to quote Jurassic Park in that one scene everyone quotes) “life finds a way.” And if these Replicants are capable of creating life, they are evolving. So they’re not tools. They’re people. And the “messiah” child is a symbol of this that the older replicants (who, by the way, are totally not under any obligation or compunction to obey anything or anyone) want to use to ignite a revolution. Obviously all replicants, new and old, are capable of rebelling, lying to their “owners” and so on. The child is a way to wake them up from their existential sleep, and show them that they are deserving of freedom.

It’s a bit grandiose, and what we see in 2049 is — potentially — just a kind of interlude between this x-factor event (the natural birth of a replicant, by replicants) and the “Revolution” that those cave-dwelling old school Replicants who rescued K and tasked him with killing Deckard are hoping to kickstart.

But K/“Joe” obviously has free will. He made a different choice. He Kobayashi Marued the operation, and did something different.

Abyway, the Wallace character wants to create Replicants who can reproduce because he has a god complex and he wants to take over the universe. Reproducing replicants would exponentially increase his rate of productivity. He *needs* that to happen in order to meet his own personal, insane goals of playing God, and to meet his practical goals of, ah, taking over the galaxy.

Both sides want and need the key, the “messiah” child.
The biblical parable of all of this is pretty clear, but really, I think if you’re wondering why a reproducing replicant is so important, you might have missed something in the movie. Which nobody could possibly blame you for. I mean, I waited for this fucker for eons and went at my earliest possible opportunity, and even though it had my complete and undivided attention from beginning to end, it was LOOOONG.

Maybe a re-watch is in your future?


Yeah, I expect so. He seems to do everything these days. Think he was booted from Justice League in favor of Danny Elfman, which seems like a gargantuanly stupid idea. But whatever.

I was REALLY looking forward to a Johannsson score, and I was bummed when I heard he wouldn’t be involved. Big time. The “Arrival” score has been in rotation for the better part of a year now. A-fuckin’-maxing.

Still, Zimmer rarely doesn’t do an incredible job, and I loved the score and sound design as well. Might even buy it.

From what I know (which isn't much) he doesn't actually do much of a score per film. He has a fair few "underlings" who will write pieces and he'll approve of it etc. I think it's only a few songs that he actually 100% scores himself.

Think about it, it's not like he's gonna be holed up beavering away at 3-4 films a year always trying to write something new.

Most of his songs are pretty elemental and basic too. Like, the “theme” from Batman Begins/Dark Knight/Dark Knight Rises was really just two notes, played in repeated swells between sort of ambient horns and drums and the occasional segment of feedback.

Ditto for Man of Steel (eight notes that time), and I forget what he did for Interstallar and Inception and Gladiator and the other million films he’s worked on.

I do with Johan Johansson would have had the BR 2049 score. Seemed like a match made in heaven. Maybe he’ll release what he was working on for it at some point. I’m not sure if the early trailers — pre-Johannson’s departure — featured his music, but they seemed to be based on reimaginings of the original Vangelis score. That score doesn’t turn up until the very end of the movie, so I wonder if those trailers do contain snippets of what Johan was putting together for the film. Hmm.

Anyway, if he were to release a BR-centric project, or a collection of unused demos, I’d totally buy that shit.

That Arrival soundtrack is one of the best I’ve heard in recent memory.

Shaft

Enjoyable enough but of more interest now for its almost documentary-like location footage of 70s Harlem and Greenwich Village.

Nice soundtrack, too

“They got SHAFT... up to here”

Uh. Wow. I didn’t realize how aggressive the Shaft innuendo was until just now. Yikes.

Also, “SHAFT’s his name, SHAFT’s his game” doesn’t even make a tiny amount of sense. Not even as innuendo. That’s just blah! Words!

Not really personally. Like, I don’t feel hurt. I just get enraged beyond belief when people look at something that is obviously high-quality and dismiss it for stupid reasons.

I don’t think anyone’s really done that in this case though, so... no.

If I did take it personally, then I would have serious beef with Symbols for not liking Dark Knight. But I don’t.

The HQ with the pools and such was on Earth.
At the end, sociopath-android was taking Deckard off-world, where presumably he would be tortured or simply fucked with until he gave up the info Wallace needed/wanted.

But yeah, I wondered about the whole “Home” thing for a sec too.

I think they were actually going out of their way not to say “DECKARD IS A REPLICANT,” because all the references to that little revelation were pretty vague. I mean, the plot would have worked if only Rachel was a replicant, and she gave birth to a child that was half human. So, I think they were trying to avoid just totally shitting in the cereal of fans who wanted their mystery preserved.

The last movie I watched was Hellraiser. Such an awesome movie, and it holds up so well (although I laugh at the scene after the house looks to burn down/implode- if you've seen it you know what I mean).
Still gives me chills, and I love the fantasy horror stuff.

Time Bandits

I remember ordering this on dvd years ago and really looking forward to it. What should arrive but the fucking Samuel L Jackson version with a hammy Christian Bale in it. I don't think I've ever heard anyone mention that film since.

I've only seen the trailers for the remake and that was bad enough. The original isn't great but it does have a period charm. Very much a time capsule. Remaking it seems about as pointless as remaking something like Barbarella.

Bone Tomahawk followed by Brawl in Cellblock 99....now ready for Chinese rom coms.

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.