2020 Shelter in Place Alphabet Movie Draft - BONUS ROUNDS
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- Start date
Just a reminder, especially to those not involved in the music draft - it seems like the kingsfans.com automatic emailing when you get a message in your inbox is not working, or not working reliably. As such, please check in frequently to see when your turn is approaching! Let's keep this moving. 
With my first selection in the Shelter in Place Alphabet Movie Draft, I will make use of the letter B to select:
Blade Runner (1982):
Director: Ridley Scott
Dir. of Photography: Jordan Cronenweth
Writer(s): Hampton Fancher, David Peoples
Score: Vangelis
Cast: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah
Genre(s): Science fiction, dystopic fiction, neo-noir, proto-cyberpunk
Runtime: 1 hour, 57 minutes
IMDb Entry: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3
Utterly predictable, I know. I'm nothing if not consistent. @hrdboild got to Blade Runner before I did in the first round of the TDOS Cabin by the Lake Movie Draft from 2018. That stung. Deeply. So I took the opportunity in that draft to write about its magnificent sequel instead, contextualizing it alongside my relationship to the first film. However, I do feel the need to take advantage of the original's current availability, especially since the first four drafters were kind enough to leave it on the board. I just can't help myself, and I never seem to run out of ink when it comes to this film.
Blade Runner was directed by Ridley Scott, and stars Harrison Ford, Sean Young, and Rutger Hauer (who sadly passed away last year). The movie could be best described as futuristic film noir, but you could just as easily call it a science fiction art film. The script was written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, and was adapted (in the loosest sense of the word) from Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? But apart from a generic outline and a few shared proper nouns, the movie and the novel have little in common.
It was released in June of 1982, and was part of a landmark summer for movies that would eventually become cult classics. But Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, which was decidedly not a typical summertime movie, failed to produce at the box office.
Blade Runner is set in the year 2019 in an imagined "near-future" version of Los Angeles that has succumbed to overpopulation, pollution, and environmental collapse (the film's prescience is one among many of its striking qualities). It follows Rick Deckard, a former Blade Runner—the film's police designation for officers tasked with tracking down rogue bioengineered slave laborers, or "replicants"—as he is pressed back into service to "retire" four wanted replicants who have illegally returned to Earth from the off-world colonies on which they worked.
That may sound more complicated than it actually is. If I were to boil down what Blade Runner is about on its surface, the description would read "Down-and-out cop chases rogue androids in a futuristic city of Los Angeles." It is a modest plot in the noir style, but Blade Runner is honestly not a film that's overly concerned with plot. It is a film of texture, tone, and atmosphere. It's as close to a visual poem as you're likely to find on screen, a film that absolutely delights in its own sumptuousness. It is also quite philosophical and existential, probing at important thematic questions about what it means to be human, questions that were certainly central to Philip K. Dick's work, as reflected in novels like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Despite the yawning chasm of difference between them, Blade Runner does manage to preserve the soul of the novel on which it was based.
Blade Runner is a film of towering influence. Even if you have not seen Blade Runner, it is likely that you have come in contact with more than one cultural artifact that was in some way been shaped by Blade Runner. The film's score is certainly notable for its impact on electronic music. It was composed and performed by Vangelis, and it is one of the artform’s most deeply influential scores for its innovative use of the CS-80 synthesizer in crafting a futurist tableau for Ridley Scott's striking images:
It's such an important piece of music. Countless electronic musicians have mined Blade Runner for inspiration. Among my favorites who cite Vangelis' score as an influence, I would recommend the likes of Kuedo, Ital Tek, Burial, Lorn, and 2814. Much of the film's atmosphere can certainly be credited to its score and sound design, but perhaps even more important were its gritty art direction and neon-streaked production design, which has since influenced everything from architecture to photography to fashion to Japanese animation.
Blade Runner is also notorious for its behind-the-scenes troubles. Computer-generated effects were well on their way to mainstream adoption in 1982, and that summer’s Tron was among the first films to make a heavy investment in CGI. But Blade Runner, by contrast, was among the last great films to rely exclusively on analog, practical, in-camera special effects, and it was expensive and painstaking to develop. Harrison Ford famously characterized the filming of Blade Runner as "a b*tch." Ridley Scott was very demanding and the movie was rather difficult to shoot, due in part to a strict night-time shooting schedule and the perpetual need for simulated rain. The film also went over budget and was cut and re-cut numerous times as a result of studio intervention.
The definitive version of Blade Runner, which was released in 2007 and supervised by Ridley Scott (referred to as the "Final Cut"), excised the clunky and unnecessary voiceover narration from Harrison Ford that the studio had mandated for the 1982 theatrical release, and also removed a final scene that was forced on Scott by the studio, while restoring a separate scene that the studio had forced Scott to remove. The troubled nature of the production and the accompanying studio interference are as much a part of Blade Runner's legend as the film itself. There is much to glean from watching the various iterations of Blade Runner that exist, but if you are new to the film, I would recommend beginning with the "Final Cut," which is the version that is now most widely available.
Upon its release, however, Blade Runner was ignored by audiences and panned by critics. It was a commercial failure. Viewers had grown accustomed to seeing Harrison Ford in considerably more crowd-pleasing roles and were largely put off by Rick Deckard, a character who is not particularly heroic nor particularly charming in the way that so many of Ford's most iconic roles are. Blade Runner represents an outlier of sorts in Ford's filmography, and moviegoers expecting a new Ford-led adventure film were simply not primed in 1982 for a slow-burning, thoughtful, hypnotic, philosophical piece of science fiction. I'd contend that Blade Runner and its sequel are the most challenging films in Ford's entire oeuvre.
Blade Runner may not have resonated with viewers when it first hit the big screen, it may not have impressed critics initially, and it may not have won any major awards or received any noteworthy plaudits upon release, but its estimation has grown exponentially over time, as both critics and audiences have returned to it and allowed themselves to be seduced by its strange, beguiling beauty. It is not a film for everybody, but those who find their way onto Blade Runner's wavelength are often changed forever. I am one such viewer.
In my write-up on Blade Runner 2049 from KF.com's 2018 TDOS Desert Island Movie Draft, I wrote extensively about my personal relationship to the first film in the context of its sequel. I'll reprint a slightly-revised version of some of those remarks here for posterity, as it remains a favorite story of mine to tell:
Blade Runner is a singular work by a director at the top of his game, a stunning achievement of art direction and production design, an enduring investigation into our own humanity, and my favorite film of all time.
R.I.P. Rutger Hauer. 1944-2019. He passed in the year of Blade Runner's future. Like tears in rain...
Blade Runner (1982):
Director: Ridley Scott
Dir. of Photography: Jordan Cronenweth
Writer(s): Hampton Fancher, David Peoples
Score: Vangelis
Cast: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah
Genre(s): Science fiction, dystopic fiction, neo-noir, proto-cyberpunk
Runtime: 1 hour, 57 minutes
IMDb Entry: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3
Utterly predictable, I know. I'm nothing if not consistent. @hrdboild got to Blade Runner before I did in the first round of the TDOS Cabin by the Lake Movie Draft from 2018. That stung. Deeply. So I took the opportunity in that draft to write about its magnificent sequel instead, contextualizing it alongside my relationship to the first film. However, I do feel the need to take advantage of the original's current availability, especially since the first four drafters were kind enough to leave it on the board. I just can't help myself, and I never seem to run out of ink when it comes to this film.
Blade Runner was directed by Ridley Scott, and stars Harrison Ford, Sean Young, and Rutger Hauer (who sadly passed away last year). The movie could be best described as futuristic film noir, but you could just as easily call it a science fiction art film. The script was written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, and was adapted (in the loosest sense of the word) from Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? But apart from a generic outline and a few shared proper nouns, the movie and the novel have little in common.
It was released in June of 1982, and was part of a landmark summer for movies that would eventually become cult classics. But Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, which was decidedly not a typical summertime movie, failed to produce at the box office.
Blade Runner is set in the year 2019 in an imagined "near-future" version of Los Angeles that has succumbed to overpopulation, pollution, and environmental collapse (the film's prescience is one among many of its striking qualities). It follows Rick Deckard, a former Blade Runner—the film's police designation for officers tasked with tracking down rogue bioengineered slave laborers, or "replicants"—as he is pressed back into service to "retire" four wanted replicants who have illegally returned to Earth from the off-world colonies on which they worked.
That may sound more complicated than it actually is. If I were to boil down what Blade Runner is about on its surface, the description would read "Down-and-out cop chases rogue androids in a futuristic city of Los Angeles." It is a modest plot in the noir style, but Blade Runner is honestly not a film that's overly concerned with plot. It is a film of texture, tone, and atmosphere. It's as close to a visual poem as you're likely to find on screen, a film that absolutely delights in its own sumptuousness. It is also quite philosophical and existential, probing at important thematic questions about what it means to be human, questions that were certainly central to Philip K. Dick's work, as reflected in novels like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Despite the yawning chasm of difference between them, Blade Runner does manage to preserve the soul of the novel on which it was based.
Blade Runner is a film of towering influence. Even if you have not seen Blade Runner, it is likely that you have come in contact with more than one cultural artifact that was in some way been shaped by Blade Runner. The film's score is certainly notable for its impact on electronic music. It was composed and performed by Vangelis, and it is one of the artform’s most deeply influential scores for its innovative use of the CS-80 synthesizer in crafting a futurist tableau for Ridley Scott's striking images:
It's such an important piece of music. Countless electronic musicians have mined Blade Runner for inspiration. Among my favorites who cite Vangelis' score as an influence, I would recommend the likes of Kuedo, Ital Tek, Burial, Lorn, and 2814. Much of the film's atmosphere can certainly be credited to its score and sound design, but perhaps even more important were its gritty art direction and neon-streaked production design, which has since influenced everything from architecture to photography to fashion to Japanese animation.
Blade Runner is also notorious for its behind-the-scenes troubles. Computer-generated effects were well on their way to mainstream adoption in 1982, and that summer’s Tron was among the first films to make a heavy investment in CGI. But Blade Runner, by contrast, was among the last great films to rely exclusively on analog, practical, in-camera special effects, and it was expensive and painstaking to develop. Harrison Ford famously characterized the filming of Blade Runner as "a b*tch." Ridley Scott was very demanding and the movie was rather difficult to shoot, due in part to a strict night-time shooting schedule and the perpetual need for simulated rain. The film also went over budget and was cut and re-cut numerous times as a result of studio intervention.
The definitive version of Blade Runner, which was released in 2007 and supervised by Ridley Scott (referred to as the "Final Cut"), excised the clunky and unnecessary voiceover narration from Harrison Ford that the studio had mandated for the 1982 theatrical release, and also removed a final scene that was forced on Scott by the studio, while restoring a separate scene that the studio had forced Scott to remove. The troubled nature of the production and the accompanying studio interference are as much a part of Blade Runner's legend as the film itself. There is much to glean from watching the various iterations of Blade Runner that exist, but if you are new to the film, I would recommend beginning with the "Final Cut," which is the version that is now most widely available.
Upon its release, however, Blade Runner was ignored by audiences and panned by critics. It was a commercial failure. Viewers had grown accustomed to seeing Harrison Ford in considerably more crowd-pleasing roles and were largely put off by Rick Deckard, a character who is not particularly heroic nor particularly charming in the way that so many of Ford's most iconic roles are. Blade Runner represents an outlier of sorts in Ford's filmography, and moviegoers expecting a new Ford-led adventure film were simply not primed in 1982 for a slow-burning, thoughtful, hypnotic, philosophical piece of science fiction. I'd contend that Blade Runner and its sequel are the most challenging films in Ford's entire oeuvre.
Blade Runner may not have resonated with viewers when it first hit the big screen, it may not have impressed critics initially, and it may not have won any major awards or received any noteworthy plaudits upon release, but its estimation has grown exponentially over time, as both critics and audiences have returned to it and allowed themselves to be seduced by its strange, beguiling beauty. It is not a film for everybody, but those who find their way onto Blade Runner's wavelength are often changed forever. I am one such viewer.
In my write-up on Blade Runner 2049 from KF.com's 2018 TDOS Desert Island Movie Draft, I wrote extensively about my personal relationship to the first film in the context of its sequel. I'll reprint a slightly-revised version of some of those remarks here for posterity, as it remains a favorite story of mine to tell:
Blade Runner is a singular work by a director at the top of his game, a stunning achievement of art direction and production design, an enduring investigation into our own humanity, and my favorite film of all time.
R.I.P. Rutger Hauer. 1944-2019. He passed in the year of Blade Runner's future. Like tears in rain...
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With my first selection in the Shelter in Place Alphabet Movie Draft, I will make use of the letter B to select:
Blade Runner (1982):
Director: Ridley Scott
Dir. of Photography: Jordan Cronenweth
Writer(s): Hampton Fancher, David Peoples
Score: Vangelis
Cast: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah
Genre(s): Science fiction, dystopic fiction, neo-noir, proto-cyberpunk
Runtime: 1 hour, 57 minutes
IMDb Entry: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3
Utterly predictable, I know. I'm nothing if not consistent. @hrdboild got to Blade Runner before I did in the first round of the TDOS Cabin by the Lake Movie Draft from 2018. That stung. Deeply. So I took the opportunity in that draft to write about its magnificent sequel instead, contextualizing it alongside my relationship to the first film. However, I do feel the need to take advantage of the original's current availability, especially since the first four drafters were kind enough to leave it on the board. I just can't help myself, and I never seem to run out of ink when it comes to this film.
Blade Runner was directed by Ridley Scott, and stars Harrison Ford, Sean Young, and Rutger Hauer (who sadly passed away last year). The movie could be best described as futuristic film noir, but you could just as easily call it a science fiction art film. The script was written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, and was adapted (in the loosest sense of the word) from Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? But apart from a generic outline and a few shared proper nouns, the movie and the novel have little in common.
It was released in June of 1982, and was part of a landmark summer for movies that would eventually become cult classics. But Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, which was decidedly not a typical summertime movie, failed to produce at the box office.
Blade Runner is set in the year 2019 in an imagined "near-future" version of Los Angeles that has succumbed to overpopulation, pollution, and environmental collapse (the film's prescience is one among many of its striking qualities). It follows Rick Deckard, a former Blade Runner—the film's police designation for officers tasked with tracking down rogue bioengineered slave laborers, or "replicants"—as he is pressed back into service to "retire" four wanted replicants who have illegally returned to Earth from the off-world colonies on which they worked.
That may sound more complicated than it actually is. If I were to boil down what Blade Runner is about on its surface, the description would read "Down-and-out cop chases rogue androids in a futuristic city of Los Angeles." It is a modest plot in the noir style, but Blade Runner is honestly not a film that's overly concerned with plot. It is a film of texture, tone, and atmosphere. It's as close to a visual poem as you're likely to find on screen, a film that absolutely delights in its own sumptuousness. It is also quite philosophical and existential, probing at important thematic questions about what it means to be human, questions that were certainly central to Philip K. Dick's work, as reflected in novels like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Despite the yawning chasm of difference between them, Blade Runner does manage to preserve the soul of the novel on which it was based.
Blade Runner is a film of towering influence. Even if you have not seen Blade Runner, it is likely that you have come in contact with more than one cultural artifact that was in some way been shaped by Blade Runner. The film's score is certainly notable for its impact on electronic music. It was composed and performed by Vangelis, and it is one of the artform’s most deeply influential scores for its innovative use of the CS-80 synthesizer in crafting a futurist tableau for Ridley Scott's striking images:
It's such an important piece of music. Countless electronic musicians have mined Blade Runner for inspiration. Among my favorites who cite Vangelis' score as an influence, I would recommend the likes of Kuedo, Ital Tek, Burial, Lorn, and 2814. Much of the film's atmosphere can certainly be credited to its score and sound design, but perhaps even more important were its gritty art direction and neon-streaked production design, which has since influenced everything from architecture to photography to fashion to Japanese animation.
Blade Runner is also notorious for its behind-the-scenes troubles. Computer-generated effects were well on their way to mainstream adoption in 1982, and that summer’s Tron was among the first films to make a heavy investment in CGI. But Blade Runner, by contrast, was among the last great films to rely exclusively on analog, practical, in-camera special effects, and it was expensive and painstaking to develop. Harrison Ford famously characterized the filming of Blade Runner as "a b*tch." Ridley Scott was very demanding and the movie was rather difficult to shoot, due in part to a strict night-time shooting schedule and the perpetual need for simulated rain. The film also went over budget and was cut and re-cut numerous times as a result of studio intervention.
The definitive version of Blade Runner, which was released in 2007 and supervised by Ridley Scott (referred to as the "Final Cut"), excised the clunky and unnecessary voiceover narration from Harrison Ford that the studio had mandated for the 1982 theatrical release, and also removed a final scene that was forced on Scott by the studio, while restoring a separate scene that the studio had forced Scott to remove. The troubled nature of the production and the accompanying studio interference are as much a part of Blade Runner's legend as the film itself. There is much to glean from watching the various iterations of Blade Runner that exist, but if you are new to the film, I would recommend beginning with the "Final Cut," which is the version that is now most widely available.
Upon its release, however, Blade Runner was ignored by audiences and panned by critics. It was a commercial failure. Viewers had grown accustomed to seeing Harrison Ford in considerably more crowd-pleasing roles and were largely put off by Rick Deckard, a character who is not particularly heroic nor particularly charming in the way that so many of Ford's most iconic roles are. Blade Runner represents an outlier of sorts in Ford's filmography, and moviegoers expecting a new Ford-led adventure film were simply not primed in 1982 for a slow-burning, thoughtful, hypnotic, philosophical piece of science fiction. I'd contend that Blade Runner and its sequel are the most challenging films in Ford's entire oeuvre.
Blade Runner may not have resonated with viewers when it first hit the big screen, it may not have impressed critics initially, and it may not have won any major awards or received any noteworthy plaudits upon release, but its estimation has grown exponentially over time, as both critics and audiences have returned to it and allowed themselves to be seduced by its strange, beguiling beauty. It is not a film for everybody, but those who find their way onto Blade Runner's wavelength are often changed forever. I am one such viewer.
In my write-up on Blade Runner 2049 from KF.com's 2018 TDOS Desert Island Movie Draft, I wrote extensively about my personal relationship to the first film in the context of its sequel. I'll reprint a slightly-revised version of some of those remarks here for posterity, as it remains a favorite story of mine to tell:
Blade Runner is a singular work by a director at the top of his game, a stunning achievement of art direction and production design, an enduring investigation into our own humanity, and my favorite film of all time.
R.I.P. Rutger Hauer. 1944-2019. He passed in the year of Blade Runner's future. Like tears in rain...
Blade Runner (1982):
Director: Ridley Scott
Dir. of Photography: Jordan Cronenweth
Writer(s): Hampton Fancher, David Peoples
Score: Vangelis
Cast: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah
Genre(s): Science fiction, dystopic fiction, neo-noir, proto-cyberpunk
Runtime: 1 hour, 57 minutes
IMDb Entry: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3
Utterly predictable, I know. I'm nothing if not consistent. @hrdboild got to Blade Runner before I did in the first round of the TDOS Cabin by the Lake Movie Draft from 2018. That stung. Deeply. So I took the opportunity in that draft to write about its magnificent sequel instead, contextualizing it alongside my relationship to the first film. However, I do feel the need to take advantage of the original's current availability, especially since the first four drafters were kind enough to leave it on the board. I just can't help myself, and I never seem to run out of ink when it comes to this film.
Blade Runner was directed by Ridley Scott, and stars Harrison Ford, Sean Young, and Rutger Hauer (who sadly passed away last year). The movie could be best described as futuristic film noir, but you could just as easily call it a science fiction art film. The script was written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, and was adapted (in the loosest sense of the word) from Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? But apart from a generic outline and a few shared proper nouns, the movie and the novel have little in common.
It was released in June of 1982, and was part of a landmark summer for movies that would eventually become cult classics. But Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, which was decidedly not a typical summertime movie, failed to produce at the box office.
Blade Runner is set in the year 2019 in an imagined "near-future" version of Los Angeles that has succumbed to overpopulation, pollution, and environmental collapse (the film's prescience is one among many of its striking qualities). It follows Rick Deckard, a former Blade Runner—the film's police designation for officers tasked with tracking down rogue bioengineered slave laborers, or "replicants"—as he is pressed back into service to "retire" four wanted replicants who have illegally returned to Earth from the off-world colonies on which they worked.
That may sound more complicated than it actually is. If I were to boil down what Blade Runner is about on its surface, the description would read "Down-and-out cop chases rogue androids in a futuristic city of Los Angeles." It is a modest plot in the noir style, but Blade Runner is honestly not a film that's overly concerned with plot. It is a film of texture, tone, and atmosphere. It's as close to a visual poem as you're likely to find on screen, a film that absolutely delights in its own sumptuousness. It is also quite philosophical and existential, probing at important thematic questions about what it means to be human, questions that were certainly central to Philip K. Dick's work, as reflected in novels like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Despite the yawning chasm of difference between them, Blade Runner does manage to preserve the soul of the novel on which it was based.
Blade Runner is a film of towering influence. Even if you have not seen Blade Runner, it is likely that you have come in contact with more than one cultural artifact that was in some way been shaped by Blade Runner. The film's score is certainly notable for its impact on electronic music. It was composed and performed by Vangelis, and it is one of the artform’s most deeply influential scores for its innovative use of the CS-80 synthesizer in crafting a futurist tableau for Ridley Scott's striking images:
It's such an important piece of music. Countless electronic musicians have mined Blade Runner for inspiration. Among my favorites who cite Vangelis' score as an influence, I would recommend the likes of Kuedo, Ital Tek, Burial, Lorn, and 2814. Much of the film's atmosphere can certainly be credited to its score and sound design, but perhaps even more important were its gritty art direction and neon-streaked production design, which has since influenced everything from architecture to photography to fashion to Japanese animation.
Blade Runner is also notorious for its behind-the-scenes troubles. Computer-generated effects were well on their way to mainstream adoption in 1982, and that summer’s Tron was among the first films to make a heavy investment in CGI. But Blade Runner, by contrast, was among the last great films to rely exclusively on analog, practical, in-camera special effects, and it was expensive and painstaking to develop. Harrison Ford famously characterized the filming of Blade Runner as "a b*tch." Ridley Scott was very demanding and the movie was rather difficult to shoot, due in part to a strict night-time shooting schedule and the perpetual need for simulated rain. The film also went over budget and was cut and re-cut numerous times as a result of studio intervention.
The definitive version of Blade Runner, which was released in 2007 and supervised by Ridley Scott (referred to as the "Final Cut"), excised the clunky and unnecessary voiceover narration from Harrison Ford that the studio had mandated for the 1982 theatrical release, and also removed a final scene that was forced on Scott by the studio, while restoring a separate scene that the studio had forced Scott to remove. The troubled nature of the production and the accompanying studio interference are as much a part of Blade Runner's legend as the film itself. There is much to glean from watching the various iterations of Blade Runner that exist, but if you are new to the film, I would recommend beginning with the "Final Cut," which is the version that is now most widely available.
Upon its release, however, Blade Runner was ignored by audiences and panned by critics. It was a commercial failure. Viewers had grown accustomed to seeing Harrison Ford in considerably more crowd-pleasing roles and were largely put off by Rick Deckard, a character who is not particularly heroic nor particularly charming in the way that so many of Ford's most iconic roles are. Blade Runner represents an outlier of sorts in Ford's filmography, and moviegoers expecting a new Ford-led adventure film were simply not primed in 1982 for a slow-burning, thoughtful, hypnotic, philosophical piece of science fiction. I'd contend that Blade Runner and its sequel are the most challenging films in Ford's entire oeuvre.
Blade Runner may not have resonated with viewers when it first hit the big screen, it may not have impressed critics initially, and it may not have won any major awards or received any noteworthy plaudits upon release, but its estimation has grown exponentially over time, as both critics and audiences have returned to it and allowed themselves to be seduced by its strange, beguiling beauty. It is not a film for everybody, but those who find their way onto Blade Runner's wavelength are often changed forever. I am one such viewer.
In my write-up on Blade Runner 2049 from KF.com's 2018 TDOS Desert Island Movie Draft, I wrote extensively about my personal relationship to the first film in the context of its sequel. I'll reprint a slightly-revised version of some of those remarks here for posterity, as it remains a favorite story of mine to tell:
Blade Runner is a singular work by a director at the top of his game, a stunning achievement of art direction and production design, an enduring investigation into our own humanity, and my favorite film of all time.
R.I.P. Rutger Hauer. 1944-2019. He passed in the year of Blade Runner's future. Like tears in rain...
The only thing "utterly predictable" was that you would give this magnificent film the magnificent write-up it deserves.
Indiana: Marion, don't look at it. Shut your eyes, Marion. Don't look at it, no matter what happens!
Starting with the letter "R", and following two great Harrison Ford movies with yet another:
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082971/
A fantastic action/adventure yarn by that George Lucas guy and that Steven Spielberg guy combined with possibly one of Ford's best performances. I love this flick. It also features a great score by none other than John Williams. I don't think I need to dig too deep into it for meaning or validation. It's just a heck of a movie and a boatload of fun.
From wikipedia:
Sallah: Indy, why does the floor move?
Indiana: Give me your torch.
[Indy takes the torch and drops it in, revealing hundreds of snakes all over floor of the Well of Souls]
Indiana: Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?
Sallah: Asps... very dangerous. You go first.
Major Eaton: Now what does this Ark look like?
Indiana: Uh... there's a picture of it right here.
[opens a book on the table]
Indiana: That's it.
[they all look at an illustration of the Hebrews devastating their enemy with the Ark]
Major Eaton: Good God!
Brody: Yes, that's just what the Hebrews thought.
Colonel Musgrove: [pointing to a beam of light] Uh, now what's that supposed to be coming out of there?
Indiana: Lightning. Fire. Power of God or something.
Major Eaton: I'm beginning to understand Hitler's interest in this.
Brody: Oh, yes. The Bible speaks of the Ark leveling mountains and laying waste to entire regions. An army which carries the Ark before it... is invincible.
Starting with the letter "R", and following two great Harrison Ford movies with yet another:
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082971/
A fantastic action/adventure yarn by that George Lucas guy and that Steven Spielberg guy combined with possibly one of Ford's best performances. I love this flick. It also features a great score by none other than John Williams. I don't think I need to dig too deep into it for meaning or validation. It's just a heck of a movie and a boatload of fun.
From wikipedia:
Sallah: Indy, why does the floor move?
Indiana: Give me your torch.
[Indy takes the torch and drops it in, revealing hundreds of snakes all over floor of the Well of Souls]
Indiana: Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?
Sallah: Asps... very dangerous. You go first.
Major Eaton: Now what does this Ark look like?
Indiana: Uh... there's a picture of it right here.
[opens a book on the table]
Indiana: That's it.
[they all look at an illustration of the Hebrews devastating their enemy with the Ark]
Major Eaton: Good God!
Brody: Yes, that's just what the Hebrews thought.
Colonel Musgrove: [pointing to a beam of light] Uh, now what's that supposed to be coming out of there?
Indiana: Lightning. Fire. Power of God or something.
Major Eaton: I'm beginning to understand Hitler's interest in this.
Brody: Oh, yes. The Bible speaks of the Ark leveling mountains and laying waste to entire regions. An army which carries the Ark before it... is invincible.
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Excellent pick, and you get bonus points from me for referring to it by its proper title, as opposed to the retroactive designation that gets used frequently today: Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Starting with the letter "R", and following one great Harrison Ford movie with another:
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082971/
A fantastic action/adventure yarn by that George Lucas guy and that Steven Spielberg guy combined with possibly one of Ford's best performances. I love this flick. It also features a great score by none other than John Williams. I don't think I need to dig too deep into it for meaning or validation. It's just a heck of a movie and a boatload of fun.
From wikipedia:
Sallah: Indy, why does the floor move?
Indiana: Give me your torch.
[Indy takes the torch and drops it in, revealing hundreds of snakes all over floor of the Well of Souls]
Indiana: Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?
Sallah: Asps... very dangerous. You go first.
Major Eaton: Now what does this Ark look like?
Indiana: Uh... there's a picture of it right here.
[opens a book on the table]
Indiana: That's it.
[they all look at an illustration of the Hebrews devastating their enemy with the Ark]
Major Eaton: Good God!
Brody: Yes, that's just what the Hebrews thought.
Colonel Musgrove: [pointing to a beam of light] Uh, now what's that supposed to be coming out of there?
Indiana: Lightning. Fire. Power of God or something.
Major Eaton: I'm beginning to understand Hitler's interest in this.
Brody: Oh, yes. The Bible speaks of the Ark leveling mountains and laying waste to entire regions. An army which carries the Ark before it... is invincible.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082971/
A fantastic action/adventure yarn by that George Lucas guy and that Steven Spielberg guy combined with possibly one of Ford's best performances. I love this flick. It also features a great score by none other than John Williams. I don't think I need to dig too deep into it for meaning or validation. It's just a heck of a movie and a boatload of fun.
From wikipedia:
Sallah: Indy, why does the floor move?
Indiana: Give me your torch.
[Indy takes the torch and drops it in, revealing hundreds of snakes all over floor of the Well of Souls]
Indiana: Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?
Sallah: Asps... very dangerous. You go first.
Major Eaton: Now what does this Ark look like?
Indiana: Uh... there's a picture of it right here.
[opens a book on the table]
Indiana: That's it.
[they all look at an illustration of the Hebrews devastating their enemy with the Ark]
Major Eaton: Good God!
Brody: Yes, that's just what the Hebrews thought.
Colonel Musgrove: [pointing to a beam of light] Uh, now what's that supposed to be coming out of there?
Indiana: Lightning. Fire. Power of God or something.
Major Eaton: I'm beginning to understand Hitler's interest in this.
Brody: Oh, yes. The Bible speaks of the Ark leveling mountains and laying waste to entire regions. An army which carries the Ark before it... is invincible.
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It's gross, right?! And yeah, it's been happening for decades now, since the Indiana Jones films started getting released as box sets on VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, etc. And it's continued on streaming services like Netflix. I'm assuming it's to bring Raiders in line with the rest of the series...
But I can't abide it, personally. It's Raiders of the Lost Ark. Always has been. Always will be.
But I can't abide it, personally. It's Raiders of the Lost Ark. Always has been. Always will be.
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The Princess Bride - 1987
This may not be the best movie ever made, but it's the one movie I can always rely on to lift my spirits I've owned it on VHS and DVD and watch it regularly. I'll even watch the "edited for TV" version if I stumble across it.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
While home sick in bed, a young boy's grandfather reads him the story of a farmboy-turned-pirate who encounters numerous obstacles, enemies and allies in his quest to be reunited with his true love.
I choose:
Gattaca (1997)
Chaos is awesome, as a way to organize the variety of life. Humans ain't meant to be perfect, infact, flaws bring out interesting parts in our nature. To choose only the best of our genes undercuts the struggle to make ourselves more human.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Gattaca (1997)
Chaos is awesome, as a way to organize the variety of life. Humans ain't meant to be perfect, infact, flaws bring out interesting parts in our nature. To choose only the best of our genes undercuts the struggle to make ourselves more human.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
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While not on my short list, I remember hearing some bad reviews and then when I rented it I thought it was much better than I expected it to be. That was a LONG time ago, and I don't remember all the details, but I enjoyed it at the time. I should re-watch it sometime.
Edit - I just set the DVR to record it.
Edit - I just set the DVR to record it.
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I choose:
Gattaca (1997)
Chaos is awesome, as a way to organize the variety of life. Humans ain't meant to be perfect, infact, flaws bring out interesting parts in our nature. To choose only the best of our genes undercuts the struggle to make ourselves more human.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Gattaca (1997)
Chaos is awesome, as a way to organize the variety of life. Humans ain't meant to be perfect, infact, flaws bring out interesting parts in our nature. To choose only the best of our genes undercuts the struggle to make ourselves more human.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
W
What We Do In the Shadows (2014)
I never know how these things are going to go, and while there are certainly many more well known “classics” that I could’ve gone with here, I had to have this one. I was a huge fan of Flight of the Conchords back in the day and it was Jemaine Clement that led me to this film and introduced me to Taika Waititi.
Done in the mockumentary style, this follows the story of the daily shenanigans of flat mates that also happen to be vampires.Hilarity ensues.
What We Do In the Shadows (2014)
I never know how these things are going to go, and while there are certainly many more well known “classics” that I could’ve gone with here, I had to have this one. I was a huge fan of Flight of the Conchords back in the day and it was Jemaine Clement that led me to this film and introduced me to Taika Waititi.
Done in the mockumentary style, this follows the story of the daily shenanigans of flat mates that also happen to be vampires.Hilarity ensues.
I choose:
Gattaca (1997)
Chaos is awesome, as a way to organize the variety of life. Humans ain't meant to be perfect, infact, flaws bring out interesting parts in our nature. To choose only the best of our genes undercuts the struggle to make ourselves more human.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Gattaca (1997)
Chaos is awesome, as a way to organize the variety of life. Humans ain't meant to be perfect, infact, flaws bring out interesting parts in our nature. To choose only the best of our genes undercuts the struggle to make ourselves more human.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Has one of my all time favorite quotes: “I never saved anything for the swim back.”
M = Memento (2000) - R
This is the first DVD I ever purchased, and my first viewing of a Christopher Nolan film. It has such a linear structure, where each scene is essential to the next. The movie leaves detailed bread crumbs as the hero himself is trying to solve the murder of his wife following a brain injury (erasing his ability to form new memories). Set against a background of paranoia and grief, it conveys a wide variety of human emotions in a stylistic, candid, and unapologetic voice and does so with the elegance of a master storyteller. Each frame builds from the last scene, then the first scene in intervals of 3-5 minute short term memories, building to the climactic middle in a methodical, linear progression of genius film making.
Quotes:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
This is the first DVD I ever purchased, and my first viewing of a Christopher Nolan film. It has such a linear structure, where each scene is essential to the next. The movie leaves detailed bread crumbs as the hero himself is trying to solve the murder of his wife following a brain injury (erasing his ability to form new memories). Set against a background of paranoia and grief, it conveys a wide variety of human emotions in a stylistic, candid, and unapologetic voice and does so with the elegance of a master storyteller. Each frame builds from the last scene, then the first scene in intervals of 3-5 minute short term memories, building to the climactic middle in a methodical, linear progression of genius film making.
Quotes:
Leonard: (Enter) "OK, so what am I doing?"
(Running/Chase)
Leonard: "Oh, I'm chasing this guy."
(Gunshot)
Leonard Shelby: "No, he's chasing me."
Leonard: "I don't even know how long she's been gone. It's like I've woken up in bed and she's not here... because she's gone to the bathroom or something. But somehow, I know she's never gonna come back to bed. If I could just... reach over and touch... her side of the bed, I would know that it was cold, but I can't. I know I can't have her back... but I don't want to wake up in the morning, thinking she's still here. I lie here not knowing... how long I've been alone. So how... how can I heal? How am I supposed to heal if I can't... feel time?"
Leonard: "I have to believe in a world outside my own mind. I have to believe that my actions still have meaning, even when I can't remember them. I have to believe that when my eyes are closed, the world is still there. Do I believe the world is still there? Is it still out there? Yeah...we all need mirrors to remind ourselves who we are. I'm no different"
Natalie: "What's the last thing that you remember?"
Leonard: "My wife..."
Natalie: "That's sweet."
Leonard: "...dying. I remember my wife dying."
Leonard: "Memory can change the shape of a room, the color of a car, and memories can be distorted. They're just an interpretation, they're not a record, and they're irrelevant if you have the facts."
(Running/Chase)
Leonard: "Oh, I'm chasing this guy."
(Gunshot)
Leonard Shelby: "No, he's chasing me."
Leonard: "I don't even know how long she's been gone. It's like I've woken up in bed and she's not here... because she's gone to the bathroom or something. But somehow, I know she's never gonna come back to bed. If I could just... reach over and touch... her side of the bed, I would know that it was cold, but I can't. I know I can't have her back... but I don't want to wake up in the morning, thinking she's still here. I lie here not knowing... how long I've been alone. So how... how can I heal? How am I supposed to heal if I can't... feel time?"
Leonard: "I have to believe in a world outside my own mind. I have to believe that my actions still have meaning, even when I can't remember them. I have to believe that when my eyes are closed, the world is still there. Do I believe the world is still there? Is it still out there? Yeah...we all need mirrors to remind ourselves who we are. I'm no different"
Natalie: "What's the last thing that you remember?"
Leonard: "My wife..."
Natalie: "That's sweet."
Leonard: "...dying. I remember my wife dying."
Leonard: "Memory can change the shape of a room, the color of a car, and memories can be distorted. They're just an interpretation, they're not a record, and they're irrelevant if you have the facts."
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
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