Blogging Roger Ebert’s Great Movies: Blade Runner: The Final Cut

The Film: Blade Runner: The Final Cut (Ridley Scott, 1970)

What it’s about: Replicants, humans, giant corporations. Deckard (Harrison Ford), a blade runner, hunts down six illegal replicants that are “more human than human.” The Final Cut adds scenes, takes away others and eliminates the voiceover narration, which actually helps the story development, but most of all it maintains its analog special effects in Ridley action fashion leaving us to still wonder if Deckard is indeed the sixth replicant he’s hunting.

What’s impressive: The film’s legacy is no secret. You’ve heard of it even if you haven’t seen it. Giant evil corporations, environmental issues and technological progress are just a few of its living legacy for science fiction movies. Ridley’s choice to stick with analog instead of enhancing it with CGI was also a good call.

What Ebert says: “… one of the most extraordinary worlds ever created in a film.” In his original review Ebert admitted the story was weak, but he seems to accept this as failure on his part in the viewing of The Final Cut: “I have been assured that my problems in the past with Blade Runner represent a failure of my own taste and imagination, but if the film was perfect, why has Sir Ridley continued to tinker with it, and now released his fifth version? I guess he’s only … human.”

Is it great? So they tell me, but I tend to agree with Ebert’s initial review: the story is blasé. As much as I enjoy Scott for action, Harrison Ford’s good looks, and the science fiction genre, this one just doesn’t do it for me. It gets a little long and lacks that cohesive feel, but check it out for yourself if you haven’t yet.

And if you’re in NYC check out the Past and Prologue: The Films of Ridley Scott playing at the Film Society the next 2 weeks!

Blogging Roger Ebert’s Great Movies: Easy Rider

The Film: Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969)

What it’s about: This is where it’s all explained for the ‘60s generation. It being that feeling of freedom and liberty you get when you take to the open road. Riding from LA to New Orleans Captain America (Peter Fonda) and Billy (Dennis Hopper) take on the motorcycle road trip with a soundtrack that changed the way movies and music interact. Showing a countryside once reserved for cowboys and pioneers, Hopper and Fonda reveal a countercultural patriotism through their interaction with strangers—some kind, some less kind and some that jail them for “parading without a permit.”

What’s impressive: Jack Nicholson. This scene says it all, almost:

Cinematographer László Kovács—an artists eye if there ever was one.

What Ebert says: “One of the reasons America inspires so many road pictures is that we have so many roads. One of the reasons we have so many buddy pictures is that Hollywood doesn’t understand female characters … this motorcycle picture was a special kind of road/buddy movie … catches the spirit of the time.”

Is it great? Yes. As it stands alone there are better films with better character development and a better story, but this film did something for America during the Vietnam era that no one else had done. America needed Easy Rider.

Blogging Roger Ebert’s Great Movies: Cat People

The Film: Cat People (B&W, 1942, Jacques Tourneur)

What it’s about: A rational naive American man, Oliver, who claims he’s never had a problem and loves apple pie, marries Irena, a Serbian immigrant (played by French actress Simone Simon—Can Americans tell the difference between a French or Serbian accent? I guess not). Irena claims she is a descendant of the Serbian cat people and resolves to fix her “problem” before being intimate with Oliver. Seeking psychoanalysis (something even more hated in America at the time than Serbians) Irena makes several attempts to suppress her feline fears (a stand-in for her sexuality) so that she and Oliver can have true happiness. Little does he know this will be a problem he can’t ignore.

What’s impressive: The producer gets the most clout for this film. Val Lewton made the film for $135,000 and grossed more than $4 million. However, director Tourneur and cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca (Out of the Past) paint chiaroscuro along every wall and around every street corner in day or night.

What Ebert says: “There is something subtly alarming about … the rooms and streets that look not like places but like ideas of places.”

Favorite Scenes: The swimming pool scene. Alone in a dark swimming pool with panther cries echoing in the liquid chamber is frightening.

Is it great? Yes, if you enjoy character films. It’s not scary like our 21^st century minds might know scary, but it’s got some great things to say about the “Other,” psychology and the typical good ol’ boy.

“Not a women’s issue” strikes again

Should religious organizations and schools be required to provide women with birth control?

That’s the question on the table this week as the Obama Administration says yes and the House says no. But the decision is the woman’s. Not the government’s or the church’s or goddamn Speaker of the House John Boehner’s. I can’t even say that if he was a woman he’d understand better because Sen. Kelly Ayotte from New Hampshire agrees with Boehner: “This is not a women’s’ rights issue. This is a religious liberty issue.” OK, point taken, a religion that disagrees with contraception shouldn’t have to provide it. But shouldn’t the women who work at these organizations and schools have the option? An option that isn’t provided by health care because the same church that disagrees with contraception doesn’t think it should be covered by health insurance. Who should provide contraception, church?

My fear is for the women who cannot speak out as pro-prophylactics in these organizations for fear of losing their jobs. What kind of freedom is that?

Words for the Week

Bacchanalia: a festival for the Greco-Roman god, Bacchus (Dionysus), the god of wine. Now, the term describes any sort of drunken debauchery.

Onomastics: the study of history and origin of proper names.

"Las Meninas" by Diego Valezquez uses "mise en abyme"

Mise-en-abyme: “standing between two mirrors” or literally: placed into abyss. (I love this literary, filmic term. Try using it in a paper or just in every day chatter).

Words for the Week

Connivance: willingness to secretly allow or be involved in wrongdoing
Discomfiture: to make someone feel embarrassed
Miser: a person who hoards wealth (Such as Shylock in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice)

Shylock after the Trial by John Gilbert

Portmanteau: a large suitcase, usually leather and opening into two equal parts OR the combining of two words to create a new word (ex: smoke + fog = smog)

The Last Five Films I Saw

1. Trouble in Paradise, dir. Lubitsch (1932). A great comedy about romance and cons.
2. Barry Lyndon, dir. Kubrick. (1975) A period piece where every scene is like a painting.
3. About a Boy, (2002) A decent Nick Hornby adaptation that’s really quite British.
4. Easy A, (2010) I like Emma Stone and this modern day Scarlet Letter is pretty entertaining. Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson are ridiculous and great.
5. A Christmas Tale, A wonderful French family drama that is entertaining and dark.