I feel ancient around these kids. Like I’m on some Children’s Crusade.
Wolfgang Petersen’s obsessively detailed World War II epic remains one of the most influential war movies and certainly continues to set a gold standard for submarine movies. Even the best of the rest, such as Hunt for Red October, run a distant second. If this all sounds like fanboy blather, well, it is, but it’s still hard to overstate the achievements of this film.
I’ll buy that for a dollar!
Although clearly intended as insightful social commentary on the Reagan era, Paul Verhoeven’s first American film works better as straight action with a dose of comedy and a surprising helping of existential turmoil for its titular character. The attempts at social satire were sophomoric even in 1987 but fortunately the director didn’t seem to take that element too seriously, focusing instead on Robocop (Peter Weller) and his struggle to reclaim his submerged humanity.
The film takes place in one of those fantasy futures where capitalism is just as evil as liberals imagine it to be. (more…)
On the heels of the Blade Runner announcement this week, Sony is scheduled to announce a new DVD edition of Steven Spielberg‘s 1977 classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind, set to be released on November 13. What makes this edition worth buying is the inclusion of all three versions of the film, including the first video release of the 1977 theatrical cut since a very rare Critereon Collection laserdisc back in the nineties. It will also include the 1980 Special Edition and the 1998 DVD cut (which is just the Special Edition minus the useless final scene inside the alien mothership, plus a couple shots restored from the theatrical cut).
This collection will also be released on Blu-Ray disc, making it the first high-definition release of any Steven Spielberg movie. I guess that means if you’re a Spielberg fan and on the fence in the high-def format war, it’s time to swallow the “Blu” pill.
The long-awaited “Final Cut” of Ridley Scott‘s landmark science-fiction cult classic Blade Runner has been officially annouced. It will have a brief theatrical run in New York and Los Angeles beginning on October 5, 2007. The DVD will be released in two, four and five-disc sets on December 18th.
The four-disc set will include all four officially released cuts of the film, including the 1982 U.S. theatrical version, the original international version and the 1992 “Director’s Cut.” The five-disc box set will come in a briefcase like the one carried by Harrison Ford in the movie and a model “spinner” (the flying cars seen in the film). The fifth disc will contain a rare “workprint” cut of Blade Runner. For this privilege, you will have to shell out about $80.
I will make every effort to attend one of the theatrical showings of the Final Cut and have a review for you. If you want to read more, you can read the official announcment on The Digital Bits.
This is a revolution, dammit! We’re going to have to offend somebody!
If the rest of American history would have had such great musical numbers, I might have gotten better grades. Okay, this adaptation of the hit Broadway play wasn’t exactly letter-perfect history but it is remarkably faithful to the facts for, you know, a musical. It’s also extremely entertaining if you allow for its stage bound origins.
By now we’d come to look at all replacements as dead men who temporarily had the use of the arms and legs.
The Big Red One, Samuel Fuller’s fictionalized retelling of his own experiences as a member of the 1st Infantry Division in World War II, is a particularly effective grunts-eye view of the war, despite its somewhat meager budget. It follows an unnamed Sergeant (Lee Marvin) and four soldiers of his “first squad” who manage to survive the war with him. They join him as inexperienced “wet-noses” before the invasion of North Africa and follow him to the very end of the war, when they liberate a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia.
Theatrical Cut:
Special Edition:
It’s not easy being a cast-iron bitch. It takes discipline, years of training… A lot of people don’t appreciate that.
James Cameron’s deep sea science fiction tale is one of those rare instances of a director revisiting a finished work and genuinely improving the film. The 1989 theatrical release was marred by an abrupt, confusing ending that was the product of Cameron removing almost an entire storyline to bring the film down to a more commercial 146 minute running time. This drastic surgery earned it some lukewarm reviews when it first hit theaters.
Four years later, Cameron re-released a 171 minute cut to theaters and then home video. (more…)
I never thought this would go the distance.
In the early seventies, producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind successfully translated Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers into a pair of films, shot together as one. Despite being sued by several of the performers demanding payment for two films instead of just one, the Salkinds must have thought it was successful enough to attempt repeating the experiment when they adapted Superman for the big screen later that decade.
I’m just an actor with a gun who’s lost his motivation.
Remember the good old days when an extended edition of a Peter Jackson film added texture and depth to an already impressive work? It seems like it was just a couple years ago. Oh, right, it was just a couple of years ago.
Original Theatrical Cut:
’92 “Director’s” Cut:
Final Cut:
Replicants are like any other machine – they’re either a benefit or a hazard. If they’re a benefit, it’s not my problem.
Blade Runner is the exception that proves the rule that filmmakers should not be allowed to revisit their earlier work, like George Lucas did with Star Wars. Unlike Lucas’s popcorn trilogy, Ridley Scott‘s visionary adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electic Sheep has always seemed like it really was only partially finished.
