'BLADE RUNNER' - FOREVER

I watched "Blade Runner" again last night, for the four-hundredth time.

I love this movie; it’s on my list of all-time greats. I always get completely caught up in the experience of it, the look, the feel, the music, the story, the unforgettable characters. It transports me completely.

I love the ‘40s film noir atmosphere combined with the futuristic man-has-spoiled-the-planet setting; the way the story proceeds from clue to clue; the way the replicants’ actions mirror the humans’ actions (the replicants follow clues, too; when Deckard has trouble with his right hand, so does Roy the replicant); and the theme, that the humanoid machines are “more human than human.” They are more human than many of the humans in the movie. And many in real life.

I love this movie partly because it is about something. Not having a theme is the great failing of most mystery/thrillers, whether movies or books. For example, the latest Oliver Stone movie "Savages" ultimately fails as a story because it is not about anything. It's only purpose is to keep jacking up the audience until the final credits roll.

The classic mainstream thrillers "Presumed Innocent" and "Gorky Park" are unsatisfying because they lack themes. So are most mysteries and thrillers. Weirdly enough, the Stieg Larsson thrillers are about something: neo-Nazis and the denigration of women.

"Blade Runner" is from a novel by Philip K. Dick, "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep." So it is a well-worked-out story and not just a quickie script hacked out in Hollywood. Philip K. Dick had literary and artistic ambitions and sensibilities, which usually produce better stories than those with merely commercial intentions.

Last night, I watched the theatrical version, which I prefer to all the other cuts. I will watch the so-called director's cut and the final cut again and again, no doubt. (I bought them all, in a boxed set through Amazon, on sale, a good deal.)

Here are ten (or eleven) more movies that I love: 

1. THE GODFATHER
2. L.A. CONFIDENTIAL
3. ONE-EYED JACKS
4. SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
5. ALIEN
6. BULLITT
7. FATAL ATTRACTION
8. PULP FICTION
9. THE BOURNE IDENTITY
10. THE TERMINATOR (1 & 2)

I love these movies. They are almost as much fun as movies were when I was a kid. I'm always looking to get back to that experience of being transported to a world that is more exciting and more satisfying than than the one in which we all live.

-- Roger

Copyright © 2012, Roger R. Angle