blade runner | the m0vie blog

What Will Be This Decade’s Underappreciated Masterpiece?

Posted on December 18, 2009 by Darren

It seems to happen at least once a decade: the critic consensus emerging immediately after the release of a film turns out to be wrong, swayed by the tides of retrospect and history. Initial reviews of The Shining criticised it for being slow – today we regard its pace as being one of its many virtues. It wasn’t greeted with triumphant applause, but a resounding ‘meh’. Blade Runner was dismissed as a wannabe sci-fi epic, now we consider it to be one of the high watermarks of the genre – a masterpiece. The Wizard of Oz equally divided critics between those who considered the movie to be a game changer, and those who thought it was just light and fluffy entertainment. You could make the case that Fight Club debuted to a hugely divided critical opinion, but that belies that fact that the acknowledgement of the movie as a modern classic is grudging at best. So is there a film from the last ten years that is likely to feature a similar historical revision, considered a retrospective masterpiece?

Harrison Ford knew how to "persuade" critics...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: after the fact, blade runner, critical reaction, cult, cult movies, films, in hindsight, Movies, retrospect, the shining | Leave a comment »

Director’s Cuts: Remastered by the Old Masters

Posted on June 16, 2009 by Darren

The advent of incredibly flexibly home media has had an amazing impact on the world of film, right down to how the damn things are made. With producers carefully putting together additional content (or “bonus features”) for the eventual release of the film on home video (if that phrase means anything these days), and the temptation to “retouch” old films to bring them to the standard of the current format of entertainment system, it’s little surprise that we’ve seen the upswing that we have in the market for “Director’s Cuts” and “Extended Editions”. I’m kinda wondering if we’re entering a phase where all movies should be viewed in the same light as George Lucas views his own: they’re works in progress, never finished.

Screenshot from the mythic "Deckard is Keyzer Soze" ending to Blade Runner

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: blade runner, blade runner: the final cut, blu ray, directors cut, DVD, extended cut, george lucas, hollywood, Movies, star was, superman 2: the richard donner cut, watchmen, zach snyder | Leave a comment »

What is up with the Watchmen DVD?

Posted on May 8, 2009 by Darren

What is up with the Watchmen DVD? As early as August last year, we were promised super-dooper, hyper-deluxe extra-classy DVD and Bluray release that had fans’ slobbering. A longer cut? You got it. A cut branching the Tale of the Black Freighter into the narrative? You got that too. Hell, there was even talk of a theatrical re-release of the film come August 2009.

However, since the movie opened to… divided critical and geek-based reception, and since it faded (rather than burnt) out of the Box Office, there has been next nothing. DVD sites are listing the disk as available for purchase, but no date is listed. The more experienced DVD/blu ray tea-leaf readers speculate that 28^th July looks fortuitous for an American release, along with a raft of other geek-friendly titles.

Let the jokes about multiple blu(ray) packages commence...

I just find it curious that a date had yet to be set – I’m certain there are a whole host of geeks out there salivating at the prospect of the release. I plan on waiting for the extended cuts at the end of the year – I’d hope for a deluxe Blade Runner style release with a slew of disks and branching options available so I can watch the Watchmen anyway I want. I’m still not entirely sure what I make of the film, but I’d like to see it again a couple of times before I finally make up my mind – it’s certainly a different and daring film for a mainstream Hollywood production. Whether it was necessary is another discussion, but not one I’m going to have right now…

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Watchmen is an adaptation of Alan Moore’s (Swamp Thing, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V for Vendetta) landmark graphic novel, directed by Zach Snyder (300, Dawn of the Dead) and starring Billy Crudup (The Good Sheppard, Public Enemies), Patrick Wilson (Angels in America, Lakeview Terrace), Stephen McHattie (300, A History of Violence), Carla Gugino (Sin City, Spy Kids) and Patrick Earle Haley (Little Children, Bad News Bears). It was release worldwide on the 6^th March 2009, which looks much cooler in American format: 03.06.09.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: blade runner, DVD, watchmen | 3 Comments »

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