The Republic of Heaven

I saw 12th and Delaware which is a documentary by the women who gave us Jesus Camp. It made me pretty sad. Especially that bit at the end with the single parent who has six (or now maybe seven) children and when we see that fifteen year old again from the beginning of the movie.

Blade Runner*.

I was... disappointed. It was gorgeous. It was fantastically filmed with great visuals and music. And it wasn't very interesting.

Maybe I've had this built up for too long. It's always cited as something along the lines of being one of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time. It just... wasn't. (For me. Obviously different people, different tastes.) It was a good MOVIE but not necessarily the best SCI-FI movie.

On the other hand, it's pretty much designed for brilliant cosplay and I want to do some of those costumes!

*I ended up choosing "Final Cut" from Netflix.

I kind of felt the same; I bought the 'Final Cut' on DVD a few months ago having never seen it before, and felt a bit disappointed to be honest. I mean, it was good, but I just wasn't blown away. Was it a bit unfair for me to expect this?

It's a question of time. Blade Runner has influenced so many subsequent films that its impact on someone seeing it for the first time nearly 30 years after its first release is bound to be reduced compared with that on someone seeing it in a cinema in 1982.

Blade Runner is by far my favourite Sci-Fi film. The script is excellent. The music is excellent. The performances are very good. The atmosphere is incredible. It's basic plot is not brilliant but the general direction is sublime. Compared to modern sci-fi it is slow paced and I can understand people being disappointed in it but watch it again, watch it a 3rd time. Study it as a piece of art in the time that it was released.

Only the book Dune compares to me as a work of sci fi.

I was... disappointed / I kind of felt the same...

i'm not surprised that you both probably found blade runner disappointing after all the hype. it is definitely over-hyped. like, one of the most over-hyped films of all time. it appears on best-sci-fi lists everywhere.

i don't know how successful it was when it was first released (it's a year older than i am!) but i understand that it gained a cult following, and for some reason it's lurched into the limelight in the last decade or so. anyone who's anyone raves about blade runner, dontchaknow...

all the same, it's amongst my favourite movies. like darragh says, it's got everything: brilliant lines, amazing acting, awesome sets (i saw it on blu-ray recently and bloody hell, it looks delicious), oodles of atmosphere (oodles! it almost condenses on the inside of the tv screen!) bizarre characters, bizarrer costumes, flying cars, guns, and a semi-naked lady with a snake. what more could you ask for?

and i love the story.
it's bleak and uplifting at the same time. and there's so much atmosphere! i used to have a bootleg copy of the vangelis soundtrack but i lost it when i moved out of my parents' house. the chilling sax solo is, like, wow.

okay, i've raved enough about it.

i downloaded a kindle edition of PKD's novel a little while back but i haven't read it yet. i should bump it up the list and read it soon.

-- darren

Watched Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead yesterday.

Not entirely sure I ever had any idea what was going on (but then again, neither did the characters) but young Gary Oldman and Tim Roth are just so darn adorable!

snip

It is certainly over hyped. It's a film that people love to latch on to. When the film was first released it was panned by critics but it had a cult resurgence so people like to latch on to it and hype it but as a work or fiction/art, as you say, it's brilliant.

the prestige, please tell me people have watched this??

went to see Fück Yeah Mermaids today.

AKA Pirates OTC 4 to the rest of the world.

But seriously, I haven't teared up at pure aesthetic beauty in so long. I thought my inner deadness woulda taken care of that heartsector by now, and closed it off.

I googled ~*iguana*~ Yeah Mermaids and found a tumblr account. I was disappointed when I read the rest of your post. I have a thing for mermaids.
About a month or two ago I saw some Russian movie called Mermaid (despite the title, there were no mermaids featured in the movie. I was disappointed.) and I thought it was kind of meh.