Monday, February 04, 2008

Blade Running

Mrs Stevie gave me the Bladrunner Suitcase O' Ents for Xmas.

It has provided endless entertainment since I breached the security seal on the nifty Voight-Kampff briefcase it came in. I've marvelled at the artwork. I've spent hours watching Harrison Deckard draw a bead on someone out of shot with my tilt-to-animate framed scene. I've fondled the origami unicorn while uttering convincing LA street gibberish and wearing a trilby. I've flown several times around the living room with the 1/48th scale Spinner while making realistic LA ambient sounds that caused Mrs Stevie to go thin lipped. I think she disapproves of the West Coast, even dystopic visions of future versions of it. Either that or she is fundamentally opposed to the flying car. No matter. I pay her little attention when I'm having fun, and I'm having lots of fun with the bits in this kit.

And that's not the best part.

Since Boxing Day I've seen Bladerunner: The Definitive Cut.

And three hours of Documentary "Making of Bladerunner" stuff.

And the US theatrical release of Bladerunner.

And three hours of documentary "Behind the scenes of Bladerunner" and "Bladerunner: Actor and Crew Retrospectives on the Iconic Film of the 80s"

And the theatrical trailers.

And Bladerunner: The Director's Cut

And the fun's just starting! We still have the UK theatrical release of Bladerunner and the Bladerunner workprint to view.

This movie has everything: Harrison Ford, mind-staggering scenery, eardrum-endangering low frequency enhanced soundtrack (the sub-woofer finally has its day), nude nakedness, Daryl Hannah when she was young and supple starring as a raccoon, Sean Young's1 shoulders: the list goes on and on.

And no-one says the fun has to stop there, as I pointed out to Mrs Stevie when she expressed concern over how much more material was in the set. We can simply load disc one back into the player and start all over again once we're done. She obviously hadn't considered this, and was immediately overcome with emotion, crying and cursing with pleasure at the prospect.

It doesn't get any better than this.

  1. Yes, that Sean Young, the one that recently made a fuss at the Director's Guild Award after imbibing twice her own weight in strong drink, only to disappear into rehab. Apparently she heckled a Mr Julian Schnabel who was accepting is award for directing somethong called The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Well, not to be judgemental, but let's face it: I doubt The Diving Bell and the Butterfly will ever be classed as "an Iconic film of the 80s" or be issued in five different versions in a suitcase along with a plastic origami butterfly and a 1/48th scale diving bell. You heckle Ridley Scott, Director of Bladerunner and you've crossed the line, but The Diving Bell and the Butterfly? Sounds as interesting as tax instructions to me and I can only imagine the nature of a speech from the maker of such a movie. Not only that. I think one must cut Sean Young some slack here. How would you behave if you had found out you were manufactured, born sometime in early adulthood, imprinted with someone else's memories and given a five year life span? I submit that the strain of living with that for 27 years would tell on anyone. I mean, look what it did for Arnold Schwartzeneggar who rampaged all over the place killing people and stealing vehicles before someone dropped a steam hammer on him.

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