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Monday, September 11, 2017

September Film Club

Hey folks!

Sorry for the delay, I thought I had already sent all this out but it appears I have not.  So here we go.

Thanks to everyone who was able to come out for our Summer Film Series: Space.  We had a great time, got to see a great spectrum of films from 1968 to Present day, and as always, a plethora of wonderful food!

For the month of September we will watching one of my all time favorite films: Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott. The sequel is going to be released next month so I figured we could all use a re-watch! (or if you haven't seen it, a watch!).

Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. The film depicts a dystopian Los Angeles in November 2019 in which genetically engineered organic robots called replicants—visually indistinguishable from adult humans—are manufactured by the powerful Tyrell Corporation as well as by other "mega–manufacturers" around the world. Their use on Earth is banned and replicants are exclusively used for dangerous, menial or leisure work on off-world colonies. Replicants who defy the ban and return to Earth are hunted down and "retired" by police special operatives known as "Blade Runners". The plot focuses on a brutal and cunning group of recently escaped replicants hiding in Los Angeles and the burnt out expert Blade Runner, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), who reluctantly agrees to take on one more assignment to hunt them down.

Blade Runner initially polarized critics, some were displeased with the pacing, while others praised its thematic complexity and visuals.  Blade Runner underperformed at the box office in North American theaters, but has since become a cult film.  In 1993 the film was selected for preservation in the US National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, being deemed, “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”  Blade Runner is now regarded by many critics as one of the all time best science fiction movies.  It currently holds a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  Roger Ebert awarded it 4/4 stars when he added it to his list of Great Movies, saying this in his review, “This is a seminal film, building on older classics like Metropolis or Things to Come but establishing a pervasive view of the future that has influenced science fiction films ever since.  Its key legacies are: Giant global corporations, environmental decay, overcrowding, technological progress at the top, poverty or slavery at the bottom-and, curiously, almost always a film noir vision.  I have never quite embraced Blade Runner, admiring it at arm’s length, but now it is time to cave in and admit it to the canon.  Ridley Scott is a considerable director who makes no small plans.  He has the gift of making action on a vast scale seem comprehensible.  I have been assured that my problems in the past with Blade Runner represent a failure of my own taste and imagination, but if the film was perfect, why has Sir Ridley continued to tinker with it, and now released his fifth version?  I guess he’s only….human.”

This is wonderful film and I hope you will be able to join us!

We will be meeting Thursday, Sept. 21st at 6:15pm

Here's the trailer: