A Rusty Nail Part II

In between Last Man and I Am Legend was the 1970s attempt at the apocalypse, Omega Man, starring "C-Dog" Heston, of course, but this one didn't give me nightmares. Oh wait, yes it did: the part in which he watches Woodstock over and over and over again, mouthing the hippies' lines word for word. Shudder.

In I Am Legend, the film Will Smith watches over and over is Shrek, and the one foodstuff he saves in his freezer, bacon. He attaches these memories to his absent family, as with the character in the original novel and film. But as you would expect, the setting is NYC (not LA) and Smith won't leave "ground zero" to explore the possibility of other survivors. Moreover, the film is ruined by bad CGI by once again inserting smooth, shiny surfaces where there should be dark, porous ones. A says that we will look back on the CGI era the way we do cheap color of the 40s and 50s with its garish pinks and greens.

I will say that there are a few poignant moments that give new meaning to the word "loneliness" and an excellent nod to Romero's positing of a "talented 10th" of zombies (well, vampires--they're called "hemocytes" actually) who start to think for themselves. Overall, however, none of the three films dared touch the theme running through the novel about the "lewd and lascivious" female vamp-zombs who attempt to lure him outside by strip-tease and masturbation. In I Am Legend, Smith experiments on a female hemocyte, and one might as, why her? In the novel, the question is given an explicit answer, and it's not pretty (though not necrophilic either).

I also saved myself another restless night without sleep by turning to another fundamentally amazing text, Blade Runner: The Final Cut. The audio is in 5.1, the transfer is sharper, and more gore was added (put back in--it was originally taken out); the bad stunt doubles and continuity problems were nixed completely. However, the accompanying documentary, Dangerous Days, was a nerd's delight! Sound the neeeeeeerd hornnnnnn. Three hours looooooooog! Bring your Hot Pockets and Gatoraaaaaade. You get to see screen tests of other actors trying out for Pris and Rachel--with the exact same lighting, smoke, and blocking!!! <---that's real enthusiasm, not sarcasm). Watching it has the odd effect of suggesting other replicants are "out there."

The most fascinating part of the doc was actually a socio-historical one: why did it fail at the box office during the summer of 1982? Because Reaganomics promised hope and happiness, not dark dystopia. Guess which film made the most that summer? E fucking T!!!! I remember that summer so well because everyone was crying over ET--I mean everyone. Oh and here are some other films Blade Runner had to compete with that summer: Beastmaster, Conan the Barbarian, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Poltergeist, Star Trek II, Rocky III, The Thing, and Tron.

To conclude by reiterating CGI sucks (except in Buffy, in which it has a campy effect that actually heightens suspension of disbelief). As one of the producers of (the new) Battlestar Galactica series relates, "We often just say to the CGI people--give it that 'Blade Runner' look, and they know exactly what we mean." Ironically, there is no CGI in Blade Runner--it's all in-camera effects. We truly are ruled by computers and robots these days. The replicants have won: