We air some minor grievances with the Oscar nominations as we talk through the merits of this week’s new releases: Hostiles and Maze Runner: The Death Cure. We also run through new releases in home entertainment and preview next week’s flicks.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
Heavy hitters this week: Oscar contenders and people who just hit hard. We talk through The Post, The Commuter, Jane and what’s new in home entertainment.
Listen to the podcast HERE.
Some Oscar contenders out this week. The Screening Room helps you sort them out: I, Tonya, Molly’s Game, Insidious: The Last Key plus what’s new in home entertainment.
Listen to the podcast HERE.
We have one full week to wait until the new Star Wars. What will we do? Well, there are a couple of great movies you can see in the meantime. We talk through The Disaster Artist and Thelma, plus hip you to what’s new in home entertainment.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
This week in The Screening Room we talk about new releases Last Flag Flying, BPM, Sweet Virginia plus all that’s worth watching in home entertainment.
Listen HERE.
Welcome to The Screening Rooom podcast! This week we break down the greatest and the least in theaters: Murder on the Orient Express, Daddy’s Home 2, The Florida Project, Wonderstruck and Mayhem. We also talk through what’s new in home entertainment. Listen in HERE.
Welcome to the Screening Room Podcast where break down the best and worse in theaters this week: Thor: Ragnarok, A Bad Mom’s Christmas, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Goodbye Christopher Robin and LBJ. We also talk about what’s new in home entertainment and look ahead to next week in theaters.
Listen in HERE.
Join us in The Screening Room Podcast where we has out the latest in theaters and in home entertainment. We talk through Suburbicon, Jigsaw, Thank You for Your Service, Dina, Tragedy Girls and Lucky.
Listen HERE.
by Hope Madden
Who’s ready to go back to the future?
No gigawatts necessary. With Blade Runner 2049, director Denis Villeneuve returns us to the hulking, rain-streaked metropolis of another generation’s LA. We ride with K (Ryan Gosling), a blade runner charged, as always, with tracking down rogue replicants and retiring them.
Things get more complicated this time around.
Gosling’s the perfect choice to play dutiful sad sack LAPD blade runner K. Few actors can be simultaneously expressionless and expressive, but Gosling’s blank slate face and long distance stare seem to say something mournful, defeated and rebellious without giving anything away.
It’s no spoiler to mention that Harrison Ford returns. He’s a welcome presence, and not simply for nostalgia. The film toys with the “is he or isn’t he?” debate that has raged for 35 years, and gives the veteran ample opportunity to contribute.
God complexes, sentience and existence, clones – Ridley Scott saw his own longtime preoccupations playing out in Philip K. Dick’s prose and now, with returning screenwriter Hampton Fancher and new teammate Michael Green (Logan), Villeneuve gets his chance.
Their take is engrossing, satisfying and impressive, though the group stumbles over a few of their ideas—particularly those that consider the female in this particular universe.
As enamored of the original as we are, Villeneuve weaves intoxicating threads and callbacks throughout—most welcome is Hans Zimmer’s periodic moaning and sighing echoes of Vangelis’s original score.
In fact, the echoes from the Ridley Scott (now executive producing) ‘82 classic almost threaten to overrun the film. There are plenty of differences, though.
Villeneuve carves out a much larger corner of author Phillip K. Dick’s universe—not quite taking us off-world, but far beyond the teeming streets, towering buildings and oppressive rain of Scott’s retro-futuristic noir. The expansive story fills the screen with breathtaking frames and immediately iconic imagery, thanks in large part to acclaimed cinematographer Roger Deakins, at the top of his game.
Few if any have delivered the kind of crumbling, dilapidating futurescape Ridley Scott gave us with his original. But between the stunning visual experience and meticulous sound design, Blade Runner 2049 offers an immersive experience perfectly suited to its fantasy.
Picking at ideas of love among the soulless, of souls among the manmade, of unicorns versus sheep, Villeneuve channels Dick by way of Scott as well as a bit of James Cameron and more than a little Spike Jonze. There’s even a splash of Dickens in there.
Sounds like a hot mess, but damn if it doesn’t work.
Click HERE to join us in The Screening Room where we talk through Battle of the Sexes, American Made, Super Dark Times, Woodshock and all that’s new in home entertainment.
