Had the occasion to finally watch the theatrical/Criterion and Director's cuts of Blade Runner back to back tonight.

I take back everything I've said along the lines of "U NEED TO SEE WITH TEH VO TO APPRECIATE THE DIRECTORS CUT OMFGWTFLOLZ!!!!!1".

I spoke lies, damned lies. You need the Criterion cut like you need a second asshole.

Besides, I thought Appleseed sucked when I was a teenager. Reread it last year and realized the only thing that sucks about it is every attempt to adapt it to the screen. I'm older. I've read more books, put up with more bullshit, seen things you people wouldn't believe, etc, etc, insert Bruce Willis's bit about rereading a book when you're older (from Twelve Monkeys) here, etc.

Haven't seen Blade Runner since Beechwood. Before that, the summer of 1997 at the Byham Theater on Sixth Street in downtown Pittsburgh. Balcony seating with Phorce Phed and M. Kadath, the director's cut no less, nice and big with naked cherubs painted on the ceiling as this happened to be a Proper Theater, the sort you'd see the ballet in. Clockwork Orange the same week. Four years at least. Finally hit with the significance of Zora being retired into the artificial snow of a department store display. Careful attention to Deckard's face, expressions, attitude. Gaff's limp stuck out for some reason. Amused at how so many things that have come since have ripped off, borrowed, stolen so much.

Funny how a movie that's almost as old as my sister can ask the hard questions by sketching them in between the lines, leaving them for those who are paying attention. None of the mealy-mouthed masturbatory wiping-your-nose-in-the-shit-on-the-rug blatancy of Waking Life, GITS2 or The Matrix.

Blade Runner is bereft the blunt, heavy-handed cinderblock-to-the-skull instant satisfaction that passes for "entertainment" these days, and it's better for it. It caters to people who can think - people who like to think. Which is what science fiction was all about before the genre was hijacked by tits and ass, "cool" weapons, shiny boots, adolescent coffee shop philosophy and big explosions. It lacks all of these things and holy shit it doesn't suck. Spandex tits waxing socratic over nine millimeter discharge doesn't get me wet in the least, and the fact that Blade Runner is deeply philosophical without actually TALKING ABOUT PHILOSOPHY is one of the many, many things I love about it.

Philosophy works best when it's used in the construction, rather than being glopped on in buckets over the finalized superstructure and dressed up with whatever Hot Topic happens to be pushing this year. Philosophy works best when you're left to articulate and answer the questions yourself, on your own time, rather than having some Absolute Opinion rammed up your eyelids like so many dirty photons.

It's still one of my favorite movies... now that I'm older and wiser, now that culture STILL hasn't caught up or surpassed it*... it's still near the top of the list, and it ain't goin' anywhere. Not for a long time.

* I have a similar gripe about Watchmen, which came out in '86. I wasn't into comics at the time, but I've been told that "the comics industry shit its pants." Which may have been true, but they've long since wiped their ass and gone back to producing the same B-grade schlock they've been oozing for decades. If Watchman is to blame for the goddamned anti-hero craze, then I'm firmly of the opinion that the fault lies first on the creators of the bullshit that's come after, and second on the consumers for failing to demand higher quality product. The only reason Americans think the Japanese imports kick all of the ass is because Japan's only shipping over what they see a market for - we're getting the cream of their crop. When it comes to The All Mighty Dollar, anyway- look at the number of jocks that were wearing DBZ merch in '99. Gack.

There's more here, but I'm not up for articulating it.

Not right now, anyway.