Blade Runner (1982)

This classic film noir, an adaptation of Philip K Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, stars Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, a gumshoe-turned-bounty hunter tasked with tracking down, in a future cyberpunk-neon Los Angeles of perpetual rain, six runaway replicants, androids built by the Tyrell Corporation replete with emotions and memories, making it hard for Deckard to distinguish them from humans.

★★★★☆ 

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Dune (1984)

This 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert's dense and difficult 800-page read was at one point ten to fourteen hours of footage that over the course of director David Lynch's famously difficult production, was pared down to just two, and the result is laughable, with glib voiceovers bridging those lost hours on the cutting-room floor and mere sentences attempting to confer importance on too many details - too many feudal empires and ruling families warring over a precious resource on the planet Arrakis - but nonetheless the movie succeeds as a psychedelic rock opera full of fantastic SFX (a floating bloated villain, gleaming hyper-blue eyes, gigantic earthworms, yellow upside-down lightning) all set to a Toto-and-Brian Eno soundtrack, a heady, mind-numbing treat bringing to mind the camp excess and pulp spectacle of Flash Gordon - for better or worse.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS