Paul's Brain Trust - Once In A Lifetime Blade Runner Opportunity

Please read this.

I reckon that the greatest film of 2007 was Blade Runner: The Final Cut. It was also the best DVD set of last year - easily. And the Alien Quadrilogy boxset might still be the best DVD boxset on the market at all.

None of these things could have existed without Paul Prischman. He was a producer, or worked on the production team, on these and many more DVDs to treasure.

I remember the first e-mail I ever received from Paul, completely out of the blue. Just making conversation about something I had posted here. He was just a film fan, reading around - like me, and quite like you too.

The conversation went on through more e-mails and telephone calls. It didn't take long at all for me to realise how thoroughly decent Paul is, how knowledgeable, enthusiastic, interesting and, most importantly, I feel, how nice. As yet, I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Paul face to face, but I would like to call him a friend. He's definitely been a good friend to film ick.

Some good friends of Paul's have now set up a charity called Paul's Brain Trust. Why have they done this? Because Paul has been diagnosed with "particularly aggressive" cancer in his brain. Because, while Paul does have medical insurance, it won't cover everything. And because they love him.

I dare say you've probably loved his work - on the DVDs I mentioned above, or on the discs for Monster House, Spider-Man 2, or countless others. Please, then, check out the Brain trust page. Just click on over and see what they're up to. You'll be amazed, actually - for example: a very special screening of Blade Runner, right there alongside the lot where it was shot, with Ridley Scott attending and carrying out a Q&A... and much, much more.

Keep your eyes on the Brain trust site (and here, too) for more. Fingers crossed, we'll be able to raise some support for Paul via film ick too.

Thanks for reading.

Blade Runner Special Features

I've got the running times of many of the special features (aside from the Dangerous Days documentary and commentary tracks) from the 5-disc Blade Runne set that is coming soon. I'm getting more excited by the day.

BEYOND THE WINDOW - VISUAL EFFECTS - 28 minutes and 44 seconds
IN NEED OF MAGIC - POST PRODUCTION PROBLEMS - 23 minutes
TO HADES AND BACK - REACTION AND RESURRECTION - 24 minutes and 11 seconds
THE ELECTRIC DREAMER - REMEMBERING PHILIP K. DICK - 14 minutes and 17 seconds
SACRIFICIAL SHEEP - THE NOVEL VS. THE FILM - 15 minutes and 7 seconds
SIGNS OF THE TIMES - GRAPHIC DESIGN - 13 minutes and 38 seconds
FASHION FORWARD - WARDROBE AND STYLING - 20 minutes and 38 seconds
SCREEN TESTS - RACHAEL AND PRIS - 8 minutes and 52 seconds
THE LIGHT THAT BURNS - REMEMBERING JORDAN CRONENWETH - 20 minutes

[EDIT: Now italicised above are three of these features that, actually, are part of the Dangerous Days doc]

Direct Download Links For Clips From Blade Runner's Final Cut

Download clip one, two and three from Blade Runner's Final Cut or the Dangerous Days trailer, for posterity or cleaner, clearer viewing. Looks great, doesn't it?

Right click and rename the file something like gogogothamcity.wmv to ensure it works.

New Zhora Chase Online

You can now stream the revised Zhora chase from Blade Runner's Final Cut over at Yahoo. They also have a trailer for the over-three-hours-long Dangerous Days documentary (which I cannot wait to see) and a brief snippet with the infamous haskey-masked dancers.

I'm hoping that decent Quicktime versions of these clips pop up soon, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Movie Minesweeper - The One Mouthful At A Time Edition

Our Stories, Saw IV, Metamorphosis, Michael Haneke, The Heart is a Dark Forest, Dark Shadows, Johnny Depp, Jon Favreau, performance capture, The Lovely Bones, Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon, Blade Runner, Star Trek, Leonard Nimoy, Ed Burns, Virgin Comics.

- Saw IV has been given an NC-17 rating. If you think for one second they won't cut if for an R, you're sorely mistaken.

- The Ford Motor Co. has forged an alliance with Bob and Harvey Weinstein's Our Stories set up. Ford will place cars in the films as well as promoting the finished products. It's all an attempt to 'crack the urban market'. Sigh.

- Daniel Bruhl, Anna Paquin and Stephen Rea are to star in a movie of Kafka's Metamorphosis. No news on who will write or direct, or how the bugification will be handled. The same Variety piece announces Michael haneke's next, The White Tape or the Teacher's Tale, and Nicolette Krebitz' The Heart is a Dark Forest. A cheerful little set of films, no doubt.

- Dark Shadows is being adapted for the big screen... with Johnny Depp starring. What're the odds on him bringing Tim Burton along?

- Paul Sorvino and Alexa Vega have been (re)confirmed for roles in Repo! The Genetic Opera. The film has 55 different musical compositions, apparently spanning a wide variety of styles and genres.

- Three more performance capture films are coming up the the pipe at Imageworks - Maximum Ride, Jon Favrea's Neanderthals and an untitled action epic derived from Japanese mythology.

- Peter Jackson has cast Susan Sarandon as Susie Salmon's grandmother. It's one of the best roles in the Lovely Bones film and, again, Sarandon's casting has taken me by surprise. But I like it.

- Not only will Zachary Quinto be playing young Spock, old Spock will be reprised with Leonard Nimoy in the ears once again. According to JJ Abrams, there's still hope that Shatner will appear - essentially once they work out how to shoehorn him in. Clearly, there was a reason for an older Spock to pop up in the script, but not an older Kirk. Rejigging just for a Shatner appearance seems like quite a bad idea.

- Four Christmases has it's stars: Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn. They play a couple trying to visit all four divorced parents on Christmas day. A neat conclusion would have our protagonists themselves driven to divorce by this horrendous holiday... neat yes, but not commercial.

- Ed Burns' effort for Virgin Comics is to be a 1920s gangster piece, Dock Walloper. The role Mad Dog Madden will be created for Burns himself to play in any eventual feature film adaption.

- The Blade Runner DVD set is due to hit stores on December 18th. That only gives my favourite Christmas gift giver one week to do the right thing. Apparently, the hefty documentary included will run to three hours. I had been hoping for six or seven. Here's a look at what you'll receive, at least materially.

The Truth About Those Bladerunner Credits

AintItCool ran a link to a YouTube clip the other day, then quickly pulled the whole story with no comment; now other sites are repeating the link, and all are saying the same thing: "Are these the titles to the new Blade Runner?"

No. They aren't. I sent a message to the YouTube user that had uploaded them. "Were these for a college project?"

And, lo and behold, they were: "Yes, they were 'homemade' for college FH Potsdam."

That doesn't mean they aren't very good however.

Movie Minesweeper - The Numb Left Arm And Tightness Of The Chest Edition

- A special edition DVD of Saturday Night Fever is coming. Most amusing-sounding feature? Dance Like Travolta with John Cassese. Sign me up.

- The Alliance of Women Film Journalists have compiled a Top 100 films list of their own in response to the AFI run-down from last week. Sadly, it contains some laughable inclusions (Bend it Like Beckham, The Hours, Lost in Translation, Monsoon Wedding, Nowhere in Africa, Whale Rider) but then, I suppose, so did the AFI effort.

- Rutger Hauer has suggested September as the date for a Blade Runner: Final Cut theatrical release. I heard that too - but then heard that maybe this was to change, so don't take Hauer's word as gospel just yet.

- 20 odd pages of Buffy comics are available in a new online preview right now. Not Season 8 stuff, I'm afraid, but Buffy nonetheless.

- Marion Cotillard is to be this year's recipient of the Hollywood Film Festival's Hollywood Breakthrough Actress of the Year Award (say that three times fast). About time too - the very latest she could be said to have broken through is in 2003, with Big Fish.

- See Quentin Tarantino indulge his foot fetish in close-up, explicit detail. Not for the faint of stomach, as they say.

- Mark Millar has been knocking about on the set of Wanted. He certainly seems impressed with James McAvoy's performance.

Where's The New Footage In The Blade Runner: Final Cut Commercial?

As far as I'm aware - and I'm spectacularly unsure of my detail-based recall of Blade Runner, if I'm being honest - there are three pieces of new footage in the Blade Runner: Final Cut ad.

The first is a still image from the Esper. You can see it around 27 seconds in. Here's a screencap.


The second one, I previously mentioned: the infamous shot of the two go-go girls in hockey masks. Again, here's a screencap.

And then, at 51 seconds in, we see the fruits of the recent reshoots for the very first time. There's a brief shot of Zhora just as she's about to tumble through glass, right at the camera. Either the entire shot is new, or a CG blend has been done to put Joanna Cassidy's head on a stuntwoman's shoulders... or both. Here's a sequence of screencaps for you to scrutinise.





And the rest of the trailer is apparently old footage given a bit of spit and polish - the Blade Runner we already know and love. If it ain't broke...

At my previous post on this subject, I've included a screencap of an old continuity error that has remained intact - at least in the trailer, if not the finished film - despite reshoots to the scene. Curious.

TV Spot For Blade Runner: The Final Cut - UPDATED

A TV spot advertising the Blade Runner: Final Cut premiered during the AFI Top 100 show on US TV last night, and brilliantly, it's now up on YouTube. If anybody knows where a better quality version can be seen, please direct me.

You might want to download the YouTube file, just on the off-chance it gets pulled.

[EDIT: And thanks to 'Affenheimtheaterbesitzer', there's a much better version on Rapidshare]

[EDIT: Also available from Speedyshare, hourly bandwidth limit allowing]

[EDIT: Here are some screencaps, which you might find interesting. The official title, first of all; then the go-go Hockey Mask girls which represent what some messageboard users believe is the only new footage in the trailer; a look at Joanna Cassidy's stunt double taking a dive - still in flat shoes, not the heels from the previous scene, maintaining a controversial continuity error; an announcement of the formats which not only means we'll have all three disc options to select from, it also suggests that a theatrical release of any size isn't likely to happen, even though I'm still betting a small one will]

Plugging Wee Holes In The Upcoming Blade Runner DVD Set

Designer Syd Mead is simply bound to be featured quite heavily, and rightly so, on the upcoming Blade Runner DVD set (we don't know quite how he'll be featured yet - if those reshoots took place as recently as I believe, it's possible that nothing has been finalised yet, that the whole project is still expanding, forming, growing more and more exciting).

If the Blade Runner set won't be quite enough Mead coverage for you, however, there's a Syd-centric documentary called Visual Futurist out on DVD now, and just brought to my attention.

You can download the trailer in either normal or hi-def quicktime. It's a good, meaty trailer too. Even meatier are the four 'concept to completion' case studies Syd has on DVD also.

Wonder if I can get a review copy of any of these...

A Trio Of Frank Darabont Rumours

I've heard three separate Frank Darabont rumours in the past two days or so. Here they all are - the law of averages states that precisely one and a half of them will be false, I suppose - but these do come from (generally) trustworthy sources.

Rumour one: Ben Kingsley is to play Captain Beatty in the upcoming Darabont adaptation of Fahrenheit 451. Shooting is to start towards the end of the year and the script is 'dynamite'. Truffaut used spoken credits to give a flavour of a non-literate world, Darabont intends to go even further.

Rumour two: Darabont is 'in some way' involved in the Tintin trilogy. Either that means he's writing one or more of the films, I'd guess, or he's the missing link, the third director. Or he's producing. Or making the tea. Or they're using his beard as the basis for Captain Haddock's.

Rumour three: amongst the many commentary tracks on the upcoming Blade Runner DVD set is a conversation between Darabont and Ridley Scott.

What Will Be On The Blade Runner Special Edition DVD Set?

[EDIT: There's a pic at the bottom now, courtesy of Ezy DVD]

Here's the full spec of the 5-Disc Bladerunner DVD set coming later this year. It comes packaged in a briefcase.

Disc 1 - The Final Cut (2007):
Ridley Scott's definitive new version. Deleted and extended scenes edited into the film, extra dialogue, better - and sometimes just plain new -special effects.

Disc 2 - Three Complete Versions of the film:
The 1982 US Theatrical version
The 1982 International Theatrical version
The1992 "Director’s Cut"

Disc 3 - Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner

A newly minted documentary. Described as "mainstream-friendly yet meaningful". Will cover everything from the birth of Dick's original book to the legacy (that is, rip-offs) of the feature film.

Disc 4 – Bonus Material:
Divided into the categories Inception, Pre-production, Production, Post-production, Release and Legacy.

Disc 5 - Work Print Version & More Bonus Material:
This may include Channel 4's Edge of Bladerunner doc.

Also in the box? A little lenticular image, a model spinner an origami unicorn, some photgraphic prints, a letter from Ridley Scott. Yep - that's right. A letter from Ridley Scott. Not personally to you, but very possibly signed.

No Hauer In Blade Runner Reshoots

Some days ago, I e-mailed Rutger Hauer's people to enquire if he'd taken part in the Blade Runner reshoots. They didn't reply.

Then, I was told he wasn't - but that was by somebody I have to kind of pretend I never get any info from, if you know what I mean. So I couldn't say a peep. But now, at last, it's official:

There's no reshooting with Rutger Hauer happening for the Blade Runner final cut. Several sequences featuring Hauer have been altered, but not through any filming of new material with the actor. This will be stuff like CG replacement compositions for dicky opticals, and the changing of errors in matte paintings and model backgrounds.

Of course, this means the scene where Batty meets his maker then offs him is going to stay this way. I'd been led to believe that a subsequent scene was on the cards where Batty then takes the elevator one floor higher to find the real Tyrell in a life-support tank, revealing the one we'd previously seen to be a replicant copy. I guess that's something we'll never get to see - unless Scott turns into George Lucas and comes back for a fiddle in a decade or two. Scott turning into Lucas? Sure - just after Michael Bay turns into Alan Resnais.

Apparently now confirmed as taking part in the reshoots - which are all done and dusted - are Joanna Cassidy and, possibly for voice work only, Benjamin Ford, Harrison's son. Rumoured as taking part is Daryl Hannah, but it's a loud rumout and I think we should keep a close eye on it. Nobody else has been rumoured - at least to me - as yet.

JoBlo caught wind of the Benjamin Ford story too. They also report that the trailer will be on the 300 DVD in August - but don't say anything at all, curiously, about the film's theatrical release.

I'm told we can expect a run in cinemas before the DVD package hits in time for Christmas. No word on how big a cinema release, but I'm betting on a small-ish one.

[EDIT: Apparently, there was a press release announcing the theatrical release. It was issued in 2006 - before film ick became what it is now - so I don't have a copy. So, the theatrical release seems to be 100% sure]

Replicant Reshoot Clarification

Now, according to the original source of the Blade Runner reshoot details - and factoring in the contributions of a fresh voice who piped up in the meantime - there's a little bit more I can tell you about the new filming.

Apparently, all of the shooting was studio based, much of it using green screen (or similar). It seems that the new footage isn't so much replacement shots as replacement shot elements.

Who is to do the blending? Well, let's just put it like this... they're the ones who will be making these images work. And there's probably a reason that looks like an anagram, batfans.

A third source (brilliant bloke, rarely wants to go on record - has told me so much in the past that I couldn't even begin to tell you without losing his trust and respect) has promised more info at a later date - but I thought I'd better fill you in a tad in the meantime.

Bladerunner Reshoots? Yep - For The Upcoming DVD

The director's cut of Blade Runner is finally due later this year. Not the so-called director's cut - the real director's cut. The film the way, at last, Ridely Scott wanted it.

Joanna Cassidy's official site has broken the news that she has completed reshoots of her scenes:

Joanna has just finished re-shooting her scenes from the original Blade Runner movie. Joanna is wearing her original outfit (which she kept over from the first production). These new scenes will be part of the upcoming special Blade Runner DVD re-release. Check back for more details.

And check back we will.

Thanks to Burroughs for the tip.

[EDIT: And here, thanks to somebody who must remain anonymous, are details of what was changed. The shots are for the sequence in which Cassidy's character Zhora is chased through the streets. In the original film, the chase shows Zhora in flat boots but previously we saw her put on heels - the reshoots feature heels; the control wires for the squib that released Zhora's blood was previously visible - not any longer; a wound make-up that was missing in some angles is now in place; Zhora gets a second shot in the chest now, whereas she didn't before; the lighting is much improved; several new angles have been taken and, depending on the edit, the sequence could end up looking rather different overall]

[EDIT: There has been a further update]

Warner Press Release Doesn't Mention Dual Format Discs

DVDTimes have run the Warner Home Video press release on HD-DVD releases for 2007 from the Consumer Electronics Show.. and there's no mention of any titles in their dual-format, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray compatible format. What's more, there's no mention of the long-discussed Blade Runner box either.