A Scanner Darkly

[Darren Dirt]

Picture "V for Vendetta", with a less "fictional future" dystopian world (i.e. much closer to our present society), with [the dangers of] constant surveillance being a critical element of the plot (rather than in the background).



trailer:

http://wip.warnerbros.com/trailerplayv2.html?id=ascannerdarkly&settings=true





preview: (Feb2006)

http://www.infowars.com/articles/media/scanner_darkly_reveals_ps.htm



review/overview: (April 2006)

http://www.infowars.com/articles/media/scanner_darkly_expertly_exposes_drug_war.htm

http://jonesreport.com/articles/280406_scanner_darkly_review.html







main website (you might spend a lot of time there, a la the original Matrix website...)

http://www.scannerdarklymovie.com/ ( http://wip.warnerbros.com/ascannerdarkly/ 'from Warner "independent" pictures' )

[Mr. Analog]

man, this has been in the works almost as long as Ghost Rider...

[Darren Dirt]

(argh -- just realized the other "new" thread I had created, as an offshoot of the "Superman Returns" thread, must've been lost in the recent falldowngoboom server crash)

- - -

Wide release is in 10 days, however last Friday was the limited release therefore some reviews/previews have been released into the wild...


** here might be spoilers** ^

"
On the one hand the sci-fi elements have a Cronenberg-level viscosity, but on another broad level A Scanner Darkly is really just another movie about the workaday world, like Clockwatchers, American Beauty or Office Space (I call this genre, if it is one, Heroic Alienation). Bob is a guy doing a job, stuck with friends who don't work and drain him of his resources, and with a girl friend who won't @%&# him We finally get to see Ryder's rack on screen, by the way; it's just that it's rendered as a cartoon. But that is also the point of the rotoscoping. It puts you another step away from the characters, which allows you to view them "objectively," while paradoxically making them seem cozier, the way that cartoons appeal to the kid in us. I think that this is a film that people will be watching over and over in years to come, because they characters feel familiar and the setting is so real (and also because of Downey's performance).
"
- [p]review found at http://www.moviepoopshoot.com/nocturnal/133.html



"
Dick's 1977 book - which was recently transformed into a graphic novel in collaboration with Harvey Pekar - has its prescient connections to today's political landscape, particularly when it bears down on issues of unlawful surveillance and the "culture of addiction." But I'm glad Linklater doesn't push these points - Dick's mindscape is far too indrawn and idiosyncratic for that. I'm also glad that Linklater doesn't unduly futurize this world. Compared with today, everything that we see is only slightly off kilter.
"
- http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0707/p14s02-almo.html



"
...its portrayal of American suburbia as a zone of physical decay, chemical addiction and ever more intrusive high-end technology could hardly seem more urgent.

In its mode of Dickian paranoid gloom, "A Scanner Darkly" is among the darkest and loveliest movies you'll see this year.

There's no other filmmaker, living or dead, who could produce a futuristic sci-fi nightmare, a hipster comedy, a haunting film noir and a cartoon, all in the same movie.
"
-http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2006/07/06/btm/print.html



"
The film can be seen either as a remarkably comprehensive vision of the future or as a series of narrative feints. A description of the plot doesn't give an accurate impression of what the film is "about"; nor does watching the first act, nor the first act and the second. What begins as a story about drugs soon turns into one about massive surveillance and later becomes something bigger still: a picture of a world so controlled, its denizens so wholly tamed into being economic instruments, that it resists easy dystopian characterization. The world of A Scanner Darkly seems far more ordinary and commonplace than something like, to give a well-known example, 1984's Oceania, but I am not sure which is more chilling. ...Ultimately, A Scanner Darkly is not a film about drugs or surveillance, but one about control. Tyranny isn't the only coercive form of government, or the only way millions of people can be put on a leash. I will say no more except to note that I have long been vaguely frightened by the fact that Phillip Morris manufactures cigarettes and also stop-smoking aids.
"
- http://www.filmblather.com/review.php?n=scannerdarkly


^ ** there might be spoilers** ^
-- I succeeded in skimming the linked reviews without actually ruining any surprises (it helps that it's the end of an exhausting day) ... but you might not be so lucky

[Darren Dirt]

A pile of reviews are in now (even though wide release is next week) and it seems a few are not exactly giving it "5 out of 5 stars" however also few have given it an extreme "thumbs down":

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/scanner_darkly/

http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/scannerdarkly


It's summer, so it's a unique film compared to typical summer fare. It's no "Pirates" -- i.e. it actually tries to be something "different"

I guess it depends on what you expect -- some of us enjoy a lot of dialogue amongst the characters rather than just "chase scene, hot make out scene, gun fight, chase scene, blow up stuff, kill bad guy, hot leads get married"


Also BONUS video found at RT:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/scanner_darkly/trailers_player.php?IGNMediaID=1570360&playerType=videolarge