I wouldn’t have imagined myself posting here as I found turning my mind away from anything anti-misandric seemed distractive. But I’m in a brain freeze now and might as well mention a few films I like.


1. The Remains of The Day. 1993 – by James Ivory; starring Anthony Hopkins & Emma Thompson.

One of the few Romance films I like, and this one I really like. It’s odd in that love stories don’t usually feature couples this old. The film is set just before the first world war and shows the developing relationship between two of the staff in a stately house where important politicians are doing what they do; speculating how to run the world and the imminent war they’re expecting. Although plenty of weight is given to that, it’s only a backdrop to the awkwardly held passions of the main couple. It’s richly detailed, but ultimately saddening from the inability of Hopkins to dump his polite and sterile barriers preventing all of Emma Thompsons advances.


2. Blade Runner. 1982 – by Ridley Scott starring, Harrison Ford. Sean Young.

I find it difficult to talk about this film without over using superlatives. To me it’s simply goes beyond all expectations and one of those films I can keep seeing again without that feeling of the experience becoming stale. It’s also one of the most beautiful films I know, not simply for the visuals which you’d expect from any Ridly Scott film, but for the way it gets you to ask questions about existence, the desire for life and love.

The replicants are not human; but human creations and so perfect that you simply cannot tell them apart. But they’re not allowed to live on Earth. The blade runners are meant to kill any replicants that escape to Earth. It’s just that the details are so complex that when they interlock, and when the rules don’t work, the dilemmas, passions and taboos are what make this film so invigoratingly beautiful for me.

There is one laborious way to tell if a replicate is plying them self off as human and that is with a fancy machine that scans all non verbal communication. A blade runner will carry out the test as he asks a series of questions designed to present the suspect with various moral dilemmas. The Voight Kampff test machine then gives readings as to whether the suspect is human or not. The replicants are created as adults and have a 4 year life span, but the ones who escape to Earth want more life. Rachael is different, and doesn’t know she is a replicate; she also has implanted memories convincing her that she had a childhood and actually lived to her current age.

A tense and desperate romance develops between the blade runner, Harrison Ford and Rachael who’s meant to be ‘retired’ or killed by Ford. This sets them off to take on the system if there is to be any chance for their future together. Because Rachael is special it is ambiguous if she has a sell by date or not and weather she will die soon, whilst further ambiguity is projected on Ford as to whether even he is a replicant.

The humans have empathy - but their hearts are black and their society is an ugliness who fear their own demons projected onto the replicants. The white owners fearing their captive slaves in alabama sort of thing brilliantly shows how this is the immoral bye product of those who have empathy. It’s as if to have empathy, you will also generate fear and suspicion. The replicants who have no empathy, but use artificial programs to project artificial empathy actually produce a moral bye product of social benevolance and care for each other in their desperate desire for more life, and even love.

The film shows the contrast in moral outcome of the empathetic nastiness of humans; against the compassion of the non-empathetic replicants.
The body and events of this film are the subject, but one of the things that really gets me about it is this reoccurring theme or statement - “More human that human”. It comes out at strategic moments and starts drilling into the spine of my consciousness where it adds such depth. But I only started noticing after I had seen the film a few times. It’s like that; I have found it helps to see it a few time to pick up the delicate implications, because without that intrigue fulfilled; it can just appear as a trashy sci-fi with gimmicks. And it is anything other than that. I found it a hard film to follow and work out and pointless on first viewing alone. The incredible beauty of Ridley’s work was something I only began to understand after some viewings – and it was definitely worth it.

This post is getting too long so no more details now, but you have this:


The Trailer.




The Atmosphere.



3. The shining 1980 – by Stanley Kubrick, staring Jack Nicholson.

Well hard, and stimulatingly shot; as in most Kubrick films.


4. Lust for life 1956 – by Vincent Minnelli, staring Anthony Quinn & Kirk Douglas.

A biography of Vincent Van Gogh life and spirits; perfectly revealed in my opinion. If you want to see what the combination of dreams, genius and intense despair look like – then this is the one to watch.