lusiphershangout

Man, it's been a long time--13 long years, to be exact--since James Cameron announced that he was taking Yukito Kishiro's manga, Battle Angel Alita , to the big screen. Back then, he had broken a long silence after the record-breaking success of 'Titanic' and I was completely beside myself when I heard the news at 3 in the morning. For those who aren't familiar with the manga, Alita centers around a cyborg girl named Alita who has no memories and who's only clue to who she is is her incredible combat skill and martial art style called Panzer Kunst. I stumbled across the books in the mid 90's when Anime was just beginning to take off in the States. Probably the best way to describe the story is that it is a post apocalyptic version of Mad Max, Blade Runner, and The Wizard of Oz as tiny, but deadly, Alita searches for her identity only to find love and loss along the way. The story's many overlapping themes from philosophy, Greek mythology, psychology, and...

In this scene from 'The Godfather Part 2' Michael Corleone disowns his brother Fredo. Fredo tells Michael everything. Hyman and Johnny Ola wanted regime change because Michael was a tough negotiator. Fredo helped them but he did not know that they would try to kill Michael. They had promised Fredo something of his own for a change. Fredo was fed up with getting handouts from his baby brother and running errands. Fredo  pours out his pain and frustrations and when he finishes Michael calmly asks for any info that could help him in the Senate hearings. And after getting the information he needs, Michael disowns his brother. Michael orders his bodyguard Al Neri not to let anything happen to Fredo while their dying mother is alive. The attempted murders of Don Corleone and Michael in this film are identical; they are both betrayed by someone in the family. In the 1st film, the Don is betrayed by Sonny’s impulsiveness, and Michael is betrayed by Fredo’s greed.  I want to mention a ...

Art Of War, Chapter 9: The Army on the March “Pass quickly over mountains, and keep in the neighborhood of valleys”--Sun Tzu The Godfather (Mario Puzo): “Every man has but one destiny” In this scene, Michael is still in exile in Sicily after murdering a New York Police Captain and a drug dealer. During his exile, he marries a young Sicilian woman named Apollonia. They are staying in the villa of a local Don who is a friend of The Godfather but for only a short time. Enemy spies are also in Sicily and Michael can’t stay in one place for long. His car is booby-trapped with a bomb that kills his new wife and this death of an innocent represents his baptism into his father’s world and seals his destiny to take over the Corleone empire. The Biblical metaphor here is that his love for Apollonia represented the one thing that could come between himself and complete unconditional surrender to his father’s will. Apollonia’s death and the poverty of his homeland enables Michael to fully underst...

This is a scene by scene analysis of Fritz Lang's film 'Metropolis' Hi, and thanks for stopping by my movie blog. I've put together a plot summary and scene analysis for one of my all-time favorite science fiction movies, Fritz Lang's 1929 silent classic Metropolis. If you have a DVD, pop it in and follow along. And please leave a comment or your own interpretation of this terrific film called by many the greatest science fiction film ever, predating 2001 and Blade Runner by decades. Metropolis Title 1 (00:00-6:47) (6:47) In this opening title of the film we are given a summary of this particular edition of Metropolis and that it includes 25 minutes of footage retrieved from an original version discovered in Buenos Aires Argentina .  The book by the same name was written by Lang’s wife Thea Von Harbou and 1st published in a magazine (Illustrertes Blatt) and finally published by August Scherk Verlag. As we see the clips, you will be able to tell the new footage b...

This is a scene by scene analysis of Ridley Scott's science fiction classic 'Blade Runner'. Blade Runner Title 4 (7:25—15:37) (8:12) Stop after “And if the machine doesn’t work on her?” Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a retired Blade Runner, is detained by a fellow Blade Runner named Gaff (Edward James Olmos) and taken to police headquarters to Captain Bryant (M. Emmet Walsh). Bryant brings Deckard out of retirement to hunt down and kill 4 bioengineered humans called replicants who have escaped an off-world slave colony and returned to Earth where replicants are banned. There were originally 6 fugitives but 2 died attempting to break into the Tyrell Corporation that created them. A replicant named Leon infiltrates the company headquarters and poses as an employee, later shooting a Blade Runner during interrogation. Captain Bryant sends Deckard to Tyrell to perform the Voigt Kampff test on an experimental replicant there named Rachel. My viewpoint In a documentary of the film,...

This is a plot summary of director Ridley Scott's film 'Blade Runner' Blade Runner is a dystopian Neo Noir science fiction thriller set in the city of Los Angeles in the year 2019 concerning 4 bioengineered humans called replicants who escape an off-world slave colony and return to Earth to find their Maker—the Tyrell Corporation. The Tyrell Corporation manufactures genetically engineered slaves for dangerous and menial work on off world colonies. Replicants are banned on Earth and if discovered are retired by special police units called Blade Runners. The story begins in an interrogation room at the Tyrell complex. The 4 fugitive replicants are suspected of breaking into Tyrell and a new employee named Leon is being interrogated. A Blade Runner named Holden subjects Leon (Brion James) to the Voigt-Kampff test, a test designed to distinguish replicants from humans based on certain physiological responses to a series of cross-referenced questions. Holden asks Leon a questio...