comment #1

Balthazar says ...

Funny to see who made that quote. How about a personal, burning-hot hell for all those overpaid asswipes running Bear Stearns who have contributed far more tangibly to a ruined United States of America than one governor who was looking to get some extra tail. (Not that I'd ever defend Spitzer)

comment #2

George Prager says ...

"You'll have plenty of time for tramps, but first get an education!"

comment #3

christian says ...

Spitzer was stupid, but these guys are the real devils:

While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an ‘escort’ $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, George Bush’s new Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.

Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there’s a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bush’s man Bernanke was using ours.

This week, Bernanke’s Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer.

http://www.gregpalast.com/

comment #4

Mgmax says ...

Chomsky, Greg Palast, gad, we're just a day or two away from 500-post threads on depleted uranium and the dynamiting of Tower 7.

Remember movies?

comment #5

gruver1 says ...

Wells to Mgmax: Say it again. Say "how come you don't write about movies more?" Go on, motherfucker -- say it one more goddam time! I dare you, I double-dare you!

comment #6

Edward says ...

I'm with Chritian on this. Spitzer is an hypocrite, but Bush and his cronies are taking this country down the crapper. This administration has done more harm to our country than any administration before. Our standing in the world is horribly diminished, our economy floundering at best. Oil prices are through the roof, 100's of thousands are dying due to our misguided and evil foreign polices and Bush just vetoed a bill which would outlaw torture. Bush and Cheney should be impeached, but Congress won't do a damn thing.

Tonight the wife and I are off to see "No Country for Old Men." Thank god for art -- it's one of the blessings of being human.

comment #7

a1 says ...

Having Ken Lagone think ill of Spitzer is like having Chevy think ill of Ralph Nader, or Kurt Waldheim wishing a personal hell for Simon Wiesenthal.

Just look at this jackasses' statement: Spitzer made life difficult for his pals in the high finance sector, so Lagone hopes he suffers more than, say, a rapist or a child molester?? In the poetic words of the average NY stock trader: Yeah, well, fuck you too, buddy....

And Jeff, are you still planning on posting those spoiler laden thoughts about "Funny Games" in the near future? That's why *I* stopped by this site today, in any case.

comment #8

christian says ...

Yes, the Bush Legacy is a disaster. This is what happens when you let crooked businessmen run the government.

And happy birthday Iraq War! Five years and going strong!

comment #9

Mgmax says ...

I think that's the first time I've said it, actually.

The other 3,218 times were Walter.

comment #10

Mgmax says ...

So some friends had the new Blade Runner set and wanted to watch it on my big ass TV, so we did, even though I've seen Blade Runner at least 7 or 8 times by now, which is more than I should watch anything in a finite lifetime. This was the new Director's Super-Duper Final Cut, as distinct from the director's cut that played theaters a decade ago, though so far as I could tell the ONLY difference was that he'd taken back out the brief moment when Deckard's eyes glow like the replicants do on occasion. Too obvious a giveaway, I suppose, though the unicorn still basically settles it that Olmos knows that Deckard has the same implanted memories as everybody else.

The one virtue of seeing it again was that finally, the narration doesn't play in my head during the scenes that featured it originally. I never thought the narration was bad, it's just a different choice; you sink more fully into the world without it, but the world is also colder and clammier that way, without a firm place on dry land (the movie is SO wet) to relate to. I suppose it's good to do without and experience it totally, but I'm not convinced either choice was right or wrong. Ending without the Shining footage is much better, though.

comment #11

Drew says ...

Mgmax...

I think the only thing the Olmos unicorn proves is that they've been in Deckard's head in some form. Doesn't mean the memories are implanted... after all, Rachel's memory of the spider was taken from Tyrell's niece, right? So maybe Deckard's memories were similarly harvested at some point while he was working as a Blade Runner.

I think the ambiguities that Scott's re-edits of the film introduced are interesting, and at their best, all they do is make you realize there's more going on than an initial viewing reveals. I still don't think the new edit says anything about Deckard's nature decisively, and that's one of the many things I love about the film.

comment #12

Mgmax says ...

Well, I suppose that's possible, though there's no reason to think that a normal human Deckard's anyone special they would have gotten memories from.

But I admit it's not so tightly worked out that one can say this sort of thing definitely-- I mean, one big loophole I noticed this time is, what are the odds that Dr. Tyrell, famous inventor of replicants, would have never seen a Voigt-Kampf test in action until Deckard turns up on his patio? Of course, there are plenty of narrative reasons why it's necessary at that point...

comment #13

John Cocktosten says ...

Way to derail Jeff's intentions with the Blade Runner business Mgmax. Nevertheless I can't resist Blade Runner talk.

But first, Spitzer: I could give a rat's ass if a guy gets supplemental ass. It shows one thing: he wants strange. Bad news, ladies and gentlemen: all guys want that. All the time. It never goes away. It's the founding principle of the male existence. It is your main mission in life, and therefore, perhaps the sole meaning you can extract as well. Get your genes into the next generation. Then you may keel over. I know, I know, shows lack of judgment, blah blah blah. I'll take that any day for a politician over some more egregious fault, like say, Cheneyian pure calculating evil.

In re Blade Runner: again, the only person who thinks Deckard is a replicant is Ridley. Everyone else just kind of goes, "Sure, ok Ridley. You're great!". Not the writers, not the actors, not the producers. Only Ridley. Harrison hasn't backed down on this one, and has been saying it a lot more lately, despite Ridley's assertions that he has given in. I have no problem with varying interpretations, but let the record show that of the people who actually made the movie, only Ridley and his editor believe in that crap. Ridley's original misinterpretation is detailed in the Sammon book.

comment #14

nemo says ...

"We all have our own private hells. I hope his private hell is hotter than anybody else's."

I'm sure Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken, among others, feel the same way about Rudolph 9iuliani.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolph_Giuliani

"Critics of Giuliani claim he arranged public arrests of people, then dropped charges for lack of evidence on high-profile cases rather than going to trial. In a few cases, his public arrests of alleged white-collar criminals at their workplaces, with charges later dropped or lessened, irreparably damaged their reputations. He claimed that veteran stock trader Richard Wigton, of Kidder, Peabody & Co. was guilty of insider trading; in February 1987 he had officers handcuff Wigton and march him through the company's trading floor, with Wigton in tears. Giuliani had his agents arrest Tim Tabor, a young arbitrageur and former colleague of Wigton, so late that he had to stay overnight in jail before posting bond. However, in three months, charges were dropped against both Wigton and Tabor; Giuliani said, "We're not going to go to trial. We're just the tip of the iceberg," but no further charges were forthcoming and the investigation did not end until Giuliani's successor was in place."

But on the other hand: "In January 2005, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce described Spitzer's approach as "the most egregious and unacceptable form of intimidation we've seen in this country in modern times"."

How quickly the Chamber of Commerce forgets!

comment #15

Mgmax says ...

Well, as I said the other day, you don't actually have to have a position on Spitzer getting some tail, because the issue of a governor putting himself willfully in a position to be blackmailed by the Mob is plenty good enough to see him removed by my standards. That gets a 10 on the Stupidometer.

The theoretical possibility that Deckard could be a replicant is in the original release version (somebody raises it directly in dialogue, I forget who) and of course there's the ironic/dramatic issue that he's less sympathetic and more of a cold killer or a soulless robotic sort in many ways than they are, much like Wayne compared to the Indians in The Searchers, or the astronauts compared to Hal in 2001. So I absolutely believe that some irony about who's more human, and the idea that Deckard can't really know if he's any different from them, is in it from the beginning (and a very Phildickian idea, though not in this particular book as I recall).

What I agree is that Scott's reedits have made that question much more central to the movie, and introduced evidence that it's a factual issue in the movie, where before it was just kind of a philosophical question-- "Who says you're more human than they are? You don't act like it. Maybe you're the replicant, not them."

comment #16

CinemaPhreek says ...

Scott's insistence on making Deckard a replicant cuts out the heart of the story, which is they are far more passionate for life as "machines" than he, the human is. It's that core dichotomy that really drives the story.

The idea that a replicant doesn't know he is one and is hunting other replicants is the kind of horseshit ambiguity one expects of those who are trying to come across as more clever than they are.

comment #17

MAGGA says ...

Let's not talk about boring things like a historic election. Deckard's a replicant! No he's not! Yes he is!

comment #18

Walter Sobchak says ...

Hey there, Mgmax.... I'm not the one saying "stick to movies" all the time. I just get tired of endless repetition, be it ten Obama posts in a row or day after day of "I drink your milkshake" discussions.

And it's funny Ken Langone is talking about people's "private hells" since he is personally responsible for creating what for me would be a private hell..... spending eternity in the Hollywood Home Depot, getting harpooned by rebar-laden rolling carts pushed by hasty Armenian construction workers, standing in line for days while some old guy tries to figure out the self-check out machine and listening to teenage latinas screaming through the over-modulated PA system "customer needs assistance in plumbing, plumbing, customer needs assistance in plumbing, customer needs assistance in plumbeeeeng pleeeeeeese!!!"

comment #19

Rich S. says ...

Ridley Scott has been quoted in interviews as saying that Deckard definitively is a replicant. Ford has been quoted in interviews as saying that he and Scott discussed it while filming, and Deckard definitively is not a replicant. If he is, though, why does he repeatedly get his ass kicked? You would think that they would want a replicant that could get the job done. It seems far fetched to create one that camouflages itself by consistently failing.

One of the more interesting edits on the Final Cut is that now, Deckard is musing about the unicorn while awake, rather than clearly dreaming. I'm not sure why they changed it. I'm also not sure why they clarified Batty's line so that he distinctly says "father" rather than "fucker" when he first meets Tyrell.

comment #20

Mgmax says ...

Sorry Walter, I was just joshin', didn't mean to get you in trouble. I frankly don't know who the most frequent "movies!" guys or gals are.

I agree, Rich, although that doesn't negate the possibility that Scott wouldn't have told Ford the truth because he might have thought it would have affected his performance. My point of view on this remains, there was a teasing "what if" in the back of the movie's mind when it first came out, which Scott has insisted on making more literal over the years (and to my mind, has firmly settled in the last two cuts, when it was more interesting as a possibility).

comment #21

a1 says ...

"The idea that a replicant doesn't know he is one and is hunting other replicants is the kind of horseshit ambiguity one expects of those who are trying to come across as more clever than they are."

Agreed. I've always found a disconnect when it comes to Ridley Scott's abilities. He may be a perfectionist genius when it comes to the *look* of the film, but that doesn't mean he couldn't be a total flake when it comes to the film's storyline, and the "what if Deckard *himself* was a replicant" idea comes across as the level of some "wouldn't it be awesome if..." bong-laced dorm room discussion at 2 AM.

I'm not sure it matters all that much, though, because I think the "point" of "Blade Runner" isn't so much "is Deckard a replicant" as much as "in a world with technology and culture all spinning together beyond your comprehension, how can you tell where humanity fits anymore? what are the parts that makes something 'human'?" It's notable how many of the unambiguously human characters in the story still need technology to survive in the world (Gaff's cane, Tyrell's giant glasses, Sebastian's "friends", Chew's freezer suit). And I'd say that when Batty pulls Deckard onto the roof, at that point they *both* become human. Take *that*, RIdley!

comment #22

source188 says ...

Thematically, the film would fall apart if Deckard is a replicant. The replicants have a lust for life stronger than any of the humans in the wet and crammed L.A., certainly much more than stuporous Deckard, so Batty saving the life of the man trying to end his already pre-determined lifespan and accepting his own expiration is symbolic of their innocent and child-like strive for more life (they embody the philosophy of living life to the fullest, taking nothing for granted) and to have Deckard turnout as a fellow replicant ruins the message of a human life saved by a robotic replication, meeting it's expiration date, out of respect and admiration for this human life which only continues to bloom.

comment #23

BurmaShave says ...

christian I am totally behind that Palast piece you posted, but it was so annoying written it makes my skin crawl. It was like DailyKos written by the WENN news service on IMDb.

comment #24

Mgmax says ...

"The replicants have a lust for life stronger than any of the humans in the wet and crammed L.A., certainly much more than stuporous Deckard"

In some ways it seems much more of a period piece now-- it seems to belong to the same minigenre as Sid and Nancy or Liquid Sky, movies about early 80s New Wave types with deadly habits (drugs, AIDS, you name it) who still get more out of their brief lives in the trashed lofts of the derelict city than the squares do out of living a full lifetime. (It may be set in LA, but it's the most lower east sideish LA ever put on film.)

comment #25

Mgmax says ...

By the way, I really wasn't going to get into this, but it's genuinely dishonest to call a line of credit an "eye-popping windfall" and a "deluge of public loot." Unless you think every loan is free money. There's a case to be made against the action that was just taken to facilitate J.P. Morgan Chase's takeover of Bear Stearns, and Paul Krugman for one makes it at the NYT today, but Palast's article is basically smears designed to paint a false impression that taxpayer money, not Morgan Chase's, is bailing out Bear Stearns. Palast manages to write a couple of thousand words without ever once actually mentioning the company whose money will be covering the part of Bear Stearns' losses not eaten by shareholders. That's demagoguery.

comment #26

DarthCorleone says ...

Obviously Spitzer has made his bed and deserves much of what he reaps, but this sort of ridiculous hyperbole by Langone is laughable.

The hottest hell? Really? For sleeping with a hooker and being a hypocrite? That's the worst we've got? Holier-than-thou much, Langone? Pull the log out of your own eye, and then you can take care of others' specks.

comment #27

christian says ...

Why can't we all trust Wall Street to save us?

comment #28

BurmaShave says ...

Darth, without looking to research, I'm going to bet Langone was investigated, castigated or harrassed by Spitzer when he was AG, so he's probably just relishing it. If he's just a santimonious prick who came out of his apartment building to say that, that's also kind of awesome.

comment #29

Rich S. says ...

It still amazes me that the production design of virtually every movie about the future produced since then emulates one of three movies released in the summer of '82: Blade Runner, The Road Warrior or Star Trek II.

comment #30

jasonvang says ...

In fact i am not interested in these things, however, i like dating girls.
months ago a friend told me a online dating site WealthyLoves.c o m where people can find their perfect matches or quality friendships. ....maybe we can keep in touch and make friends on this site.

comment #31

Bocephus says ...

"A man brought down by a refusal to honestly examine himself and adjust his personal and political relationships accordingly. A man who was adamant about prosecuting and punishing a flawed world for the usual corruptions and lack of morality, not in spite of but precisely because he'd failed to come to terms with his own nature."

Actually, I think the guy just wanted to pay money for discreet extramarital sex. Never overthink a sex scandal.