Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: A Scanner Darkly (2006) - Dick and Linklater's drug-infested vision of the future

10/07/2013

A Scanner Darkly (2006) - Dick and Linklater's drug-infested vision of the future

♥♥♥♥

+ Best Adult Animation Movie of the Year + Best Drug Movie of the Year

Sexy Winona Ryder and three male stars that look like bums peak through shades on this somewhat esoteric poster for Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly

In a near future, drugs have increased their grip on society, and society fights back with informant culture and surveillance.

A Scanner Darkly by Texan master filmmaker, writer/director Richard Linklater (Boyhood (2014)) is a really psychedelic, innovative and exciting drug movie visually speaking. - It is a bit like hanging out with trippy junkies for 90 minutes, but, mark you, junkies created by one of the greatest sci-fi minds of all time. The plot unfortunately drags itself into motion.
The film is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's (Counter-Clock World (1967)) same-titled 1977 novel, one of his more personal, it is claimed, (perhaps also since he himself was a drug addict and got permanent pancreatic damage as a result.)
A Scanner Darkly doesn't reach the top with the greatest Dick adaptations (which are Blade Runner (1982), Total Recall (1990) and Minority Report (2002)), but it does hold killer performances from Rory Cochrane (A Kiss Before Dying (1991)) and Robert Downey Jr. (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)) as a paranoid rambling addict, and the other cast members are also good. The film uses the unusual technique 'interpolated rotoscoping', meaning that digitally recorded footage was then animated by frame-by-frame outlining, a difficult and long process.
But the resulting film looks really cool, but is definitely also not for everyone. But followers of drug movies, Dick-adaptations and/or weird science fiction should find it highly interesting.

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2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
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2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

School of Rock (2003) - Best school movie ever!

Dazed and Confused (1993) - Linklater's stoner youth nostalgia is a blast

Check out the wild style of A Scanner Darkly in its trailer here

Cost: 8.7 mil. $
Box office: 7.6 mil. $
= Huge flop (returned 0.87 times its cost)

[A Scanner Darkly premiered 25 May (Cannes Film Festival, Un Certain Regard section) and runs 100 minutes. Linklater obtained permission from Dick's daughters to make the film. Shooting took place from May - June 2004 in Texas, including Austin, and in California. The animation process dragged out and required extra funds. The film opened #19 to a 391k $ first weekend in North America in 17 theaters, where it peaked at #10 and in 263 theaters, grossing 5.5 mil. $ (72.4 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 1.1 mil. $ (14.5 %) and Australia with 186k $ (2.4 %). Linklater returned with Inning by Inning: A Portrait of a Coach (2008, documentary) and theatrically with Me and Orson Welles (2008). Keanu Reeves (John Wick (2014)) returned in The Lake House (2006); Winona Ryder (Girl, Interrupted (1999)) in The Ten (2007)); Downey Jr. in Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006); and Woody Harrelson (Bunraki (2010)) in Nanking (2007). A Scanner Darkly is fresh at 68 % with a 6.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of A Scanner Darkly?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (17-24)

10/07/2013

A Scanner Darkly (2006) - Dick and Linklater's drug-infested vision of the future

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

School of Rock (2003) - Best school movie ever!

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Eagerly anticipating this week ... (16-24)

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