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+ Best Adult Animation Movie of the Year + Best Drug Movie of the Year
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| 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.
Related posts:
Richard Linklater: The 2010s in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2014 in films - according to Film Excess
Boyhood (2014) or, Colored Mirror
Before Midnight (2013) - Linklater, Hawke and Delpy's Before trilogy comes to a tender, incisive and chilling end
2011 in films - according to Film Excess
Top 10: The best true story movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Bernie (2011) - Linklater, Black and Hollandsworth's incredible true-crime dramedy
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
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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