tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12380553.post4900994523056306973..comments2024-03-28T14:49:36.133-04:00Comments on John Kenneth Muir's Reflections on Cult Movies and Classic TV: The Films of 1983, John Badham Double Feature: WarGamesJohn Kenneth Muirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15629979615332893780noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12380553.post-20197201007569896862013-01-15T17:54:29.786-05:002013-01-15T17:54:29.786-05:00The metaphor of screens is simpler than you make o...The metaphor of screens is simpler than you make out, I think. The reason that we see people reflected in the screens is because the screen is nothing without someone, some person, looking at it. As well, the computer isn't villainous in the traditional sense. It's clearly depicted as a computer, doing what it has been programmed to do, not as some malevolent entity. But again, that computer -- the screens, require people to provide the morality. Thus the whole thing fits together.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12380553.post-52973134521756255172013-01-11T12:31:01.384-05:002013-01-11T12:31:01.384-05:00I’ll take WarGames over Blue Thunder. Both exhibit...I’ll take <b>WarGames</b> over <b>Blue Thunder</b>. Both exhibit clean narratives along with Badham’s story-first, journeyman-style direction. <b>Blue Thunder</b> does indeed build to a spectacular action payoff (you mention real stunts, but how about those superb models and mattes from the peak age of photo-optic effects?) and I dig Roy Scheider’s laidback performance. The titular helicopter is rad, as is the exercising nude girl voyeurism and the exploding chicken grill house, and some other stuff. But that’s really all there is to the movie when you get down to it: just a lot of neat <i>things</i>. Both Scheider’s love interest and the Daniel Stern subplot (along with Stern himself) are frivolous and even kinda annoying. I do recognize and appreciate the film’s themes on technology. It’s just, beyond the cool premise, there’s very little in the way of story and characters that resonates with me. It’s a straight action thriller, and thus an emptier affair, at least when compared to the other film in question.<br /><br /><b>WarGames</b> excels as a whole with more well-rounded personality because more time is devoted to the details of young Lightman’s everyday life as it converges with danger. There’s greater chemistry between he and his would-be girlfriend, Jennifer (a palpable connection between Broderick and Sheedy) that steadily expands to all the surrounding characters they encounter. Scenes of computer tech, problem solving and escape are playfully inventive, and also healthier for a PG-rated family viewing. But above all this, there is a real sense of imagination in the way these two high school kids gumshoe over the mystery of the Professor Falken character, a sense that goes ever deeper when the three of them meet at his log cabin. <br /><br />Sure, bygone are the days of (pop)cultural fears concerning nuclear war, but Falken’s film-projected meditation on the dinosaurs gives the proceedings a profoundly thematic perspective that transcends any one era of modern history: regardless of where we are technologically or politically, we must acknowledge the unbiased nature of Earth’s continuing evolution, the very real possibility that mankind won’t last and how we choose to deal with that on a personal, moral level, as Lightman contends. It really is a haunting scene, aided by John Wood’s performance and the way Badham’s keenly mirrors his visual motif of faces reflected on screens by likewise projecting images of prehistoric extinction on Falken’s face as he in turn lectures on the lesson of futility. <br /><br />That’s the kind of magic that <b>Blue Thunder</b> lacks. And it doesn’t stop there. In fact, the whole final set-piece at the NORAD command center vaguely recalls the closing spectacle of Spielberg’s <b>Close Encounters</b>, with government personnel and civilians standing together wide-eyed before something truly fantastic that will decide the fate of the world; with the sci-fi presence of artificial life in place of extraterrestrials, and similarly presented as a lightshow of sorts. I like how the tension seems to end at one point, with cheers of relief, only to then double up with an even greater threat. I like how a recluse Falken is all-the-sudden reinvigorated: <i>"Joshua, what are you doing?"</i> and the way he and Lightman join intellects on the 'game' level only they understand in order to steer Joshua from nuking the planet into oblivion. <br /><br />I don’t know ...I was a kid when I saw both movies for the first time. I grew up with them in that sense. I always thought helicopters were cool, so I enjoyed <b>Blue Thunder</b> for the action movie that it is, but <b>WarGames</b> made a bigger impression by appealing more to my innocent nature at that age. It features young heroes who embark on an adventure. It’s got the whole 'boy meets girl' aspect mixed with father figures and videogames and an imaginative A.I. premise. Currently, I have both films on Blu-ray. <br /><br />Cannonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12886860130286869992noreply@blogger.com