An Annotated List of Movies and TV Shows That Have Influenced Me - Part III
STILL NOT a "movie critic" post...
OK, time to get back to the main course of this Substack by continuing with my series on “An Annotated List of Movies and TV Shows That Have Influenced Me.”
As usual, I want to reiterate what I said at the beginning of this series:
We are all influenced in ways minor and major by the movies and TV shows we’ve seen over the years – even if we rarely go to the movies or watch TV. I know a lot of people claim “I never watch TV – I don’t want to be influenced!”. Good luck with that. You’ll actually end up worse than “that guy” in “that movie” who only learned what he knew about life from watching TV.
Fiction has value. I shouldn’t have to mention this, but no doubt someone will complain about using “make-believe” to help organize one’s life. Sorry, but I think people can learn valuable concepts and even specific solutions to various life problems by reading and watching fiction.
What matters is whether you can discern what is reality and what is not in fiction.
Now here is a warning! LET ME MAKE THIS PERFECTLY CLEAR! THIS IS NOT A “MOVIE/TV CRITIC” POST!
I will not discuss anything about the writing, directing, production, acting or cinematography elements of these productions. I am not a movie critic – and neither are you. And if you are a professional movie critic – or just think you are – you are missing the point if you complain about any of those elements of these productions. The point of listing these productions here is that they are all, in some respect or another, as noted in the annotations, “educational”, i.e., you can, if you pay attention, learn something from them.
So keep this in mind as you review the list: THIS IS NOT A MOVIE/TV REVIEW!
Next thing I want to point out is that all of these movies and TV shows except where otherwise noted are available for free download from the Movie Paradise Web site .
Note that the site uses the Rapidgator file sharing service to provide access to the movies. It is advisable to subscribe to Rapidshare – a monthly subscription is available for $17.95 – if you want acceptable download speed, otherwise the free download will be very slow. It all depends on how impatient you are.
Some TV shows listed are not available there, but can be obtained via Amazon. Most of the movies can be obtained there as well for the listed prices.
OK, on to the next part of the list…
Warlock (1989) and Warlock - The Armageddon (1993)
Wikipedia synopsis:
Warlock is a 1989 American supernatural horror film directed by Steve Miner and written by David Twohy. Julian Sands stars as the title character, a son of Satan who travels from the late 1600s to modern times with the mission of destroying the world.
Warlock: The Armageddon is a 1993 American supernatural horror film directed by Anthony Hickox and produced by Peter Abrams. It is a sequel in title only to the 1989 film Warlock and stars Julian Sands, who returns in the title role as a warlock who attempts to free Satan from Hell.
Here again, the titular character is our main focus. As the Writeups site describes him:
Although physically rather weak, the Warlock is mentally and mystically a very powerful being. He’s very intelligent, dedicated, fearless. He has a very powerful personality dedicated to evil…
The Warlock is a truly evil mystical being. He only cares for himself, acquiring power and inflicting pain and grief in humans. He also follows the orders of his father, Satan, but only as long as he’s promised something in return for his services.
He takes what he wants, and if he’s unable to do so, by mystical regulations, he can often convince people or deal with them to get it anyway. Of course, he uses deals that appear to be too good to be true, which they are.
Opponents are dealt with in a quick and brutal manner. But occasionally, when facing tough, witty or cruel men, he defeats them in a way that will bring them torment for a very long time to come. Also occasionally, he gives such evil men a change to escape alive and well, but using trickery, those chances have such low odds of success that they will surely fail.
He speaks in an old, cool British fashion and sounds very eloquent. The Warlock never raises his voice, but speaks slowly and in a near-hypnotic fashion. This, combined with his looks, has a very powerful effect on both women and men.
This representation is probably one of the best occult characters in movie history. Julian Sands did an excellent job portraying the character, making him impressive and scary. The character is another one that shows focus and purpose and deals effectively with setbacks while at the same time having a plan to outwit his enemies.
Leaving aside the occult gibberish and the moralistic tone of the movie, a character to watch…
Wikipedia synopsis:
The Devil Rides Out, known as The Devil's Bride in the United States, is a 1968 British horror film, based on the 1934 novel of the same name by Dennis Wheatley. It was written by Richard Matheson and directed by Terence Fisher. The film stars Christopher Lee, Charles Gray, Niké Arrighi and Leon Greene. It is considered one of Terence Fisher's best films.
It is based on the book by Dennis Wheatley, a well-known British occult novelist. The plot of the book, which is mostly followed by the movie, is described by Wikipedia:
Set in 1930s London and the South of England, Duc de Richleau and Rex van Ryn rescue their friend Simon Aron from a devil-worshipping cult. Rex falls in love with another initiate of the cult, Tanith. Rex prevents Tanith from going to a ceremony on Salisbury Plain. The Duc and Rex rescue Simon from the ceremony. They escape to the home of the Eatons, friends of Richleau and van Ryn, and are followed by the group’s leader, Mocata, who has a psychic connection to the two initiates. After visiting the house to discuss the matter and an unsuccessful attempt to influence the initiates to return, Mocata forces Richleau and the other occupants to defend themselves through a night of black magic attacks. During this Mocata summons the Angel of Death using the medium of Tanith. The defeat of the Angel results in Tanith’s death.
After successfully defending themselves through the night the group find that Mocata has kidnapped the Eatons’ daughter. Simon exchanges himself for her. Mocata is using Simon to find the Talisman of Set, a powerful satanic object. The book culminates in a desperate chase across Europe to an abandoned Greek Monastery where Mocata is defeated. The group wake up in the Eatons’ home and realise that during the ceremony they entered the fourth dimension. Mocata is found dead outside the house. The Duc wakes up clutching the Talisman and destroys it. Tanith is found to be alive - Mocata’s soul has been exchanged for hers.
The two characters of interest here are Duc de Richleau, and the Satanist Mocata. Christopher Lee, of course, is one of the premier British horror actors of all time, and Charles Gray, who portrays Mocata, also has a long history in British cinema, so the characters are well portrayed.
Duc de Richleau is an expert in the occult, capable of recognizing cults and dealing with occult phenomena. Mocata is an occultist very reminiscent of the great British magician, Aleister Crowley. He has powers of hypnosis which he uses effectively to mind control his enemies.
Regardless of one’s opinion of the occult, a subject we may discuss in the future, the important traits represented by these two characters are, once again, focus, discipline, planning, and the ability to improvise and react to moves by their enemies.
The next six movies fall under the rubric “cyberpunk”. This does not always mean that computers, AI or robots are always involved, however. “Push”, for example doesn’t have any of that. What it does have are government secrets, government agents pursuing dissidents, and said dissidents outwitting those agents which is a common them in cyberpunk.
I’ll be discussing the influence and importance of the cyberpunk genre in future editions of this newsletter. This is the world we’re heading for, so some of the past movies, books and video games may provide us a valuable insight into it.
Wikipedia synopsis:
Runaway is a 1984 American science fiction action film written and directed by Michael Crichton, starring Tom Selleck, Gene Simmons, Cynthia Rhodes and Kirstie Alley. Selleck portrays a police officer assigned to track down dangerous robots, while Simmons is a scientist who hopes to profit from his manipulation of robots. The film was a box office disappointment and received mixed reviews.
The character of interest here is most definitely Dr. Charles Luther, portrayed by Gene Simmons of the rock group “Kiss”, in the first of two roles where he played a particularly malevolent villain (the other is the 1987 Gary Sherman action film Wanted: Dead or Alive starring Rutger Hauer.)
The Villains wiki at Fandom.com has this description of the character:
Charles Luther is a criminal in the near future where robots work some jobs which humans used to do. Luther, while working for a defense contractor, developed a program that allows a robot to thermographically identify a human from amidst cover and to even differentiate between humans. Seeing the profit potential, he killed his fellow researchers and tried to sell the technology on the black market: a smart bullet : a miniature heat seeking missile capable of locking onto a human target's unique heat signature, pursuing them wherever they run, even around corners. Luther plans to sell the microchip on the black market to the highest bidder. Luther has a gun with the heat seeking bullets. He also used robotic spiders to kill people.
Part of the script describing Luther reads as follows:
[Police Chief] Charles Luther. Is this the guy?
Ramsay: Yeah, that's him.
Chief: This is a bad guy.Served one to three, armed robbery.Arrest, murder two, no conviction.Arrest for assault with a deadly weapon,conviction overturned.Mob connections.He's a rich kid gone bad. Why's he with Johnson?
Ramsay: He got Johnson and Harry to design the chips, killed them… ...and ran away with the stuff. He likes to kill people. He's killed five so far.
Luther is the epitome of the tech villain. He not only steals tech to sell it, he uses it himself extensively in both a defensive and offensive role. He uses it for intelligence gathering, as a weapon, as protection and as a means of escape. A nice example is this Youtube clip from the movie:
Gene Simmons in Runaway (1984) Michael Crichton
Luther may be a psychopath, but he is an evil genius. He does have qualities to be learned from. The criminal use of technology in this film is also of interest.
Wikipedia synopsis:
Push is a 2009 American superhero thriller film directed by Paul McGuigan and written by David Bourla. Starring Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning, Camilla Belle, and Djimon Hounsou, the film centers on people with superhuman abilities who band together to take down a government agency that is using a dangerous drug to enhance their powers in the hope of creating an army of super soldiers.
This movie is interesting mostly because it is set in Hong Kong and mostly because, although described as “superhero” film, the super powers involved are much more limited than in most such comics and movies. The best comparison might be the TV series “Alphas” which is very much along the same lines. The primary plot concept is that the world’s governments have been developing agents with such abilities since 1945, and that some of these people have gotten out from under and are being pursued by government agents across borders.
The main character, portrayed by Chris Evans (two years before his debut as Captain America in the Marvel Universe franchise), is someone which limited telekinetic capability. The most interesting character is portrayed by Camilla Belle; she has the ability to control people’s minds to a limited degree. How these various powers are used by the various characters is the major driver of the movie, as is the “on the run” vibe.
Blade Runner - Remastered Director's Cut (1982 – 1992)
Wikipedia synopsis:
Blade Runner is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, and written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples.[7][8] Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The film is set in a dystopian future Los Angeles of 2019, in which synthetic humans known as replicants are bio-engineered by the powerful Tyrell Corporation to work on space colonies. When a fugitive group of advanced replicants led by Roy Batty (Hauer) escapes back to Earth, burnt-out cop Rick Deckard (Ford) reluctantly agrees to hunt them down.
Blade Runner initially underperformed in North American theaters and polarized critics; some praised its thematic complexity and visuals, while others critiqued its slow pacing and lack of action. It later became a cult film, and has since come to be regarded as one of the all-time best science fiction films. Hailed for its production design depicting a high-tech but decaying future, Blade Runner is often regarded as both a leading example of neo-noir cinema as well as a foundational work of the cyberpunk genre.
This movie is probably well known to most readers. The usual cyberpunk tropes are well used in it, including dangerous technology both in computers and biotechnology, corporate power, corrupt police, flying cars, environmental degradation, social stratification, and so on.
Cyber Wars – Released as “Avatar” (2004)
Wikipedia synopsis:
In 2019, nearly everyone is identified by an implanted microchip and connected to the cybernet. Criminals use fake chips, known as "SIMs" (Simulated Identity iMplants). Bounty hunter Dash MacKenzie is looking for a man who bought a SIM, and uncovers a game played by corporation heads to manipulate society.
This movie, aside from getting the supposed date of events seriously wrong, and despite being somewhat of a mish-mash, is actually somewhat entertaining. The important element of the plot is the use by a cabal of corporation heads of a computer program which essentially controls the entire population of the country involved. Many of the usual cyberpunk elements are present, including implanted microchips, high tech weapons, corporate power, stratified society, etc.
The most interesting character is Dash MacKenzie, portrayed by Genevieve O’Reilly. She is a bounty hunter who gets her tech support from a hacker who spends most of his time in the Internet and who eventually ends up inside the Internet after he is killed. With help from one of the few non-corrupt police officers in the society, she manages to take down the corporate cabal manipulating society.
Wikipedia synopsis:
RoboCop is a 1987 American science fiction action film directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner. The film stars Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Daniel O'Herlihy, Ronny Cox, Kurtwood Smith, and Miguel Ferrer. Set in a crime-ridden Detroit, in the near future, RoboCop centers on police officer Alex Murphy (Weller) who is murdered by a gang of criminals and subsequently revived by the megacorporation Omni Consumer Products as the cyborg law enforcer RoboCop. Unaware of his former life, RoboCop executes a brutal campaign against crime while coming to terms with the lingering fragments of his humanity.
This movie, of course, is a classic “cyborg” movie, which resulted in several further films of the franchise. The usual cyberpunk elements are present: corporate power, corrupt government, corrupt cops, urban decay, social stratification, high-tech weapons, etc.
The most interesting character is not the lead, but rather the main criminal, Clarence Boddicker, portrayed by Kurtwood Smith in a defining role. The Villains Wiki at Fandom.com describes him as follows:
He is a nefarious and homicidal gang lord who also works for OCP senior vice president Dick Jones as his personal contract killer. In addition to this, Boddicker was a sadistic psychopath whose criminal record was quite lengthy as the list of charges had included rape, grand theft auto, armed robbery, and mass murder. He is significantly responsible for the creating of RoboCop by OCP after he brutally gunned down Officer Alex Murphy, which consequently resulted in both his wife Ellen and their son James moving to a new home in the process….
According to this rap sheet halfway in the film, he is a prime suspect for multiple rapes, drug trafficking, and possession, as well as murders of at least 32 officers, a number of whom he subjected to torture via firearms.
Boddicker is a psychopath, but a controlled one, at least in comparison with his henchmen. He is smart, cunning, fearless (except when he’s really cornered), and totally ruthless. This classic dialog from the movie illustrates his usual behavior:
Another psychotic who actually has some good traits worth emulating...
Wikipedia synopsis:
Live Free or Die Hard (released as Die Hard 4.0 outside North America) is a 2007 American action thriller film directed by Len Wiseman, and serves as the fourth installment in the Die Hard film series. It is based on the 1997 article "A Farewell to Arms"[2] written for Wired magazine by John Carlin. The film's name is adapted from New Hampshire's state motto, "Live Free or Die".
In the film, NYPD Detective John McClane (Bruce Willis) attempts to stop a cyber-terrorist (Timothy Olyphant) who hacks into government and commercial computers across the United States with the goal of starting a "fire sale" cyber attack that would disable key elements of the nation's infrastructure. Justin Long, Cliff Curtis, and Maggie Q also star.
This is less “cyberpunk” than the previous films, but is perhaps better classed as a “hacker” film, despite being usually classified as an “action film”, which is reasonable as it is a part of the “Die Hard” franchise. But while there is tons of physical action in the film, the primary plot device revolves around hackers and computer hacking. The most interesting character is the villain – again – Thomas Gabriel, portrayed by Timothy Olyphant (who also portrayed Agent 47 in the “Hitman” movie discussed in my previous article.)
The Villains Wiki at Fandom.com describes him as follows”
Gabriel was born on May 20, 1968 in USA. He was once a chief programmer for America's infrastructure security in the DOD. During his tenure with the DOD, he designed a program that runs a top-secret NSA facility called Woodlawn, which is used as back-up servers for critical personal and financial records in case of total systematic attacks. Gabriel broke into the meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He hacked and shut down NORAD with a laptop to prove America is vulnerable for a cyber-attack. Pointing a gun at his head, the Joint Chiefs forced him to stop the hack. When he tried to go public, the government publically humiliated and fired him. Deputy Director Miguel Bowman refers to him as not being "people friendly."
Gabriel is a genius computer security expert who was dismissed by the government after revealing how embarrassingly easy it would be to penetrate Department of Defense and national infrastructure computer security. And as someone who has some understanding of computer security and hacking, I can tell you that he wasn’t entirely wrong. Whether such a thing as the hypothetical “fire sale” – the wholesale destruction of the nation’s major infrastructure via computer hacking – is actually possible is debatable and has been debated by expert in computer security, but it’s at least a plausible plot device. It is also plausible that some sort of computer hacking of portions of national infrastructure could be used as a diversion from a major computer heist of corporate and/or government funds.
In short, this is the kind of operation that would serve both anarchist and income ends, to put it mildly.
I’ll cut it off here. The next twenty-eight movies all have the same thing in common: Ninjas!
And as someone said once: “Ninjas NEVER go out of style!”
See you soon with Part IV!
Swordfish is a great cyberpunk movie too. Well directed and stylish. it captures the zeitgeist of the late 1990s and early 2000s before 911 and the war on terror. It has many plot twists, awesome speeches, crazy scenes and makes you wonder who the bad guy is.