The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, May 11-17
Blade Runner (1982/2007)
Directed by Ridley Scott
Blade Runner’s dystopia is one dominated by advertisements for Atari, Bell and Pan Am, none of which are still around, but this so-called “curse” has not dated the film’s world as much as it has rendered it more alien. That’s perfect for Blade Runner, a film whose world continues to expand in small details, from a mechanical owl and snake to an overrun Chinatown, always ready to burst at the seams. Even its narrative feels like a sketch, giving you just what you need to know as late as possible. It’s a cliché to note that all sci-fi films are at their core about what it means to be human, but this one explores that idea as well as any, and its strange world, punctuated by moments of startling sentimentality, is as responsible for that as its plot. Forrest Cardamenis (May 16, 7pm at the Museum of the Moving Image, with screenwriter Hampton Fancher in person)