Feel better?

Great. Just look out for condemning glares and flying rocks.

Okay, so perhaps that?s an exaggeration.

[Thud!]

Andrew's obsession with cult films began at midnight at the age of ten, and involved a bowl of popcorn, an old television set and John Carpenter's Halloween. Little has changed since then, besides age, the popcorn and the fact that he can now climb dark stairwells after a horror movie by himself. Andrew is a published writer of horror fiction, a screenwriter and a freelance journalist. His time is spent largely in pursuit of a truly original horror film. Failing that he has threatened to make his own.

Ow! The stoning hasn?t started yet!

But seriously, criticising Hollywood?s greying Wunderkind amounts to blasphemy. I?m sticking my neck out here? no? over here? to start up a support group. It?ll be like any other group that deals with collective soul searching and problem solving. Except this one is intended for those who aren?t consistently awed by America?s favourite son. Hopefully the sessions will be able to assuage those inexplicable pangs of guilt that seem to accompany anti-Spielbergism.

So, hi - my name is Andrew and I have a problem with Steven Spielberg. You may laugh, but to say you don?t like Spielberg is dodgy. It?s like admitting you eat stray dogs and steal wheelchairs from old age homes for laughs.

I saw MINORITY REPORT last weekend and apart from a vague feeling that I?d been conned (too many unanswered questions), I wondered why so much emphasis has been placed on Film Noir and BLADE RUNNER when talking about this latest Spielberg travelling circus.

Perhaps my glasses need changing again.

It?s a neatly constructed thriller, but film noir? Hell, Maybe I skipped my medication again.

It?s hardly the execrable rubbish that DEMOLITION MAN is but in a similar vein, MINORITY REPORT amounts to (an admittedly gripping) futuristic thriller/action adventure.

But folks, this isn?t Film Noir, and it can only be compared to BLADE RUNNER in the same way that teams like the Lower Crompton Welders Football Club in the lowly pub-league division, can be compared to Premiership champions Arsenal: they both play football, but at very different levels and in different leagues.

For a better Film Noir feel rather spend your money on DARK CITY, a criminally underrated film from THE CROW director Alex Proyas. This superbly dark film, in the tradition of Jean-Luc Godard?s ALPHAVILLE, traces the story of a detective (William Hurt) on the trail of a supposed killer, whose crimes are not what they seem. This German Expressionism/Science Fiction/Film Noir hybrid features ROCKY HORROR creator Richard O?Brien as Mr Hand - a very bad man.

However, if the popular trend is to compare MINORITY REPORT to BLADE RUNNER and maintain the Film Noir angle, let?s do it. Let?s PLAY!

When I heard about MINORITY REPORT (or should that be MR as in AI?) I decided to conduct an experiment and made a bee-line for The Video Shop to grab the Director?s Cut of BLADE RUNNER.

Philip K. Dick may well be the common denominator but Ridley Scott definitely has the upper hand in the impact stakes. This boils down to his ability to direct actors as opposed to Spielberg?s affinity with gadgets and machines.

Harrison Ford?s portrayal of Deckard as the soak of a retired detective who drifts sadly through dark rooms, smoky bars, and rain-slick streets trying to establish exactly why he feels so alienated is tangible. He?s Philip Marlowe incarnate without the voice over (in the Director?s Cut at least) and his characterisation is wonderful. There?s an understated irony in his manner that suggests a complex world beneath his crumpled and weary facade.

Cruise, on the other hand, as Anderton, barely fills the space on the screen. Yes he?s a great action figure and physically suits the role, but we never believe he is truly as busted up as he should be. And as for his apartment ? it?s clean! Apart from the splay of drugs on his dining room table (and, as my wife pointed out, the cereal on the kitchen floor) the place looks like it?s fresh off the pages of a home decor glossy. What self respecting Film Noir effort has a clean room, for crying out loud?

I thought I was being a touch harsh, because Spielberg?s film is largely coherent and in honesty absorbing, but Cruise has given more convincing performances faking surprise on receiving awards. Come on, we?re talking about the guy who turned Anne Rice around when she strenuously objected to him playing the vampire Lestat in INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE. But then he was working with Neil Jordan, whose career has been built on drawing the best from his actors.

Spielberg, on the other hand, seems more at home with robots, spaceships, rubber sharks and runaway juggernauts than he is with people.

To take the football analogy further; you could have the best players in the world in your team, but if your manager is more concerned with the design of the stadium than he is with the performance of the players, you?re likely to say goodbye to the Premier League and find yourself coming up against Darlington, Lower Muddleton and Crompton in the Part-Timers? Annual Charity Cup.

To Spielberg?s credit, though, the gadgetry in MR propels the story rather than oafishly trips it up on its face as in AI (not a far cry from the AIGGHHHH screamed by people in pain).

Aside from the acting the two films deliver very different glimpses of the near-future. Ridley Scott opts for the appropriate dystopian effect while Spielberg?s future is clean, ordered and just too nice to be convincing (for over two hours anyway). Since when was Film Noir optimistic?

Both films feature alienated, flawed characters, essential to the Film Noir aesthetic, but Cruise is so ineffectual that his performance would seem better suited to an episode of 10 WHEELS OF JUSTICE.

Even without the advantage of advanced CGI effects, perhaps in spite of it, BLADE RUNNER remains one of the truly great films of all time. Who can forget David Snyder?s art direction in that opening sequence with the factory chimneys spitting great balls of fire into the sky and reflecting off a steel blue eye in the spacecraft. (I grew up in Sasolburg so I can truly relate to the imagery).

Not that I?m biased or anything, you understand!

What strikes me most about MINORITY REPORT (besides the WATERWORLD Deja vu) is how it is likely to age badly, as opposed to BLADE RUNNER, which is every bit as prophetic now as it was in 1982, (with the exception of some of the cars, which look like Delorean prototypes).

Not that BLADE RUNNER is without its faults. Despite six versions of the film out there, the energy of the film wanes at times.

And I?m sure Steven Spielberg is a nice guy, and it?s not as if he stole my collection of rare Bowie LPs and a variety of impossible to find soundtracks (you know who you are!) and really there isn?t any one incident that started it all. In fact I love a lot of his work, especially DUEL and JAWS, but for some reason watching a Spielberg film is followed by a curious feeling that you?ve been taken by a confidence trickster.

There?s a curious sense of grandiosity that goes hand in hand with a Spielberg film that seems unjustly bigger than the film itself. In fact Spielberg is one of the few directors who can claim he is bigger than the stars he casts.

Spielberg appeals to the children within us, but after a certain age his illusory world starts to show signs of age, and like graduating from Stephen King to Clive Barker people tend to seek more challenging works.

I?m not writing the guy off; hell, any screenwriter would give their F1 key for the success and vision Spielberg has shown in the past.

MINORITY REPORT is said to be the culmination of years of experience in the business but I think quite honestly that Spielberg often belies his billing and he?s yet to achieve his finest moment.

Roger Ebert slammed BLADE RUNNER on its release but since changed his mind and gave it two enthusiastic thumbs up. Perhaps I?ll look back at MINORITY REPORT and do the same. I don?t know. I don?t have a problem with the film in and of itself, but in terms of the way in which it has been presented and compared to BLADE RUNNER, I guess I?ll have to remain a canine gourmet and wheelchair thief.

At the end of the day we all know how significant BLADE RUNNER is, but in twenty years when we reflect on MINORITY REPORT, how influential will it have been?

?Hi, I?m Andrew and I?m a cynic.?

?Hi Andrew!?

[Thud!]

BLADE RUNNER and DARK CITY are available from THE VIDEO SHOP ? 13 North Park Centre, 7th Avenue, Parktown North ? Tel: 011 788 8613. Email: tebaldi@mweb.co.za. THE VIDEO SHOP is Cult de Sac?s video shop of choice. With a vast range of titles, especially rare and classic films and knowledgeable staff, THE VIDEO SHOP has just what you?re looking for.

Cult Links