Ridley Scott's Blade Runner

I saw Blade Runner thanks to the miracle that is the BBC's iplayer. It is unquestionably a great film. Ridley Scott (whose Alien I love) creates paintings, images with texture as well as colour. Nearly all the characters are fascinating, the sort of people you'd like to meet in the way that you'd want to spend time with the oddballs in The Maltese Falcon, except the women in the Maltese Falcon are not spectacularly beautiful. Well I don't think so, anyway.

The atmosphere reminds me a lot of Brazil or Alphaville; but it is Alphaville through a set of blue filters, with the addition of the circus performer from One From The Heart.

Whilst the plot has some great features, including one or two very strange hints and an unexpected ending, it has to be admitted that the basic story is very ordinary, perhaps even banal. Retired cop is forced back for one last mission that no-one else can do. That's it really, except it is set a little way into the future and we are in android territory.

One of the strangest things is how dated this vision of 2019 looks. Did they really smoke in bars?

This is utterly wonderful, Saturday morning cinema, made in the most professional way possible. High art, it is not.