What a nice weekend, if not a busy one! Here is what I wrote for this weekend's event page: "By sheer coincidence two of cinema's greatest films about the convergence of man and machine, by which I mean Metropolis (1927) and Robocop (1987), will be receiving big-screen showings over a two-day period." Yes, two of sci-fi's best films about robots and people living and working together were receiving big theatrical screenings one day after another. That's something to plan a weekend around!

Metropolis was showing in Cleveland on Friday and Robocop in Ann Arbor on Saturday. This meant getting everybody on the same page well in advance so we could plan carpooling (because we care about the planet). Charles, Felicity, and I went to both events while Taylor only joined us for Metropolis and Clint only for Robocop. Laura was planning to go but wasn't able to make it, so this post will make her kick herself and curse her scheduling conflicts. Because that is the sort of friend that I am.

	Metropolis Universum Film AG, 1927 Science fiction, B&W Running time 150 minutes Directed by Fritz Lang Staring Alfred Abel, Gustav Frölich, Brigitte Helm, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Theodor Loos, Fritz Rasp, Erwin Biswanger My rating:
SYNOPSIS. In the year 2026 humanity has been divided into two distinct classes. There are those who live in the sprawling supercity of Metropolis, who enjoy the privileges of class and money, and are free to do as they please. Then there are the workers confined to the massive machine halls underground, deep below the city that they devote their lives to powering. These wretched masses have nothing more than their work and the machines that they slave over to provide the splendor for those above. When Freder (Frölich), the son of Metropolis' leader Joh Fredersen (Abel), takes sides with Maria (Helm), the working class' spokeswoman below ground, Metropolis' delicate power balance begins to unravel, leading to a full-scale robot-led worker's revolt to crush the machines and topple the city they have never seen. MY REVIEW I love Metropolis. Completely, unabashedly, unrequited. And I even loved it with so much footage missing. Chopped to bits by distributors who felt the film ran too long and wanted to fit more showings (read: ticket sales) into a day, nearly a quarter of the film was thought to have been lost forever. The chance discovery of a complete copy of the movie in a Buenos Aires film archive gave the world an opportunity to see the film as Fritz Lang intended, complete and unedited, for the first time in eighty-three years. I have already written at length on how much I enjoy this movie and the restoration when I watched the Berlin premier of the once again complete version of the film back on February 12. Due to issues with streaming the film on the Internet outside of Europe, the rest of the world had to settle for streaming video from a camera set up in the Pariser Platz by French TV network Arte HD, pointing at a large outdoor screen erected in front of Brandenburg Gate. So this is how I saw the restored Metropolis for the first time, from the comforting glow of my computer screen. Berliners watching Metropolis in the February snow During this viewing I also took that day's Facial Hair February photo Note the black-gloved hand, an homage to Rotwang Needless to say, squinting at that tiny little movie screen on my computer screen wasn't the most ideal way to watch a movie. Still, it held my rapt attention (save for pauses to rub my eyes and take the photos) for two and a half hours, the giddy excitement sweeping over me when the formerly "lost" scenes played out. Even without the intertitles providing dialogue and exposition -- these were far too small to read and were in German anyhow -- I came away with a much fuller appreciation of the film that Lang built and an even greater desire to view it on a much larger scale. Characters who were once introduced, ostensibly to play a significant role, only to disappear without a trace now have their scenes restored. Entire storylines centering on Fredersen's spy, the Thin Man (sometimes called Slim) (Rasp), tracking Freder and catching Worker 11811 (Biswanger) (after the latter's trip to the Yoshiwara red light district) and then roughing up Josephat (Freder's confidant) (Loos) have all been returned. The film now finally makes sense! A part of me expected that I would have to wait for the DVD release in November. I didn't know that it would be only three and a half months until Charles, Felicity, Taylor, and I traveled to the Cleveland Museum of Art's Gartner Auditorium on May 21 to view the film on its limited engagement tour. Why, that's not even a month after the U.S. premier at the TCM Classic Film Festival on April 25! What I couldn't see on Arte's streaming video from Brandenburg Gate was the actual quality of the scenes. I could make out what was happening but little in terms of resolution. The reels from Buenos Aires have definitely seen better days. It's nearly a miracle that they even survived at all, much less in a condition that was still usable. Compared to the existent film, which is the Murnau Foundation's 2001 restoration that was assembled using the best pieces of film from different copies to produce a perfect, clean, and crystal clear image, the Buenos Aires bits are of very decidedly lower quality. The film that they came from was in such bad shape that restoration could only go so far and, rather than re-restore the entire film from scratch -- which would have created a poor looking movie inferior to the 2001 restoration -- the Murnau Foundation only concentrated on the long missing snippets. The image is definitely rougher but not unwatchable and I found myself not even thinking about the changing image quality, only that I was seeing something new. There's about twenty-five minutes worth of footage added, spliced in with the 2001 restoration. Additionally, the Buenos Aires film, being a complete and original copy, gave the Murnau Foundation editors the first-ever proof of Lang's original pacing and edits. In 2001 they had to guess in some areas how long to hold a shot, where certain cuts or elements went, and how the whole kit'n'kaboodle was assembled. This new release lines up precisely with Lang's timing and edit. Toss in a new recording of Gottfried Huppertz's original musical score and you have, for the first time since 1927, a movie that is as close as we can possibly get to Lang's original release. Even then, there's still some missing. One scene, in which Metropolis' chief Joh Fredersen fights Rotwang (Rogge), the inventor of a robot that can take on human form, was too far deteriorated to be restored to any acceptable degree. Like with the 2001 restoration, title cards explain how the scene goes. Still, that makes only about two minutes of footage now missing from a two and a half hour film. Not bad, really. In any event, the final result was absolutely amazing. Seeing the film in any form on the big screen would have been a long-time dream for me. Seeing the practically complete film on the big screen was one of the best experiences in my life. For me they were an amazing two and a half hours glued to the screen as the story of Metropolis' labor woes unfolded. I <3 Metropolis I was also pleased with the audience's reaction. Silent German films are not always the most accessible, but the audience was on board all the way. It was one of the quietest and most respectful film audiences I've been in. They laughed at the occasional moment of humor and actually let out an audible and collective gasp when Rotwang droped Maria from a roof near the film's climax. Though there was one guy behind us who laughed really loud and hard at one intertitle that, while written with a bit of heavy-handed melodrama, wasn't really that funny. That was the only out of place reaction the whole time. The slightly clumsy intertitle in question (2002 Kino DVD) Lest there remain any doubt to my fondness for this film, for Halloween of 2007 I went to Ian&Kim's party dressed as Rotwang. I did make a concession towards making my left hand the mechanical appendage in a black glove because the camera was easier to handle with the right hand and I couldn't press the button with the glove on. A minor nit. Halloween 2007: I went as Metropolis' antagonist, Rotwang I just wrote a lot more than I intended to when I came in here. On to the next movie!
	Robocop Orion Pictures, 1987 Science fiction, Color Running time 103 minutes Directed by Paul Verhoven Staring Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Kurtwood Smith, Ronny Cox, Miguel Ferrier, Dan O'Herlihy, Robert DoQui My rating:
SYNOPSIS. In the not-to-distant future the city of Detroit is buckling under rampant crime and near-bankruptcy. In steps megacorporation Omni Consumer Products (OCP), who subjugates the Detroit Police Department under its auspices. OCP intends to level Old Detroit and rebuid a new, modern metropolis known as Delta City in its place. As construction nears, OCP puts its defense projects into gear, with two programs vying to be incorporated with the Detroit Police to clean up Old Detroit. One program, headed by Dick Jones (Cox), is a massive Enforcement Droid, ED-209, which proves to be too unwieldy for the "Old Man" (O'Herlihy) at the top of the OCP pecking order. Bob Morton (Ferrier) seizes the opportunity to implement his Robocop program, which only requires a suitable, recently-deceased subject. This problem is soon answered with Officer Alex Murphy (Weller) who, once resurrected in his cyborg body, seeks out revenge on those who killed him. MY REVIEW Robocop is a dang good movie but, alas, it's not one that I can gush over like I did Metropolis. It's not the serious fare of Lang's film but instead strives simply to live up to a name like "Robocop." This is a movie that doesn't burden itself with being too serious, which means striking a balance between being good-natured while depicting hefty drama onscreen. The death of Murphy at the hand of Clarence Boddicker (Smith) and his henchmen is gut-wrenching to watch, yet later we giggle as these same men destroy several cars with their OCP-supplied anti-tank weapons. It's over-the-top and makes no amends for that. In short, all the makings of a cult classic with a long-loved shelf life. One of the things that makes Robocop so strong is that it is, at its heart, a biting satire of rampant Americanism. It certainly helped to have been directed by an outsider, Danish-born director Paul Verhoven, here making only his second American production (after 1985's Flesh + Blood). ED-209 is perhaps the best example of the shortcomings of government and megacorporation projects. ED, intended to replace human police officers, is an enormous, overpowered, overengineered machine with glitchy programming that does more damage than anything, that has almost no maneuverability, can't handle stairs, and fails at close-quarters combat. Short of killing suspects outright, ED has no apparent capacity to actually apprehend anyone. This is what OCP hopes to tout as "the future of law enforcement." Robocop, on the other hand, is just as bad. Someone has to die in order for a Robocop to be built, it relies on a functional human brain and, as it tries to sort out what happened, has a high chance of having an emotional fit and going rogue -- or committing suicide, as several new models do in Robocop 2 (1990). Several newsbreaks permeate the film with cheerful reporters quickly talking about horrific disasters while never breaking their wide smiles (perhaps the logical successor to Network (1976) in that regard). Commercial breaks highlight consumerism run amok, especially a luxury car, the 6000 SUX, that gets 8.5 miles to the gallon. Most of all, there's a constant promise of a better future, but that promise is entirely blind and without merit. Delta City, designed to replace Detroit, is advertised as "the future has a silver lining." The crime and corruption that is tearing Detroit apart will be a non-issue in this shining Delta City. OCP, who now owns and operates Detroit's law enforcement, plans to use ED-209s and Robocops to clean up the town. But Dick Jones makes a valid point: "Delta City begins construction in two months. That's two million workers living in trailers. That means drugs, gambling, prostitution. Virgin territory for the man who knows how to open up new markets ... one man could control it all." Detroit may be razed but its problems would never die. Delta City is destined to become just as crime-ridden and corrupted as the city it intends to replace. Robocop at Ann Arbor's State Theater, a beautiful sight Twenty-three years after its release Charles, Felicity, Clint, and I joined an uncomfortably packed theater full of other Robocop fans to finally see this marvelous movie on the big screen. While I can't rate the experience to the same emotional satisfaction as Metropolis the night before, the experience at the State Theater was still a tremendous one. The audience was completely into the movie. There were rounds of applause for all the memorable moments: the Orion Pictures logo (Orion folded into MGM in 1998), the Robocop title, Dick Jones' introduction, the appearance of ED-209, the first time the triumphant Robocop theme music plays. Thunderous applause for anytime people were applauding on-screen which, thanks to all of the OCP boardroom scenes, happens frequently. The audience shouted catchphrases and famous lines in sync with the characters, like Bixby Snyder's repeated, "I'd buy that for a dollar!" Popular characters' introductions were heralded by people calling out, "Dick Joooones!" and "Bob Morton!" Still others offered moral support to the on-screen characters, backing up Bob Morton after Dick Jones chews him out. For long-time fans of the movie, it was heartwarming and amazing to know that, more than two decades after its release, this movie has such a loyal of adoring fanbase that a decent-sized theater can be packed solid in only a half hour with the rabid and die-hard fans who can quote the movie alongside the characters on the screen. That's impressive for any film. My only problem was the dude sitting directly in front of me. He simply would not shut up with his idiotic riffing, none of which was funny. Well, it's funny if you have the sort of seventh-grade mentality that thinks the phrase "surprise butt sex" is the height of hilarity. Clint surmised that this dolt probably watched the movie the night before in order to prepare his material. If so, then there's something seriously wrong with his idea of what's clever, because he completely missed it. There's a broad line between audience interaction and what this guy was doing. He then had the temerity to turn around after the show and ask us if he was funny. Charles humored him, probably to shut him up. I feel bad for the girl who rested her tiny head on his shoulder the entire time (I suppose she watched the whole movie sideways), because she likely has to spend actual "quality" time with him. So there's probably something wrong with her, too. Felicity said I should have kicked him in the head. I heartily concur. Speaking of heads, the extremely close quarters of the theater, literally knees against the back of the seat in front of you, caused me to get a blond-haired gal's rumpus square against the back of my cranium. I guess I owe her the compliment of saying that her tush was pleasantly soft. That, I suppose, would be the gentlemanly thing to do. After all that, I'd have been perfectly contended to have watched the movie with a completely silent audience. When you're given an opportunity to see Robocop on the big screen you don't say no. Speaking of the big screen, I was happy to see that the theater used an original 35mm print of the film to be projected. It would have been easy to just pop in a DVD, which would have had better image quality. As it was, the 1987 print showed signs of age. There were occasional scratches and signs of wear. Maybe the color was a notch below pristine. I don't think that mattered. It would have been cheap to show us a nice digital copy but watching Robocop on an original 35mm reel made the experience that much more memorable. Kudos to the State for doing it old school. Plus, the State Theater had these wicked awesome backlight displays in the lobby: The State's custom Robocop poster The Robocop cutaway poster - (larger version) Did you miss the Robocop marathon that we held back in July of 2007? Fear not, here is the photo gallery from that event. Phil and Charles built a gingerbread house, because that task embodies the true, wholesome spirit of Robocop. Except there is little wholesome about Robocop. Also, Wikipedia tells me that when Robocop was released British director Ken Russell called it the best sci-fi film since Metropolis. So see? It all goes together. Now if I could only see Lawrence of Arabia (1962) in a theater ... and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) in Cinerama. Then I can call it a life.

By sheer coincidence two of cinema's greatest films about the convergence of man and machine, by which I mean "Metropolis" (1927) and "Robocop" (1987), will be receiving big-screen showings over a two-day period.

"Metropolis," directed by Fritz Lang, has just been restored with twenty-five minutes of footage once believed to have been lost forever but recently discovered in Buenos Aires. This footage has been reincorporated to c...reate the first complete cut of this film in over eighty years. The restored film premiered in Berlin on February 12 of this year and is gradually making its way out to limited showings at film festivals and select theaters. The Cleveland Museum of Art will be screening the restored film on Friday, May 21 at 6:15 PM. Tickets cost $10 and should be ordered in advance. Running time 150 minutes. "Metropolis" is a silent film with an orchestral score by Gottfried Huppertz.

"Metropolis" website: http://www.clevelandart.org/calendar.aspx?eventtype=films
My initial write-up on the restoration: http://joshgulch.livejournal.com/2010/02/12/

Meanwhile, Paul Verhoven's "Robocop" will be shown the next evening at 12:00 AM by the State Theater in Ann Arbor. Tickets cost $6 and are only available for purchase at the door. No word on whether this will be Verhoven's director's cut, which contains only about a minute's worth of extra footage spread throughout the film. Running time 103 minutes. "Robocop" is a talkie film with an orchestral score by Basil Poledouris.

"Robocop" website: http://michtheater.org/state.php

If you're interested in going to one or both of these showings, let us know. You should probably specify which of the three packages you're interested in so that we may gauge interest and carpooling:

[ ] Package 1: "Metropolis" only, May 21 at 6:15 PM. $10.
[ ] Package 2: "Robocop" only, May 22-23 at 12:00 AM. $6.
[ ] Package 3: Both films at their respective times. $16.