A Scanner Darkly (click for trailer)

A Scanner Darkly is finally coming out in July. This is one of my favorite novels by Philip K. Dick, whose work continues to inspire science fiction films of a certain quality. Apparently it's hard to make a great science fiction film, and for fans it's hard to witness what passes for good sci-fi when there is just so much content to steal. Even a semi-decent film like Minority Report (again, Mr. Dick) could be so much better in edgier hands, or without such an obsession with profit (see Tom Cruise). The only way that Blade Runner (my vote for second-best* sci-fi film ever, by guess who? yup, Mr. Dick) got made was by cuddling up to Harrison Ford during the Star Wars/Empire afterglow.

Advances in CGI and the potential for fare made at home on one's Mac bode well for our sci-fi future. When technology meets content plus imagination, things can only get better. It will be interesting to see what gets distributed over the internet when the truly creative are not limited by producers, focus groups, and lack of access to studio equipment.

Now Richard Linklater has a bad-boy line-up of stars who only appear as animated characters, via the interpolating rotoscope technique that he pioneered in Waking Life. It's fun to see them - Robert Downey, Jr, Keanu Reeves, Woody Harrelson, and Winona Ryder half mocking themselves, half taking the material seriously. Check out a Robert Downey, Jr line from the trailer: "This is a world getting progressively worse, can we agree on that? ... What's on the dessert menu?"

Linklater also wrote the screenplay from the novel, and he's good at talky - he wrote both Before Sunset and Before Sunrise, two pretty talky flicks. If you're really into movie trivia, you know that he had Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy reprise those characters in Waking Life, but as different people. He's also good at messing with identity, and creating a dreamlike atmosphere.

So... great content, story, actors (well, except for Keanu), dialog, atmosphere, and animation. It has potential for semi-greatness. It won't make a dime.

*Best - 2001