Renegade Reverse Engineering - John Woo Style

MankyD writes "Just saw the trailer to a new John Woo film over at apple.com called PayCheck. Written by Phillip K Dick of Blade Runner and Minority Report, its a story about a top notch reverse engineer (Ben Affleck) who, after a quick memory wipe, finds trying to piece together the mystery of his past. It's also got Uma Thurman as the female lead. Unfortunately the website isn't up and running yet, and the premise of the movie seems a little far fetched, but this still ought to be a fun one."

Comments

Incidentally...

[sitcoman]

here is a direct link to the full size vid:
http://a772.g.akamai.net/5/772/51/30378f1c0dfafa/1 a1a1aaa2198c627970773d80669d84574a8d80d3cb12453c02 589f25382f668c9329e0375e81787e85abb28970c7aee1d8de e67ca3297fa65/paycheck_m480.mov

Paycheck, the short story

[friscolr]

Paycheck, I have it in a 1977 Del Rey Compilation (the cover is a multi-sphered space structure, i think, it's rather worn). It's typical Dick, listed as (c)1953 Greenleaf Publications, Inc, for June 1953 Imagination, and the story reads like many other of his stories from that time period. It's witty, innovative, and, to today's audience, 100% cheesy.

For reference to other movies, Minority Report was published in 1954, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale (Total Recall) published 1965, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep (Blade Runner) published 1968, Second Variety (Screamers) published 1953, Impostor published 1953.

Personally i really enjoy the cheesy wit that most of his short stories are innundated with, and am looking forward to Paycheck, despite my apprehension with Ben Affleck (god, that jaw!).

If you want to read PKD, i think his best stuff was from the late 60's early 70's. The short stories from the 50's and early 60's feel like quick thoughts that PKD was shooting out on the fly, stuff he was thinking through on his way to later full thoughts. His stories after the mid-70's (there aren't many) are too ethereal and "out there", almost to the point of being unreadable. And for a very different sort of work by PKD, read Confessions of a Crap Artist.

Disclaimer: I've read a substantial amount of PKD, but as he was such a prolific writer, i've read nowhere near all or even most of his work.

As for John Woo, I've enjoyed his style in Face/Off and Broken Arrow, and in both he had to overcome the Actor Wraith John Travolta (lately seems to act so bad that he sucks the acting ability out of others). Hell, Hard Target even had some style thanks to John Woo, and it's a Van Damme movie. Presumably he'll be able to work through Ben's jaw as well.

It's too bad the rumours of John Woo doing a TMNT movie aren't true.