21 Jan 2011
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank

Overdrawn at the Memory Bank VHS coverWell, I missed blogging for a day in January, after all. But I've got a good excuse! The movie I ordered last November finally arrived - after getting lost in the mail from the original vendor and refunded. I ordered it again last week, and Lo! it arrived.

We first saw this in the 80's shortly after it was released, on American Playhouse. It's based on a story by John Varley, one of our favorite SF authors, and with a screenplay by Corinne Jacker, author of The Black Flag of Anarchy, which is simply the best overview of 19th century American libertarianism available.

I loved it then, and after seeing it again, feel fully justified. The story is eerily prescient - the protagonist's personality is transferred into a computer after the corporation loses his body, where he begins to program the machine from the inside out, all the while creating his own reality based on Casablanca. The tagline is "They want to control his mind, but can't find his body!"

There's some really good actors in here, too. A young Raul Julia and Linda Griffiths are in the lead roles.

I'll grant that the movie has some really cheesy specials, but I just don't understand why it's been so roundly panned. Mystery Science Theater 3000 even featured it.

Critics be damned, I still love this movie. The writing is clever: nearly continuous fold back references to itself, the movie within the movie within the computer. Rebellion, conformity, love and politics. What hasn't this puppy got?

Well, it doesn't have a five star rating from anywhere but here, and that's OK by me. I own it, and will enjoy it many time before the tape finally wears out and I'm overdrawn at last.

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