Miles, his friend Andy, and I caught a rather clean, but brooding, 35MM print of The Empire Strikes Back (1980) at the Library of Congress, Packard Campus in Culpeper, VA last night. I got to thinking that Empire is very much inline with aesthetic of other tech noirs at the time. It got me thinking a potential theme for next semester’s ds106 might be tech noir hosted by Dr. Oblivion. Here are the films I was thinking about including:
- Alien (1979)
- Empire Strikes Back (1980)
- Escape from New York (1981)
- Blade Runner (1982)
- Videodrome (1983)
- The Terminator (1984)
Admittedly, it’s a bit 1980s guy teenager heavy. So help me out here, what am I missing? Or is this way too lopsided? If it’s possible, I was thinking about turning the class into an irregular movie event at the ITCC, and use the building with Oblivion to have some fun 
Weird Science (1985)
Absolutely, Akira and Ghost in the Shell would draw in a whole community at UMW. Also, I like the idea of a teenage screwball comedy in there, D’Arcy. So good
The other one I love is Minority Report, and I left it off here. That might have to come back on. Also, Metropolis might be necessary
if you go down that rabbit hole, Eraserhead (1977)…
Yeah, but I promised myself I’d never watch that again after the chicken scene, the crazy baby, and that woman behind the radiator. That shit is too hardcore.
Akira (1988) http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_(film)
Ghost in the Shell (1995) http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell … not 80’s but would fit well in techo-dystopian collection
Would be fun to rotoscope those class video/hangouts using a cam filter – you could call them “Through a Webcam Darkly” … use something like http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ckYdbGHVg3E
Repo Man
Absolutely, good freaking call. Repo Man is a layup here.