I think I last watched the 2002 Solaris when I got the dvd almost 10 years ago. George Clooney is a psychologist who goes to a research station orbiting the planet Solaris to find out what happened to the crew. It turns out to be some weird shit with replicas of dead people showing up and confusing the living. It's a Steven Soderbergh film that he claims is based on the Stanislaw Lem novel of the same name as opposed to the 1972 Russian film. Lem didn't like it very much thinking that the movie's focus on the romantic relationship between Clooney and his dead wife wasn't what his novel was all about. No matter, it's rather sad, dull and hopeless when it all plays out. Drop a huge dollop of ambigueity on top of that heap. It does looks great, all science fictiony and spacey, but the sad ass story is why I don't care for watching it very much. I think it will go into the sell pile as I try to clean out a few dvds I don't watch much anymore. I've changed my mind about keeping everything, I just don't need to and eventually it will all be streamable if by chance I need to see it again. I don't think I will. I find the 1972 film by Andrei Tarkovsky to be just as boring as the remake but in a less romantic way.
The 6th Day is a 2000 Arnold Schwarznegger film that was directed by Roger Spottiswoode. He directed several movies like Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot and Tomorrow Never Dies. He also wrote one movie, 48 Hrs, which is my favorite of the work he's done. In The 6th Day Arnold is a guy who gets caught up in an illegal human cloning scheme headed by rich and corrrupt Tony Goldwyn. Cloning humans was made illegal ten years before after a clone gone bad incident. Goldwyn runs a biocompany that clones organs and pets. He has a secret cloning project that makes clones for rich and powerful people. If he gets enough of them on his side he can change the laws to make clones legal. That would be important to him. He's a clone and if it got out he'd be put to sleep and his company sold off. He's also a bastard, he has the cloners give the clones shortened lifespans so he can have a hold over them. When Goldwyn charters Arnold's chopper service to take him snow boarding an anti-cloning activist kills everyone in the helicopter. Lucky for Arnold his co-worker was driving. Arnold shows up at his house that night and finds he's been replaced by a clone. His co-worker, also cloned, shows up and is killed by the same activist that killed him earlier in the day. The cloning process is really fast as there are ready to go blank bodies. Arnold dashes about trying to stay alive and figure out what's going on. Michael Rooker plays Tony's evil head of murder security. Since clones are illegal, and Tony and his security team are clones, they need to keep from being found out. Of course they are totally on the wrong side so they are completely fucked when two Arnold's assault the building. It has a pretty happy ending for the Arnolds, but not so good for all the people that died and died again. Not a great movie, there's nothing really new or astounding here, but it's a fairly good action film. Lots of running, yelling, smashing and stuff blows up pretty good. I'd watch it again in a few years.
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