Looker (DVD)

Very good movie

I love Looker and always have, this movie has always topped my list of lost films not available on home video from the 80'sand I ordered it from Amazon as soon as I could when it became available. My only regret is that it is not available on Blu-ray yet which I will buy as soon as it is.Michael Crighton is a genius filmmaker and writer, and if you love Crighton's techno thriller novels like Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, Timeline, Airframe, Congo and all the rest Looker is the book he made into a film instead!Looker stands up against all of Crighton's books and is actually better than any of the films based on his books. I think the Jurassic Park films are terrible and are among Spielberg's worst... but Crighton was a masterful filmmaker as well as writer and even though not all of his films were good the best that stand out are: The Great Train Robbery, Coma and Looker.I truly love Looker and not just because of nostalgia for the 80's, Looker was like TRON very much ahead of it's time and still is predicting computers and computer graphic role in entertainment and industry.How essential computer graphics and programs have become to marketing and design, we aren't quite yet to the level of reproducing an actor with a programmed personality the way that Looker represents but I would not put it past a corporation to bump off supermodels and actors in the same way they do in this film to retain the rights of the model after death and continue to use their likeness, personality and voice for marketing.The plot is original and diabolical, Albert Finney is an unlikely hero here and therefore an original one; a plastic surgeon?But yet it works and he is likeable, same with Susan Dey as the idealistic model in a corrupt industry."They are killing off all the perfect girls"Looker is astounding, perfectly directed, edited, acted and along with both the original TRON and War Games with Mathrew Broderick ingeniously predicts the world we live in today!Looker is fun, stylish, dramatic, thriller and high tech - please check out LOOKER now and also check out Coma and The Great Train Robbery. I am just sad to report that only Coma is available on Blu-ray because for me, in this order are Crighton's films best. Looker, The Great Train Robbery and then Coma... Westworld and Runaway I'm only mildly interested in.Funny enough though for me his best two novels were Airframe and Pirate Latitudes both of which actually steer away from being super tech thrillers to more humanistic fun adventures. As far as the tech thrillers go there is Timeline, Jurassic Park, Prey, The Lost World, Next, A Case Of Need and a whole slew of them but for just plain great reads and adventure/thrillers Airframe and Pirate Latitudes are in my opinion the best. Funny though how those are the only two Crighton stories that don't have films to them but for me are the best reads. I hope a great director does them justice one day and I hope that Michael Crighton will someday be remembered as a great director/writer for his original thriller LOOKER as well.

Yes, it is dated with the hair and make-up but I love this movie anyways.I saw it for the first time on cable TV around the time that it was originally released and it stuck with me. Years later, I bought it on VHS and then on DVD. I just rewatched for the first time in a long time and was as enthralled as I was the first time (I've seen it so many times I've lost track).Warning: There may be spoilers.What got me interested in pulling it out and watching it now was an article I read about Google creating an eye tracker for Google glass. This idea was actually in the movie and was used by an advertising agency to see what the viewer was watching and how to create a better ad to put their product front and center. Reality catching up with fiction.What was creepy, however, was this same agency was putting light pulses in the commercials that would be hypnotic and cause the viewer to go into a trance and then become easily susceptible to suggestions. It could be used to make a person want to buy a product or vote for a certain politician.It's a sci-fi psychological thriller but it was the possibility of what can be done through the medium of TV that made this more compelling. The following quote by John Reston (played by the enormously talented James Coburn) occasionally plays in my mind and then I usually turn the TV off:"Television can control public opinion more effectively than armies of secret police, because television is entirely voluntary. The American government forces our children to attend school, but nobody forces them to watch T.V. Americans of all ages *submit* to television. Television is the American ideal. Persuasion without coercion. Nobody makes us watch. Who could have predicted that a *free* people would voluntarily spend one fifth of their lives sitting in front of a *box* with pictures? Fifteen years sitting in prison is punishment. But 15 years sitting in front of a television set is entertainment. And the average American now spends more than one and a half years of his life just watching television commercials. Fifty minutes, every day of his life, watching commercials. Now, that's power."It is a powerful statement to the slave-mentality that has overridden our society. As stated, it is more powerful than slavery by oppression since people gladly hand their minds over to an unknown entity. When you view this movie with that kind of thinking it makes the psychology of the movie all the more disturbing. Especially when the you can see the result of that mental slavery playing out in real life.

Long before CGI became a household word, there was 'Looker', about a company who hires models, has them surgically altered and digitally scanned, then kills them off to make a profit on computerised actors. Think about it. These days, Andy Serkis has made big bucks having his body digitally scanned playing creatures like Gollum, King Kong or Ceasar from Planet of the Apes, so this film was way ahead of it time, though seems a bit cheesy now. Looker was written and directed by Michael Chricton, who would later be best known for Jurrasic Park. Albert Finney stars as plastic surgeon Dr. Roberts, with Susan Dey as Cindy, a model and aspiring actress. James Coburn appears as John Reston, the main villain. The title is both a play on an attractive person, and a light gun in the film: Light Ocular Orineted Kinetic Emotive Responses. Basically a variation of the technology to put folks into a hypnotic state using light pulses like some claimed TV commercials used to do. (Yet another theme in the film). Interesting concept in of itself, but ends up just a handy item to get our characters in and out of trouble. I always found the finale of this film rather cool, real people chasing each other through real sets that are shown to a watching audience as composited 'digital' commercials...kind of funny and creepy at the same time. In any case, one worth watching just to see how far we've come in terms of technology and what Michael Chricton predicted which has since become possible.

Been looking for a region 2 version of this film for years. Interesting plot - film produced years before GCI was widespread but forscasts it! The feature by Michael Crighton is interesting.The only downside is that this is a French issue and although it has an english version of the film you have to have french subtitles - irritating but I supose you forget they are there after a while.Wish someone would do a proper release in English on Region 2.

The weird murder mystery with the sci fi stun gun edge. I really enjoyed finally seeing this film long forgotten on a low rent movie channel late night slot. Worth a look for the Michael Crichton credit at least.

Great service, but film was not as good as I remembered.

A memorable film. Somehow it overcomes its inadequacies and develops a creepy atmosphere.

Great film. You can turn off French subtitles in your dvd player menu, not from the dvd itself. Once you do this it`s well worth watching