Blade Runner: The Final Cut

Last night was another big night for the Historians At The Movies watch party on Blue Sky as we were again one of the top five trending hashtags on the entire platform. If you missed it, we were watching The Cutting Edge, the 1992 romcom about a mismatched ice skating princess and a hockey playing beast. In a lot of ways, last night was HATM at its best, using an unlikely film that everyone loves to give everyone a chance to laugh during what has been the latest in a string of tough weeks. But along the way, we ended up not only talking about our memories of the film (and my decades-long crush on Moira Kelly), but issues of class, gender, and amateur athletics.

So for this week we’re gonna go for a different feel. This Sunday’s HATM watch party is a futuristic film noir about a dystopian future set in 2019. Of course I’m talking about 1982’s Blade Runner starring Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer. There are at last count seven versions of this film, mostly because Ridley Scott can’t leave well enough alone. But Blade Runner: The Final Cut is available on Netflix until the end of the month, so that’s the version we’re gonna watch.

I think this will give us a chance to talk about dystopian literature, alterate visions of a futuristic America, and whatever happened to that guy Harrison Ford. So join in on Sunday, April 20th at 8pm eastern to watch Blade Runner: The Final Cut with people all over the globe.

How to play along:

We’ve had a lot of new followers here on the Substack and on Blue Sky lately, so perhaps an introduction is in order. Historians At The Movies began as a watch party way back in 2018 and has been watching films together every weekend since then. The idea is that movie and film lovers get together on one giant global couch. Sometimes the movies are serious, other times they’re funny. We try to mix things up around here.

To play along, just follow me on Blue Sky- I’m at herberthistory over there. Or follow the hashtag #HATM. I’ll usually start a thread around 7:45pm eastern for people to follow along. At exactly 8pm eastern, you’ll press play on the movie and then just post on Blue Sky, but tag your posts with #HATM so that everyone can follow along. If you’re new, say so so I can say hi and follow you back. And that’s about it.

Here’s an important thing: you do not have to be a “historian” to be part of Historians At The Movies. I literally coined the phrase in about 30 seconds six and a half years ago and it stuck. We want everyone. So come watch a movie with us. It’s fun.

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The Podcast

We have two new podcasts dropping for you this week with an episode of Reckoning dropping tomorrow talking about the extreme right’s takeover of small town America and one on Thursday talking about the history of Irish nationalism, the Irish Republican Army, and the Good Friday Agreement. But in the meantime, if you’d like to catch up, you can find our most recent episode about Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom below.

Hope your Monday is off to a great start.

Jason