ELECTRIC DREAMS BLU-RAY review

A love story between a boy, a girl and a computer (but not as kinky as it sounds); making its blu-ray debut this week is one of the 1980's most memorable tie-in theme songs. Oh, and the movie it comes from.

Miles (Lenny von Dohlen) is an architect, constantly running late for meetings due to his completely unorganised nature. Taking advice from one of his co-workers, he decides to invest in one of those new fangled "home computers" to help get his life in order. Kitting out his entire apartment with interconnected gadgets, he soon finds he is able to use this new technology to help woo the beautiful cellist Madeline (Virginia Madsen) who has moved in upstairs.

I'm not even going to try and sugar coat it; Electric Dreams is top of the list of films that are less famous than the theme song attached to it (Chariots of Fire, raise your hand too). But that's not to say that this is a completely forgotten film, as there are many devoted fans that adore its slightly goofy '80s charm. Any film warning of the danger on our over-reliance on technology but only featuring quaint 1980s technology has to be treated with a degree of kindness, and although looking back it would be easy to scoff at the innocence of Lenny's technophobe, in a pre-internet (as we know it) world envisioning an inter-connected network of gadgets and appliances that control every aspect of Miles' lifestyle and hear his every command, Electric Dreams is a film that can be seen as fairly prophetic.

With its themes of AI running wild and increasingly dumb life choices (his computer starts to overheat so Miles pours WINE on it), the setup could quite easily have come from a Stephen King horror novella. But rather than becoming the deranged killer Jobe in The Lawnmower Man, the sentient computer Edgar (voiced by Harold and Maude's Bud Cort) is a romantic at heart. Fancying himself as a musician, Edgar seemingly invents Garage Band to impress Madeline's classically trained cellist, although only hearing it through the walls she obviously believes Miles to be the maestro in a Cyrano de Bergerac/Roxanne-esque twist. When Miles starts to take the credit in order to advance his relationship with Madeline, that's when things between them turns sour.

With music playing such an integral role in the story, you'd hope for a banging soundtrack (which it certainly has), nothing more so than Giorgio Moroder/Phil Oakey's song, Together in Electric Dreams. Director Steve Barron cut his teeth directing music videos (including A-Ha's legendary Take on Me video) so it's no surprise that at times his feature debut resembles a collection of videos. It's built into the narrative of the film to make sure a sudden fast edited musical interlude doesn't seem out of place, and the relationship between Miles and Madeline is encapsulated in the flirty montages that pepper the film, such as their trips to Alcatraz and the fun fair.

It's pretty clear from the start what journey Lenny von Dohlen's character is going to go on. I mean, he's no Maxwell Caulfield (Grease 2 forever), but when he walks on screen with his bow tie he looks like he's been cast as the geek in a Madonna video, just waiting to be given a makeover and start wooing the ladies. Von Dohlen is best known for playing socially awkward weirdos (see also, Twin Peaks), but he's a charming enough screen presence and shares enough chemistry with Virginia Madsen to make this an almost impossibly sweet trip down random access memory lane.

Verdict

3/5

Bonus Features:

Miles and Madeline - New interviews with Lenny von Dohlen and Virginia Madsen that make it clear how close the pair became during production and have remained friends ever since.

Is This a Story? - New interview with director Steve Barron

Electric Dreaming - New interview with writer Rusty Lemonade

DREAMSCAPE BLU-RAY review

Don't pay too much attention to the cheeky box art that makes this look like an Indiana Jones clone; apart from being made in the 1980s and co-starring Kate Capshaw, it has literally nothing else in common with those films. Venturing into worlds created in other people's dreams, the most obvious comparison would be to Christopher Nolan's Inception, but there's a ton of other influences to include when talking about this film, including Alan J. Pakula's conspiracy thriller The Parallax View, Stephen King's pulpier novels and Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street. There's no bones about it, Dreamscape is a very peculiar film.

Dennis Quaid (in an early lead role) plays Alex Gardner, a young man with psychic abilities but with no outlet to use them except for winning at the race track. When he is approached by a research facility hoping to unlock the secrets of its patients dreams, Alex becomes a reluctant contributor, but things take a turn for the sinister when Christopher Plummer's government agent sees their research as a way of controlling the President after he starts to have nightmares about a nuclear holocaust.

There's a lot to love about Dreamscape, and not all ironically. As well as some genuinely interesting sci-fi elements and ethical dilemmas, this film has an abundance of kitsch charm to offer, such as casting Cheers' Norm (George Wendt) as a Stephen King-esque author who unwittingly stumbles upon the dark government plot when researching his new book; Maurice (father of Jean-Michel) Jarre's banging soundtrack and the trippy, psychedelic dreamscape effects that although dated, still pack a punch and look great on blu-ray.

One of its aces is the strong cast, supplied by frequent David Lynch casting agent Johanna Ray, which  explains why future Twin Peaks supporting players Chris Mulkey and David Patrick Kelly appear here. Dennis Quaid puts in a solid performance in his first starring role, which when you consider his co-stars are Max Von Sydow and Christopher Plummer is no easy task. Getting the raw end of the deal is Kate Capshaw, who as Von Sydow's second in command is given little to do except serve as Quaid's love interest.

The best thing Dreamscape has going for it is it's captivating visuals. Connecting brainwaves and entering other people's minds you immediately think of Christopher Nolan's Inception, but rather than the steely, cold world his film portrayed, Dreamscape is all about colour. Although some of the dream journeys Gardner takes are played for laughs (like a hen-pecked husband who dreams of his wife having an affair with his brother) and resemble Bill and Ted's scramble through their cartoony darkest fears in Bogus Journey, others take cues and hues from A Nightmare on Elm Street by creating deep red, shadowy worlds. Even David Patrick Kelly's unhinged psychic psycho has a Freddy Krueger-esque quality to him, to the point where he even uses razor fingers to attack someone.

It's worth noting that Dreamscape co-writer Chuck Russell's first film as director was A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, a film considered by many to be the high point of the sequels and with similarly visually inventive dream scenarios, and it would be unfair not to state that Dreamscape pre-dates Freddy Krueger's debut in cinemas by a couple of months so any similarities must have fittingly been made subconsciously. With its identical scenario of killing people within their dreams to kill them in real life, it seems 1984 was not a good year to try and get a good night's sleep.

Although not the grand conspiracy thriller it aspires to be, Dreamscape has a great cast and excels at creating visually arresting worlds that still hold up 30 years later.

Verdict
3.5/5

Bonus Features include:

The Actor's Journey - A new interview with Dennis Quaid about his time making the film
Dreamscapes and Dreammakers - A look back including interviews with the director Joseph Ruben and co-star David Patrick Kelly
Nightmares and Dreamsnakes - looking at the creation of the Snakeman costume
Snakeman test footage
Stills Gallery
Trailer

SHORT CIRCUIT BLU-RAY review

When S.A.I.N.T droid Number Five gets struck by lightning following an arms presentation, he finds himself that most magical of things, alive. On the run with the security forces trying to blow him to pieces, Number Five encounters Stephanie (Ally Sheedy), a free spirited young woman who believes he is alive and wants to protect him.