Monday 27 June 2011

The Adjustment Bureau – Phillip K Dick stories in film

The Adjustment Bureau races its way onto Blu-ray Triple Play and DVD on July 4th starring Oscar winner Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. Order yourself a copy now at Amazon

David Norris (Damon) is an ambitious, well respected politician, on the verge of a landmark change in his life and a seat into the U.S Senate. He is up in the polls and his campaign team, led by his trusted campaign manager Charlie Traynor (Michael Kelly; Changeling, Dawn of the Dead), have the highest of hopes for him.

A chance meeting sees Norris cross paths with Elise Sellas (Blunt), an aspiring contemporary ballet dancer with dreams of making it to the top of her field. Norris has already glimpsed the future Fate has in store for him and realises he wants something very different. To get it he must win the affections of the only woman he has ever loved, whilst avoiding being intercepted by the agents of The Adjustment Bureau.


Adapted from the short story The Adjustment Team by the visionary writer Phillip K Dick (Blade Runner, Minority Report), The Adjustment Bureau takes you on an exhilarating journey that will leave you wondering what is really in control of your destiny.

To celebrate film’s release, what better time to showcase the other must-see films from the pen of author Phillip K Dick.

Blade Runner - 1982
The cult daddy of Sci-Fi dystopian future movies, Harrison Ford plays a ‘blade runner’ – an agent who hunts down a group of escaped human-like robot replicants. As ever with Phillip K Dick, it’s a clever, complex story that defies paraphrasing. Trivia fans and literary scholars amongst you will know that the book that became the film Blade Runner is actually called Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep?

Total Recall - 1990
Big Arnie – then at the height of his game – plays a man who takes a virtual holiday on Mars with the added option of being a secret agent. From there things get very confusing as the lines between real and imaginary become more and more blurred. Schwarzenegger playing a confused man with his brain wiped – was there ever a better role for him!

Minority Report - 2002
Another multi-layered story from Dick concerning Washington’s PreCrime Police Force, Tom Cruise plays a police captain under suspicion of being about to commit murder. The force contains mutated humans – precogs – who came predict crime before it happens, the trouble is someone is manipulating the system to frame Cruise…Famed for its ‘drag and drop graphics’ scene where Cruise moves around data on a large screen – something you can now do on your i-phone for real less than a decade on.

Paycheck - 2003
Near future, brain wiping, confusing multi-layered storyline...is this ringing any bells here? Dick’s short story is brought to the screen by John Woo with Ben Affleck taking the leading role as an engineer who recreates competitor’s technology with improvements only to have his memory wiped at the end of each job. But of course that is only part of the story and what ensues makes for a classy thriller...

A Scanner Darkly - 2006
Following common Dick themes, this movie is set in a dystopian future under police surveillance where America has lost the war on drugs. Director Richard Linklater chose to use a technique called rotoscoping where each frame is painted over giving a combination animation/real life look. The end result split the critics but is now something of a cult hit.

THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU IS AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY TRIPLE PLAY AND DVD FROM JULY 4, 2011

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