Tears In The Rain: A Tribute To My Father's Favorite Film

This post is dedicated to my father, Charles Sidney Johnson (March 7, 1936-April 28, 2025)

Okay, lemme backtrack a bit. My dad was a chemistry professor at UNC in the ‘70s. He had two kids, with the second one being particularly unbearable because he was a pop culture-addict, and would die if he wasn’t taken to whatever was the big new movie was coming out on opening weekend, who would throw a fit if he wasn’t allowed to stay up to watch SNL, and who he had to fork over a considerable amount of his paycheck to buy STAR WARS toys for. 

You see, my father was a lover of science fiction – real science fiction like Stanislaw Lem, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and Philip K. Dick. To him, STAR WARS was a pop bubblegum version of sci-fi so he relentlessly (and righteously) made fun of it a lot. Then, it hurt my prepubescent feelings, but now I find it hilarious. I remember when THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK came out in 1980, he said, “Oh great, they added a Muppet.” But BLADE RUNNER was different.

 

Ridley Scott’s 1982 adaptation of Phillip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is now considered a classic, but it took a while. When BLADE RUNNER first came out it was buried at the box office during a summer crowded by the likes of E.T., STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, THE THING, ROCKY III, and POLTERGEIST, with even f-in’ TRON making more money than it did. 

 

At first, my parents didn’t want to take me to see BLADE RUNNER because it was R-Rated, but they relented and I went to see it with my friend Jimmy, and his parents at one of the worst theaters in history, the now long-gone Ram Triple Theatres in downtown Chapel Hill, North Carolina. As a 12-year old, I found the film a bit draggy, and while the city imagery was cool looking there were some bad effects like wires clearly being seen in one shot with the flying cop car.

 

I watched it with my dad for the first time when it came on HBO in 1983, and appreciated it a little more, but my dad absolutely loved it. Over the years, the movie gained stature via runs on cable and videocassette rentals and developed quite a following, particularly in nerd-centric communities. BLADE RUNNER’s reputation intensified when the 1992 Director’s Cut, which did a number of things to clarify plot points (and they fixed that flying car shot) was released theatrically, and that’s when my dad declared the movie to be his all-time favorite film.

 

I remember it distinctly. It was at a dinner at my parent’s house with my mother, her mother (my grandmother, Lilian) and my then girlfriend, where, upon talking about the then recently released Director’s Cut, that my dad declared that BLADE RUNNER was in his opinion, the greatest movie ever, and then he quoted the speech that one of the film’s characters gave at the end:

 

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off (the) shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”

 

Now, I’ve never known my dad to ever quote movie dialogue – like, I don’t remember him ever saying “may the force be with you” – but his recitation of what has come to be known as the “tears in the rain” speech, I’ll never forget. And, I didn’t know this until now, the speech has its own f-in’ Wikipedia page. It’s that iconic.

 

In 2007, yet another version of BLADE RUNNER was released, THE FINAL CUT. I went with my father to see it at the Carolina Theatre in downtown Durham, and the experience was wonderful. It was very special for a number of reasons as the screening was of one of only four 35MM prints in an extremely limited run, it was the first time I’d seen the movie on the big screen since 1982, and, yes, mainly because I was seeing the film with my dad, who had not wavered in considering it a masterpiece.

 

I remember when it started, right as the vivid imagery hit the screen, he said, “wow, it’s like a time machine.” 

 

BLADE RUNNER will always be a crucial, touchstone film for me largely because of my father. It served as the connective tissue between my STAR WARS loving kid self and the more thoughtful film lover I like to see myself as now.

My dad scoffed at the silly space fantasy of George Lucas’s creation, but I know he acknowledged that, without it, such a cerebral sci fi film as BLADE RUNNER wouldn’t have been made. I mean, it got financing from having one of the stars of STAR WARS as its lead!

 

As I am heavily dealing with the death of my dad, I thought I’d share on my film blog my recollections of his favorite film, which I’m about to go watch again. I’m not sure which version as there are five: the Theatrical Cut, the International Cut, the Unrated cut, the Director’s Cut, and the Final Cut. I really don’t think it matters, because as the George Harrison song goes, “any road will take you there.”

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Full Frame 2025: Day Four

Full Frame 2025 wraps up at the Carolina Theatre in Durham, North Carolina, last Sunday night.

This is my third and final post about the 27th annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival which took place last weekend. I only have a few more films to babble about, from day four, and these are quicker takes than before as I’m pretty exhausted, and overstuffed with  all the non-fiction infotainment I devoured, as well as the multiple trips to downtown Durham.

My Sunday morning began with Alix Blair’s HELEN AND THE BEAR, which concerns the marriage between Helen Hooper (nicknamed “Helen”) and Pete McCloskey (nicknamed “The Bear”). McCloskey, who passed away last year at age 96, was a Republican politician that ran for President against Richard Nixon in 1972; Hooper, who is 26 years younger, was a free-spirited hippy during that era (and still is today), but their shared love of nature, the environment, and conservation brought them together. 

Hooper’s diary entries, old photos, and home movies give us fleeting bits of back story, but Blair’s doc largely focuses on the 70-year old dealing with her partner’s imminent death after suffering a stroke. Helen’s reflections on the couple’s ups and downs, including her affair with a woman, whose face is blurred in pictures from decades ago, are touchingly free from sentiment, and emphasize how full of contradictions, and complicated this lady is. A lovely, and lovingly shot portrait of love that’s gone through the wringer.

Next up, I took in a doc short: Alison McAlpine’s PERFECTLY A STRANGENESS, which was presented with the Full Frame Jury Award for Best Short at the Awards Barbeque at the Durham Armory around noon today. 

The 15-minute film features wide shot cinematography that beautifully captures three donkeys walking around an abandoned astronomical observatory (Chile’s La Silla). A visually poetic experience in which nothing much happens, but it's immersive nonetheless.

The last film that I saw at Full Frame was Jennifer Tiexiera, and Guy Mossman’s SPEAK., which received the Kathleen Bryan Edwards Award for Human Rights earlier that day. The film, which was screened on Saturday and given a Sunday evening encore after its win, follows five teenagers (Esther, Mfaz, Sam, Noah, and Noor) as they prepare to compete for the National Speech & Debate Association (NSDA).

It’s fun to watch these kids try to perfect their public speaking skills on such subjects as the stigma of being handicapped, LGBTQ rights, and suicide, with Esther, a child of Nigerian immigrants and the two-time national champion, stealing the doc at every turn. Though it doesn’t go very deep, it was nice to end the fest with such an uplifting, funny, and overall good feeling doc about determination.

So that’s Full Frame 2025! There are many other docs from the fest I didn’t get to like THE WHITE HOUSE EFFECT, SEEDS. THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR, COEXISTENCE, MY ASS, COME SEE ME IN THE GOOD LIGHT, and many others that I look forward to seeing in the days to come.

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Full Frame 2025: Day Three

The 27th annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival wrapped up last night in downtown Durham, but my processing of what I took in over the last four days is still going on in my overwhelmed noggin. It’s always a heady experience to see so many fine docs, each one entertainingly expanding my knowledge on their subjects, and what I saw of this year’s roster really got my mind racing. I saw more documentary shorts than at previous Full Frames so I’ll start with the four that kicked off Saturday morning:

YOUR OPINION, PLEASE (Dir. Marshall Granger, 2025)

This pleasantly amusing 15-minute doc short concerns comments from folks who called in to Yellowstone Public Radio in Montana to talk about, well, whatever they wanted to talk about between 1997 and 2007. The callers’ voices are heard talking to Ken Siebert, and the short’s director, Marvin Granger, while tranquil shots of small-town life, and prairie terrains grace the screen. Politics, religion, and a thread about the meaning of poetry are among the topics discussed, with one of my favorite remarks being, “I’m not a member of any organized party; I’m a democrat.” 

 

MAMA MICRA (Dirs. Rebecca Blöcher, Frédéric Schuld, 2025)

In this odd animated short, filmmaker Blöcher’s prickly relationship with her mother is depicted via stop motion imagery involving characters and landscapes fashioned out of wool. Blöcher’s recorded conversation (in German with subtitles), with her mother, Verena, about her life, the last ten years of which she lived in her car, appears as voice-over for the surreal symbolism that’s heavily dominated by a figure of a black crow. The 25-minute film mixes in some black and white photos of its subject, which adds to its haunting, and very personal feel.

 

MAIL MYSELF TO YOU (Dir. Imogen Pranger, 2024)

Something I didn’t know before is that Oberlin College in Ohio houses an enormous collection of mail art made up of the vast archives by artists Harley Francis, and Reid Wood. This fun 16-minute film is filled with many colorful examples of mail art, which is defined by Wood, as “a system or a process where artworks are exchanged using the postal system; it’s also a lot about collaboration, and about gift giving.” Other correspondence artists relay their mail art memories as scores of illustrated postcards, letters, and envelopes are shown as Pranger’s short zips along merrily, bookended by a cover of its title song, originally composed by Woody Guthrie, performed by Jace Mason. I also wasn’t aware that there’s an international mail art network, but now consider me to be in the know.

 

CONFESSIONS OF UNDECIDED WOMEN

(Dir. Milja Härkönen, 2025)

My last doc short of the day was this Finnish film, which is making its North American premiere at the festival. It's another animated offering, but flat unlike MAMA MICRA, and switches styles throughout. The voices of women in their thirties struggling with whether or not to be mothers are heard as the imagery - sometimes smooth, sometimes crude - enhances their words. The dilemma these biological clock watchers are facing is mostly suited by the animation, but at times the sketchiness of the art is creepy. But maybe that's the point as these ladies are navigating through unsettling stuff especially with the societal expectations. The 20-minute movie is not without its insights, but I'm so not the target audience for this.

PREDATORS (Dir. David Osit, 2025)

If you’ve seen the show, To Catch a Predator (2004-2007), which Jimmy Kimmel called “Punked for Pedophiles,” you know the drill. The producers of the program working with the police would set up a sting operation in a house with multiple hidden cameras where they’d lure abusers under the guise of meeting the child they thought they’d been messaging online or speaking to on the phone.

Then host Chris Hansen would appear to confront the offender, they’d have an awkward AF talk after which the abuser would leave the house to be met by police waiting outside to be taken into custody. While this might make for compelling TV, director Osit wants to explore the ethics of the controversial series here, hoping to find an answer for what the show's host Hansen asks the men after they're captured, “What was going on in your mind?”

Osit posits this because he was sexually abused as a child, but he doesn’t think that the show really cares about the answer. An episode in which one of the offenders commits suicide (not on camera, or at least shown) is thought to be why the program was cancelled, but Hansen has gone on to do similar themed shows, and there are many copy cats, one of which, Skeeter Jean with his Predatorial Investigator Unit, gets a little too much attention here.

Hansen appears late in the film for an interview, but his take on the show doesn’t appear to satisfy Osit, or at least the filmmaker's intense final close-up of himself doesn’t look satisfied. PREDATORS is uneven, and not as deep a dive as its subject deserves, but it is still has cutting effect as a thesis questioning the exploitation of such a sickness. 

WE WANT THE FUNK

(Dirs. Stanley Nelson, Nicole London, 2025)

As at previous Full Frames, Saturday night is the perfect time for a music documentary to be slotted, and this year’s selection, about the history of the funk genre, joyously fits the bill. Director Nelson (FREEDOM RIDERS, THE BLACK PANTHERS: VANGUARD OF THE REVOLUTION, MILES DAVIS: BIRTH OF THE COOL), who specializes in docs about African American history, has had many of his films screened over the years at the festival, and was in attendance for the film that he told the audience at Fletcher Hall in the Q&A afterwards was just finished three weeks ago.

Nelson, and co-director Nicole gather together such luminaries as Parliament/Funkadelic’s George Clinton, Kool & the Gang’s Robert Kool Bell, the Talking Heads’ David Byrne, the J.B.s’ Fred Wesley, and, of course, Questlove, who one doesn’t make a music doc these days without, to talk about the evolution of funk that undeniably began with James Brown, got psychedelic with Sly and the Family Stone, and went on to be sampled by every hip hop artist ever. The doc is wall-to-wall music, and especially smokes when the interviewees have their instruments, and give us examples of the funky form. 

With wonderfully edited, and exciting footage from TV, and concert appearances, and archival decorates the doc, which does a great job of getting down with what defines the style from educating its audience on the “one” - the first beat of the measure to the genre’s influence on white rockers like Elton John, David Bowie, and Byrne, who based the Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House” on a chant from a P-Funk show. WE WANT THE FUNK is a fantastic funking doc that with hope will get a wide release later this year. The standing ovation it got at Full Frame makes a good case that people definitely desire the groove this film is laying down.

Coming soon, day four of Full Frame.

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